Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Pitt” Season 2, Episode 1.
As “The Pitt” closed out its first season triumphantly, the future of both Katherine LaNasa’s Nurse Dana and Patrick Ball’s Dr. Frank Langdon were somewhat unclear — with Dana contemplating throwing her hat in for good after being attacked, while Langdon got the boot from Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby after discovering he was stealing medication to satisfy a drug addiction.
It was quite a relief for both actors, who had been aspiring for a steady gig and couldn’t have imagined the HBO Max show would blow up like it did, when they heard from series bosses R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells that their characters would be returning.
“I felt like, ‘Wow, I just got here — all these years, I wanted to work for John Wells and then to get on a show with a great character. Please don’t fire me,’” LaNasa recalled to TheWrap. “In fact, [Wells] called me over the summer, and I had just bought a house in LA because the show had gotten picked up, but I hadn’t gotten my call … He called me and I was like, ‘Please don’t be firing me.’ I was really just happy to be back.”
Ball, who admitted he was working four jobs in Brooklyn and was close to “hanging it up and moving back to North Carolina” when he got the call to join “The Pitt,” also wasn’t sure whether he would be returning, noting the first season “left things in a messy situation,” but was “stoked” to reunite with the cast.
“We did a lot of growing up together as a cast,” Ball told TheWrap. “Many of us haven’t done this at all before, but I don’t think any of us have done anything like this. To come together and make this weird little show that you know is all science-y and medicine-y, and accidentally turns into this phenomenon … the universe has a plan, I guess.”
“Like a month before the Emmys, I remember, laying in my bed, I was looking at the ceiling and I said to Grant [Show], ‘Can you believe I’m nominated for an Emmy? What happened to our life? I was just just trying to get a job,’ ” LaNasa said of her nod from the TV Academy, which she ended up winning. “The whole thing was a really unexpected journey for me and you too.”
For LaNasa, her character’s attack in the first season, which saw her get punched by an unruly patient in a heart-stopping moment, uncovered some of Dana’s “buried grief” surrounding her mother, whose death in Dana’s teen years pushed her to begin volunteering and a career in nursing.
“Dealing with other people’s trauma has been a way to kind of just push down all of her deepest agony,” LaNasa said. “I think the punch … in a way, made it impossible for her to go back to the place where she gets all of her self-esteem, all of her sense of self, but also where she hides. There was nothing left to do but to face that.”
While LaNasa admits Dana tried to “white knuckle” the attack, she imagines one of her daughters pushed her to get some help, which she did, in the form of a break from work, therapy and self-defense classes. Though Dana was unsure if she would be returning to the ER, LaNasa noted she came back “because it’s calling.”
“From a lot of the nurses that I’ve talked to, they do it because they know they’re good at it, and it’s important work that not everybody can do,” LaNasa said. “I think it feels really good to be that person — it feels like noble work. I don’t think she could turn away from that.”
The protection and intolerance for violence against healthcare workers that Dana brings back with her can be seen as she guides green nurse Emma (Laëtitia Hollard) through her first day in the ER. “By protecting her, in a way, it’s healing part of herself, making sure that she knows how to take care of herself so nothing will happen to her like what happened to [Dana],” LaNasa said, noting her strong protection of Emma is “kind of a reaction to the punch.” “I think it also helps her to understand why she does what she does, by viewing it through this nurse and showing her the ropes.”
Similarly to Dana, Ball notes that Langdon was forced to “face his own shadow” in the ten months he spent in a rehabilitation program, and at home with his family since getting fired by Robby, noting that “early recovery a very profound shift … it’s not a straight line.”
“He’s had to leave this place where he gets his sense of purpose from, and much of his identity from. I think he’s had to do some soul searching that he’s probably never had to do in his life,” Ball said. “Now he’s coming back … in to his old haunts in a new way, as a new man, hopefully. He’s just trying to stay in the beam, just trying to be among workers. That’s the mission.”
Given Langdon’s desire to be good at everything he does, Ball noted that his character wants to receive an “A” at rehab and comes in with a plan to make amends, with Ball imagining Langdon has rehearsed his apologies to Robby, Dana, Mel (Taylor Dearden) and Santos (Isa Briones), which he admits is “a big one.”
“And then, funnily enough, he walks in the door, and the first person he runs into is Louie, who’s probably somebody he was not anticipating seeing, and who is somebody whom he is arguably wronged as much as anyone,” Ball said, noting seeing Louie first “immediately throws Langdon a bit off of his game plan.”
“The Pitt” Season 2 releases new episodes Thursdays 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on HBO Max.
The post ‘The Pitt’ Stars on Dana and Langdon’s Tense Season 2 Return: ‘Please Don’t Be Firing Me’ appeared first on TheWrap.
