Something Is Brewing on 'The Pitt'

This week’s episode of The Pitt, like last week’s, was another fairly low-key hour, but it feels like things are moving dangerously into place, both character-wise and in terms of a looming medical crisis.

First off, I do not like how often the show keeps referencing Dr. Robby’s sabbatical and, more specifically, the nature of it. He’s spending three months on a motorcycle. In the first episode, a patient died in a motorcycle crash after not wearing a helmet. Last week, another patient chided Dr. Robby for riding around on a motorcycle at his age. This week, Dr. Whittaker complimented his motorcycle, and his therapist friend warned him against the trip while also encouraging him to get a therapist. And while Dr. Robby insists he’s fine and says he wears a helmet (we even saw him bring it into the hospital), he definitely was not wearing it when he arrived this morning.

Something is going on here, and I don’t like what it portends.

Elsewhere, character-wise, Dr. Langdon is finding his footing again while working with a patient played by his real-life girlfriend (and Mainer), Elysia Roorbach, who has the superglued eye. She calls for Dr. J, which we finally learn refers to Dr. Javadi, who also turns out to be a TikTok star.

Dr. Javadi, in fact, seems to have edged ahead of Dr. Ogilvie (the closest thing The Pitt has to a villain) in the informal best student doctor competition. While she has an online following, Ogilvie’s arrogance got the better of him this week when he pulled a large piece of glass out of a patient with a parkour injury and caused major bleeding. It’s good to be humbled, and Dr. Robby firmly upbraided him, but I do hope it doesn’t completely shatter his confidence.

Meanwhile, the other new student doctor, Joy Kwon, was cut by a piece of that bloody glass and is now being tested for HIV exposure and other possible blood-transmitted diseases. I hope this storyline is more about how bumbling the new nurse, Emma Nolan, is, and not a precursor to something more serious. But this is The Pitt, and there are still eleven hours left in the day.

We also learned the fate of Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor). Dr. Whittaker told Louis that she moved to Portland for a new position, where she plans to adopt a baby. As for Louis, he seems to be doing better, but the fact that he has to remain in the hospital for observation for another three hours means we’ll get at least three more episodes with him. I hope that’s it, not because I don’t love the character (we learned he’s a groundskeeper), but because I don’t want the poor man’s liver to give out today.

Speaking of Dr. Whittaker, he caught a massive heart attack early in a patient that Dr. Santos initially missed, and now Dr. Santos’s confidence seems to be faltering as well. She’s worried about how difficult her R2 year may be, especially with Dr. Al-Hashimi breathing down her neck about charting. That said, I think we’re all starting to warm up to Dr. Al, who placed a bet in the pool and revealed that she does have a personality. She also charmingly told Dr. Robby that she’d buy him a drink with her winnings.

Dr. McKay’s storyline remains a little strange. She opened the season by announcing she was desperate to get laid, and while an older gentleman has been charming her, another patient has also been flirting. They’ve seemingly arranged to meet at a museum at the end of her shift. Maybe she’ll get laid, or maybe that patient with the bum foot will turn out to have something far more serious. You never know with this show.

We’re also dealing with a patient who has diabetes but no health insurance. He makes too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, despite the many jobs he and his wife take on. His daughter set up a GoFundMe, but the man has too much pride to accept charity. This is where we are with the American medical system: a man is taking half his prescribed insulin dose because he can’t afford more.

Add to that a Black woman with bulimia, a deaf patient suffering from lightheadedness and stomach pain who seems likely to be around for several more episodes, and the man who was tased and may be suffering from something serious, with his sister present to receive the news.

And that’s this week’s slate of storylines, plus 20 Westbridge Hospital patients making their way to The Pitt. The episode ended with a patient who may have MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant infection. Those are very much not good.