6:00 PM
Season 2
Episode 12
Editor’s Rating
5 stars
*****
Photo: Warrick Page/HBO Max
Perhaps we call it Chekov’s hula hoop from now on. Come on, you knew the moment Dana explained to Emma in the premiere that ‘hula hoop’ was used as a signal for healthcare worker assault that the phrase would be needed at some point on this shift. In “6:00 P.M.,” we watch the Code Hula Hoop through Robby’s eyes, which is to say, we don’t actually see what’s happening until it’s mostly over. When Robby races into the room, our drunk country clubber is being restrained, and his nose is bleeding. Emma is being checked out by some of her fellow nurses, but seems more or less okay, and Dana explains that she sedated him with some Versed she had in her pocket and the bloody nose is from when he slipped during the chaos. It’s clear she hasn’t given him all the details, and Robby has some follow-up questions.
It’s this incident that finally forces the tension that’s been bubbling between these two to boil over. Oh, baby, were you waiting for Dana to finally let it rip on Robby? You got it. The two have multiple conversations throughout the hour that only get more heated as we go along. I think we can all assume Dana gave that piece of shit a bloody nose, and she didn’t just happen to have that Versed in her pocket — she’s been carrying it around. At the very least, we can assume that’s what Robby assumes, which is perhaps why he seems more annoyed this guy is going to have to get a head CT to see if he has a brain bleed or fracture than is concerned for his staff. He wants her to pass this whole case off to another nurse and Dana refuses. Robby may claim the ED as his, but the nurses are Dana’s and she’s not going to let anyone else go near that guy. If he thinks she’d do otherwise, well, she tells him, “You better give your fucking head a shake.” Dana is pissed, and that’s not going away any time soon. As if it isn’t already obvious, nobody should ever fuck with Dana Evans and that includes you, Michael Rabinavitch.
See their next interaction: Once again, Robby is annoyed by the inconvenience of the situation. Now Dana’s “guy” has bumped Duke in line for the CT. And since Robby has made it clear he isn’t leaving until Duke gets that CT, this is inconveniencing him, too. Dana is so over his whining about not being able to leave this place and his condescending concern about how she could be on the hook for what she did to Mr. Country Club. “Anyone else uses force to stop an assault, they’re a hero, but a nurse does it and we’re punished,” she spits at him. The woman has a point. He presses her for more details about the Versed until she has had enough of the questioning — coming from LaNasa’s mouth that Nancy Drew dig honestly stings — and walks off to the bathroom. Alone, she lets out a string of “fucks” that anyone who has been overwhelmed by anger, adrenaline, and hurt all at once will recognize. She’s barely holding it together.
Robby isn’t done with her. Not much later, he pulls her aside to finish their conversation. She’s exhausted by everything she’s had to put up with today — Emma getting attacked twice today, ICE detaining Jesse, the chaos of the cyberhack — and on top of everything, she’s watching Robby slip into this version of himself she doesn’t recognize. “Sometimes it’s like you’re just tempting death because you don’t give a shit anymore,” she tells him. Pointing out what we’ve all been thinking since the premiere: It’s not exactly subtle that the place he’s riding off to is called “Head-Smashed-In.” Mercifully, he gets pulled away for an incoming trauma before he can be too much of a smart ass back. Dana turns away from him, but we get the full view of her as she tries to hold back tears and wins her second Emmy Award.
How many people calling him out is it going to take for Robby to admit he needs serious help? A few more, apparently! Duke has been reading him since he showed up at the hospital. Still waiting for his CT scan, he asks Robby why he’s so determined to get out riding tonight — it’s clearly not a great idea after such a long day. Is he worried that if he doesn’t leave tonight, he never will? Robby laughs the question off, but Duke says that just in the few hours he’s been here, he understands why Robby would feel that way. “I can feel it in the air here, this place is like quicksand.” Robby doesn’t have a response and again gets pulled away on a case before he can be forced to find one. Later, McKay tells him she has been picking up a weird vibe from him and warns him about her old friends who felt the need to see how close to “the edge” they could get, like it was a compulsion to tempt fate, and unfortunately most of them found it.
Everyone even remotely close to Robby is picking up that vibe and they aren’t even privy to some of Robby’s most telling private moments like we are. Take, for instance, the little Latin back-and-forth Robby and Santos have while working on the patient who was thrown across his storage unit after a firework went off — his scalp is falling off his skull, and he has pericardial effusion — after he talks about gunpowder being in his blood (metaphorically speaking). Robby refers to it as “amor fati,” but the ever-cynical Santos chimes in that it seems more like “memento mori.” Robby’s reply? “Tomato, to-mah-to.” No wonder Santos raises her eyebrows. If Robby is saying that amor fati, the idea of accepting, embracing, or even loving your fate, is basically the same as memento mori, a reminder that we all die, that death could come at any moment, should we be drawing the conclusion that more than accepting death, he may be saying that he is embracing it? Loving the idea of it? Even if Santos only clocks it as some bleak outlook on life and not an admission that he’s suicidal, the way Robby has to catch his breath after that conversation perhaps points us toward his meaning. And don’t even get me started on the fact that the patient who brings all of this up is named Dante. That guy was memento mori-ing all over the place.
