This Place Is Like Quicksand - The Pitt s02e12

As the days starts to wind down and the day shift starts to prep their handoffs, The Pitt delivers an episode I can only describe as... clunky. After a season full of subtext and character arc, this is finally the point where all of these characters (worn down by an exhausting shift) stop pretending things are fine and start being honest. Be it Robby and Dana and their multiple fights, Whitaker trying to get Santos to be up front about her feelings, or Dr. Al cutting through the shit to tell Robby what she's been observing, this is extraordinarily on the nose.

But it's still... terrific. If the choices are oblique obfuscation in the name of being clever OR being direct and open about themes, the latter is always the way to go. And given how complicated and windy this season has been, there needs to hit a point where it starts to get honest about Robby and his mental state. He's been at remarkable remove this entire season and now that we're digging into his situation it's starting to break down the walls he's erected to keep everyone (including us) out.

Ugh. I can't believe there are only three episodes left after this...

Roomies

It's been a pretty lousy shift for everyone, but Santos in particular has had a pretty bad one.

• She's behind on charting.
• Dr. Al threatened to make her repeat her R2 year.
• Langdon came back.
• Garcia is throwing up emotional barriers to keep things casual.
• Whitaker is probably moving out.

Honestly, the only thing going right for her this shift is things are going better between her and Robby than they are between him and anyone else. The two have aligned themselves in a distaste for Langdon's return, and whenever he calls her to work on a case with him, it feels like they have serious work chemistry. .

Not that that really helps her compulsion to relieve stress by almost grabbing a sharp tool with which to cut herself...

One of the big moments in last season's finale was Santos following Whitaker to his room in the hospital and inviting him to live with her. Over the course of this shift, the show has painted a picture of Santos that is lonely, sad, and ostracized from the rest of the group. She finds solace in Garcia because that's intimacy, but it comes with the sharp slap of being far more casual than she thinks. It's wounded her, but the way Garcia compliments her briefly is like the sun shining on her face. It being a purely professional exchange makes it all the sadder for how starved she is for any sort of human connection that transcends the confines of the job.

Santos's salvation, however, comes not from Garcia. It's Whitaker. The kindness she paid to him last season has blossomed into his becoming the one person who is emotionally closest to her. Robby offering him the housesitting gig hurt her, doubly so because she found about about it from him and not her roommate. Whitaker tries to apologize for not being the one to tell her, but when she refuses to accept, he realizes what the problem is.

For all that she razzes him, she does likes him. She likes living with him. They've become siblings.

Naturally, she can't take his gloating. No one will blame him for that little swagger, especially because he loves living with her so much that he will drop the possibility of housesitting for months. But she isn't going to confess it. Not after today. Not this quickly. She tells him to fuck off rather than admit her feelings.

All of this is... a bit more textual than the show usually does. But having beaten everyone down enough, it's believable that Whitaker would just cut through the shit. When an issue is important enough, subtext goes out the window.

It's also believable, though, that she doesn't give him what he wants. That she lashes out. And that she doesn't change. The hardest thing about The Pitt is the micro quality to every character's arc. The show fixes this by showing characters at their wit's end with a particular issue. With all that build up, we come in right as the dam is about to burst. Santos's current position is 10 months of bitter resentment and a warped sense of her own standing within the ED. All of that won't change in one twelve hour window.

Just... god. Please don't take the scalpel, girl.

A predisposition for the pace

As this shift winds down, it's comforting to see Mohan and Mel caring for the elderly couple (Frida and Eddie Cohen). This storyline is very procedural, more so than the show typically is, and even progresses to the two presenting the case to Robby and getting his approval for treatment.

