Season 2, Episode 9: ‘3:00 P.M.’
It’s the Fourth of July, and the Pitt finally has its first firecracker accident. Some poor kid named Jude (Anthony B. Jenkins) arrives after losing two fingers when what was likely an M-80 exploded prematurely. The resulting injury is gnarly enough to gross out even a seasoned horror fan.
But while Jude’s prognosis is good — he kept his three most important fingers, which will work fine once they close the wound — his family situation is not. His sister and legal guardian, Chantal (Sasha Compère), informs Santos, Robby and Dylan that their parents were seized and deported to Haiti during a routine immigration appointment. You can almost see the air get sucked out of the room when she says it.
This cruel implementation of the current administration’s mass deportation policy has forced Chantal to transfer out of her college and move back home to care for Jude. But they have almost no money, so she works long hours on top of her continuing education, leaving Jude unsupervised for long stretches of time.
Now it isn’t certain that either of them will graduate, or that social services will leave Jude in Chantal’s custody. Dylan, the social worker, is optimistic, but he also thinks they may be better off with their parents in Haiti, a place they’ve never been.
The Pitt’s staff attack any problem that comes their way as if they had a fighting chance, but they stand little chance against the punitive powers of a government that is actively hostile toward immigration. Their sense of frustration and sadness is palpable.
“We can’t separate her from her brother,” Santos says. “It’s not right.”
“A lot of what happens to people around here isn’t right,” Robby replies. Happy Fourth of July, folks.
“The Pitt” always has one eye on the wider sociopolitical aspects of health care. Amaya (Charrell Mack), a patient with polycystic ovary syndrome, notes wearily that as a brown woman, her complaints about pain are frequently disregarded.
And while Garcia may be a surgeon, red tape is one thing she can’t slice through so easily, with vital procedures routinely held up by insurers over billing. “You’ve got to love it when insurance companies make medical decisions,” she says sarcastically. I don’t think I have a single friend or family member who hasn’t expressed this sentiment at some point.
The hospital remains in chaos because of a ransomware cyberattack, drawing attention to how vulnerable vital information systems are to bad actors. Granted, it is oddly thrilling to watch these professionals scramble to find clipboards, fix fax machines and run back and forth to the lab. Dana even brings in an old colleague, Monica (Rusty Schwimmer), to handle clerk duties — this after she lost her job because her skills were deemed outmoded. She’s the only character I can recall who calls Dr. Robby “Robinovitch.”
But despite the rousing atmosphere, the increased confusion nearly leads to disaster. Because Javadi is unfamiliar with how the new system works, she leaves one of her patients long enough in limbo to develop serious complications that require surgery. Had Javadi filed her paperwork properly, Dr. Garcia could have solved the problem in 60 seconds. “Not good enough, nepo baby,” Garcia snaps at Javadi. “You [expletive] up.”
Javadi is accustomed to expertise and achievement. She doesn’t seem well equipped to deal with nearly killing a patient, no matter how Whitaker tries to reassure her. “She just fell through the cracks” of the unfamiliar analog system, he says. “We caught it in time. We won’t let it happen again.”
Whitaker has a caring nature like that. To a fault, perhaps: Dr. Robby warns him against getting too involved with the wife and baby of a patient he lost last season. He invites Whitaker to house sit while he’s on sabbatical, at least in part to get him away from the situation.
Javadi’s case shows how quickly a patient’s prognosis can worsen because of a simple oversight. It’s important context for Mel’s story line in this week’s episode. A nervous wreck now that her malpractice deposition is less than an hour away, she becomes sidetracked when her autistic sister, Becca (Tal Anderson), arrives at the hospital, complaining of stomach pain and frequent, uncomfortable urination. This throws Mel off her game even further.
Becca reacts to meeting Robby and Langdon as if she had just met a pair of rock stars. I get the feeling that her sister has said a lot of good things about Langdon in particular. (Yes, I’m detecting a vibe there, if only a one-sided one.) Robby has the good sense to pull Mel off the case so she doesn’t miss her all-important deposition, reminding her that it’s unwise to treat relatives regardless.
Two recurring cases are heartbreaking to follow. Roxie, the cancer patient, finally reveals why she is so reluctant to go home: She has secretly been in terrible pain and afraid of upsetting her family. The hospital’s pain meds and expert staff provide her with relief — but not from the horrible feeling that she was given so many good things in her life only to have them snatched cruelly away.
Dr. Abbott returns with Howard, the very overweight patient who had to travel to another hospital for a scan. Wheeled into the ambulance bay because there’s no reception inside the hospital, Howard has a phone call with his sister (Clare Carey), using a machine to speak for him while he’s intubated. The machine can’t keep his tears from falling, however: He has just a 50-50 chance of surviving surgery and a 100 percent chance of dying without it. He knows this may be the last time they ever talk.
Elsewhere in the Pitt, Perlah threatens to expose Princess for cheating with inside information in the “What happened at Westbridge?” betting pool. Princess cuts her in on the winnings to keep her quiet. It’s a cutthroat business.
Fortunately, the sight of Dr. Nick Barker (Adam Shaukat), a handsome radiologist Dr. Al brings down to the Pitt, takes Princess’s mind off her losses. The point of bringing him in was to save time. But it gets to where the female staffers spend so much time gawking that his presence becomes an impediment to the work flow. (His bulky machinery doesn’t help.)
Santos runs into relationship troubles with Garcia, who doesn’t seem to think they’re in a relationship that’s anything more than casual. An attendee at a furry convention (Elizabeth Hinkler), brought in for heat exhaustion after spending the day in a fox costume, takes a shine to Santos, though, and asks her to come to the next convention with her. As my sainted great-grandmother used to say, when God closes a door, he opens a window — or in this case, unzips a fur suit.
Dana seems to be doing better, able both to run the E.R. like a battlefield commander and to offer gentle encouragement to Emma, her slightly overwhelmed protégé. Aside from her exclamation “This [expletive] day,” she seems to be handling the pressure well.
But two things worry me about the future of the Pitt. Robby keeps hinting that he may not return from his sabbatical. When Abbott tells him to call if he finds all that time alone with himself too dark to endure, Robby tilts his head downward, grins and simply walks away. It is not reassuring behavior.
And then there is the news Donny sees at the end of the episode: A water slide has collapsed at a nearby water park, and all the injured survivors are headed their way. We’ve already seen what a mass casualty event does to the Pitt, and that was when their computers were up and running. When Dana said, “This [expletive] day,” she apparently didn’t know the half of it.
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