{"id":253389,"date":"2026-01-23T10:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T10:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/253389\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T10:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T10:34:07","slug":"season-2-episode-3-900-a-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/253389\/","title":{"rendered":"season 2, episode 3, “9:00 A.M.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As someone who doesn\u2019t usually start my work day until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m., I\u2019d forgotten just how early the ER staff clock in each morning. So it makes sense that after two slightly<\/a> slower<\/a> re-introductory episodes, \u201cthe day is starting to heat up\u201d here at 9:00 a.m. There\u2019s a great oner early in this episode that recaps just how much has happened before most people have even gotten to their Fourth Of July parades: the extended erection patient is discharged, the Russian patient from the waiting room is wheeled back, and the Hansen family bacon grease burn victim is sent home with ointment and gauze\u2014only to discover his dad hanging out in the waiting room with an injury of his own. That\u2019s all while a combative college student screams and fights his doctors in one exam room and our deaf patient finally gets an ASL interpreter. Welcome to the Pitt!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of the magic of the show is how it manages to juggle so many ongoing storylines at once\u2014from unhoused (and mercifully maggot-free) patient Digby getting some words of encouragement and kindness from Dana to sweet Louie still getting his stomach drained. And that\u2019s on top of all the new patients we meet this week too, including three victims of a car-meets-motorcycle accident involving a rare potassium condition, a hot athlete with eyes for McKay, and a \u201cromantic\u201d Walmart greeter played by Michael Nouri.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new verve to this episode now that the rest of the world is finally awake and active. And that helped snap some things into focus for me, including the idea that religion is emerging as one of the main themes of the season. The first patient Robby talked to at the start of his shift was a frantic believer begging for Jesus to forgive her before she dies. Since then, we\u2019ve had a Catholic nun and a discussion of Javadi\u2019s Hindu faith. Now this week, we get an exploration of Judaism as Robby meets one of the survivors of the 2018 Tree Of Life synagogue shooting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One thing about The Pitt is that it\u2019s admirably committed to weaving real-life Pittsburgh history into its fictional world. Last season, we got a celebration of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, and here we get a nod to the Zambelli Fireworks company that helped make Pittsburgh \u201cthe firework capital of America.\u201d And this episode also acknowledges that Pittsburgh experienced the deadliest attack on a Jewish community in American history\u2014a trauma that links back to the PittFest shooting and also ties into the Fourth Of July setting, where fireworks are often a painful trigger for victims of gun violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While I followed the horrific news of the Tree Of Life shooting at the time, I actually hadn\u2019t realized that the synagogue hasn\u2019t reopened since the massacre (although there are plans to rebuild). That alone is a reminder that the trauma of gun violence lingers long after the events have left the headlines. While the world may move on, the survivors are changed forever. And thanks to the wonderfully empathetic work of Noah Wyle and guest star Irina Dubova, The Pitt explores that idea in a way that doesn\u2019t feel exploitative or sensationalized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea of timelines of grief and trauma also ties into Robby\u2019s lack of a helmet from the premiere\u2014which gets even more pointed when a helmet-less motorcycle rider is brought in brain-dead. When his colleagues scoff at how dangerous motorcycles are, Robby actively lies and claims he always wears a helmet. In fact, it now seems like he keeps a helmet on the back of his bike solely so he can keep up appearances as he walks into work, which is a level of deception that echoes back to Langdon\u2019s addiction issues last season. While Robby isn\u2019t plagued by COVID flashbacks like he once was, it\u2019s clear he\u2019s not yet processing his grief and trauma in a healthy way either.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, more so than his casual Judaism, Robby\u2019s true religious devotion is to the idea of gut instinct, as we learned last week. Yet as with so many faiths, pushing that devotion too far can cause problems of its own. There\u2019s a lot of celebration of the power of gut instinct in this episode. McKay is correct that there\u2019s something else going on with her patient Mr. Williams, whose head scan reveals he has a brain tumor. And his ex-wife has the right gut instinct that he needs someone by his side, even though they haven\u2019t spoken in years. It\u2019s the same gut instinct that gets husband and wife car crash victims Mark and Nancy Ye to realize what really matters in life, when their petty arguments seem so much less important in the life-or-death space of a hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet the concept of gut instinct can also be a way to avoid accountability: a biker who thinks he\u2019s too good to need a helmet; a security guard who dresses up his pretty obvious racism as a \u201cgut instinct\u201d about a student being on drugs; a wife who understandably but also tragically assumes her husband\u2019s personality is changing for the worst, rather than that something is wrong with his brain; a doctor who gets mad at a potentially abusive father rather than collecting all the facts about his daughter\u2019s unusual platelet condition first; a family who pools their pills because surely what works for one of them must work for all, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n

That The Pitt can explore those ideas across a range of comedic and dramatic storylines is part of what makes it so captivating. The ER is an ever-shifting place\u2014especially now that Westbridge Hospital is closed to trauma and PTMC will be taking all their ambulance traffic\u2014but that also makes it a perfect microcosm of the human experience. It\u2019s a high-pressure environment that can bring people together, as it does for Mark and Nancy in this week\u2019s most moving plot. (Their parallel arcs are so beautiful.) But it\u2019s also one that can drive people apart, as it does for the not-abusive dad and his girlfriend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We see hints of how that might play out for our doctors and nurses this season. Med student Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) seems a lot less cocky now that the ER is starting to get more brutal, while Robby and Al-Hashimi start to find an actual groove as co-attendings this week. She jokes around about commitment in a way that proves she\u2019s not just a stick in the mud. And the way she takes the time to reassure Nancy in the midst of her husband coding is the sort of real-time patient communication Robby sometimes lacks. There\u2019s hope here that the two attendings can find a better balance than they did in their first two hours of the day. But by the end of this episode, it\u2019s only 10:00 a.m. and that means there\u2019s still a whole lot of this shift left to go.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 Another religious connection: Langdon has been reading a book of blessings by Irish poet John O\u2019Donohue, who helped popularize Celtic spirituality. The subplot about three gentle dads trying to get beads out of a kid\u2019s nose is so sweet.\u00a0
\n\u2022 We also get an acknowledgement of Perlah\u2019s Muslim faith, as Yana thanks her for the way the Muslim community stepped in to offer support after the Tree Of Life shooting.\u00a0
\n\u2022 The fact that the nine year old\u2019s dad isn\u2019t abusive but is still an asshole is such an odd half-measure for the \u201cSantos guessed wrong\u201d storyline. I\u2019m not sure why they couldn\u2019t go all-in on her assumption being incorrect.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u2022 I feel like anytime I go to a doctor they have me fill out a new medical form, so I\u2019m a little confused by the idea of someone getting left as your emergency contact for years on end.\u00a0
\n\u2022 I love how openly Yana calls out Robby\u2019s motorcycle sabbatical as a midlife crisis. (\u201cYou\u2019re a middle-aged man; don\u2019t be stupid.\u201d)\u00a0
\n\u2022 Security guard Ahmad sets up a new betting grid for the day: Why did Westbridge close? How long will they be closed? And how many new patients will arrive because of it?
\n\u2022 Gnarliest moment of the week: It\u2019s gotta be the motorcycle head trauma. Wear a helmet, kids! <\/p>\n

Caroline Siede is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As someone who doesn\u2019t usually start my work day until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m., I\u2019d forgotten just how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-253389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}