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In the adrenalized flow of work at The Pitt, it takes a few real-time minutes for everyone to realize Dr. Robby is missing. Most of the music festival shooting victims are stable now, to the point that the patients in Yellow are being made comfortable. And when Whitaker runs to Pedes/the makeshift morgue for blankets, he discovers his senior attending still crying, still sobbing, and clutching his Star of David necklace as he recites the Shema prayer. Later, they will bond over faith as something tangible, if not truly divine. (Robby recited the Shema with his devout grandmother; Whitaker minored in theology.) But for now, it’s up to the fourth-year to find the words that will lead their captain back. And he’s got this. “OK, give me your hand. You have to. Because if you don’t, we’re fucked.” Some on this staff have only known each other this very day. But their lifesaving work, even their work that couldn’t save lives, has galvanized them.
Of course, once Robby composes himself and heads out onto the floor, one of the first people he encounters is only team-adjacent. Gloria is mad about the “cowboys in ER” – Robby and Abbott – allowing unscreened blood donations from staffers. She accuses Robby of having David but letting him go, as if A) Theresa’s son is the confirmed shooter; and B) The chief medical officer’s own hospital regulations didn’t prevent Robby from keeping him against his will. And this post-breakdown version of the senior attending, well, he’s burned through a few layers of patience. “Jesus, Gloria! The police are still looking – why don’t you go back to your managerial ivory tower and let us get back to work!”
So the question transitions from “Where’s Robby” to “What’s wrong with Robby?” When a non-shooting new patient arrives, unconscious and with a mysterious rash, he lashes out at the kid’s parents for balking at allowing a spinal tap that would determine the safest way to save his life. (“Dr. Google bullshit.”) And in his holding room, when David angrily rebuffs Mckay and Robby’s attempts to explain their concerns, Robby dumps it on his resident with a frown. “You made this fucking mess. You’re gonna have to fix it.”
There is only one episode – hour – left of The PItt, and watching these characters anticipate the end of their harrowing shift is making us have feelings. We’ve never said this before about a series: we’ll miss them. How many days will we not see them at work, as the seniors continue to teach and the kids continue to learn? And how many Emmys will this show have won by January 2026, when The Pitt is scheduled to scrub back in with Season 2? We’re gonna take a flyer on a wild procedure we once read about in a medical journal and say all of them. Because even now, “The Pitt Effect” is real. How are we supposed to get onboard with another “young pretty doctors” medical drama after the vital way in which this one has redefined the form?
In the calm after the mass casualty storm – calm is always relative at The Pitt, but still – Victoria Javadi shares a quiet moment with her “Utah,” her super-crush, Nurse Mateo. Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif’s real-life dad and a total legend, guest-stars as Cassie McKay’s dad. And night shifter Dr. Ellis takes heightened interest in Dr. Santos, pushing her to postulate a treatment plan for methemoglobinemia even as exhaustion takes over. “Tired?” Ellis asks. “Feet hurt? Brain feeling like mush? That patient doesn’t give a shit. He needs you. Let’s go.” After 13 hours at a job like theirs, we’re not sure we could even say methemoglobinemia, let alone treat it.
But Ellis is also perceptive in other ways. “What’s the beef with Langdon?” Santos doesn’t break radio silence on Langdon’s benzos habit, but the senior resident is definitely still using his emergency return to lobby for renewed permanence. Robby isn’t touching any of that yet, but he does overhear Langdon comforting Jake about Leah, and complimenting Robby’s skill. There is still mentorship there, even if it’s been derailed by the circumstances.
We just can’t get over how artfully The Pitt has balanced the all-encompassing pressures and dramas of its mass shooting response episodes against its real-time bonafides and series mission statement. All of the simultaneous procedures, the pools of blood, the precipice of life and death at every turn – and this show did not sacrifice its technical medicine soul for easy grabby immediacy. It continues to amplify the drama through what we already knew about these characters, and applies that to the medicine and teaching at work. Treating a still-critical gunshot victim, Dr. Abbott reaches into his bag of studied calm and lifesaving savvy. “Nipples to navel is no man’s land. If he got shot while exhaling, the bullet possibly passed below the diaphragm.” While exhaling! We’d so much rather get lost down a rabbit hole of web searches about medical jargon than read another hot take about who’s sleeping with whom on a show about doctors.
“Today was chaos,” Dr. Robby tells Mel. “But you were awesome. Really glad you’re with us, Dr. King.” The captain might be frazzled and on his last vestige of emotional stability, but he recognizes all of what this staff has given. And everybody is thinking about finally going home. McKay is jazzed to eat pasta carbonara with Harrison and her parents when two Pittsburgh cops show up. Did she tamper with her court-issued ankle monitor? Of course the answer is yes – Cassie drilled a hole in the damn thing, because it was blaring and people needed helping. But the cops ignore Abbott and Dana’s protests, and Dr. McKay is put in cuffs, right there at the nurse’s station. The fun never ends at this place.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
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