I've watched by share of
extraordinary TV over my lifetime and a lot of it has come over the past
decade. I've noted that drama has begun to radically shift from where it was at
the end of the 2010s and that's nowhere more present that on the HBO the network
that ushered it in.
Gone are the days when we spent
so much time celebrating the prolonged suffering of the one percent in Succession
or the bad behavior of Selina Meyer and her staff and all of the awful
people in Silicon Valley. Perhaps when the final season of Euphoria debuted
one reason it underwhelmed is because the audience no longer yearned for the
kind of despair that was its one not during its first two seasons.
Instead we've watched the show
that it is the bond between Deb and Ava on Hacks and the wonderful
community that assembled on Somebody Somewhere, candidates for two of
the greatest shows of this decade. We've looked at the 19th century
struggles of the rich in The Gilded Age with none of the profanity or
horrible family dynamics of the Roys but somehow even more dramatic power. Task
was a return to the working class roots and urban struggle that made HBO
the pinnacle of television and centered it's story on a broken man who somehow
managed to emerge whole and restored at the end of the first season. Even the
world of genre TV is moving with The Last of Us taking a more human look
at dystopia then Westworld or a look at those who served in the ranks in
Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
But by far the greatest appeal
both critical and in terms of the audience has been the masterclass that is The
Pitt a show that has a format we haven't seen in twenty years – taking
place in real time in a single shift at a Pittsburgh ER – with a group of
characters we haven't seen on this network in particular in far longer.
No one who works at the day shift
at The Pitt is a bad person: Scott Gemmill and his writers make this
very clear even in the relatively short time we know them each season. They are
all competent, skilled professionals fighting an endless battle where the
broken medical system is just the tip of an iceberg of the problems that they
have to deal with each day. There's the constant closing of hospitals due to
cuts in the safety net, there are
patients who can't afford insurance and have to make horrible choices,
there are patients who have no respect for the staff, there are patients
understandably angry at having to wait hours just to see a doctor. And there's
a board that never empties, a bureaucracy that puts everybody through hoops,
and a grind that hour by hour wears every one in the staff down to a nub. And
then they have to come back tomorrow and do it all over again.
The second season of The Pitt more
than first illustrates just how the doctors, nurses, interns and med students
have been dealing with this in the past ten months. And the answer, even before
we get to the story of Dr. Rabinovitch is basically the same across the board.
They're all barely hanging on.
Some are doing better. Whitaker
(Gerran Howell) has improved light years from the 'Huckleberry' he was when we
first met him. He knows how to handle med students and traumas better then
before and he can act like a mentor and say he feels good where he is. Jack
Abbott (Shawn Hatosy) is clearly in a better place when we met him at the start
of the series; it's clear he found a balance between work and life in a way we
haven't before. And in his first day back we see that Langdon (Patrick Ball)
really has come out on the other side from where he was when we met him and
while he does have doubts he seems to have improved.
Some are doing worse. I don't
think its entirely a coincidence that Supriya Ganesh isn't a regular for Season 3. A constant in
both seasons has been that Dr. Mohan cares far too much then what is healthy
for any doctor and it was inevitable it would catch up with her. Everything
involving the patient who had let his insurance lapse to treat his diabetes was
her approach to patients in a microcosm, she tried to do everything for him and
he still rejected her advice. When at the end of the shift he came back having
clearly hurt himself in order to obtain coverage for his family, it rocked her
in a way we've never seen. Combined with the increasingly harsh treatment of
Robby, which in this case was practically bullying, its understandable she
wouldn't want to keep working here.
With others some are wondering
how much the job is taking away from their private lives. The biggest
revelation for Mel (Taylor Dearden) was that her sister who she's clearly
focused everything on, has more of a social and even a sex life that she does right
now. Cassie (Fiona Dourif) is wondering how much the day to day life of the
rotation is taking out of her emotionally and how little it is for her to have
even a date. Santos (Isa Briones)
remains almost a question mark. She's still as cynical about the job as she was
before and over the last ten months she's made it clear her first impressions
are the ones she keeps forever. And considering that her end of day therapy is
'getting wasted and doing primal scream therapy as karaoke' – she's definitely
going to have problems in future seasons.
You don't need to watch the whole
season to know how Robby's dealing with everything. It's clear from the start
he's having an existential crisis where he doesn't want to stay and doesn't
want to go. And that’s how we realize
where he is emotionally at the end of
the season.