So take all of that tension, the fact that it’s getting harder and harder for Robby to push his feelings away from the surface, add in another confrontation with Dr. Al-Hashimi in which she informs him that she’ll be recommending the ED always have two Attendings every shift because this is too much for anyone to handle, and Robby is primed for a screaming match with Dana. He finds her outside on a break and simply cannot let their conversations from earlier go. He calls her out for carrying that Versed around in case Doug Driscoll or someone like him ever came around. She could lose her nursing license for that. He’s so angry because she is supposed to keep this place running when (not “while!”) he’s gone. She finally lets him have it about the way he’s handling Langdon. She knows he’s angry with himself, that he is taking it as a personal failure, and that’s why he’s unable to forgive and move on. And when he goes off about not being able to leave this place in the state that it’s in, she calls him on that, too. Can he not stay here one more minute, or can he not leave? Despite how Robby acts, this ED is bigger than one person — it survived without Adamson (he flinches at this name), without her while she was gone, and it’ll survive without him. It’s hard to watch these two fight like this, but it’s also an incredible relief.
The Pitt cleverly juxtaposes the breakdown of Robby and Dana’s relationship with the building of one between Santos and Whitaker. Whitaker can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong with Santos today, but instead of accusing her of things, he just wants to make sure she’s okay. When he comes to check on her he might not notice, but we see her grabbing a scalpel from the suture cart and stuffing it in her pocket. The slow burn of Santos getting repeatedly plowed over with stress and emotion has led her to contemplate self-harm again. She tries to brush Whitaker off with her special brand of abrasiveness, but it doesn’t work on him anymore and he pushes. Once again The Pitt is incredible at turning the Langdon/Santos situation on its head. She tells Whitaker — and reminds us — that when everything went down it was her first day as a doctor. He spent that shift gaslighting her, making her question her skills. It took her a long time to recover from that, and it feels like no one remembers or cares about how it went down. But just as she’s opening up to Whitaker, she retreats. Why does he care about any of this or her anyway if he’s the one leaving their apartment to move into Robby’s? Whitaker’s realization that Santos actually likes living with him — actually likes him — is equal parts hilarious and sweet. I mean, the conversation ends with Santos yelling “Fuckleberry” at him again, but at this point I think we all know that’s a term of endearment.
There’s another nice juxtaposition in this episode, this time highlighting Robby’s callousness. When we get to see Dana repeatedly check on Emma, tell her to go home, and not be afraid of sticking up for herself by filing a police report. When Emma — who doesn’t want to leave early because she’s not a quitter — thanks Dana for saving her and Dana tells her she has her back, it’s hard not to compare this to the way Robby reacted to Mohan struggling just a few hours ago. He in no way had her back. It felt so unlike Robby in the moment, but even more so when we get a reminder of how superiors should support their team.
Speaking of Mohan, she gets a nice storyline where she once again shows off her skills with geriatric medicine (even if she refuses to acknowledge those skills) when Mr. and Mrs. Cohen come in after Mr. Cohen, who is obviously (at least, obviously to Mohan and Mel) experiencing some balance and gait issues, hits his wife with his car. She only has a hairline fracture, but when their daughter Carrie arrives, we get an important discussion about finding that right balance between respecting an older person’s independence and agency with making sure they’re safe. Mr. Cohen’s comment about how old people know what it’s like to be young, but young people have no idea what it is to be old was actually one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard and that’s why you hire Dann Florek for a guest spot, I guess. The compromise the Cohens come to is almost all thanks to Mohan and it’s a big win for her after a rough day.
And before that day gets rougher. At the end of the hour, the paramedics bring in a man who took an “unwitnessed” fall from the catwalk where he works. He’s intubated. It looks bad. Mohan instantly recognizes him: It’s Orlando Diaz, her patient who left against medical advice. Yeah, Mohan’s going to want to remember her six o’clock hour win.
• Mateo just clocked in for the night shift, baby! Of course he’s on the hot shift now. Javadi has not gotten any less awkward around him in the 10 months since she first met him.
• My sweet Shen shows up for work, too, iced Dunkin in hand, of course. Thank god. We need someone to be at least a little bit chill around here.
• The way my body seized up upon seeing that woman with the insane sunburn. Wear your sunscreen, people!!
• More evidence that this entire staff is on the brink of burnout: McKay tells Langdon that she’s gotten too good at compartmentalizing her feelings that she can’t turn them back on again. She can’t cry anymore. His offer to hug her does not help.
• There are a lot of reasons to like Joy Kwon, but bringing Whitaker’s “Phantom of the Pit” nickname to our attention is top of the list.
Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter
Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related