The Pitt: Season 2 - Review

Rating: 5 out of 5

IT IS a global scandal how poorly we treat our frontline medical staff.

Poor pay, long hours, high expectations. The global pandemic that was Covid showed how invaluable and indispensable these workers (and other frontline staff in key services) were and are.

Yet too often we take them for granted. And yet they continue to turn up, day after day, against the odds: faced with overwhelming patient loads, abuse (both physical and emotional) and whatever else life has to throw at them, irrespective of their own needs and challenges.

What makes The Pitt such a mercurial show is how it throws a spotlight on this. Season two, in particular, is a glowing, often hard hitting look at the emotional toll of being a frontline emergency room worker.

It builds on the superlative work done in the Emmy winning first season, putting its staff through another gruelling shift. In doing so, it continues to offer biting commentary on modern day America, as well as a compassionate look at minority groups - including the disabled (autism is particularly well represented) and those of immigrant status.

The sophomore run of episodes may not build to anything as explosive as season one’s mass shooting arc. But it displays fireworks of a different kind, being set amid America’s Fourth of July celebrations and a heatwave (in a clever nod to the effects of climate change and ever intensifying heatwaves on the human body), with multiple cases flooding the ER, a precautionary IT outage (caused by a cyber attack on neighbouring hospitals), and even an unwelcome visit from ICE agents.

It’s another pressure cooker scenario in which the trauma being experienced by various members of the medical team - including Noah Wyle’s chief of staff, Dr Michael "Robby" Robinavitch - only seems to worsen, having been given little or no chance to heal.

But then who cares for the people caring for us? The answer in most cases is no one. They must have each other’s backs.

One of the most striking arcs of the second season is the continued deterioration of Dr Robby. If season one saw him struggling to hold it together at various points, culminating in one breakdown, then season two finds him on the brink. Broken, often despondent and more prone to angry outbursts at colleagues, it quickly becomes clear to viewers and colleagues that he may be demonstrating suicidal behaviour.

A planned hiatus, during which he intends to take his beloved motorcycle out on the open road, could be a journey from which there is no return. Friends and colleagues increasingly sense this, prompting Shawn Hatosy’s similarly word down Dr Jack Abbot to warn him against recreating any “Thelma and Louise” endings.

But Dr Robby’s descent is heartbreaking and brilliantly realised by Wyle (who has since deservedly won a second Emmy). In one particularly devastating exchange, he wears his heart on his sleeve as he tearfully tells Dr Abbot: “The most important things I’ve ever done in my life have been in this hospital. Nothing will ever matter more than what I’ve done in this hospital, but it is killing me.

“You know how they say that a part of you dies when you lose someone you love? I’m not convinced that a part of you doesn’t die every time you see a fellow human pass. And I’ve seen so many people die that I feel like it’s leaching something from my soul.”

Such monologues are evidence of the quality of the writing on the show. But the delivery is genuinely affecting. These are characters we have come to deeply respect and love, so seeing them so broken and at their lowest ebb is tremendously affecting.

But it also makes you think about what medical staff are asked to deal with on a daily basis. And therein lies its brilliance. The Pitt succeeds in giving voice to the real heroes of our world - making them human and all too fallible, yet frequently capable of making the difference between life and death, all the while juggling their own day-to-day difficulties.

Further included among these are returning cast members such as Patrick Ball, whose Dr Frank Langdon is grappling with self doubt on his first day back from rehab; Taylor Dearden’s autistic Dr Melissa ‘Mel’ King, juggling a testimonial with the arrival of her autistic twin sister (Emmy nominated guest star Tal Anderson); and Katherine LaNasa’s Nurse Dana Evans, still struggling with her own PTSD in the wake of her assault in season one.

Hatosy continues to shine as the night team leader Dr Abbot, here also being given a daytime stint to do, while the likes of Supriya Ganesh’s sensitive Samira Mohan and Shabana Azeez’s Dr Javadi must juggle parental pressures with decisions over their future - and higher than usual levels of scrutiny from the on-edge Dr Robby.

There are several eye-catching newcomers too - most notably Sepideh Moafi’s Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, who is shadowing Dr Robby on his final day in order to replace him, but who is hiding her own medical secret, the belated revelation of which adds to the already heightened tension between them.

There’s also Lucas Iverson’s arrogant fourth year medical student James Ogilvie, who struggles with empathy until facing his own reckoning; Irene Choi’s third year medical student Joy Kwon, who displays a very clinical approach to her job as well as a surprisingly photographic memory; Meta Golding’s Nurse Noelle Hastings, whose first day offers the inevitable baptism of fire (and includes being assaulted), and Luke Tennie’s confident fourth year resident night shift worker Dr Crus Henderson, who displays the same charisma he brings to Shrinking, while being highly skilled in his job.

As an ensemble, The Pitt team are formidable. They’re all loveable despite their flaws. And they’re all masterfully drawn. There are no peripheral characters. Everyone feels essential to the smooth working of the ER and yet everyone gets their moment to shine, or struggle, or offer insight into a lived experience (either through their role within their hospital or who they may represent in society).

One of The Pitt’s biggest strengths is the way that it treats every character with dignity and respect. It has a lot to teach about the human condition.

Its depiction of things like mental health is second to none. But so too is its representation of ethnicity, of disability, of autism and of sexuality.

And it incorporates what it means to be human into some very hard-hitting storylines, seldom stepping back or sugar coating how difficult that can be.

Season two’s storylines included the gathering of a rape kit that showed the full extent of the procedures involved, as well as the emotional consequences of being sexually assaulted and the many flaws inherent in the justice system. It ought to be required viewing for men who are unduly influenced by the ideas pushed forward by the manosphere.

The arrival of ICE agents also offered an insight into the day-to-day fear and paranoia now being felt by countless Americans in the wake of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, as well as the strength of feeling it invokes from Americans wanting to do the right thing and stand up for human rights. The cost here was the arrest of one of the hospital staffers for merely trying to protect his patient. But the episode showed the aggressive nature of ICE’s tactics.

The Pitt isn’t afraid to cast a spotlight on social injustice. Another case saw a young boy brought in with a firework injury, who was later revealed to be living with his young teenage sister because his parents had been deported. The children were born in the US; the parent’s weren’t. The ER staff tried to prevent further heartbreak by working hard to keep the siblings together.

Elsewhere, it offset some of the more socially relevant material with heartfelt storylines around end of life care - in this case a cancer riddled mother and wife who realised her time had come, and an obese male patient who required specialist care because of his size, whose condition was the result of a debilitating accident.

Both cases demonstrated sensitivity to the emotional complexities involved, while having something relevant to say about not rushing to judgements.

Likewise, the arc of another patient, Ernest Harden Jr’s “frequent flyer” Louie, an alcoholic who had become a much loved visitor to the ER in spite of his addictions. This series saw his health dramatically deteriorate, resulting in his death, which further rocked Robby and several fellow staff members, not least because it also offered an insight into Louie’s tragic back story.

Again, the writing [and quality of the performances] provided a salient and sensitive reminder of how often a person’s presumed appearance or circumstance is seldom a result of choice or lack of care; but belies a multitude of reasons, of struggled, of events and/or tragedies beyond their control. Harden deservedly won another of this season’s Emmys and his victory speech, just like his overall performance, was as inspiring as it was tear-jerking

But then those sentiments sum up The Pitt to a tee. It’s inspirational, it’s heart-breaking and it’s essential in the way that it confronts much of what's wrong with today's society while showing the beauty in humanity and the brave efforts of the men and women to cope amid the turbulence that each day in these volatile times brings. It’s certain to become one of the best shows of all time.