A week ago, this probably wouldn't have the resonance it does now. Word broke on Thursday that Supriya Ganesh (Mohan) would not be returning for season three. Sources say that the decision is narrative-based and not due to other factors. Sad as it is to see Mohan leave, the show has been writing her out. Her residency is ending and she's trying to find her next area of study. She told Robby she thinks this isn't working out. In Langdon's absence, she's become the senior resident, replacing Collins and also more critical to the ins and outs of the department than Langdon (in his absence). While Ogilvie fucked up the patient a few episodes back, it was Mohan who was checking his work and missed what he missed. Had he died, it would have been on her.

Simply: she can't cut it.

Meanwhile, Mohan has been good with the older patients all season, including the man in the hallway and now this older couple. But this is more than just Robby's extremely asshole comment about how she "has a predisposition to the pace". Looking back at season one, the first major thing we get about Mohan is his frustration with her focusing on stable patients at the expense of pulling in new ones. But there's also the end of the season, where Mohan is the one who declines going home after the Pittfest shooting, riding the adrenaline high of mass trauma to pick up more cases despite her shift having long since ended.

It's not that Robby's comment is wrong, it's that it comes after several hours of him going after her, berating her for mommy issues, giving a half assed apology, and riding her like crazy. If his tone was different, it would be a ribbing rendition of the advice Dr. Al gave back in the break room.

It sucks to see her go, but with the knowledge that Mohan is able to escape, it's hard to not reflect on how that impacts Robby and his psychological state. So much of him this season has been of him trying to escape, to leave. This isn't some death wish. This is him envying Mohan and her capacity to move from the high stakes pace of the emergency department and into a different, "easier" study of medicine.

If what Mohan cares about is patient care and wellbeing, her inability to make a difference here when she could make it elsewhere is going to play a major role in her imminent decisions. Compounding that is the return of Orlando Diaz. He is the sort of failure that will impact her long term. She pulled out all the stops to tend to him and his health and get him the help he needed. Discounts, payment plans, lower levels of intensive care... And he paid her back by skipping out on the treatment only to wind up here again. Possibly worse this time.

None of this is a judgment on her. Mohan is extremely good at what she does. But this job really isn't for everyone. With all this under her belt she's going to go on and have a terrific career helping old people.

I'll miss her terribly.

A porous force field

Using the assault against Emma to bridge this episode and the last, it provides the opportunity for the show to do two things:

First, it happens quickly and almost entirely off screen. It's over nearly as soon as it's started because the show knows that trauma itself is not nearly as interesting as its long tail and lingering after effects.

Second, it's an opportunity to reveal just how well Dana is doing after last season.

Since Doug Driscoll attacked her, Dana has grown more protective of her nurses. She might not have pressed charges, but she's started carrying around a syringe of Versed in her pocket, something that could cost her her nursing license.

It's not on Dana to fill in Robby of her psychological wellbeing. The Doug Driscoll trauma is her own to work through and she doesn't owe anyone anything as she recovers from that event. That said, Robby having her back on the Versed is tremendously affecting. He has her back, offering to write a scrip not just for the one she used but also for another while he's gone. She could have trusted him.

Where they fall apart is in not being honest with each other. One of the reasons this episode feels as clunky as it does is because it starts to have characters like Robby and Dana come at each other over and over and over again after a day of dancing around the issues. Worn down, beaten, tired, they have a serious conversation no less than three times in this one hour episode.

It's clear why Dana's mad. She's been mad any time anyone mistreats her nurses. But this is her worst case scenario: the new girl, attacked. An event so rough it required the last defense she had. It worked out, but it still wasn't enough to spare Emma the trauma of a patient violently assaulting her.

Which opens the question, what is Robby's worst case scenario? The thing that keeps circling my mind is what he said to Mohan last week:

"You have to think of these walls like a force field. You cannot let anything in... You keep everything out there."

While good advice for doctors, Robby is the end result of this particular line of thinking. Outside of the job, what does he have? His motorcycle? Duke? If Duke is one of those things, how does that change now that he is literally Robby's patient. What little he cares about has breached his force field. More than that, Robby invited it in.

