Episode 3 also introduces Yana (Irina Dubova), a patient whose medical case is inseparable from her past: She is a survivor of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, a tragedy that profoundly impacted the city of Pittsburgh. In one of the hour’s most heartwarming scenes, Yana takes a moment to thank her nurse, Perlah (Amielynn Abellera), noting that it was the local mosque that showed up for victims and families in the aftermath, offering support when it was needed most.
For Wyle, the scene grew out of a desire to more fully engage with Robby’s Jewish identity in Season 2.
“We initiated it in Season 1, and it seemed appropriate to touch on it — either in terms of his upbringing, or in terms of his present faith, or lack thereof,” Wyle explained. He also acknowledged that, despite its significance to the city, the Tree of Life shooting had not been addressed on screen during the show’s first season.
“That was a very significant event in the city of Pittsburgh,” he said. “So those two things provided an opportunity.”
At the same time, Wyle was intentional about what Yana would bring to the table beyond her history.
“I wanted to bring in a character who was going through some PTSD symptoms,” he noted, “but who would also introduce the notion that while there isn’t a clock on healing, there is a clock on life.”
That idea — that postponing healing comes at a cost — becomes quietly destabilizing for Robby.
“When she puts that on the table,” Wyle said, “it’s the first minor tremor in a series of earthquakes that are going to rock Robby’s resolve as the show goes forward.”
But the storyline’s emotional culmination lies in what Wyle discovered while researching the real-world response to the Tree of Life tragedy.
“The thing I found most interesting was the under-reported aspect of the Muslim community coming out in solidarity with the Jewish community,” he explained. “Raising money for the funerals, raising money for the hospital bills of the victims…. that solidarity — that sense of community, that sense of possibility — I found extremely encouraging and worthy of mentioning. As a way of saying: This is not unprecedented. It’s not only [precedented] — it’s possible.”