Everyone’s favorite ER superstar, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), expertly balances patient, staff, and personal crises in the second season of The Pitt, HBO Max’s Emmy-winning smash hit about the men and women manning the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.
Taking place over the course of a single 15-hour shift on an insanely busy and stressful July 4, R. Scott Gemmill’s series (January 8) doesn’t try to one-up its bracing debut, slowly easing its way back into the brand of overwhelming health-care mayhem that made it last year’s breakout small-screen drama.
Nonetheless, by its midway point, it hits a comfortably uncomfortable groove, all while further developing a terrific cast of characters whose heroism is as understated as it is inspiring. Avoiding the sophomore slump, it’s the most harrowingly realistic medical show on TV—and, also, the most empathetic.
There’s much to admire about Gemmill’s series, beginning with Wyle, whose Robby arrives at the ER on a motorcycle that he plans to ride to Canada on a three-month sabbatical that starts the following day. For now, though, he’s in the thick of things alongside his usual colleagues as well as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi of The Deuce and The L Word: Generation Q), who’s going to be handling his attending-physician duties while he’s away.
Theirs is an alternately tense and friendly rapport, complicated by their respective desires to be top dog and Al-Hashimi’s belief that she can improve the emergency room’s services (leading to greater patient satisfaction, faster turnaround, and financial success) through a variety of measures which include the use of generative AI—a new-school approach that the decidedly old-school Robby regards, unsurprisingly, with skepticism.
Wyle was born to play the charismatically commanding and compassionate Robby, who’s subtly wrestling with demons (hence his imminent leave of absence) and whose sternness with his underlings is matched by his supportiveness and his commitment to doing right by his patients—the last of which is epitomized by him getting on the phone with a sick waitress’ boss and telling the jerk, in no uncertain terms, “If you fire her, she will sue you, and I will testify on her behalf!!” After that, he comforts her with, “Don’t worry about it—we got you.”
Robby is the physician every in-need person dreams of being seen by, and the brilliance of Wyle’s performance (and Gemmill’s writing) is that he’s unafraid to display the protagonist’s pricklier and demanding sides, which make him seem less like a romantic ideal than a complex three-dimensional individual—and, thus, make his nobility in the face of internal and external hardships and hang-ups shine all the brighter.
Wyle’s portrait of everyday gallantry under fire is emblematic of The Pitt’s marriage of expertly defined players and multifaceted, nerve-wracking medical issues and responses, and its new run smartly recognizes that it doesn’t need to wow its audience with immediate fireworks. Instead, it slowly gets into its daily grind groove.
In the aftermath of being brutally assaulted at work, Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) has returned to the ER as the charge nurse, as loving and intimidating as ever. Also back is Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball), clean and sober after 10 months of rehab and counseling, and eager to make 12-step program amends with the comrades he feels he let down—a process that goes smoothly except with Robby.
As for the rest, Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) is now a full-fledged doctor and, nerves notwithstanding, finding ways to impress Robby. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) is still arrogantly cracking jokes, making bold assumptions, and rubbing certain people the wrong way. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) is figuring out what career path she wants to take and dealing with frustrating mom problems. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) is being hit on by interested patients. Melissa King (Taylor Dearden) is anxious about (and distracted by) an impending deposition. And Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) is in unofficial competition with James (Lucas Iverson), a medical student who, like Joy (Irene Choi), is trying to prove himself in this cauldron.
There isn’t an unlikable figure in The Pitt, only flawed but inherently decent men and women shouldering an enormous, selfless burden. And the series once again puts them through a gauntlet of cases, be it an elderly woman with an excessive daily diet of pot cookies, an injured bicyclist with eyes for King, an Alzheimer’s afflicted wife who’s incapable of remembering that her husband has just passed, a guy with an eight hours-and-counting erection, and a newborn that’s found abandoned in the bathroom.
These and numerous other dilemmas fill out the new episodes, and Gemmill’s storytelling is elevated by his interest in—and expert depiction of—the ER’s moment-to-moment logistical operations. On top of being a character-rich affair and a breathless medical thriller, the show is a fascinating x-ray of an emergency room, awash in drama-propelling details about the systemic processes that rule this rapid-fire milieu, where ingenuity, collaboration, and risk-taking are all equally useful implements in a doctor’s bag.
With handheld cinematography that captures the helter-skelter energy of the ER, where catastrophes materialize out of nowhere and exhausted doctors are pulled in so many directions that they appear to be on the verge of snapping, The Pitt functions at a consistent fever pitch.
Like The Bear, the series set such a manic bar in its first season that it’s almost inevitable that some viewers will be surprised by this go-round’s slightly more even-keeled tenor. Still, Gemmill is wise to avoid making insanity the show’s primary calling card, and his intense focus on his physicians’ plights serves the material well. Moreover, with its seventh installment, he kicks things up a notch via a calamity that’s quite different than the prior PittFest mass shooting and begets novel difficulties that highlight his subjects’ shrewdness and skill.
So assured is The Pitt that the loss of Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor) is barely felt, especially in light of the introduction of Al-Hashimi, whose feelings toward Robby—at once admiring and disapproving, charmed and frustrated—add an additional intriguing layer to the pulse-pounding proceedings.
Having established itself as TV’s best procedural, it builds upon its solid foundation with more eye-opening medical challenges, poignant tragedies, and heartening character development.
“We all need community,” says a lonely patient to Mohan, and with its superb second season, The Pitt remains one worth joining.
