I Didn't Want to See It Either, Dr. Robby

The penultimate episode of season two of The Pitt was a real … humdinger. I don’t know where to start.

Dr. Robby doesn’t want to be here anymore. It’s been humming in the background of The Pitt all season long, since the moment Robby rode to work on his motorcycle without a helmet. Half the staff has picked up on it. The hospital therapist could see it clearly. Nurse Dana had an inkling. He basically confessed it to Whittaker.

It was … hard to miss. But I’ve been actively trying to avoid it — not because I think it’s bad writing or a sh***y plot turn, but because I didn’t want to believe it. I’d rather think it was a God complex. That Robby was battling his own ego. But it’s not that Dr. Robby thinks the hospital can’t live without him. It’s that Dr. Robby can’t live without the hospital. Everything else has been Robby trying to find an excuse to stay, hiding behind a supposed ego he doesn’t quite possess. He’s been trying to prepare The Pitt for a future without him since the beginning of his shift, and in his effort to cram too much into one day, he’s lashed out — probably unfairly — because he wants to hasten the inevitable in his doctors.

To wit: He doesn’t think Dr. Mohan is cut out for the E.R. He thinks she’d be better suited to geriatrics, but instead of gently guiding her down that path, as Dr. Al-Hashimi attempted, he’s tried to force it. Because he’s not sure he’ll be around to slow-walk her to her destination.

I’ve been writing about Shrinking and Scrubs and thinking a lot about Paul Rhodes and Dr. Cox lately, and Dr. Robby just doesn’t fit neatly into that mold. He’s not trying to parcel out his vulnerabilities while secretly believing he’s God’s gift to medicine. Medicine is God’s gift to Robby. It’s given him purpose, and outside that hospital, he doesn’t see any purpose for himself. His entire identity is wrapped up in The Pitt — in being “Dr. Robby” — so much so that he’s lost touch with who he is beyond those walls. The man was even sleeping with a coworker, probably because she only sees him as who he is in the emergency room and not what little he is outside of it.

And that is heartbreaking.

Dr. Ellis diagnosed his issue with Langdon in an instant: He’s not avoiding Langdon because Langdon failed him. He’s avoiding him because Dr. Robby feels like he failed Dr. Langdon. And Dr. Robby doesn’t want that reminder in the one place he otherwise feels whole.

It’s a lot to take in, especially in only 40 minutes. And we didn’t even get to the bombshell that ended the episode: Dr. Al-Hashimi has a seizure disorder. And I swear I saw in Robby’s eyes not just his empathy returning, but a lifeline — the excuse he needed to avoid going on that motorcycle ride. Maybe even an opportunity to stay and confront his problems instead of running away from them.