Well, that was a very mean cliffhanger to leave us on! What the heck, The Pitt!
No, it wasn’t that surprising, but still! How dare they leave us with Louie almost certainly dead?! I screamed at my TV when the credits appeared and scared poor Cashew. Now I have to brace myself for tears next time.
Potentially for more than one reason, if the terminal cancer patient, Roxie, is any indication. I had never heard of a death doula before, but I can definitely see the appeal of one. Especially if you have children. Being able to just focus on the people around you instead of all of the logistics that comes with hospice care is a gift.
It was still incredibly difficult to watch, though. All Roxie wanted was to be able to go to the bathroom herself, but instead she’s forced to use a bedpan. There was a kind of weird vibe during the interactions with her husband, Paul, too. I can’t fully put my finger on what it was, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of assisted suicide is brought up. (Although according to a very quick Google search, it is illegal in Pennsylvania, so maybe not.)
After a relatively slow start to the day, things are definitely accelerating across all levels of the hospital. It’s never a good sign when they need to start lining up gurneys along the walls. Surgery sounded like they had their hands full too, which is not great when we still have the bulk of the day to get through. People are only going to get drunker and stupider the closer it gets to dark.
It made sense for Dr. Al to pull Langdon off of triage. They need all the help that they can get. He had been isolated from almost all of the main cast in there, and now that he’s reintegrating we’re seeing more tension.
I can’t tell if he still has prescribing privileges or not. When he was working on Debbie, the waitress with necrotizing fasciitis, aka the single most terrifying infection that now haunts my dreams, he physically stepped away from their computer to let Robby put in the orders. But with Louie, he acted as if he absolutely could prescribe and give him the exact medication that he had stolen from him.
It was definitely an awkward moment when Whitaker intervened, and I’m pretty sure that Perlah and I had the exact same expression on our faces when she quickly got out of there. Whitaker and Langdon don’t really interact much, but it has to be weird. Not only is Whitaker Robby’s new favorite, but he’s Santos’ roommate. And you just know that she told him everything.
Not to mention it almost feels like he might turn into a pawn in the power struggle between Robby and Dr. Al. Her line about how Robby’s feelings towards Langdon’s return doesn’t matter because “he won’t be here” was kind of cold. He’s only going to be gone for three months… right? Unless that’s a hint that his sabbatical might end up extended longer than he thinks?
Good on her for calling Robby out on treating her like a subordinate instead of a peer, though. I don’t think that he was doing it intentionally. As far as we’ve seen, he never has another senior attendant on shift with him. Even Dr. Al is only here because she’s supposed to be shadowing. So he’s operating exactly like he always does.
There’s an inflexibility to him that I didn’t realize that he had. Dr. Al is clearly and obviously that. One might even call her uptight. It’s been fairly consistently portrayed as a negative thing, especially within the chaos of the ER. The fact that she still thinks that Westbridge is in a Code Black because too many doctors just decided to play hooky for the holiday as opposed to there genuinely being something wrong is just another sign that she doesn’t really get it. Maybe that would happen at the VA, but the ER is very different.
But if that trait is a detriment to Dr. Al, then it has to be one for Robby too. And it’s one that, as an attending, filters down to the rest of the staff and patients.
I can see why he is going on a sabbatical. He had this frenetic energy all episode, and by the end it felt like he was clinging to his sanity and emotional regulation by a fingernail. The closest match to it that I can think of off the top of my head is how he reacted immediately after kicking Langdon out of the ER back in season one, how he was just so loud and his tone just so forcibly happy because the only other option was completely losing it.
He really should have left yesterday, though, because it’s starting to impact patient care in a noticeable way. Now, his main patient was Debbie, so he was obviously under a lot of stress. And it was the most he had been forced to interact with Langdon all day, which didn’t help matters either. But there is a difference between being an ER Cowboy, and slicing a woman’s leg open in order to force surgery to operate.
And while I can’t say that he was wrong to do that - in fact it gave them a chance to at least try to save her life - it’s still a wild thing to do in the heat of the moment. Garcia was pissed, and not in her normal acerbic banter kind of way.
It makes for an interesting contrast with Dr. Al, who is explicitly called out for suggesting a “cowboy move” when Mel and Whitaker have trouble stitching up a prison inmate, Gus Varney. Well, called out might not be the right phrase exactly. It’s noted to be one, which is something that feels almost at odds with how insistent she’s been on procedure and process.
But the thing is that it works, and it’s something that won’t create more problems down the line. It’s the proper application of a little nontraditional thinking.
It’s the same thing that Joy did with the Diaz family. She found the angle. It might not have been the most ideal solution, but it was the one that worked. Orlando slowly coming around to the idea of a GoFundMe was nice to see too.
Joy is just continuing to rise as Ogilvie continues to get humbled. He had a very rough hour between the potential TB infection and the impacted bowel. Yuck. I honestly did not need to see the results of the scooping. At all. I liked him with Santos, though. More so than I did with Whitaker.
Or maybe I’m just liking Santos a lot, even if the gag of her being interrupted each time she tried to make any progress on her charting did get a little old. I was right that Dr. Al was going to suggest that she use AI, although Santos wasn’t there during the demonstration. She didn’t see it make a pretty major error with the patient’s medication. Hopefully that isn’t setting up something bad happening in the future.
Oh, who am I kidding? It almost certainly is.
Circling back to our prison inmate for a moment, I’m curious as to where exactly that story is going. Dr. Al kind of brushed off some things as just the natural result of prison life that maybe shouldn’t have been brushed off? Like the fact that his skin had the strength of an 80 year old and couldn’t hold a stitch without tearing?
Which, side note, I did not know that was a thing and the human body continues to amaze and horrify me.
The fact that Varney has to stay handcuffed simultaneously feels like both normal procedure and a red flag. The man is obviously seriously injured and is not going anywhere anytime soon. Are they setting up the warden for being responsible for his injuries? Even if they are, The Pitt doesn’t really have the time or space to tackle something like that or have any kind of resolution that would feel even remotely satisfying.
Maybe it’s just shining a light on something and saying “Hey, this is kinda really messed up!” I guess we’ll see.
Random Thoughts
Mohan’s phone continues to ring. You’d think that her mom would know that she was working right now and couldn’t really talk, especially since they spoke during the first hour. I hope they’re not setting up some kind of family emergency that she’s inadvertently avoiding.
Loved Langdon and Donnie’s synchronized reactions to the dry ice branding. I’ve greatly enjoyed their bromance all season.
Also love that the “family crest” was a Penguin’s logo. The hockey crossover continues.
Is it just me, or is Dana’s accent noticeably stronger than it used to be?
Robby leaves the TV on when he goes to bed. And he still thinks that a solo motorcycle trip for three months is a good idea? The man cannot be alone with himself for a single night.
Ogilvie Scrub Count: Technically still one, but man, I would want to change them anyways.
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An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.
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