Duke's condition seems to be serious. Robby suspects it's lymphoma and is doing everything he can to get Duke to stick around long enough for them to do a proper scan. Only... Duke don't got time for this. Duke wants to leave. All of this is taking too long. He's got places to go. People to see. He can just come back later when it's not busy. If Duke is the one thing keeping Robby here at this point, it would be so easy for Robby to just let Duke leave so he can finally go on this Sabbatical he maybe wants to go on.

But Robby won't be here later. He just can't let go of the care he feels for those in his charge and he wants to make sure Duke is okay. Robby needs this handled just like he needs to leave the department in a good place. He needs to know that when he leaves he won't have to worry about things while he's gone. But that's not how any of this works. There's no way to create a stasis bubble in which the world stops operating just like there's no way to perfectly separate out the world outside from the world within. All of these contexts inform each other.

Like the rest of the day, this episode echoes with all sorts of moments that reflect Robby's headspace. It's the phone ringing too loudly and him recoiling when Santos mutters "vaya con dios". It's him telling Dr. Al she needs to appreciate what he's leaving her/she's inheriting and snapping at Dana that he just wants the department to run smoothly in his absence. It's his jealous harassing of Mohan for her imminent departure, finding comfort in Santos's aloof coldness, and bonding with Whitaker (who says that he wants to stick with emergency medicine, which welds him to Robby and that chosen path). It's Dante the head wound guy saying "Gunpowder's in my blood. Ain't no fighting it" and the camera keeping on Robby for that entire line.

The first season was about the ghosts of COVID slamming down on Robby's fragile psyche. The relentless pace of too many people needing help all at once. When he broke, it was the PTSD crashing in as a result of the pounding he'd taken all day. This season has really been about all the ways Robby finds comfort and solace in every aspect of the department even when things are on fire. He's outrageously good at his job and he runs this day shift like basically no one else can run it. But now that he has integrated himself so fully into the system, the natural need for connection and empathy means he's creating pathways that make it impossible for him to leave and disconnect. The sabbatical feels somewhat abstract because it is abstract to him. Like he knows it's a thing he should do, but once he's on the road he has no idea what he's going to do. He's worried he won't return because the clarity of being out just might make him want to never come back.

So as this end approaches and the night shift arrives just in time for handoffs, the question of Robby's purgatory persists. If he leaves, will his sabbatical be free of worry for what he's left behind? If he doesn't, will he still remain the hostage he refers to himself as? If Mohan leaves how will he fill this particular void with a new senior resident? And if The Pitt (as with all television) is a metaphor for purgatory itself, Mohan's departure means a level of self-actualization that Robby hasn't found despite decades more experience.

This sabbatical might clear his head, but it's going to take more than just a weeks-long, helmet-less motorcycle ride to untangle all the knots tightened around Robby's soul.

Meanwhile around the trauma center...

