Parental tensions on the holidays are the worst. Mummy and Daddy bickering and sniping as the stress of trying to cope with keeping a bunch of unruly kids entertained on a bank holiday. I suspect most of us can empathise with that.
Well, on this particular holiday, we’ve finally reached that point as the simmering tension between Dr Robinavich and Charge Nurse Dana Evans finally erupt in an episode of barely restrained irritation. If anything underscores how much this season has been about the stresses of the work environment unravelling the balance of those who work in it, its Dana and Robby finally going toe to toe.
The catalyst is, of course, last week’s cliffhanger. When we left The Pitt last week, first day trainee nurse Emma was being held in a headlock by the aggressive, previously passed out golfer. Enter Dana, who dives into the room to rescue her young charge and, while we don’t see what happens, it’s pretty clear she tranquillises the assailant and smacks him in the face.
Incidentally, among all the various euphemistic codes the hospital employs, it turns out an assault on staff is the unexpectedly cheery sounding Code Hula Hoop.
Dana, after her assault last season, is not in the mood for any transgressions against her staff – in part to protect them from what she went through, which led to her taking time away from the hospital, and in part from some projected vengeance for her own assailant. Which, it turns out, is why she carries a loaded syringe of strong tranquillisers in her scrubs, for just such an occasion.
Robby, who has spent the last couple of episodes slowly seeing his already shaky equilibrium being completely knocked off centre, is unimpressed and keeps needling at Dana to ask what actually happened between her and the golf yob.
Now, let’s be clear here. Robby is, from a management point of view, entirely right. Dana’s assaulted and knocked unconscious a patient which puts the hospital at all kinds of legislative risk, not to mention could have made the patient – who has to be sent for a CT scan to check for any head injuries – significantly worse.
But the increasingly disordered Robby’s attitude to Dana – and other members of staff, which we’ll come back to – is absolutely awful. Dana, his blunt, no-nonsense friend and colleague for years, who he treated after she was punched in the face by a patient not even a year ago, and who has managed to keep the ER running amidst a day of chaos, is looking out for another member of her nursing team just minutes after one of their colleagues has been arrested by ICE agents.
The writing here is opaque – deliberately so. We’re supposed to support Dana’s actions but not condone them, and supposed to support Robby’s holistic concern but not his attitude. The problem is that Robby’s concern doesn’t come from a place of concern. At least, not for Dana.
One of the darker hints running through this last few episodes has been the suggestion that Robby’s not planning to come back from his bike trip. Take that how you want to interpret it – either fleeing on the open road or, for a show which has openly played with suicidal ideation in the past, that he’s looking for a final way out.
From the way he talks to Dana, and to Baran Al Hashimi about how the place will run in his absence, there’s a strong suggestion he wants to leave the place the way he wants it before he checks out his shift for good, and he’s starting to lose control of that ability to do so because of everything else going on around him.
It’s an increasingly uncomfortable vibe around the episode, highlighted by a couple of shots which mirror Mohan’s panic attack earlier this season, with Robby walking through the ER, camera ahead of him tracking his movement while the sound distorts slightly. Coupled with Wyle’s performance – which manages to ramp up his character’s increasing desperation – it’s a genuinely affecting moment. After nearly two seasons of Robby being a vulnerable hero, we’re seeing the cracks widening minute by minute.
Samira, incidentally, also gets it from Robby again. Throughout the episode her and Mel are dealing with an elderly couple who have come in, with increasing concerns about their ability to look after each other. Having previously hinted at Mohan’s ability to manage elderly patients well when Al Hashimi suggested she look at geriatrics as a specialty, Samira’s patient approach and deductive reasoning helps them find a solution – the husband has been prescribed a combination of medications which have affected his mobility and balance, and managing those will help him care better for his wife. It’s a good piece of doctoring, and Robby compliments her on it – also suggesting she might want to consider geriatrics… and then skewering her with it as he says she’s better suited to the pace of it.
It’s a callback to last season where her thoroughness meant she was being upbraided by Robby for seeing less patients than others working the ER. And it’s delivered here as a backhanded compliment in the wake of Robby lambasting her for her panic attack. Supriya Ganesh plays the scene brilliantly too, her happiness at success with the case and delivering her results to Robby just quietly falling away at the callousness of his comment.
The 12th hour of the shift is when handover’s due to take place – albeit slower than normal because of the paperwork backlog from the cyberattack. First out the door is med student Joy – who points out she’s done her day and despite Langdon suggesting she might want to stick around for a couple more hours due to the crisis, cheerfully walks out the door, countering they might want to think about stronger boundaries instead.
We can’t blame her either – after a chaotic first day which ended with her mis-stapling a head laceration (as Santos says, ‘We never say oops in front of a patient…’), and as someone who has no interest in entering emergency medicine, she wants to keep her sanity. Joy also gets to deliver the on-point infodump of the episode, reminding Langdon that the industry has a major problem with doctor burnout.
It’s one of the most forgotten parts of public service roles – the expectation you work longer, unpaid, to catch up paperwork, cover for folk and generally keep places running through goodwill beyond your actual T&Cs. Teaching and Medical roles both suffer horrendously from something that’s taken for granted and Joy saying the quiet part out loud doesn’t do any harm, no matter how on the nose it is.
Kudos to director Amanda Marsalis who has some fun with the background shots in the episode – including a previously seen dayglo pink victim of sunburn being walked quietly through the background of a serious dialogue scene, or the unflappable Dr Shen (and his iced coffee) arriving as Joy talks about burnout. Oh, and Matteo’s back – much to Javadi’s flirty delight, bless her.
The other big focus of the episode is Santos. Not only do we get to see more of her fury about Langdon and, more importantly, understand why – rightly pointing out to Whittaker that Langdon treated her badly before she rumbled his drug theft, and that he should by rights be in jail (and as an aside, it’s notable Al Hashimi absolutely cold-shoulders Langdon this episode after overhearing him and Santos’ row last week). We know from before that Trinity has self-harmed because of her stress, and we see her pocketing a scalpel from the trolly when nobody’s looking.
But the vulnerable side of Santos can’t last forever, as she and Whittaker have it out over his flatsitting for Robby. He wants her to admit she likes having him as a roommate, and that’s why she’s upset he wouldn’t be there But that involves being nice, so the defensive walls go up and instead she calls him a ‘fuckelberry’ and storms off. Who’s going to be the white knight that saves her from harm, do we reckon?
Grizzly factor: The scalp laceration so deep it’s turned the unfortunate patient – blown into a garage door by an exploding firework – into a natural wig wearer is spectacularly gruesome. Not helped by the wince-inducing sound of staples bolting his hairline back in place…
Best quote: “You’re worried if you don’t leave tonight, you won’t leave at all. I get it. I can feel it in the air here. This place is like quicksand.”
The Pitt – Season 2 Episode 12: “06:00pm”
Written by Danny Hogan & R. Scott Gemmill
Directed by Amanda Marsalis
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