A nun with gonorrhea. A nameless baby abandoned in the hospital waiting room. A woman in a star-spangled bikini with a raging sunburn.
It’s the Fourth of July in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room, and the doctors and nurses on staff are predictably swamped. At the department’s helm is attending Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), tasked with managing the chaos of hundreds of patients while battling his own inner demons.
Over the course of 15 episodes, season 2 of “The Pitt” follows Robby through a single fifteen-hour shift in the fictional PTMC’s ER on July 4. After nearly three months of weekly episode releases, the season’s finale dropped on HBO Max on Thursday.
Unlike its predecessors in the hospital drama genre — think “Grey’s Anatomy” or “House” — “The Pitt” prides itself on its realism. Every minute of every episode is grisly, fast-paced and strenuous, leaving little room for melodramatics.
The show doesn’t ease its audience into the high-stakes arena of the ER, either. Much of each episode’s script consists of medical jargon that’s nearly unintelligible to the average viewer, with doctors shouting complex diagnoses and nurses delivering complicated pharmaceutical orders.
Even so, the show remains riveting from start to finish. It’s difficult not to get invested in the fates of the many ensemble cast members in the ER, from beleaguered charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) to snarky, ambitious resident Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones).
In this second season, the series places a special focus on the strained mental health and widespread burnout of healthcare workers — particularly Robby, who plans to embark on a three-month sabbatical upon the completion of this shift.
The ER lobs challenge after challenge at Robby throughout the season. For one, his former protege, disgraced resident Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball), returns from a ten-month hiatus after stealing pain meds from the hospital in the first season. For another, Robby’s replacement department head Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) arrives a day early with several controversial changes to the ER.
Along with the Pitt’s pervasive staffing issues, Robby is forced to deal with federal immigration enforcement officers intimidating patients, a cyberattack threat shutting down all electronic operations and several potential lawsuits.
In the first season, Robby’s character was defined by his compassion and dedication to the hospital. Here, he is brooding, constantly irritable towards his colleagues and clearly eager to leave his department, his painful memories — and seemingly his whole life — behind once his shift ends.
Robby’s evolution over the course of this season, especially in contrast to the first, reveals the emotional toll the ER has taken on him. It’s heartbreaking to watch his descent into depression and anguish worsen each episode.
In this way, “The Pitt” does what it does best: It shines a glaring spotlight on the unspoken burdens placed on healthcare workers, and it pushes the audience to wonder whether society’s most prolific life-savers might need saving themselves.
That being said, the amount of screentime taken up by Dr. Robby’s emotional turmoil comes at the expense of meaningful development for the majority of other characters in “The Pitt.” The season relegates many of its cast members to quirky one-liners and one-off side plots, which is especially unfortunate given the extent of their character exposition in the first season.
Since the entire show takes place within the confines of one hospital shift, it’s also difficult to fully understand these supporting characters’ personal challenges beyond the ER. For example, the audience learns of resident Samira Mohan’s (Supriya Ganesh) fraught relationship with her mother, but the show lacks the context to make her storyline feel worthwhile.
Ultimately, season 2 of “The Pitt” masterfully conveys the struggles and successes of the ER through the eyes of healthcare workers. Though this season’s uneven character development led it to feel slightly shakier than the first, the sheer importance of the series’ subject matter makes season 2 a worthwhile watch nonetheless.
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