Season 2 of The Pitt takes place about 10 months after the events of Season 1, as Robby rolls into the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center on his motorbike, dangerously overtaking an ambulance, whilst his helmet is attached to his backpack. I’m sure Robby knows that that’s not where a helmet should be, but at the same time, he also has a habit of standing on the ledge of the titular building, probably after every shift. So, yeah, calling him “suicidal” wouldn’t be a stretch. As Robby walks through security, we get some information about how the day and the season are going to go. Episode 1 is centered around the first hour, which is 7 AM to 8 AM, of Robby’s 12-hour shift. And the day is the 4th of July, the Independence Day of the United States of America. So, while the PittFest mass casualty incident was an unprecedented event, I guess that in this case the staff is more or less prepared for what’s about to transpire once the drinking, partying, and fireworks start going off. As Robby runs into Donnie, we learn about the main conflict: Robby is going on sabbatical after this shift, and he has to bring the new attending physician, Baran Al-Hashimi, up to speed. How does that go? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Robby Is Back
Robby joins John and Perlah to deal with his first patient, Margaret, who seems to be having some kind of a mental breakdown and thinks Jesus Christ, the one and only, is coming for her. To assuage her fears, John and Robby sign off on giving her 1000 mg of cyanocobalamin, which is meant to treat vitamin deficiencies, which means that Margaret’s case isn’t all that serious. Well, medically she’s fine, but, as pointed out by Robby, she’s probably struggling financially because she’s wearing the uniform for a diner that closed 20 years ago. In stark contrast, Robby and John tend to Mr. Burgess, who seems to have access to too much money, most of which has been spent on a barrage of medications, including ones that are homeopathic, which his wife pulls out of her bag that has a small dog sitting in it.
Robby walks out, thereby indicating that this is yet another unserious case, and Burgess’ leg cramps might be a side effect of over-medication. While officially clocking in, Robby has a brief chat with Lena, who is jealous about the fact that he is going on sabbatical at an Aboriginal UNESCO Heritage Site in Alberta. Robby switches topics to Baran, and Lena informs him that she’s “torturing” the interns and med students to see how they function. On the personal front, Baran is divorced and has one kid. Robby tries to get a read on her origins based on her surname, and John jokes that maybe she is Irish, which, to be honest, is the right response because why does it matter the country one hails from as long as they do their job properly?
Robby Meets Baran
Whitaker is teaching the newbies, Ogilvie and Joy, the ropes with the help of a dummy. This is when Baran shows up and puts a stop to the exercise so that she can get a read on what her staff has learned. Whitaker, Victoria, and Ogilvie share their observations with Baran, and the only person who doesn’t is Joy. She doesn’t even take the whole exercise very seriously, which means that this season will dedicate some time to breaking her ego. Robby joins the lot as they move from a dummy to a real patient. During this, Robby and Baran have a brief conversation about how she wants to handle things, based on her experience at VA (Veteran Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare Center), and as per usual, Robby isn’t exactly happy about Baran’s plans. Samira has worked with Baran at the VA, though, so at least she is glad that Baran is there with them.
Yolanda joins the squad as they tend to the patient who is bleeding out due to a knife wound to the right side of his chest. Robby and Baran watch from afar while Samira, Yolanda, Victoria, Whitaker, Perlah, Jesse, and several others get their hands dirty. Ogilvie intends to jump in, but Whitaker tells him to observe so that he can learn the ropes. Annoyingly enough, Joy remarks that it’s pointless to put too much effort into this patient, because he’s “dead anyway.” Robby’s reaction to that says everything there is to say about why that’s not the right attitude to bring to the table when your job requires you to save people regardless of the state they enter the trauma center in. Robby doesn’t address that issue immediately, because he’s a little busy with the guy that’s bleeding out and clashing with Baran over how she wants to handle her subordinates.
The John Doe Survives
Langdon returns to the Pitt after he was suspended for stealing drugs. He does get a warm welcome from Lupe and finds a disposable plastic box in his new locker, which seems to have some of the bagel spread that Baran brought in. Dana arrives for her shift, and she and Lena greet Langdon as well. But as Langdon takes off to find Robby, Dana tells Lena that she’ll keep an eye on him, because you never know when a recovering addict is going to relapse. Before that, Dana encounters Emma Nolan, a new nurse who is there to shadow, and it’s hilarious how Dana literally takes off all the baggage that Emma is bringing into the Trauma Center so that her fresh start is not bogged down by stuff that she won’t need. Going back to that patient who is still bleeding out profusely, Robby advises his team to flip the guy’s lung by 180 degrees, and Garcia, Samira, and Victoria’s reactions to that suggestion say everything there is to be said about the preposterousness and riskiness of this maneuver. That does stop the leak, but they’re not in the clear yet, because they have to ensure that the guy’s heart is pumping blood properly.
