last week<\/a>\u2019s episode was a real masterclass in subtle, evocative character work, this hour is much clunkier with what it\u2019s trying to say and how it\u2019s saying it. Some of it works\u2014mostly notably the fascinating choice to take Robby into full-on villain territory here\u2014but a lot of it feels unbalanced in a way this show avoids at its best. While the waterslide collapse turns out to be less of a mass-casualty event than I was expecting (there are just three collapse-related patients this week), perhaps the real mass-casualty event is the odd character turns we make along the way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nStill, it\u2019s the waterslide victims who anchor this hour with some of the gnarliest injuries we\u2019ve seen yet this season. The first arrives with the bottom half of her right leg cleanly guillotined off, a fact that feels even more eerie when Ogilvie is casually handed the dismembered limb on the helicopter pad. Thankfully, it actually turns out to be a best-case scenario for such a horrific accident\u2014the cut is clean enough that arrogant ortho-surgeon \u201cPark The Shark\u201d thinks he can reattach the leg. (This is a medical procedure I genuinely didn\u2019t realize was possible with such a major limb loss.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next patient is also \u201clucky\u201d with his injuries. Though he fell 20 feet through the air when the slide cracked, he walks away with just some blunt chest trauma and a freaky but fixable \u201cdegloved\u201d finger. Unfortunately, he has to deal with Santos, Langdon, Al-Hashimi, and Garcia hashing out all their simmering interpersonal drama while working on his injuries. Santos snipes at everything Langdon says. Al-Hashimi and Garcia take his side. And Santos is once again left feeling like she\u2019s all alone in the world\u2014a tough reality that\u2019s probably not as tough as, you know, not knowing if your seven-year-old son is dead or alive.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the waterslide dad through-line is a prime example of a story where I can\u2019t quite tell if The Pitt realizes just how poorly the doctors are acting. The idea of trying to hold onto your son only to drop him to his potential death because your finger is being ripped apart is one of the most horrific things I can imagine any parent living through. And yet the doctors barely even seem affected when the dad recounts the experience\u2014even someone like Langdon, who\u2019s had a bunch of fatherhood centric moments this season. (In fact, he almost immediately jumps back into his sassy workplace banter with Garcia.) I understand that there\u2019s nothing they can actively do to help the son and that doctors often need to emotionally compartmentalize in order to do their job. But why introduce such a horrific backstory if it\u2019s not even going to make our protagonists crack at least a little bit?\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other side of the spectrum, there\u2019s some notable repetition in what does make our doctors crack this week. I guess you could argue that between Roxie and Baby Jane Doe \u201cmotherhood\u201d has been one of the overarching themes of the season. But it\u2019s still a little redundant to have Javadi and Samira both stressing out over their overbearing moms in one episode. They\u2019re storylines that have been threaded throughout the season (and the series, for Javadi), so they don\u2019t exactly come out of nowhere. Yet the execution here is clunky. Why is McKay\u2014a single mom who knows about tough life experiences, complicated family relationships, and demanding doctors\u2014tossing off simplistic advice about how Javadi just needs to tell her mom how she\u2019s feeling and her mom will surely understand?\u00a0<\/p>\n
In retrospect, it\u2019s also a shame this season didn\u2019t build more naturally to Samira\u2019s panic attack, now that we know that\u2019s where her storyline has been headed. Last season gave her a clear arc about being the slow but attentive patient-focused doctor of the ER. This season, however, has thrown a whole bunch of story fragments at her without really taking the time to delve into any one of them. (Her mom! Dating! Her biological clock! Her fellowship! Her uninsured diabetes patient!) And while, sure, you could argue that panic attacks often stem from a whole bunch of different stressors hitting at once, the show hasn\u2019t effectively built up to that \u201ceverything in my life is falling apart at once\u201d feeling it\u2019s going for, mostly because Supriya Ganesh just hasn\u2019t had enough screen time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What works as a more effective surprise is the absolutely horrendous way Robby responds to Samira\u2019s panic attack. It\u2019s shocking in the moment because it\u2019s a dramatic escalation from even the simmering tension he and Samira had last season. And yet given the way Robby has been slowly, silently cracking for a season and a half now, it makes sense too. Robby thinks strength comes from shoving down weakness; he\u2019s practically built his identity around his ability to push through a work-related panic attack, like the one he had during the mass-shooting triage. So when he sees someone else not able to live by \u201chis\u201d rule, he responds not with empathy for having walked her path but with frustration that she can\u2019t walk his.