HBO Max ensured that The Pitt's ICE storyline was "balanced," says producer John Wells

But Pitt producer John Wells says that HBO Max didn’t have any issues with the storyline and didn’t ask them to “tone it down,” as was apparently rumored. They did, however, have a note.  “There is an ICE situation coming up because it’s a real issue in emergency rooms,” Wells says on a new episode of The Town With Matthew Belloni. “But no, they [HBO Max] just wanted to make sure it was balanced. The thing we have to be careful about when we’re talking about any of these issues—when we’re talking about vaccines, when we’re talking about the way in which the healthcare system works—is to make certain that we’re actually presenting both points of view. Because we’re not really in the business of preaching to the choir on this show. There are real issues about immigration, there are real issues about immigration enforcement within the public health system in which you really need people to come in. So, that’s what we were dealing with, and they just wanted to make sure it was balanced. But they weren’t saying ‘Don’t do this’ or ‘Don’t do that.’ In fact quite the opposite—we showed them a lot of the research and they were like, ‘yeah, that looks like a good story.'” 

When Belloni pressed about whether Wells thought the note was more political than creative, Wells declined to speculate, saying he wasn’t part of any political discussion. “All of us are approaching what’s going on in this country right now with a certain trepidation and also awareness that there are some possible risks to telling certain kinds of stories,” he continues. “When we first pitched it, I thought, ‘Uh oh.’ You know, we were getting ready to shoot it right when the Netflix-Warner Bros. was negotiating… I was kind of like, ‘I’m gonna let them know that we’re doing it, I don’t wanna be in a situation where it’s a surprise.’ And their response was, ‘Good story, just make sure it’s balanced and we’re not just treating the situation as if it doesn’t have other points of view.'” We will see what those other points of view might be later on this season of The Pitt.