Before getting to that, I must mention that this is something I have never heard of or seen before. I’m sure medical experts can confirm or deny the practicality of Robby’s suggestion, but yeah, it just made me wonder how many countries have access to that kind of medical expertise. Most of them would have probably done exactly what Joy wanted to do: assume that the guy couldn’t be saved instead of working on him until his freaking lung can be filled by hitting his heart with 50 joules of electricity with these paddles that can be put directly on the heart! Anyway, once the John Doe has somewhat stabilized, Robby and Baran go back to discussing how they should go about their day, because it’s apparent that if they are in the room together, their understandably different approaches are going to confuse everyone. Baran doesn’t exactly approve of that; she just says that they will discuss that topic later.
The Cases Of The Day
Ellis introduces John, McKay, Mel, and Santos to a nine-year-old girl named Kylie Connors who has taken a tumble down the stairs and has primarily injured her chin and front incisor. She has been brought in by Kylie’s dad’s girlfriend, Gina, which is odd from the get-go, because your daughter is injured, and you couldn’t bother to be by her side? Anyway, Santos and McKay get a surface-level idea of what they are dealing with while Mel is busy spacing out. Then they move to 26-year-old Liam Sanders, who has taken a fall from his bicycle, and as John is describing what the dude has been through, Langdon enters the scene, which, unsurprisingly enough, prompts Mel to finally focus on what’s going on around her. In stark contrast to that, Santos is clearly uncomfortable with Langdon’s return because, if you remember, she’s the one who pointed out his drug addiction. We don’t see them clash in this episode, but they surely will in the upcoming episodes (or hours of this shift). Next up is 80-year-old Candace O’Grady, who has been brought in by her son, Richard, for intractable vomiting.
In addition to that, there’s Michael Williams, who injured himself by tripping over a laundry basket. McKay asks him if he has hit his head, and, instead of answering if he did, he asks if his reports say that he has injured his head, which is odd because that’s a yes-or-no question. McKay proceeds to check if he’s hurting anywhere and finds out that he’s experiencing some pain in his wrist. Hence, she orders an X-ray. Instead of being grateful for her spotting that, Williams warns McKay against charging him extra for all that, and McKay has no choice but to take it in her stride. As McKay goes to her work station to log the details of her latest patient, we learn why Samira’s phone was going off while she was operating on that John Doe. Yeah, apparently Samira’s mother has fallen in love and is going on a romantic cruise with her boyfriend, and she is going to pay for the travel expenses by selling her own house. Samira was preparing to move to Jersey to be closer to her mother, but she’s clearly not all that interested in spending time with her daughter. McKay hears all this and comes to the conclusion that she needs to get laid ASAP.
Robby Avoids Langdon
Once the John Doe has been moved out to the OR, Robby checks on the blood and plasma stocks, sees how Esme (the cleaning staff) is doing, and then runs into Langdon. Langdon wants to have a discussion about everything that has happened in the past, and how he intends to go about things in the future. However, Robby is in no mood to do that, and he puts this chat with Langdon on the back burner. He orders Langdon to go to Triage, and even though Langdon protests that decision, Robby doesn’t budge. He transfers Langdon’s patient, Sanders, to Mel and pushes Langdon to join Donnie. Everyone at the command center, including Mel, senses the tension, but they quietly soldier on. Ogilvie is excited to get to the next patient, but Whitaker and Victoria advise him not to rush towards a case, because they know that the morning rush is incoming, which is usually a result of deaths and medical complications at nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.
On that note, Ethan Bostick is wheeled in, and he has a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order on his POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) form. Ogilvie thinks that that means that they don’t have anything to do, but Whitaker points out that a DNR doesn’t stop them from making a patient comfortable during their last moments. Hence, that’s what they’ll be focusing on. Joy murmurs to herself that that’s basically torture, which indicates that she’s somewhat empathetic towards those who are suffering from old age, but maybe her apathy overpowers that sense of empathy. While Whitaker, Ogilvie, and Joy tend to Bostick, Santos catches up with Victoria as they update their logs. But that’s interrupted by Shamsi, Victoria’s mom, who wants to know how her daughter wants to spend her birthday with her family. Santos tries to butter up Shamsi, but as soon as she realizes that there’s some family drama brewing, she walks away because she doesn’t want to get hurt in the crossfire. As for Victoria, she takes Shamsi’s leave, because she wants to take care of her patients and put some distance between herself and her star mother, because she really doesn’t want to be perceived as a certified nepo baby.
