Well, I cried. Much like I expected to. This was kind of a tough one.
The event that I had been bracing for all season finally happened. We lost Louie, and it was a far bloodier affair than I was prepared for. We got the sound of snapping ribs from CPR (which does happen if it is done right) and blood pouring out of the intubation tube. For a second, I wondered if that was something that Robby had done by accident, but no. It was a pulmonary hemorrhage.
Seeing all of the blood was deeply upsetting. I hated it. I had hoped for something quieter for him. And then he was dead, and the reality of the ER meant that life had to continue. Everyone still had other patients to take care of.
I didn’t cry when he died. I didn’t cry when Dana and Emma washed his body. I didn’t cry when they tucked him in, or when Langdon called his emergency contact only to reach the hospital instead, or when Langdon found the photo of his wife, or when they said that he would be placed in a mass grave if no one claimed his body. I didn’t even cry when Robby told everyone what had happened to Louie’s wife and unborn child.
I cried when Emma reached down and took Louie’s hand. The hand that she and Dana specifically left out for his family to hold.
This was an episode dedicated to the nurses of the Pitt. They all got their own moments to shine, not only as professionals but also simply as human beings. I watched this episode with one of my very dear friends, who is a nurse at a hospital, so her reaction is coloring my own perception a little, but she loved this episode (when she wasn’t yelling at Robby for being mean to Langdon) and that made me love it too.
Princess, Perlah, Dana, and Emma got the most attention, but Kim’s drive by recitation of everything that Whitaker needed may have been the moment that got the biggest smile out of me. Everyone else just made me a little sad.
It’s a sad episode overall, to be fair, even outside of Louie. Perlah obviously takes the loss very hard. Princess puts on a brighter face, but her patients are also in a very precarious place.
Roxie in particular in just heading for tragedy. There’s no way to soften a terminally ill woman begging to stay in the hospital because she doesn’t want to watch her husband and children turn into shells of themselves because she can no longer take care of herself.
Harlow, the deaf woman, is less heartbreaking in the emotional sense and more anger-inducing at a systematic level. She’s been here for hours, and she cannot get the care that she needs because she cannot communicate with people. At some point, you’d think that someone would at least give her pen and paper to write down her symptoms, but instead she got a frustrated Santos and an apologetic Princess. At least Princess tried.
Dana and Emma spent a lot of the episode as a unit. I continue to adore Emma. I want to wrap her up in blankets and keep her safe. I also, somewhat paradoxically, hope that she shows something more than just wide eyed uncertainty soon. It was interesting to see Dana through her eyes, though.
Dana is in my top three favorite characters, and I would have never called her scary. I can see why she scares Emma, though. She’s tough, and the events of the first season have only made that outer shell all the more spiky. Like she told Robby earlier, punchy is her new baseline.
Her conversation with Langdon in the breakroom was a highlight of the episode. It calls back to the last conversation between them, where he pressured her to have his back against Robby, and is emotionally honest without being overemotional. This isn’t really the time or place for Langdon to apologize to everyone. Dana recognizes what he’s trying to do, gives him grace, but also doesn’t really allow it to become emotional. She already has enough on her plate without holding his hand through this.
I was surprised that no one reached out to him during rehab, though. I can rationalize away most people. Robby clearly wouldn’t. Santos definitely wouldn’t. Collins moved. Dana retired, unretired, and was deciding whether or not to press charges on the guy who punched her. Whitaker and Javadi only knew him for one day, and Mel said that she was not paying attention to rumors. Everyone was also dealing with their own trauma from PittFest.
But still… no one? Not even McKay, who would know a little of what he’s going through as a former addict herself? That’s really sad, actually.
Like I feared last episode, Santos’ use of AI did come back to bite her. Very quickly too. I didn’t expect there to be immediate errors. Obviously, she should have proofread what was created. That responsibility ultimately lies with her. But Dr. Al’s insistence that it was human error as opposed to a flaw in her program rubbed me the wrong way. She kind of totally threw Santos under the bus there.
The confrontation between Dr. Al and Robby regarding what to do with the prisoner, Varney, and Dana’s ultimate decision also sat a little uneasily with me. It has been drilled into our heads over and over again that beds are at a premium. Admitting someone who can be safely discharged and who can get medical care elsewhere feels like the right thing to do, especially with Westbridge still shut down.
Dr. Al’s insistence that he stay felt a little ridiculous. Especially since Robby did take the step to call and make sure that the prison would be able to get the prescribed care to try and alleviate her concerns. Nothing that he said would have been good enough.
I don’t know enough about medicine and health to say either way, but hoping for a few days to treat something like malnutrition felt a little off too. He’s still going back to prison. Would three days really make that much of an impact?
My mind then started to ask other questions. Questions like what Varney had been convicted of and if that made a difference in how hard Dr. Al would be willing to fight for him. If there was a conviction that formed a line between sending him back and helping him stay. It was nice that he was bonding with Jesse and Dana, but if he killed someone or something like that, then I don’t really care if they’re familiar with the same bar or not.
Admittedly, this was a bit of a wake up call for me. Apparently, there’s a harsher limit to my empathy than I had thought, and that is something that I am going to attempt to be more aware of going forward. Arguably, that’s the thesis of the entire season so far. To lead with empathy.
Robby knows what Dana did, and seemed almost approving of it. Or maybe he was just happy that she had rediscovered the drive to do better - to try, even when the system is broken - that she had lost in the last ten months. Now if only he could mimic that behavior himself.
Random Thoughts
Noah Wyle directed this episode. It’s the first time he’s directed for The Pitt, and he did a great job.
Yet another motorcycle accident victim… I’m not sure if I like the foreshadowing going on here!
Jackson, the tasered law student, is a story that feels like it’s spinning its wheels a little. At least we got confirmation that this was a mental health crisis. He is the right age for certain disorders.
Right when I think that Ogilvie is starting to get humbled, he’s right back to being the worst person in the ER. The way he told Whitaker that Louie had died was just so, so callous.
Joy wants to go into pathology. It’s kinda fun to see someone who doesn’t want to go into emergency medicine now that she’s more engaged with what is going on around her.
Santos and Garcia’s relationship seems a little rocky…
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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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