Loss hangs over almost every aspect of this episode, from the opening scene of Dr. Collins composing herself after miscarrying in the hospital bathroom to the final one of Nick Bradley, the young man who accidentally overdosed on fentanyl, on his honor walk to donate organs. Although some forms are devastatingly literal, like the nine-year-old who drowns while saving her sister, others are more interior and, in some cases, cathartic.
At this point, The Pitt has demonstrated that no plot thread will go unresolved. It might just take an episode or two to get there. So it’s not surprising that Collins’ miscarriage feels more like a spectre in the background (though Dr. Robby does catch her in an exam room, giving herself an impromptu ultrasound). Tracy Ifeachor fuses a subtle yet sizzling current of anger and sorrow in her posture and line deliveries, never failing to evoke her character’s grief, even though its cause is never spoken of overtly.
The decision to underplay her grief is a wise one, given the immensity of the next case Collins takes on, that of Amber, who was brought in cold and unresponsive from the family pool. It’s a testament to the power of each actor’s abilities, and the finely wrought character work they’ve achieved this season, that we can anticipate the hyper-specificity of their reactions. Poor Dr. Whitaker is back to doing chest compressions on the girl, and Gerran Howell’s face expresses volumes of fear and determination, with the fact that Whitaker isn’t bemoaning losing another patient showing his evolution. Dr. King, who will tend to the girl’s sister in one of the show’s most heartrending moments, quietly fights with her intense emotions.
While the show has directly addressed Dr. King’s experiences as a caregiver for a sister with autism, it has hinted at the possibility that she could also be neurodivergent, specifically pointing to her efforts at managing her feelings. Yet she easily has the best bedside manner out of any of the newbie staffers, and her moment with young Bella is a display of profound emotional intelligence. As it becomes apparent that sweet Amber won’t be waking up again, Dr. King sits with her sister, Bella. She brings in a stuffed bear and invites the girl to tell it everything she’d want to say to her sister, promising to put the bear on her sister’s pillow, so it can repeat everything.
Taylor Dearden has already proven herself a series MVP, but she’s absolutely masterful as King listens to Bella cheerfully tell the bear how much she loves her sister. Her eyes betray their agony at the more immediate horrors to befall Bella, who may spend much of her life to come wrestling with grief and guilt as well as the vicarious ache of deeply loving her own sister. Dearden makes a searing, melancholic symphony of her reaction, and it lends an already tragic moment an additional pathos.
The heaviness of this through-line is given a sublimely bittersweet balance in another patient, Willie. This older gentleman is experiencing issues related to his pacemaker, in addition to dementia, and as the team—led by Dr. Langdon—tends to him, Willie knows exactly what to ask for and shows an alacrity about his care that other patients simply don’t have. Initially, Langdon thinks his patient may have been a former doctor, but Willie was actually a member of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, which was the very first U.S. emergency service staffed by paramedics with medical training that went beyond basic first aid.
Started in 1967 in the predominantly Black Hill District of Pittsburgh, these highly trained teams offered life-saving care for patients en route to the hospital, giving them more of a fighting chance than they would have had normally (which often involved being carted to the Emergency Room, if they were lucky, by the police). Willie’s story manages to bring in some really cool local history while also serving as a staunch reminder that, even with the debate about patient satisfaction, not too long ago, minorities in this country fought for a basic opportunity to receive treatment at all. (And all too often, they still do.)
Yet this patient narrative links back to the broader story The Pitt is trying to tell, that of a day in the life of Dr. Michael Robinavitch—and not just any day but the anniversary of one of the worst ones of his life. Willie asks about Dr. Adamson, sharing that he learned so much from Robby’s mentor, who was a med student back when he first helped to educate the Freedom House crew. Just because we know that the innocuous question will drive a thin blade through Robby’s heart doesn’t make Noah Wyle’s reaction any less potent. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Robby must confront the loss of his mentor, and the show seems to be driving him toward his emotional tipping point.
Loss of control comes up in another patient encounter, this time with Paige, a young woman with an unsettlingly close relationship with her boss, Laura. Though Paige is in for a decidedly intimate reason—it burns when she urinates—her boss must be with her during every step, even a pelvic exam. This intensity, along with the fact that Paige and Laura share an address, prompts Dr. McKay and nurse Evans to suspect that Laura isn’t exactly an accountant with a soft spot for her young employee but a human trafficker.
That’s not to say that every form of loss in this episode is inherently fraught or painful. For most of her medical training, Javadi has been in the long shadow of her mother, a renowned physician in her own right who just so happens to be something of a celebrity at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. One of her mother’s patients, a young woman who suspects a horrific flare-up of her Crohn’s disease, is writhing in unbearable pain on a hospital gurney. The woman will only seek counsel from her doctor, and Javadi’s mother is more than happy to steamroll over everyone—even Dr. Garcia, who’s no slouch in the steamrolling department herself—with exact directions.
For a moment, Javadi is cowed. The exchange conjures the idea of the aspiring physician as a girl who idolizes, and is intimidated by, her mother in equal measure. But this Javadi isn’t a little girl anymore. She’s the young woman who has rebounded from fainting in her first hour on the job, shadowed McKay, and sharpened her mind working on patients. She’s learned to value compassion as much as intelligence, which ultimately allows her to resolve the situation.
So she asks the young woman to walk her through the morning before she ended up in the hospital: shower, breakfast, coffee, time outside. None of it is remarkable, until the woman says she felt something bite into her foot through her Crocs but just assumed that it was a splinter. Not content to leave any stone unturned, Javadi picks up the shoe only to find the tiny corpse of a Black Widow spider whose bite would explain all of the patient’s symptoms, including her pain.
When the tests that Javadi’s mother ordered haven’t been performed, she comes down to ask her daughter why they haven’t been done in the same tone she’d use in an interrogation about homework. Yet as soon as the nurse administers the medicine Javadi suggests, the patient seems to deflate with relief. Mom is forced to admit that maybe, just maybe, her little girl is growing up into a fine doctor. And it’s here that Javadi loses her identity as the dutiful daughter, thus becoming her own person.
Stray observations
- • So why exactly does Dr. Garcia forgive Dr. Santos for dropping a scalpel on her foot so easily? That should not inspire you to call them the sidekick to your superhero.
- • Also, why does Dr. Santos hate Dr. Langdon so ferociously?
