The Pitt: 7:00 A. M.

“And so it begins.”

I had forgotten how nice it is to actually be excited over a show that comes out on a yearly cadence. The Pitt is back! And I’m actually covering it in a normal fashion this time around.

Oh, I’ll definitely do another “real time” watch once all the episodes are out, even if I don’t actually write it up. But for now, we can just appreciate the show each week.

Luckily, the show is basically the same as it was last season without any major changes to its structure. We spent the hour getting eased back into the swing of things and reestablishing the dynamics between everyone.

Our medical students and interns have all moved up a level, and an additional ten months under their belts have made them a lot more confident in their roles. Whitaker in particular had the biggest growth. He was basically a mini Dr. Robby, complete with an almost word for word callback to the moment of silence last season.

I was also surprised by how much more likeable Santos came across to me. Sure, she still had her snark and her nicknames, but it felt more like she was genuinely trying to bond with and check in on people she cared about as opposed to her just being a bitch.

I just hope that the storyline they gave her involving the little girl, Kylie, won’t infuriate me over the show’s inability to get mandatory reporting right. It probably will, but for now I’m willing to go along with the mystery of figuring out just what is wrong with her, if only because the sight of her urine looking like cranberry juice made me gasp.

McKay has the other interesting patient that we were introduced to, Michael Williams. He very clearly is not fully rational, and he seems to be degrading rapidly. And was it just me, or did his beard look progressively bloodier every time we saw him? I kept waiting for McKay to mention it, but she never did. All I know is that I was tense every time the episode returned to him, and it was a nice bit of urgency that the episode as a whole was missing.

The only patient that I wish wasn’t there was Louie. I adore him. He is absolutely going to die in a few episodes, and it is going to break my heart. I’m already bracing myself for the tears. There’s just no way he survives with all of the red flags he’s tossing into the air.

His conversations with Langdon were very good, though. I was surprised that Langdon admitted to stealing his drugs so quickly; he’s clearly on the Making Amends step of rehab. It was a little awkwardly written, but it was nice to hear acknowledgement from Langdon that he really did mess up.

It’s probably no surprise that he’s the storyline that I’m most interested in following going forward. There’s just so much potential in his interactions with the rest of the cast, namely Santos and Robby. The Most Obvious Symbolism award goes to the locker room scene. He once had a nice, upper level locker, but now he’s at the bottom again, complete with forgotten and moldy food that was left behind. At least he still has Mel in his corner, even if she’s stressing over a malpractice suit.

Actually, I take that back. I'm actually most interested in how the abandoned baby storyline is going to go. Part of me is a little worried that it's going to turn cliche. Babies are usually a red flag for most shows. But there was something deeply centering about seeing the pediatric room actually used for a child. Plus the way that Robby said "Excuse me" directly to the baby was very cute. This better have a happy ending, though. If the baby dies, I'm going to riot.

There was one notable character missing. We’ve lost Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor will not be joining us this season), but we have gained two new medical students, a new nurse, and a new attending in exchange. It’s a very mixed bag.

While we didn’t get a ton of the students, neither of them left a very good impression. Ogilvie felt like the worst parts of Santos with none of her charm, treating patients as objects for him to show off his knowledge on and not actually caring about them as people.

Kwon’s parents must have been ironic when they named her Joy, because she spent the entire episode disengaged and muttering snarky comments under her breath. And when they weren’t snarky, they were outright inappropriate. I was shocked that she didn’t get a sterner reprimand for completely writing the stabbing victim off as dead already. Robby’s side eye was not enough of a reaction.

I’m trying to keep an open mind towards them because we really didn’t get a lot of time with them. Not compared to how we were introduced to the new kids in the first season. They’re just there, already integrated into the Pitt. It’s not their first day. They’re not introduced to us in a traditional way.

Emma is, and she is the only new character that I immediately adore and can’t wait to see more of. To be fair, she’s also a ball of nervous sunshine. Maybe a little bit over her head, but she has Dana looking out for her. The way that she and the night shift charge nurse, Lena, immediately took off all of her extra stuff was a really good character moment to show the differences between them. Emma really wants to do a good job and have everything that she might need during her shift; Dana knows that you just need yourself and everything else will just be annoying and in the way.

And then we have Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, who will be the substitute senior attending while Robby is off on his sabbatical. Like with the medical students, I’m trying to keep an open mind. I’m sure that she will grow on me as the season goes on. She seems like someone who genuinely cares about being the best doctor possible and providing the best level of care to her patients. Mohan obviously adores her, which is a point in her favor.

But man, she rubs me the wrong way.

Some of this is personal. I get my hackles up anytime someone sweeps into a new situation and immediately makes changes in the name of buzzwords like “efficiency” and “maximizing satisfaction.” It doesn’t help that she appears to have fully embraced AI either, which is something that I hate on principle even as I try to acknowledge the situations in which AI would genuinely add value.

While I wouldn’t be surprised if the patient passports will be useful in the future, right now they just seem like extra work for the staff and just another step where something can go wrong. It’s something that Gloria would absolutely love, but that might not be a good thing.

I think a large part of why I don’t like Al-Hashimi so much is because we mainly interact with her through Robby’s POV, and Robby absolutely does not like her. He walks into his first interaction with her already predisposed to view her negatively. He views her as an intruder, as someone who is encroaching on his turf and stepping on his toes, and that colors how the audience sees her as well.

It’s most apparent during the stabbing patient. They’re not only physically bumping into each other, but are frequently verbally interrupting each other as well to say two completely different things. Robby likes to ask questions and prompt his subordinates to figure out the answer for themselves. Al-Hashimi directly tells them what to do. It’s hard not to prefer Robby’s method from a teaching point of view, and the episode did ultimately have him “win” by having the risky procedure he suggested (and she cautioned against) succeed.

Don’t get me wrong. Robby doesn’t have his hands clean here. He didn’t even try to engage with the material that she sent him about changes that she wanted to make. His immediate reaction to any kind of challenge is to go snarky and defensive, and he spends most of the hour actively avoiding spending meaningful time with her. His question to Shen about her nationality also felt a little weird.

Like I said, I have no doubt that I’ll grow to love her by the end of the season. They’re just not starting her off on a great foot. The biggest question involving her now is related to the cliffhanger. Why did she just freeze like that? Mohan sounded confused, so I don’t think it had anything to do with the results on the baby. It was an awkward note to end the episode on. Hopefully the next one picks up in the same place.

Random Thoughts

Notable Hair Report: Santos has her hair half up and it looks very pretty. McKay is in a braid and growing out her bangs, which makes her look very different. Whitaker’s is longer, and I don’t know how I feel about it yet.

So… someone is definitely calling “hula hoop” at some point, right?

It was very nice to see Shen and Ellis again, even if it will only be briefly during the shift change.

Langdon is a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Yes, I am only mentioning this because of Heated Rivalry.

Santos and Garcia are apparently at the “spend the night” stage of their relationship, judging by Whitaker’s comment.

Seriously, what lawyer is going to take a deposition on July 4th?

I liked all of the non-English languages that we got. Not only did we get Santos gossiping in Tagalog, but Mohan spoke Tamil to her mother and Kwon muttered Korean under her breath.

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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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