• No way is Katherine LaNasa not getting an Emmy nom for this season. Possibly a win. She's been so good throughout but watching her slowly unravel this episode is wonderful.
• Stressful as the Dana situation is, everything around her defense of Emma is terrific. Not the least of which is her casual "he slipped".
• Also, fuck this guy who headlocks Emma. Violent and drunk and also doing cocaine? Loser. Also the medical explanation of mixing drugs.
• Joy calling Whitaker "Phantom of the Pitt" hahaha.
• Wondering what else is left with Mrs. Azurmendi (the woman who brought in the heatstroke child and tried to walk into traffic last episode). She's on an involuntary psych hold, but the most interesting aspect is her husband checks on their son first. She seemed very unsurprised (and unbothered) by this. We're at the point where some of these cases will move into the night shift's hands, but there's still time for them to do things here...
• Dr. Al finally stepping in and talking to Robby about what she's observed. God
  • She recommends a second attending to help manage inflow. The official podcast talked about how normal that sort of structure is for a department as busy as Robby's. Imagine if Dr. Al wasn't around today. It would have been hell.
    • If this means Dr. Al is now a regular character on the show? God yes. I have loved her since the beginning but every time she's on screen it delights me.
  • Robby breaking the news to Dr. Al that Langdon is back because he stole meds is great not just because it mostly annoys Robby that he has to explain himself, but the absolute incredulity at her learning this fact.
• Dr. J uploading the ICE video in the ambulance bay while Monica Peters disses her for being a "snowflake". Rude.
• With Emma now a victim of this assault, that means that all three newbies have suffered some sort of workplace injury. (Joy got the needle poke early in the day, Ogilvie got that potential TB exposure...) Love that Dana demands that she shadow Donnie for the rest of the shift and that she make a statement. And Emma is such a badass for being like "I'm staying."
• Following on Dr. Al learning about Langdon's backstory, her confidence in him evaporates. She stops looking at him and goes to Javadi for recommendations for what to do. He notices.
• A lot of the show at this point is really emphasizing how utterly broken America's healthcare system is. Not enough workers, not enough CT scans. Not enough rooms. Even without the system going down, this entire shift is utterly overwhelming in terms of sheer scope and volume.
• One thing true to life is the way these final cases all feel like this "final sprint", where everyone is trying to blaze through what they can for the imminent handoff. It feels so familiar to the last leg of any big long day, where tasks accelerate because the end is approaching so rapidly.
• "I can't tell if motherhood has made me more understanding or more judgmental." Great line from Dr. Al.
• THAT IS A HORRIFYING SUNBURN is a note I wrote while watching.
• Roxie's left-behind blanket is too much for Cassie. Her arc today has been relatively minor, as the dying cancer patient took up the majority of the day's shift. Though her talking about trying to get back in touch with the empathy she's been missing fits into the arc of Robby. If Robby has matured slightly more than everyone else, Cassie is approaching his equilibrium. She's spent years getting emotionally involved (like Javadi) and then the time since turning it off (like Santos), and is now reaching the point where she has to regulate the balance between locking out the outside world, doing her job with objectivity, and caring deeply for the pain of her patients, she's rapidly hitting solid footing in her career.
  • Hilarious that she doesn't want a hug, though.
• Harrowing hearing Joy say "oops" .
• Fuck Medicare spending cuts. Richest country in the history of the planet should be funding healthcare to its population. There's no reason for rural hospitals to close. We should be taking care of each other.
• Whitaker seems committed to the emergency department. So that's one character who will probably never leave this show...
• As the night shift starts to cycle in, it's so great to see them slowly appearing. Mateo is back and then at the end of the episode we get the arrival of Shen and his mostly-done coffee. Icons both.
• Love colonial reenactors.
• Perlah quickly calming Dante's brother is so lived in and real. One and a half breaths and some eye contact and she can leave him be even though he's freaking out.
• Javadi takes joy in Santos's emotional distress. Santos reaping what she's spent ten months sowing.
• "Fuckleberry" continues to be a terrific word.
• As the show moves into the night shift and it's clear that some major apocalyptic event isn't going to transpire, it leaves me thinking about what the show can do with this 12-hour shift, 15-episode per season format. It feels like the night shift is going to start taking over soon as our characters start to leave. So... in the future is The Pitt going to be more than just Dr. Robby and his day shift? Will all seasons start at 7:00 am? What if a future season starts at 4:00 am? Or 12:00 pm? What if we get the back half of one shift and the start of another? The format and structure has so much room to play and these characters are all so good that there's a ton of options. Hell. Would love to see the weirdness of the night shift given how everyone talks about it. And Robby established in the final Louie scene that he learned the man's backstory while filling in on a quiet night shift. Anything is possible...
• Gross-out moment of the week: I'd like it to be the sunburn. Or the bit where Oliver is vomiting the off-color fluid. Then I think about how I screamed when they peel away Dante's skull and I get the skeevies.

Next Time

It feels like there's still some loose ends to tie up. Robby still has concerns. And also.... maybe some quality Abbot time? With three episodes left I hope so...