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Given the show\u2019s tendency to hero worship Robby, it\u2019s nice to see the writers actively and unequivocally depict his flaws for once too. There\u2019s no question that Al-Hashimi is right to call out his \u201ctough love\u201d approach. (\u201cThis is the ED; it\u2019s not for the faint of heart,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not for the unempathetic either,\u201d she replies.) And there\u2019s no question that his half-assed apology does nothing to undo the damage he caused to Samira, who\u2019s now the one determined to prove herself by shoving her own feelings down in a very Robby-esque way. It\u2019s also worth noting that the way Robby snaps at Samira is exactly the uncharacteristic way she snaps at random patients in the hallway just before her own panic attack\u2014another in a very, very long list of signs that Robby really isn\u2019t doing okay this season.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it\u2019s such an effective moment that it only makes the odd character work elsewhere stand out more. While it\u2019s sweet to see Langdon emphasize Becca\u2019s HIPPA rights over her UTI diagnosis, I\u2019m a little confused by the ultimate \u201csurprise\u201d reveal that Becca has a boyfriend she\u2019s been having sex with. It makes sense from a PSA perspective (the show wants to emphasize that medium-support-needs autistic adults can have romantic and sexual lives), but less so from a character one. The one thing we know about the King sisters is that they talk every day and seemingly share every detail of their lives. Why would Becca be hiding her boyfriend from Mel and why would she suddenly decide to excitedly tell her now?<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s certainly possible that next week\u2019s episode will resolve that contradiction in an interesting way, it can be hard to know when to trust that this show is building toward something greater and when it\u2019s just missing the mark. The exciting thing about The Pitt is that it\u2019s always living in the present, but that can also be a hindrance. For instance, without knowing what Santos and Garcia\u2019s casual romance has been like and what Garcia actually knows about Langdon\u2019s departure, it\u2019s hard to tell what to make of the harsh scene where Garcia tells Santos she needs to \u201cput on her big girl panties\u201d and get over his return.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia claims that Langdon \u201cmade a mistake and owned up to it,\u201d which isn\u2019t really what happened. He didn\u2019t own up to anything until Robby went through his locker based on Santos\u2019 suspicions. The idea that Santos has been a pariah for the last 10 months because no one really knows what happened with Langdon is an interesting one, as is Garcia\u2019s counter that Santos might just be disliked because she \u201cdoesn\u2019t play well with others.\u201d But with so many storylines to juggle and so many bad attitudes going around, it\u2019s unclear what will actually float to the top in the final five episodes of the season. It\u2019s certainly possible that \u201c4:00 P.M.\u201d will make more emotional sense once it\u2019s in conversation with the rest of the season. But, for now, it\u2019s a bit of an odd, unresolved puzzle piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stray observations<\/p>\n
\u2022 While all of the Roxie-related scenes this week are lovely, I almost wish the show had saved them for another hour where it felt like she was in more of the A-story. I\u2019m also surprised her death doula hasn\u2019t been playing a more active role in her tale, although it\u2019s nice to see McKay step up with some words of advice for Roxie\u2019s older son.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Becca\u2019s deposition and the arrival of Robby\u2019s friend Duke are two storylines that got a lot of buildup but not much in the way of satisfying payoff\u2014at least not yet.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Another moment that felt off to me: Dana trying to talk Langdon out of paying for Louie\u2019s funeral and\/or setting up a GoFundMe to pay for it. I\u2019d understand if he was obsessing over a patient he barely knew, but Louie existed in enough of a friend space that it seems like a sweet, healthy gesture rather than an unhealthy coping mechanism.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u2022 You rarely see people smoking in contemporary-set TV shows anymore, so it\u2019s a nice bit of realism to have nicotine cravings be so central to Monica\u2019s storyline.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u2022 They\u2019ve really been emphasizing the security door between the waiting room and the ER this season. I wonder if we\u2019re going to get someone trying to break in later. I\u2019m also curious what the show is building to with Ogilvie and his English-teacher patient.
\n\u2022 \u201cOnly an idiot would ride all night after working a 12-hour day.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u2022 Gnarliest moment of the week: This is maybe the most competitive this category has been all season! The amputated leg, degloved finger, and Duke\u2019s throat scope are all strong contenders. But the one procedure I actually had to watch from behind my hands is Al-Hashim\u2019s \u201cslash trach\u201d on the eight-year-old kid. That fact that she\u2019s clearly nervous while she does it really ups the tension.<\/p>\n
Caroline Siede is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As viewers, we know this season of The Pitt is going to last for 15 hours, but as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-532917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}