‘The Pitt’ Season Two Review: Television’s Best Drama is Back [A]

One year ago, ER alums R. Scott Gemmill and Noah Wyle reinvigorated the medical drama when The Pitt premiered on Max and became one of the streamer’s most successful series. Unfolding over fifteen episodes, The Pitt takes viewers through a day in the life of doctors, nurses, students, and patients in a bustling Pittsburgh emergency department, one hour at a time. The first season received 13 Emmy® nominations and five wins, including Outstanding Drama Series and a lead actor prize for Wyle.

It’s the start of a new shift at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center and for Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, it is his last day before leaving for a three-month sabbatical. It’s also the 4th of July and, as Dr. Robby will mutter to himself several times over the next few hours, he should have left yesterday. There to meet him is Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), on loan from a VA hospital to cover as the attending physician while Robby is away. She is full of ideas to speed up the intake process and streamline care. Ideas like a patient passport to give the waiting ill and wounded an estimate of their expected wait time, and a generative AI tool to facilitate charting for busy doctors. (What could go wrong?)

After months of rehab, Dr. Frank Langdon’s (Patrick Ball) first shift back coincides with Robby’s last and while Langdon is ready to make amends, Robby isn’t ready to hear it. The tension between them grows stronger the longer they stay away from each other and it’s easy to see both sides of this situation. Langdon has done the work and it takes a lot of guts to walk back through the door into a job where he so thoroughly disgraced himself. He’s such a likeable guy that we want to root for him, we want him to find redemption and be the great doctor he can be. At the same time, he abused his role as a doctor, stole from patients and from the hospital, and should by all rights have been fired. It’s a lot to ask Robby to forgive and forget.

Elsewhere in the department, charge nurse Dana Evans (Emmy winner Katherine LaNasa) couldn’t stay away, even after last year’s horrific events. She tried to quit and came back to work soon after. Robby is the Attending, but Dana runs the E.D. and is as in charge as ever. Dr. Melissa King (season one standout Taylor Dearden) nervously counts down the hours until she must report for a deposition in a malpractice case filed by the parents of a teenager who died from the measles last year. Dr. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) is trying to decide which of three very different fellowships to pursue. Dr. Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) may be moonlighting as TikTok star “Dr. J,” and Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) is starting to wonder if she’s ready to dip her toe into the Pittsburgh dating scene.

Last year viewers loved to hate Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones), and even though she started to show her softer side all those months ago, she is as grumpy as ever, and that’s before Dr. Al-Hamidi threatens to make her repeat year two of residency if she doesn’t catch up on her charting. And then there’s her Nebraska-born roommate Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell), now graduated and having just gotten his first paycheck. Whitaker has grown up a lot in his last few months of medical school and now, as a first year resident, he’s still trying to get used to his newfound confidence while he imparts his wisdom to the next class. 

It is important to note here that today at the Pitt is not just the 4th of July. It is also the first week of July (obviously) and that is the traditional starting week for new interns and residents across the country. Which means there are some brand new young doctors and nurses-in-training following in the wakes of their teachers. Among them are James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson), an arrogant hot head who thinks he already knows it all. Alongside him is Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) who could not be less interested in working with patients, particularly in the E.D. On the opposite end of the attitude spectrum is Emma (Laëtitia Hollard), a wide-eyed nursing graduate who is eager to learn and serve, hanging on Dana’s every word, wondering how she could ever be as good at this as her new mentor is. Her energy and interest are a refreshing reminder to Dana of why she still does this job after all these years.

The stream of cases that come through the department hour by hour is as interesting and diverse as in the first season. Mental health crisis, superglued eyelashes, seniors swapping meds, cancer care, an abandoned infant, fire cracker accidents, and is the Universe trying to tell Robby something with the number of motorcycle accidents they deal with on the day before he hops on his 1969 Bonneville and heads west?

In addition to interesting, intriguing, and sometimes disgusting medical ailments and injuries, The Pitt continues to educate its audience about some of the real-world issues that plague the American healthcare system. Patients reluctantly make medical decisions based on health insurance challenges and medical debt. A sister struggles to care for her younger brother after their parents were deported. A deaf patient waits hours longer to be seen because no one saw the ASL note on her chart. And when she is finally brought back to a room, she waits still longer for an interpreter when the Video Relay Interpreter (VRI) system doesn’t work. 

One of the biggest overarching themes of season 2 is dignity and respect. Whether it is Louie (Ernest Harden Jr. returns), a frequent visitor with liver failure who just wants one more drink, a nearly 500-pound man with trouble breathing, or an Alzheimer’s patient who keeps forgetting her husband just passed away, each is treated with respect and care. In one particularly poignant sequence, Langdon and Robby work on a man injured in a boating accident while Dana and Emma are down the hall with a sexual assault victim. We move back and forth between a noisy, bloody, chaotic scene and a quiet, almost hushed physical examination. The juxtaposition between these two very different settings remind us that this may be just another day at work for the staff at the Pitt, but they all understand that for these patients, it may be the most traumatic day of their life. 

In addition to outstanding writing, direction, and performances, the heightened experience of this unique medical drama is brought to life by Johanna Coelho’s immersive cinematography that draws us into the action and makes us feel like we are in the room as a patient receives a bad diagnosis or a hopeful outcome. Combined with editing by Mark Strand, Joey Reinsich, and Tamara Luciano, we get the sense of what it’s like for emergency medicine doctors moving from a broken arm in one room to a heart attack in the next with the fluidity of a choreographed dance. It is a remarkable feat of craft and artistry.

Following a monumental, award-winning first season, there has been a lot of enthusiasm and high expectations for the second. After seeing the first 9 of 15 episodes, I can confidently say The Pitt continues to be a visceral, powerful, and affecting experience and the best show on television.

Grade: A

New episodes of the 15-episode second season of The Pitt will debut Thursday, January 8 on HBO Max and continue weekly leading up to the season finale on Thursday, April 16.

Photo credit: HBO Max