Shamsi Accuses Robby Of Being A Bad Influence
Santos, who has overheard that whole conversation between Victoria and Shamsi, wants to know about Victoria’s birthday plans, but Victoria requests that she put a lid on it. Does she? Nope; Santos spreads the word, starting with Princess. Shamsi spots Robby and unleashes some of her frustration on him because she thinks that Robby is the one manipulating her daughter into wasting her talents in trauma instead of surgery. Robby says that Victoria is old enough to make her own decisions, implying that Shamsi needs to stop her helicopter-parenting routine, and before Shamsi can respond to that, she gets a call about a patient, which brings that potentially heated argument to a close. Robby thinks that he’s going to get a breather, but that’s when Baran shows up with the intention of continuing that discussion they were having earlier.
I think it’s low-key hilarious that she’s against referring to the Trauma Center as “the Pitt” because it sounds like “the pit,” and in her opinion, that can be demoralizing for both the patients and the staff. Robby is of the opinion that it’s not that big a deal, and if they spend so much attention on that, they’ll be wasting time that can be used to deal with the relatively more important issue: recruiting new blood. While this back-and-forth is going on, we see Lupe and Donnie dealing with Digby, the homeless guy who has been stinking up the waiting room. Victoria treats a nun named Ms. Mathews, who seems to be suffering from a severe case of conjunctivitis, and they have a funny conversation about Hindu and Christian gods. Dana goes over some acronyms and safe words with Emma, which is when they learn that Donnie is “bringing in the funk.”
A Baby Has Been Abandoned
At the waiting room, we learn about a tragic case from the POV of a patient, who is either experiencing deafness or is deaf, where a baby has been abandoned in the bathroom. Since Donnie was already there to deal with Digby, he rushes to check on the child as well. Meanwhile, Langdon, after tending to a patient with a foot injury, reunites with Louie, who has come in with a toothache. Langdon observes it and says that it might be an infection at the root. That’s when he notices that Louie’s breathing is quite fast. But before officially taking on his case, Langdon comes clean with Louie and tells him that it is his medication that he was stealing in order to satiate his desires. Hence, if Louie wants someone else to have a look at him because he doesn’t trust him, Langdon is totally okay with that.
Before Lupe can give his opinion, Esme calls Langdon to help her and Donnie with the abandoned baby situation. Langdon goes to Mike and asks him if he saw a woman walking in with a baby but leaving without one. Mike says that he hasn’t, but he’ll ask Ahmad to check the security footage to see if there’s something usable in there. Donnie takes the baby to Dana and Emma. Surprisingly enough, Dana tries to look at this whole scenario from an optimistic perspective and says that maybe the mother has stepped out for a smoke or something. Something similar happened in the first season, where it seemed like Rita had “abandoned” her mother, Ginger. Later on they found out that Rita was burnt out taking care of Ginger and fell asleep in the parking lot in her car. However, leaving a baby in the bathroom seems more deliberate than that. While they wait on the general consensus on that, Donnie takes the kid to the Pedes, and, with the help of Jesse and Emma, he starts running some initial tests to see if the baby is doing alright physically
The Williams Situation Is Bad
Princess, Whitaker, Ogilvie, and Joy are seen tending to Bostick. Robby walks by their room, and it seems like he wants to intervene after noticing that Bostick has passed away. However, he silently observes as Whitaker emulates Robby’s value system to honor the dead, thereby imbuing the seemingly mechanical Ogilvie and Joy with a sense of humanity (this is going to satisfy the Hucklerobby fans, I suppose). McKay goes back to Williams, who is ready to leave without doing an X-ray of his wrist. Even though McKay insists that he stay so that she can be sure that he is alright, Williams is adamant about going for the exit door. Under the garb of shaking Williams’ hand, McKay underscores the fact that his situation is worse than he thinks it is. That finally prompts Williams to clear his schedule and stay at the Pitt until he’s cleared by McKay.
