The Pitt

Credit: HBO

The first season of HBO’s real-time medical drama, The Pitt, ended after a desperate, heart-pounding team effort to save as many lives as possible after a mass shooting flooded the fictional ER with gunshot victims. Friday night’s Season 2 finale is less dramatic, less dire, and in some ways less conclusive – but every bit as compelling. If the goal was to get us to hang on every word, mission accomplished. Spoilers ahead.

If I had to pick a single word to describe The Pitt’s Season 2 finale, it would be "confrontation." That’s a pivot from Season 1. The word I’d choose for that is “resolution.”

This isn’t to say that every interaction in Hour 15 is confrontational. We also have some moments of levity and sweetness. The day shift employees who make their way to the roof to watch the 4th of July fireworks get teary-eyed at the sudden, bright, colorful splendor of it all. Perhaps also at what it might represent.

But there is confronation, and plenty of it, and little of that confrontation is resolved by the time the credits roll. Robby confronts Dr. Al-Hashimi after she reveals she experiences seizures, and that her treatments – while largely successful in the past – failed today, not once but twice.

She disappears for awhile and then returns after speaking with an on-call neurologist who, she tells Robby, cleared her to work as the attending physician in the ER as long as she’s got backup. Robby asks her what happens if she has a stroke during a life-or-death case and she says one of the other doctors can take over. He asks what happens if they’re busy. They argue, and Robby threatens Al-Hashimi. If she doesn’t disclose her condition to administration by Monday, he will. (Does this mean he’s sticking around instead of hightailing it out of Pittsburgh?)

Al-Hashimi points out that he let Langdon stay on even after he was caught stealing, but Robby isn’t moved. Langdon was booted from the ER and sent to get the treatment he needed. Robby tells Al-Hashimi that she shouldn’t even be driving, let alone running a busy urban emergency department.

Speaking of Langdon, Robby manages to track him down before he leaves. He’s feeling a bit more open and less confrontational at this point – as evidenced by some of his other interactions, including a somewhat conciliatory chat with Dr. Mohan, but Langdon has stopped trying to please his boss. He tells him that in rehab, he met lots of guys like Robby. “You need help,” he says. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

This echoes Dr. Abbot’s advice to Robby as well. “I’m your emergency contact,” he tells Robby after urging him to seek help and go on a cruise instead of a motorcycle ride to nowhere. “And I don’t want to be contacted.”

I have to say, Shawn Hatosy is just so great in this role. I think it’s partly that he’s older and more mature now as an actor. I loved him in shows like Southland, but he’s really fantastic here. And I love the very different vibe Abbot brings to the ER, like his little “nightcrawler” chant with his night shift crew. There’s a sparkle in his eye that’s all but lost from Robby’s.

Abbot also tells Robby that he knows about him driving without a helmet and that it’s a clear cry for help (or a death wish). The conversation, like most in this finale, hangs somewhat unresolved in the end, but at least they get a nice hug and Robby is able to open up to his friend about his feelings. Get help, Dr. Robby.

Elsewhere, there are smaller confrontations. Dr. Mel and her sister as Mel continues to struggle with her sister’s independence and newfound boyfriend. Dr. Santos and exhaustion proves to be a losing battle, and she’s rudely awakened from her doomed charting more than once.

The biggest, most dramatic scene takes place when a very pregnant mother is brought in reporting a 10/10 headache that’s lasted for days. She’s very ill and, we learn, 37 weeks along. She’s also having a “wild birth” and has sought exactly zero medical care during her pregnancy. Her reasoning? Women gave birth without medical help for thousands of years. What she’s left out of the equation is the extremely high rate of both infant mortality and the fact that childbirth has historically been a leading cause of death for mothers.

Things take a bad turn and she begins to have seizures and cardiac arrest. Abbot, Robby and a handful of other doctors and nurses have to intubate her while treating for both seizures and the heart attack while at the same time performing an emergency C-section to save the baby. It’s easily the most heart-pounding medical procedure of the season, and up there with the most intense moments in Season 1. In the end, both mother and baby survive, though the mom didn’t want any medical treatment whatsoever – other than something to stop the headache.

In the end, Robby finds himself with the abandoned baby, swaddling it and rocking it while telling the infant that everything will be alright. He was abandoned as a child also, and look at all the wonderful things he’s seen and the people he’s met. He’s talking to himself as much as the child, of course. Outside, Al-Hashimi begins to pull out of the parking lot and then stops, breaking down in tears as her life and career begin to crumble around her.

There’s a secret ending also, a post-credits scene where Mel and Santos head to karaoke and let their hair down while singing a duet of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughtta Know.” It reminds me that Isa Briones is actually a phenomenally talented singer. I mean, just listen to this woman sing!

We got to hear her sing to the baby earlier this season, and it genuinely tickled me to get a karaoke scene with her and Mel at the end. A bit of light at the end of a long, dark day shift. It was also nice to see Robby smiling when Whitaker leaves with his farmer girlfriend and her baby. Papa approves.

Verdict

I thought this was a very good season finale, and I’m glad they didn’t try to copy what worked in Season 1. There was no major tragedy to clean up after. Just a long, messy and exhausting day.

On the other hand, I do also think this season leaned a bit too heavily into the melodrama and was just a bit messier all around, from Mel’s deposition (which she will have to face another round of, we learn) to some of the other odd character choices we encountered throughout the season.

At times, some of the character conflict felt a bit ham-fisted or forced, TV-generated conflict rather than the more organic kind that arose in Season 1. On the other hand, I liked the way some current affairs stuff was woven into the storyline. Some people were very mad at the portrayal of ICE agents earlier this season, but I thought it added some real punch and tension and was handled really well. Of course, that storyline is one of so many dangling narrative threads, all of which may or may not be resolved in Season 3 (and/or a Night Shift spinoff).

Season 1 was also, overall, funnier; though I’m glad we had several funny bits in tonight’s finale, including Digby absconding from the ER with Whitaker’s badge and the ER dummy, lecturing to the air about the history of gunpowder and fireworks. I knew Whitaker wouldn’t make it through this season with all his possessions intact, and I knew someone had snagged his badge. I’m just glad it was harmless in the end.

In fact, I think that’s what I would have ended with. Robby with the baby. Credits roll. First mid-credits scene: Mel and Santos letting their hair down to some 90s girl power rock-pop. Post-credits scene: Digby rolling the mannequin through the park, speaking wisdom to the dark, talking about color and light.

What did you think of this season and the Season 2 finale? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.