This article contains spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 Episode 1, and minor character spoilers for Season 1.
The brilliance of The Pitt‘s storytelling structure stems from the way a season is broken down hour by hour during an emergency room shift. For us, it’s a new season of a critically acclaimed, award-winning television show. For the characters of The Pitt, it’s just another day at work.
A story structure like this can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, you’re dropping your viewers right into the thick of things. You’re given no introductions to the characters (save for the fresh-faced med students looking to start their first day); everything needs to be puzzled out slowly over time and gleaned through context clues. A lingering look, a snide comment, it could be anything. It’s a big reason why it took me a few hours to properly get into The Pitt Season 1 last year. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a show like this, especially when it’s set in a fast-paced environment where patients are constantly shuffling in and out when you can already barely keep track of who the doctors are.
On the other hand, a story structure like this also calls for smarter and more nuanced writing. And that’s exactly what The Pitt Season 2’s premiere episode has demonstrated here.
The Pitt Season 2 picks up about a year after the mass shooting incident in Season 1. The episode opens up with Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) riding a motorcycle to work, but without a helmet. He rides up behind an ambulance, then carelessly drifts to the side and speeds up to overtake it. When he arrives at the hospital, he glances briefly at a plaque on the wall with the names of the shooting victims, then walks away.
We also learn that this is his last shift before he goes on a three-month sabbatical. And of course, the television logic dictates that this shift will likely be his most tumultuous one yet. The shooting incident undoubtedly left an impact on all the characters, but none more so than Robby, who not only failed to save his stepson’s girlfriend, but was also in the middle of dealing with his own grief and trauma that he’s shoved aside for years. Riding without a helmet — which, as Dr Langdon (Patrick Ball) points out, is extremely dangerous in a separate case — is just a subtle way of letting the audience know that, no, not all is well with Robby. It’s been a year, but clearly there’s still a lot of unresolved trauma with him, and it’s only a matter of time before that manifests itself in uglier ways.
Things aren’t all doom and gloom in Pittsburgh, though, as some of our other characters have grown in more positive ways, too. Ironically, Santos (Isa Briones), who was possibly the most hated character in Season 1, gets the biggest glow up in her Season 2 debut. She’s still got an edge to her, sure, but she gets along much better with her fellow residents and clearly cares about them. Notably, we see her checking in on fan-favorite Mel (Taylor Dearden) when she notices her spacing out and acting weirder than usual.
Then, there’s that easy-to-miss hint that she and Garcia (Alexandra Metz) have gotten together at some point in the last year. Assuming Whittaker (Gerran Howell) is still living in Santos’ guest room, why on earth would he accidentally use Garcia’s toothbrush in the washroom? The logical conclusion is, of course, that Garcia’s been staying over at Santos’ place because they’re now together. If not together, then there’s something going on at least.
After getting used to the cadence of The Pitt‘s storytelling beats and episodic release, I’m finding myself much more comfortable and acclimated to Season 2’s preferred method of dropping the audience right into the thick of things with little exposition or backstory. There are plenty of little hints that clue you into a character’s state of mind one year on — fan-favorite Dana (Katherine LaNasa) is a lot snippier and more hardened now, having been straight up assaulted in Season 1 — that can be easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. The show trusts its audience is smart enough to pick up on those cues though, which is what makes the writing feel so organic and natural.
The show’s notorious episodic cliffhangers can also be organic and natural, though markedly less enjoyable as each episode concludes at the top of the hour. Episode 1 introduces us to newcomer Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), an attending tasked with covering for Robby while he goes on his sabbatical. She’s tech-oriented and believes in trying to up the ER’s patient satisfaction scores, but the episode throws us a curveball by cutting things off just as we see her freeze up while caring for an unattended baby. We don’t know what’s got her so frazzled, but my money’s on more trauma that will surely be explained as the show goes on.
For now, The Pitt Season 2 is content with easing us back into the swing of things, dropping its little clues here and there. And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before those tiny details snowball into something much larger later on.
The Pitt is now available for streaming on HBO Max.
