‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Episode 3 recap: You end up here and see

We all saw Dr. Robinavitch not practicing proper helmet safety. It was literally two hours ago. But here in Season 2 Episode 3 of The Pitt (“9:00AM”), he lies and says he does, which we gotta interrogate. The double traumas that arrive in the ED are linked – according to Nancy Yee (Angela Lin), she and her husband Mark (Eugene Shaw) were arguing in their car when a motorcycle ran a red light and slammed into them. The initial prognosis on Mark is paralysis, which shifts to a more manageable potassium imbalance, which shifts to worry over Angela, because she collapses with internal bleeding not noted at the accident scene. But let’s get back to the other guy. The biker is in bad shape, with a skull fracture and no pulse. There is very little the team can do for him, and is disappointed to learn he’s not an organ donor. But hey, Robby and this biker took the same Pennsylvania DOT rider safety course, a certification that allows helmet-less riding. Does an ER doctor who is also a motorcycle enthusiast look at a patient like this, who died on the table with his brains leaking out of his skull, and think “It’ll never be me?”   

Maybe it’s all part of his midlife crisis. It’s the first thing we thought earlier this season, watching Robby tool that big Triumph across the bridge with only shades for protection. The lifesaver believes he is made impervious to harm by the fact of his lifesaving, or something like that. But Robby doesn’t directly address his fib about the helmet. It’s only when Yana Kovalenko (Irina Dubova), another patient, scolds the 50-something doctor about ignoring his safety – a three-month trip? On a motorcycle? “Why would you do this?” – after asking if he’s married and quizzing him on his Jewish faith, that Robby tries to sarcastically call it a “midlife crisis.” Between casual disregard for his own safety and that weird, chippy scene last episode with possible paramour Noelle Hastings, we wonder if Robby’s personal life is heavier than he’s letting on. He grimaces. “I should’ve left last night.” 

Dana noted Robby addressing/not addressing his personal situation, just like she frowned at his bike being parked outside the ED. It’s part of her charge nurse omniscience, and so is teaching the act of being present. With Day 1 RN Emma Nolan, she listens to Mr. Digby’s concerns about the healthcare system, acknowledges his practice of avoidance, and encourages him to seek the kind of ongoing care that would prevent more maggot-ridden plaster casts. Empathetic medical care is what is not always locked inside impenetrable reams of facts. (Elsewhere, when Javadi and Ogilvie compete to recite a complicated treatment plan, a family member of the patient under their care has her eyes glaze over.) Dana Evans is educating young Nurse Emma about the intangibles that sometimes seem to run the Pitt more than all the modern medicine combined. Digby’s eyes light up when Dana, still being present, simply offers him a sandwich. Sometimes you end up in the hospital, and see it’s full of nice people.

Santos, together with the more measured but concerned opinion of staff social worker Dylan Easton (Becca Blackwell), still thinks little Kylie (Annabelle Toomey) might live in an abusive home. She meets the father, Benny Connors (Patrick Mulvey), and together with Dylan gently broaches the subject of Kylie’s mysterious bruises. This goes badly. The father is about to come to blows with Ahmad (Johnath Davis) from security, and Santos is losing her cool out of concern for Kylie, when the little girl’s real diagnosis comes back from the lab. ITP. Immune thrombocytopenia. It’s the condition that caused her bleeding and bruising. OK, Santos acknowledges, “better than the alternative.” But Benny goes after his girlfriend Gina (Ino Badanjak) next, because she suggests he’s too aggressive. “Happy fucking Fourth of July,” he spits when she breaks up with him, right there in the middle of the ED. But Gina considers it her independence day.

Mark Yee, coming around after his paralysis scare, witnessed this argument between Benny and Gina. By this point, his wife has already been taken for internal scans, and Mark asks Dana to hold up his phone so he can send Nancy a heartfelt, loving video message. Their argument in the car, before the deadly collision, was over something nice she wanted to do for him; he dismissed her, thinking about stresses at work. But his own almost becoming a quadriplegic, Nancy collapsing by his bedside with a ruptured spleen, and overhearing another couple’s bitter breakup has recentered him on what he values in this life. Mark gets philosophical with Robby and Al-Hashimi. “Is this how it works? You think things are important, that everything’s so important, and then you end up here and see.” At this, a slight shadow seems to pass over Robby’s features. Thinking about his midlife crisis? About what truly matters? As an attending physician in a busy city hospital, every day of his professional life, he ends up here and sees.  

It’s another sense of the latent emotional ballast around the ED, still tied up with incidents like the PittFest mass shooting, and the plaque from the city, shown early in Season 2, which commemorates their response. It’s another sense of Robby’s breakdown in Pedes. It’s another sense of what he shares in this episode with Yana Kovalenko, when she recalls her trauma over witnessing the antisemitic 2018 shooting that killed 11 people at Tree of Life, her Pittsburgh-area synagogue. We all need to realize, when we finally end up and see, what really matters. Robby tells Yana there’s no clock on how long the processing of trauma will take. We wonder if he thinks blasting down the highway on his two-wheeled death machine will prove to himself he beat it.

But there is no rest in the meantime. Dana receives the call from Pittsburgh medical command. A developing situation at another area hospital has diverted all ambulance traffic to PTMC. “Is this a joke? A drill? It’s the 4th of fucking July.” But it’s no joke: the Pitt is about to get slammed.

Nurse’s Desk for Season 2 Episode 3 of The Pitt (“9:00AM”):

• “Sounds like a betting grid to me.” When the call comes in from central command with scant info on the how comes, how longs, and how manys the Pitt is about to receive, Ahmad fires up the staff betting pool. It’s his favorite thing. Remember, Ahmad was also the bookie for Season 1’s bets on who went joyriding in an ambulance.

• Jackson (Zack Morris), the screamy and confused college kid from last episode, has been stabilized. He’s also been followed to the ED by Tony Chinchiolo (Kurtis Bedford) from campus security. This guy’s going all Paul Blart about Jackson’s condition being drug-related when it turns out blasts from his taser probably set Jackson off. Pittsburgh PD turns to Tony. “That changes things, Mr. Chinchiolo.”

• Langdon’s version of being present, of being conscious of what matters in life, and especially after his benzos rehabilitation, emerges while he’s treating a little boy. Alongside the kid’s father and soon-to-be-a-dad Nurse Donnie, Langdon shares an affirmation from the late Irish poet John O’Donohue, and the men all agree: there is no handbook for fatherhood. You end up here and see.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.