The Pitt: 9:00 A.M.

"Two most important things: that they know we're here and we'll never stop offering."

This is an excellent thesis statement for the show as a whole. Even when the world sucks, and it can definitely suck, there are always people who will offer help.

The episode felt a lot more focused this week as some of our long running patients got wrapped up. Luckily, Kylie did have a relatively treatable medical condition and was not being abused by her father. I was glad to see that part of the resolution. I’m less sure about the rest of it.

Mainly, I think I just dislike how Santos sat at her computer, eavesdropping, as Kylie’s father and the girlfriend got into a yelling match that culminated in a break up. She looked like she was watching some prime gossip and not like she had just destroyed someone’s relationship.

And yes, Kylie’s symptoms were highly suspicious. And yes, her dad really comes off as an angry jerk, although I don’t know if I would be able to keep my temper either if someone accused me of hitting my kids. It just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Michael Williams, McKay’s patient with the shifting personality, is not the angry jerk he initially appeared to be. Not really. He has an unidentified mass in his frontal lobe. Funnily enough, this was the second time this week where I watched a medical show that had an ex-spouse called in for an emergency because a patient didn’t update their paperwork. (I was watching Doc with my parents.)

The Pitt really excels in having very small roles that still are incredibly impactful, and the former Mrs. Williams is one of those roles. The hesitancy in her voice when she asked McKay if the tumor was something that could have been there for a while was just heartbreaking. You could see her imagining a life where they had discovered this earlier and they never got divorced.

And then there’s Louie. We didn’t get any closure on him, but he’s degrading pretty quickly. I actually got a little annoyed with Whitaker for acting so nonchalant. Louie didn’t even want to banter! He wasn’t smiling! Clearly there’s something seriously wrong here and he’s in a lot of pain! Come on, Huckleberry!

Man, I already know I’m going to cry so let’s move on to our new patients. Who might also make me cry, depending on how it ends.

I expected there to be some kind of fireworks induced PTSD response, but not until later in the season once it got closer to evening. I did not expect it to involve the Tree of Life, which was a mass shooting that took place in October of 2018 and is the deadliest antisemetic attack on US soil.

Any time that you introduce a real tragedy into a show, your balancing act becomes a lot more difficult. It’s too easy for the writing to feel exploitative and disrespectful on one end, or pedantic and preaching on the other. They did a decent job of threading the needle. Maybe the writing skewed a little preaching, but The Pitt is a very earnest show. It’s never hidden that, and it works.

What I appreciated the most about the scenes with Yana, though, is that most of them were very warm if not outright funny. The way she berated Robby for his motorcycle mercilessly was hysterical. It wasn’t just about grief or trauma. It was about life too. It was about realizing what you have and that there really are good people around you that are willing to support you when things go wrong.

That, if anything, is something of a minor theme for the episode as a whole. When push comes to shove, the people that you want to be with and who want to be with you will step up.

I was screaming at them to check Mrs. Yee the entire time since she was obviously going to collapse with some kind of internal bleeding, but I suppose that’s just me being genre-savvy. Realistically, they could not force a woman who was alert, active, and coherent to receive medical care. Especially not when they were also focused on aiding her clearly seriously injured husband.

But I really, really hope she’s okay. I hope that she gets to see the video that her husband made for her, which did make me tear up a little. I was so glad that he wasn’t paralyzed due to a spinal injury. I want a happy ending there, especially since the third person involved in the accident did not.

There was a very strong emphasis on motorcycles and how they’re an absolute death trap. If you’re on a motorcycle and you get into an accident, you are often screwed, especially if you’re particularly stupid and don’t wear a helmet.

This season opened with Robby riding his motorcycle into work without a helmet, which is something he lied about in this episode.

Now look, I don’t think that they’re going to kill Robby or have him get into some kind of horrible accident as he leaves for his sabbatical. That would be rather dramatic for a show that tries to avoid the over-the-topness of similar shows like Grey’s Anatomy. But it is certainly drawing attention to the fact that Robby is being reckless with himself and with his body in ways that he knows the consequences of.

He might not have PTSD Covid flashbacks like last season, but he’s still not well. The question now is how many flags will the show throw up before it’s finally forced to act on them. That’s part of the difficulty of entire seasons taking place over the course of a single day. It can take something very drastic for someone to suddenly admit that they need help.

So far, these last three episodes have been relatively quiet. It’s been normal. That is clearly coming to an end with the phone call that a nearby hospital closed down with a Code Black, meaning that all ambulances are going to be diverted to the Pitt. Things are going to get very, very busy.

Alas, I cannot place my own bet on what caused the Code Black. The trailers have pretty much spoiled it. Or at least strongly implied what the cause was. I just expected it to happen later in the season.

You can’t really have each season end with a mass casualty event, but having another hospital shut down would definitely count as a solid inciting event to carry you through the last third of a season. Placing it here makes me both excited and a little nervous. It implies that a lot more can and will go wrong.

Random Thoughts

I can’t help but cringe every time someone tells a patient that they’ll be out in time for fireworks. We’re going to see exploded hands at some point, right?

Love using VR games to distract kids during procedures that would be scary, stressful, or invasive otherwise. They should give everyone that option!

The three dads talking about fatherhood was also just very sweet. Good scene.

Joy seemed more engaged once she got away from Ogilvie. Hopefully they keep them separate for a bit.

In the background of one scene, you can see McKay’s Walmart greeter walking around with the foam donut around his arm.

McKay mentioned in the first episode that she really needed to get laid, and now she has an attractive patient flirting with her. She brushed him off each time, but that’s something to keep an eye on. Hopefully he isn’t a creep.

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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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