As I've watched Noah Wylie's
magnificent work throughout Season 2 the comparison I'm increasingly coming up
with is the work of Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard on Lost. Unlike Robby,
Jack is very much a competent leader who knows what he's doing but just like
him he is unable to delegate responsibility, holds grudges and considers every
failure a reflection on him, and increasingly snaps at anyone who isn't making
his standards. We still don't know much of Robby's backstory even after two
seasons – we only know about the death of a mentor, and we assume the
relationship with his godson has gotten worse. We know that he doesn't have
much connections with women outside of work and it very much looks like Doc
(Jeff Kober) is the only real friend he has, which is why he takes so much time
trying to get him to come to the hospital and then spends much of the end of
his shift and the night shift trying to get him to take care of the aortic
aneurysm that may very well kill him. Near the end of the season he tells
Samira that he thought he'd have a wife and two kids in college by now and it
hasn't turned out that way. It seems to be something he's saying to goad his
colleague but the way he refuses to acknowledge that's it possible for himself
right now would indicate how much despair he's in.
Robby has spent the entire shift
claiming that he's about to go on a sabbatical for three months, the first
vacation he's taken that anyone can remember. But throughout the shift he's
acted increasingly erratic, snapping at Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) his
replacement in his absence. Throughout the entire day we see that she's just as
good as he is and very capable handling the entire staff. Indeed as the shift
progresses its clear she's treated them with greater compassion and empathy
then they've had in a while – and Robby almost seems to resent it.
As the day progresses he spends
more and more time with each of his friends trying to comfort for them on how
good they are at their jobs and find paths forward. Yet simultaneously he
treats many of them with hostility as they show their own levels of trauma.
When one of them has a panic attack he treats her with no empathy and can
barely apologize after Al-Hashimi calls him on it. He refuses to give Dr.
Langdon any grace most of the shift even when Al-Hashimi credits him for it.
And when Dana (Katherine LaNasa) reacts to the attack of a nurse by sedating a
patient, he seems angrier at her for not dealing with her trauma something that
Dana, who has been tracking his bad behavior all day immediately calls him on,
and he ignores it. By the time his shift is over he's still there dealing with
Doc and she tells him to go home. He then lists all the problem that he feels
the staff are having and Dana tells him, in frustration, that he can deal with
it when he gets back. Finally he says: "What if I don't come back?"
Dana is understandably terrified
by this. And it becomes even clear when his motorcycle is hit by an ambulance.
Doc gets out of his bed to make it presentable and tells him to take it by the
shop. Robby says he needs to leave today. Finally Doc calls him on his bullshit
and gets him to admit what he's been denying. He doesn't know if he's going to
come back.
The breakdown Robby has is the
highpoint of Wylie's performance; its certain this is the episode he's
submitting for Emmy consideration. Robby tells his friend he doesn't want to be
here anymore, that this ER is the only place he feels that he has some measure
of control. Given what we've seen throughout the shift, any competent observer
can say if this is what he considers holding it together, then he may be more
broken then even he wants to admit.
Its here the comparison between
Jack Shephard and Dr. Robby is the clearest. One of the most unforgettable
images of Lost is in the Season 3 Finale where a heavily bearded,
emotionally broken Jack walking on top of a bridge and saying: "Forgive
me." Then there is a car crash (which we later learn is caused because
someone saw him on the bridge) and Jack takes this long pause before rushing in
to help people out of the wreck and save their lives.
Like Jack (and Doc makes the
comparison clear) Robby's entire life is based on fixing things while he
himself is incredibly broken. In the final season of Lost Jack confides
in Hurley that he actually ended up going back to the island: "Because I
was broken…and I thought this place could fix me." The difference is Robby
clearly doesn't want to be fixed, despite having far more options. He spends
his last shift avoiding the hospital psychiatrist whose spent the last several
months trying to get him a therapist. He's fired three of them for reasons that
at this point are unclear but we assume that Robby thinks he is beyond help. So
much of the second season seems like Robby is saying his final goodbyes to
everyone. Only Dana picks up on it and she demands Abbott try to reach him.
And that's exactly what happens.
