This week:
- The Pitt Season 2 and its fan circus come to an end.
- The world’s most unexpected Heated Rivalry news.
- The best thing you’ll read this week.
- Cheering on Lena Dunham.
- Truly bonkers casting.
The Pitt Fans Need Triage
People are so weird about The Pitt.
The Pitt.
The medical drama set in an emergency department starring Noah Wyle.
That’s not the kind of series you’d expect to incite fiery opinions, but a Molotov cocktail of discourse seems to have been thrown inside the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center this season. The show’s viewers have made the Heated Rivalry fans seem like the internet’s most sane people.
I’m not a sole observer of this phenomenon. In fact, observing the phenomenon is a media trend in itself.
Take a look at these headlines: “Many The Pitt Fans Are Proving That Yes, It’s Possible to Be Bad at Watching a TV Show” and “Are Pitt Bullies Real? Diagnosing the Newest Fandom Menace.” You read that right. “Pitt Bullies.”
They’re demanding that the show be things that it’s not, crafting a different kind of series they’d like to see in their minds, and then getting mad that The Pitt doesn’t oblige. Every creative decision, cast departure, actor interview, and even social media post is analyzed and then spun into a justification for the theory that there is some sort of malintent on the part of the show’s creators.
A major arc of Season 2 is Wyle’s Dr. Robby’s concerning descent into a suicidal spiral, in which the guy so good he’s practically a saint from Season 1 becomes somewhat of the show’s villain. Viewers are reading into which characters bore the brunt of his outbursts—women of color—and, again, finding malintent in that.
But it comes full circle. These are viewers interacting with a series they’re passionate about—a pretty normal thing!—only to be told they’re “bad at watching a TV show.” It’s all…exhausting.
I bring all this up because the finale just aired, sending all this weirdness into overdrive. (I have learned, in the last day on social media, that I am wrong to think the final scene was very sweet and moving. It is, in fact, smug liberal propaganda. Sorry for missing that political messaging on—checks notes—The Pitt.)
Having opinions on TV shows is a good thing. It’s why fandoms are fun, or at least used to be. Hey, it’s why I have a job! But it’s bizarre to see opinions about a series, especially one as seemingly straightforward as The Pitt, explode into a culture war.
I spent much of this season, for example, expressing my dismay that, to me, the episodes haven’t been as good as last year’s.
I didn’t think the season was disastrous by any means. The Pitt is a good show. It’s just that there seemed to be a monotony to each episode that was exasperating. Still, people reacted either like I had just committed heresy against their religion, or they were so elated that I said it, it was like I was hoisted on their shoulders while they cheered at the end of Rudy.
My take on the finale? (Light spoilers ahead.)
The birthing scene was one of the most impressive medical TV show set pieces I’ve ever seen—maybe the best, actually. I’ve always loved Katharine LaNasa’s performance, but I am grateful that she was given actual juicy material this year. Every time a character asked Dr. Robby why he was still at the hospital when his shift was over, I was like, yeah, leave already, man! Not to be insensitive to his dark thoughts, but it was getting incredibly exhausting.
I found the revelation about Dr. Al-Hashimi upsetting and unnecessary, not a juicy twist. And I think Dr. Robby becoming kind of an a--hole is far more interesting than when he was so perfect, though I will say his elevation of himself as the hospital Jesus who—he and only he—can keep the emergency department afloat to be insufferable. See? Nuance!
Mostly, I think there’s nothing to be mad about in a show like The Pitt, which is why this fan craze has been so absurd and surprising to me. And we get to do it all again in Season 3.
That’s My First Lady
Dr. Jill Biden, I wasn’t familiar with your game.
The former first lady bid $35,000 for a walk-on role on the next season of Heated Rivalry, which, lest you’re reading this from under the world’s largest rock, is famously “the gay sex hockey show.” The prize was part of an auction at a benefit for New York City’s LGBT Center. Dr. Jill, sadly, was outbid, with two $125,000 bidders winning, for a $250,000 total haul. (Amazing!)