With every passing second, though, Williams’ condition gets worse, and McKay is seemingly afraid that his situation isn’t as simple as it looks to the naked eye. Langdon goes back to Louie, who has had some time to think about his thoughts on being treated by Langdon. Louie is a chill guy, and he appreciates Langdon’s honesty. So, he’s perfectly okay with Langdon tending to him. Therefore, without wasting another second, Langdon tells Louie to show him his belly, and, well, it’s sickeningly massive. Langdon says that they can drain the fluid, but if Louie doesn’t stop drinking, his liver will give up on him and he’ll die. Louie is smart enough to know that, but he doesn’t have the willpower to stop himself from reaching for that bottle.
Something’s Off With Kylie
Santos informs Mel about the abandoned baby and tries to strike up a conversation with her. When Santos notices that she’s still spacing out, she asks her what is actually bothering her. Mel reveals that she was slapped with a malpractice lawsuit a couple of months ago, and the deposition is happening later that day. Santos calms Mel down by saying that that’s a common occurrence and Mel doesn’t need to worry about that, because the Pitt’s lawyers are there to deal with situations like this. This prompts Mel to go on a rant about using the legal system to bully people who are saving lives on a daily basis. She is so focused on doing that that she doesn’t notice that Santos has left her work station to go help Perlah with Kylie. Hence, it seems like Mel is talking to herself. Thanks to Dana, Mel re-enters reality and takes off to tend to Sanders, who unsuccessfully tries to flirt with Mel.
Meanwhile, Dana informs Robby and Baran about the abandoned baby. While that dynamic duo checks on the child, Dana and Emma take care of Digby, who needs to be thoroughly washed. Dana uses this opportunity to teach Emma that, regardless of the patient’s financial status, it’s their job to treat everyone respectfully. Once Digby is all cleaned up, Dana tells Emma to take him to one of the rooms where he can be checked for any medical complications, because he certainly didn’t show up for a wash, and Dana goes off to deal with some more patients who are showing up. Santos checks on Kylie and notices multiple bruises all over her body. Gina has no idea about them, and Kylie keeps saying that they are sports injuries. Just to be on the safe side, Santos requests that Kylie partake in a urine test, and Kylie obliges her by taking a trip to the washroom. Santos and Perlah use this opportunity to ask Kylie some sticky questions about her relationship with her dad. Kylie doesn’t say anything alarming, but the red color of her urine tells a completely different story.
Baran Is Rendered Speechless
Samira checks on Candace, and she has to face the ire of her son, Richard. Candace sends Richard away to the cafeteria so that she can have a chat with Samira. Once Richard is out of earshot, Candace reveals that, thanks to her neighbor Helen, she’s been consuming an insane amount of cookies laced with weed. That narrows down the reason behind the vomiting that Candace is experiencing, but Samira also points out that if old people take too much marijuana, their chances of dementia increase exponentially. Candace isn’t all that bothered by that, because she has one foot in the grave already. Going back to Langdon, he hands over Louie to Whitaker so that the fluid from his belly can be drained. Samira joins Donnie, Robby, and Baran in the Pedes and orders all the basic tests that can be done on a child that’s not even a month old. As per Perlah’s request, Robby and Baran leave the Pedes and go to Santos to listen to her concerns about Kylie. Based on what Santos has observed so far, Kylie can be suffering from some injuries, or she is a victim of child abuse (the absent father is a major red flag). Either way, Santos wants to treat Kylie, but she also wants to see if a reportable crime has occurred. Robby signs off on that, and Baran returns to the Pedes.
In the ending of The Pitt Season 2, episode 1, Samira hands over the point-of-care CBC report to Baran, which causes her to space out. Samira wonders if she has missed something, but Baran doesn’t respond and continues to look at the baby. This can mean one of two things: Baran knows exactly what’s wrong with the baby—and hence understands why the mother has abandoned the child—or the report has reminded her of something from her past. I mean, the Pedes is kinda cursed; we all know what happened there with Robby and his mentor. So, it’s possible that the situation is triggering some old memories. Baran has primarily worked at the VA; there are not a lot of children there. She is a single mother, though, and we have no clue what her kid has been through. Or, and hear me out on this one, it’s possible that Baran knows whose baby this is. Whatever the case may be, it seems like this child’s case is going to test how organized Baran truly is. I mean, so far, Baran has been very meticulous and precise. However, it looks like something about the kid has shaken her enough to render her speechless. Well, I am sure we’ll get some more info on this next week. Until then, don’t forget to leave your speculation in the comments section below.
