Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 27, 2026
On Labor Day night in 2021, during one of the worst days of my life, my son — who was recovering from a bone marrow transplant — experienced a severe shortage of breath. Around 2 a.m., they moved him to the ICU at Boston Children’s Hospital and put him on a CPAP machine. It was during a bad COVID wave, and every room in the ICU was filled with intubated children. The staff used hospital curtains to construct a makeshift room in the lobby while they waited for a room to open up — which would probably happen when one of those intubated kids lost his fight with the virus.
A brusque, impatient doctor with a terrible bedside manner told me that if my son’s oxygen level fell any further, he’d be intubated. By that point in COVID, I knew what that likely meant for his odds. The doctor then told me — matter-of-factly, and with what felt like a staggering lack of compassion — to call my wife in Portland and tell her to drive to the hospital. Then he basically dismissed me. He was such an asshole.
I’m not entirely sure why this episode of The Pitt brought that night back to me, except that Dr. Robby has become so overwhelmed by the daily accumulation of trauma that he seems to have lost his empathy entirely. And yet I find myself weirdly empathizing with his lack of empathy. When you’re surrounded by that much death, detachment probably isn’t a choice — it’s a survival mechanism. But the detachment curdles into something worse, exacerbating the guilt that never fully surfaces. God knows what that doctor had gone through that day. How many kids he’d lost. How many nurses he’d snapped at before he got to me.
But we are not our worst days. And after Dr. Robby’s exchanges with Dana this week, I’m increasingly convinced he really does need this three-month sabbatical. Watching his ER function without him may be the only thing capable of puncturing his ego — not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. He needs to know the place can survive without him so he’s not perpetually buckling under the weight of keeping it upright. He’s a good ER doctor. A great one, even. But Dr. Robby is not bigger than The Pitt — although, granted, The Pitt probably wouldn’t survive without Noah Wyle. Hell, Dr. Robby needs the break, because the way he’s going, the Pitt may not survive with him.
This was a great episode, though, largely because things are finally out in the open. After Robby’s exchange with Duke, we now understand why he’s so desperate to leave at the end of this shift: because if he doesn’t walk out the door tonight, he never will. But he’s equally terrified to leave the place in someone else’s hands. And we understand now why he refuses to forgive Langdon — because he feels complicit. Because someone could have died, and the missed signs would have been on him.
Santos, meanwhile, explained to Whittaker why she can’t shake her resentment of Langdon either — and it has nothing to do with his addiction. It’s because he was an asshole to her on her first day and gaslit her about it. Everyone is quick to extend grace for the addiction. Nobody seems to remember — or care — that Langdon was cruel to her before any of that entered the equation. Also: Santos absolutely does not want to admit how much she likes having Whittaker as a roommate.
The interpersonal drama was so consuming this week that the patients themselves feel like a blur. There was the issue-of-the-week subplot about the man who nearly died because rural hospitals are disappearing. There was the elderly couple who, once again, illustrated exactly why Mohan should be in geriatrics — though that piece of advice landed considerably better coming from Al-Hashimi than from Dr. Robby, who managed to be, again, a real asshole about it. Dana may be in serious trouble for administering a narcotic to a violent patient — one she’d clearly been carrying since that guy punched her in the face last season. And then there was the man with the catastrophic fireworks injury, because every episode apparently requires a moment that makes you set down your dinner.
Oh, and Joy clocked out at the end of her shift because she has actual work-life boundaries, God bless her. Langdon, in a strange reversal, has become the empathetic doctor Robby used to be. And McKay? She just needs a hug and a long cry. Don’t we all, Dr. McKay. Don’t we all.