It is 2026, but, yes, it is still shocking that a first lady is watching Ilya blow Shane’s back out in a racy TV show.
I have so many questions. Did she start watching after the show had become a huge hit? Was it the headlines about all the sex that piqued her interest (naughty minx)? Did she say things like, “Oh, I didn’t know men could do it in those positions”? Was Joe in the room with her? Did she cry as much as I did when Scott Hunter kissed Kip on the ice?
I am operating from a place that Dr. Jill did indeed watch the show, and wasn’t just bidding to support a good cause. I need something to hold on to. Also, imagine a world in which Heated Rivalry came out one year earlier. Connor Storie and Hudson Williams’ dump trucks would have been on display in the White House.
I’m also tickled by Dr. Jill’s response on X to all the news coverage of the event: “Guess I won’t be heading to the cottage after all—but it was worth a shot! What a wonderful evening supporting @LGBTCenterNYC.”
The Best Thing You’ll Read This Week
To reference Oprah Winfrey’s most powerful quote: “I love bread.”
So when I saw that one of my favorite writers, Caity Weaver, reported a feature for The Atlantic on which restaurant has the best free bread in America, it was an instant click.
By the nature of Weaver’s writing style, I expected the piece to be humorous and irreverent. I expected it to be thorough. I expected it to be well-reported, with niche experts on the record to get to the bottom of this vitally important mission.
Here’s where I admit what I didn’t expect to happen. I didn’t expect to cry while reading the Atlantic piece about free bread.
But that’s the nature of one’s passion for bread. And that’s how good this story is.
Justice for Lena Dunham
There’s nothing like feeling vindicated. I’ve been a Girls endorser since Day One and a Lena Dunham apologist for a decade.
It’s satisfying to see how, on the occasion of the release of her new memoir, Famesick, culture has finally come around to understanding how vital her voice, perspective, and real-time, sometimes messy candor is, as well as how disgustingly misogynistically she was treated at the height of her fame.
(Of course, I’m just speaking as a fan. I can’t imagine what this moment actually feels like, if anything, to Dunham herself.)
I haven’t read Famesick yet because the two bookstores in my neighborhood had already sold out by the time I walked over to buy it the day after it was released. But I’ve been fascinated by all the excerpts I’ve read and the revelations reported.
Moreover, I’ve been really struck by Dunham’s interviews on her press tour. My favorite is her in-depth conversation with David Marchese for The New York Times. There’s lots to dig into. But this bit, responding to a question about her relationship with music producer Jack Antonoff and how fame affected it, is, I have to say, pretty iconic:
It’s a unique privilege to have every breakup song you love written by your ex. I feel blessed. I was a really late bloomer. That was my first. I felt like you fall in love with someone and then you’re together for the rest of your life. That ending was extremely intense for me. I looked around and was like, Is everybody this upset about their breakup ?But it was also because of what it represented publicly for me: If you have this dynamic, intelligent, talented man who is signing off on you, how bad could you really be?
The Most Bonkers Casting News
This movie is either going to be high art or the campiest horror show cinema has ever seen, and I will be obsessed with it either way.
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
I interviewed Sarah Chalke from Scrubs, and she may be my new favorite person. Watch here.
Watching Elle Fanning do OnlyFans is my new favorite show. Read more.
Truly, what is the point of Euphoria coming back right now? Read more.
What to watch this week:
Margo’s Got Money Troubles: Michelle Pfeiffer is so fabulous in this, I almost had a heart attack. (Now on Apple TV)
Mother Mary: I’m sorry, you can’t convince me that Anne Hathaway as a pop star is anything but iconic. (Now in theaters)
Lorne: Listen, our collective fascination with SNL history is never going away. (Now in theaters)
Kevin: A series better be good to live up to such a prolific name as the title. (Mon. on Prime Video)
What to skip this week:
Beef: There was no way it was going to live up to that superb first season. (Now on Netflix)
Lee Cronin’s the Mummy: I forgot this movie existed until a poster on a subway platform gave me an unwelcome jumpscare. (Now in theaters)