In an episode which Hatosy has submitted for Emmy consideration his Jack Abbott
tells Robby why after everything he saw in Afghanistan he never killed himself
even after losing his leg and his wife:
Because it comes for all
of us. You and I know it more than most, we see it every shift, but we can't
let ourselves succumb to it. Yes life can suck. It can be unbearable and brutal
and ugly and heartbreaking…but its also beautiful. And hilarious."
He tells Robby that the woman and
baby they saved that day would be dead if he wasn't here that day.
Robby acknowledges just how
important the work in the hospital is. "But if its killing me…You know how
they say a part of you dies when you lose someone you love? I'm not convinced
that a part of you doesn't die when you see a fellow human pass. And I've seen
so many people die…that I feel its leeching something from my soul…I'm tired of
being a role model. I'm tired of feeling I can't get ahead. I'm tired of
feeling like I'm drowning."
And then he asks the question
he's probably been avoided since the series began. "Am I fucked up?"
And Abbott is honest. "One
hundred percent." But he makes it clear that this isn't universal to Robby
and that's he gotta find a way to get out of it. "Dance through the
darkness."
There's a pause. "Maybe
that's a song lyric," Abbott admits which breaks the tension just enough.
Then another trauma comes in with his face half blown off. Abbott replies
deadpan: "How can you not love this place?" Then he says goodbye with
one last mix of warning and fondness. "You are still my emergency contact
and I do not want to be contacted."
Driving the point home at the end
of the day Langdon finally confronts Robby and he makes it very clear that when
he was in rehab he met a lot of guys like Robby but the difference is they
accepted they need help. "How can we live up to your standards if you
can't? You need help, man!" Robby doesn't respond to this either.
The real sign comes when Robby
goes to the Baby Jane Doe and talks to him with comfort. He says he got
abandoned to – when I was 8. But I got through all of that. And as he comforts
the child and says: "it's going to be okay" he looks at peace for the
first time all season. Perhaps Season 3 will begin with the knowledge he's
trying to adopt baby Jane Doe. Perhaps we will see he's trying to get help. All
I know is I've never been more relieved to know that Wylie's back for Season 3.
Perhaps the most optimistic case
to come out of this is Javadi. Its clear by the end of the shift that she is
accurately realized just how much this job takes out of every one of the staff
psychologically and the importance of mental health. Whitaker argues that she
should use this to be her specialty and
she immediately seizes on it. Perhaps in future seasons we will see Javadi
taking a role in which she does everything in her power to help everybody on
the staff. This will be a huge lift but given what we saw this season in
particular she by far may be the most qualified to do it.
Another thing that makes The
Pitt so incredibly different from so many other shows over the previous
decade is that it depends on positive relationships. We see it in the bond
between Langdon and Mel at the end of the day and the way that Santos decides
to invite Mel for a fun night in a
wonderful post-credit scenes. And its clear watching all of the characters that
they are bonded that while the work environment is harsh, the bonds that are
formed are genuine and real in a way I haven't seen on any HBO drama in a long
time.
The Pitt deserves to repeat as Outstanding
Drama and Best Actor. How many other Emmys it will win is an open question. Plur1bus
is looking like a heavy favorite to win either writing or directing for
Vince Gilligan, possibly both. And while every member of the supporting cast
who was nominated for an Emmy (three in Supporting Actor, four in Supporting
Actress) deserved their nomination, it will by necessity split the vote leaving
an opening for any actors. We saw this play out just last year with The
White Lotus dominating both of these categories. That may very well be why
Katherine LaNasa managed to win: as great as she was, going into Emmy night
Carrie Coon was the heavy favorite.
My personal favorites among them
are Gerran Howell for its incredibly balanced work as Whitaker and Taylor
Dearden for her superb job as Mel. And I support Jeff Kober winning Best Guest
Actor for his work as Doc. Guest Actress has three exceptional roles but I
suspect Shailene Woodley will deservedly win for her work in Paradise.
What I do know is The Pitt is
after just two seasons a triumph at every level. Not merely at one of writing,
directing or acting, but of the human spirit trying to work in a never ending
cycle. For dealing with both our overburdened medical system and mental health
in the same series, for looking at the world we live in today not in a way to
make political points but just to tell how it plays out. And for setting a gold
standard for which dramas in the 21st century should be going
forward, appealing to the better angels of our nature rather than celebrating
the worst. Season Three can't come soon enough.
My score (Season 2 overall) 5
stars.
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