Season 2’s ICE episode makes clear who the show’s villain is.

Part of the fun of watching The Pitt, HBO Max’s award-winning medical procedural, is seeing all manner of people come through Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room for treatment: women with eyelids accidentally glued together, men missing half their brains thanks to motorcycle accidents, or kids who’ve lost fingers to fireworks. But in Thursday’s latest episode, the 11th in the show’s second season, we meet for the first time in the show’s history two visitors who are most definitely not welcome in the ER: a pair of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Roughly halfway through the episode, two federal agents arrive while transporting a woman with her hands restrained. The agents had been conducting an immigration sweep of a local restaurant, prompting her and other kitchen staff to try to flee. After injuring her shoulder during her detainment, she now needs to be treated before she can be sent away for processing and, presumably, deportation.

As soon as the ICE agents appear, in their body armor and neck gaiters, the mood in the ER shifts. In the background, passersby—both staff and patients—stop what they’re doing and stare angrily. Some seem to quietly shake their heads. The woman, named Pranita (Ramona DuBarry), is both tearful and terrified. Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) hovers over her medical inspection to provide an air of authority and protection. The mood is quiet, tense, as the agents (Juju Alexander as Agent Russo and Josell Mariano as Agent Correa) deny Pranita the chance to phone her daughter. Soon, though, word of ICE’s presence spreads and some patients in the ER waiting room start leaving, rather than risk being detained as they receive treatment. Two nurses leave, too; even though they have Temporary Protected Status, they don’t feel safe. Eventually, Robby lashes out, telling one of the agents, whose eyes are peeking out from behind his face covering, to make himself less visible so that no one else flees the ER. “Patients come in here for help … because they’re either sick or they’re injured,” Robby tells him. “Documented or undocumented, they have a right to emergency care.”

The timing of this episode, and its reminder of the basic human dignity of all people, can be no accident. It was filmed in December, right as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota was ramping up, allowing The Pitt to respond almost in real time to the anti-ICE sentiments currently sweeping the U.S. “I can say that all of us are approaching what’s going on in this country right now with a certain trepidation, and also awareness that there are some possible risks to telling certain kinds of stories,” lead producer John Wells told the Daily Beast last month.

Many fans of the series have said they’ve been drawn to The Pitt because of the thrill of watching smart, qualified people rise to challenges amid a political era of hacky and inhumane idiocy. These shows have been dubbed “competency porn” because of their ability to provide a sense of escapism. In its second season, however, The Pitt has made clear it’s not here to ignore Trumpism, but to confront it head-on—a mission that prompted the New York Times’ Frank Bruni to call it “the most patriotic show on television.” In these episodes, we have seen the medical workers care for the homeless, the immigrant, the uninsured with a kindness and compassion now missing in our federal government. Often, their patients have been dealing with the fallout of the government’s failure or cruelty. By Episode 11, though, the staff’s anger at their, and their patients’, chaotic circumstances has reached a breaking point. When Robby confronts one of the ICE agents, his message could just as easily be aimed at the president himself: “Time for you to go. You’ve been nothing but a distraction and a disruption since you’ve been here.”

Donald Trump may not be mentioned by name in The Pitt, but throughout this season in particular, it’s clear the show takes place in his shadow. In Episode 8, we hear Dr. Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) mention that she’d been participating in a study examining the racial disparities in health care until the White House cut its funding. “Yeah, you are not alone,” Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) tells her. In the subsequent episode, we see staff treat a 12-year-old boy who has a fireworks injury to his hand and whose legal guardian is now his sister—their parents having been deported back to Haiti. “I won’t let you separate us,” the boy’s sister screams as Dr. Robby tells her they will need to inform Child Services because they detected alcohol in his system.

Episode 11, though, is where our current politics manifest themselves most undeniably in a scene that directly evokes the chaos and brutality we’ve witnessed from federal agents in states across the country. When the ICE agents try to take Pranita before she’s been put in a sling, grabbing her by the arm and hurting her, nurse Jesse (Ned Brower) intervenes but is wrestled to the ground. Staff from across the ER rush over to the commotion. Dr. Javadi (Shabana Azeez) grabs her cellphone and starts recording, as do other bystanders, to which one of the agents responds by instinctively obscuring his face behind his mask. As Jesse is handcuffed and led away, Robby urges him not to say anything before the hospital attorney reaches him at whatever unknown detention center he’s being taken to. “I can’t believe this shit,” nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) screams. It’s one of the most chaotic moments in the entire season, and it’s clear who is responsible, even if we never see him on the screen.

The decision to set this season of The Pitt on the Fourth of July—like in Season 1, each episode covers another hour of that day’s long shift—at first seemed to me like an expedient plotting choice. Independence Day is one of the busiest days of the year for hospital emergency rooms, and The Pitt hasn’t shied away from showing some of that chaos. We’ve seen patients with heat stroke, fireworks wounds, gruesome injuries obtained during boating mishaps, margarita burns, and even someone suffering after a hotdog-eating contest. But this latest episode emphasizes that this choice of time also allows The Pitt to say something grander about America, as the country readies itself to mark its 250th anniversary this summer amid such dark times.

Ryan Gosling’s New Movie Is Out of This World

Kerry Washington and Elisabeth Moss Star in Apple TV’s New Thriller. It’s Compellingly Watchable.

Here in this sometimes grimy, always understaffed hospital emergency room, you can find the very best of America. The Pitt is a melting pot where staff members of all races and religions take care of patients as diverse as they are. The medically obese, people with disabilities, or victims of sexual assault are all treated with dignity and decency, rather than being met with the kind of cruel jokes we have seen from our president. In the real world, you’ll probably never learn the names of these nurses or doctors. You might even forget they exist. But in a news cycle swamped by villains, The Pitt wants to remind you there are unsung heroes among us who work each day to make a more perfect union. It’s a moving message, delivered in one of the most effective episodes of the series so far.

“Just having one of those busy days, living the dream. You know, saving America’s tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Dr. Robby tells hospital psychologist Jefferson (Christopher Thornton) in Episode 4, evoking the poem “The New Colossus” that is mounted on the Statue of Liberty, itself a symbol for America. When Jefferson responds by telling Robby he’s a saint, what’s left unsaid is the tense through line of Season 2: In this analogy, we know just who the sinners are.

Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.