#treatment in holby city and Robbie is a part of that

[bonnissance]

ur opinion on robbie (as a character, as a plot device in serena being a big ole gaymo, as a... whatever you want)

as a character I haven’t got a lot to say about him w/o going back and rewatching him from the beginning bc i only caught the end half of his arc w Serena but he just seems like a dude who does things and *shrugs*

as a plot device, Robbie is there to a) drag Serena’s confidence down and make her feel like a terrible person who neglects her family and needs to do more than she already is, b) remind the audience she’s Straight™ pre-Bernie, and c) confirm that she is bisexual post-Bernie. 

(this is under the cut bc it ended up w a y longer than I’d anticipated and CW: physical abuse re mentions of Adrienne’s dementia storyline) 

I absolutely think Robbie was—possibly introduced to be, but at the very least—used to ram home Serena’s apparently failings in a family unit. Everything from the beginning of s18 is about how bad Serena is at balancing her family and how she’s wrong (and has been for a long time) to neglect her family the way she apparently does.

This is a woman who willingly groomed herself to endure months (but could just as easily been years) of physical abuse from her mother, while simultaneously shielding her daughter from any filial obligation that would put her in harms way. The same woman who would bend over backwards to spend time with her daughter when she actually has the time, only she hasn’t got a lot of time bc of work.

But when she hasn’t got the time to spend w her family when they want it she’s apparently neglecting them (which is absolute rubbish she doesn’t neglect her family at all, she just shows her appreciation in the way the rest of her family knows how to receive it, just as they don’t show it in a way that Serena knows how to receive it. They all have Emotional Deprivation life traps and need to go to therapy).

But apparently being a woman with a career and a family means she has to chose one or the other and when she “choses” the career bc it’s what she was supposed to be doing in the first place and that’s hers and she’s worked hard for it and it’s hers, she is The Worst™, no matter about the fact that it doesn’t really matter what Serena choses, bc no matter what Serena does or who she tries to become, it’ll never enough for anyone else. 

Robbie is used to sets Serena apparent “wrongness” regarding her priorities, which builds the foundation for Jason’s introduction. Jason and Serena’s initial storyline is banging us over the head about Serena being sorry for her existence, and that she should be sorry about who she is and they way she is. That storyline—her initial inability to accommodate her new family’s needs—is depicted to be another marker of her failing as a human and a women, rather than just someone who’s a bit out of their depths and needs more support until they can figure out how to handle things.

And Robbie is absolutely instrumental in that. Not once (in any scene that I can remember) does he ever say, “Serena, ur gr8 as u r and ur doing the best u can and ur right for the choices uve made u’ve just gotta stick it out a little more”. It’s always “think about these other things (like me) that will take up time and energy” and “let me do things for u that you’ve not asked me to do nor is it even remotely implied that you might want them, bc wouldn’t that make me seem like such a nice dude.” 

Not once does he ever attempt to validate Serena’s choices, or support her as she tries to sort out things, and instead constantly niggles and nags at her about shifting her focus away from the things she wants to do (medicine and her job at first, and then later Jason) to include him in her life plans, rather than supporting her enough to be able to expand her focus to include him. 

so on that note, Robbie can go suck a million fucks.

(On a side note, Serena has literally never once had anyone point out the fact that she shouldn’t have to chose and it wasn’t until Bernie came along that anyone pointed out she’s not wrong for the choices she has made. Bernie sees that Serena is struggling w all the things she wants to do and suggests it might w worth reevaluating which ones are within her grasp of achieving, bc there’s nothing wrong w taking a step back to focus on things that make you happy, and it’s literally the first time anyone has ever validated the choices Serena has made w her life. 

Meanwhile, Ric Griffin swans in to the ward one day, postures like a jerk, stomps all over Bernie and her current life predicament, and then stares broodishly out a window having a life crisis until Bernie validates that he’s not wrong for the choices he’s made. Why the fuck does Ric get that kind of support every other day and Serena gets put through the fucking ringer?!?!?!? me @ holby writers: fight me)

Also, Robbie is also absolutely a plot device used to codify Serena as Straight™ so that the revelation w Bernie is actually a Revelation™. bc w/o having a recent boyfriend, Serena goes back to being a overly flirty character (who’s always had queer potential) who’s been single for ages who then makes this new best friend, and then the falling in love part would is just, “well whoops guess that happened isn’t it grand” *heart eyes*. Robbie is used to confirm her sexuality at the time. 

Interestingly, he’s also used to clarify Serena’s bisexuality as well. Bc even after she has a sapphic awakening about being madly in love w Bernie, she still cares about him, enough to consider getting back together. Hence why, in process of explaining her sexuality to Jason in an offscreen conversation (which probs began w Jason asking what the dealieo is w her dating Bernie now but being w Robbie when she was away), she literally said “it’s more complicated than [being a lesbian now]” rather than “I’m a lesbian w a mixed dating history” or “I’m just in love w Bernie and the rest doesn’t matter”, bc the rest does matter bc it’s still relevant to now.  

And bc Jason is in all likelihood quoting Serena when he says “it’s complicated” later on and he’s more likely to start pulling information from the beginning of that conversation than at any other point, it means that Serena begin explaining her sexuality as “it’s complicated” before going into a bit more detail about the spectrum and then ended the conversation by saying “I’m bisexual.” (like, maybe she doesn’t align w any signifier, but I reckon Serena is chill af w being bi and is happy to scream it at ppl when needs be)

In short, Robbie as a plot device is there to a) drag Serena’s confidence down and make her feel like a terrible person who neglects her family and needs to do more than she already is and b) clarify Serena’s sexuality at multiple points in the narrative.

On the one hand, suck some fucks, on the other hand, important aspect in codifying the spectrum of female same-sex sexuality representation present Holby City.