Season 2, Episode 15: ‘9:00 P.M.’
You want fireworks? You’ve got them. The 15th and final chapter of “The Pitt” Season 2 begins at 9 p.m. on the Fourth of July, and explosions in the sky are to be expected. But the episode detonates one emotional payload after another. It’s a near-hour of pain and catharsis, one that leaves the viewer feeling the kind of exhilaration and exhaustion that the staffers of the E.R. know so well.
There’s room for one last monster of a case. A very pregnant woman is rushed in with pre-eclampsia because of her choice to have a so-called wild birth — carrying and delivering the baby all on her own, with no medical monitoring or intervention, nor even help from a midwife or doula. It takes the combined efforts of nearly every doctor still on staff, including Dr. Robby, to help break her seizures and deliver her baby through an emergency C-section.
At different times, both mother and child appear unlikely to make it, and Dr. Toomarian, the new intern on the night shift, does poorly under the pressure. But both patients pull through. Like many of the show’s most memorable cases, it is all the more painful to watch because it was so avoidable, the consequence of a medically unsound wellness trend that needlessly risked their lives.
I would not be surprised if Robby had misinformation like this in mind when he sought out Javadi to praise her medical TikToks. You’re not going to be misinformed by a genius like Dr. J. “You could do anything you put your mind to, Victoria,” Robby tells her. It’s the kind of praise any young medical practitioner would donate a kidney to hear from the venerated chief attending physician.
For Javadi, Robby’s encouragement confirms her decision to look into a career in emergency psychiatry — inspired not least of all by her observations that most of her colleagues are in need of emergency psychiatry. “Look at what this place does to you,” she tells Whitaker. “Langdon’s an addict. McKay was on house arrest. Dana’s a time bomb. Santos is one of the angriest people you’re ever going to meet. Mel?” Here she pauses, mouth agape, as though Mel’s issues are self-evident.
“Samira has no life,” she continues. “Abbot’s an adrenaline junkie who gets shot at for fun. Robby’s got, like, P.T.S.D. or something way [expletive] worse.” The lack of good mental health in the E.R. has shown her how important mental health is.
Robby’s own psychological well-being remains in question throughout his farewell tour of the E.R. before departs on sabbatical. (Or is that departs on a suicide run?) He tears up when he sees Whitaker, his house-sitter, leave for the night in a pickup truck with his pretty farmer friend and her son. Using a kind of reverse psychology, he gets a despondent Mohan to tell him it is never too late to find the life you want — and thus realize that the same is true for her, despite the fallout with her mother.
She apologizes for her distracted behavior, then returns the encouragement. “We need you here,” she says. “Even if you can be a [expletive] sometimes.” That about sums it up, I’d say.
His next goodbyes are far more fraught. First, he confronts Al-Hashimi about her seizure disorder. Even though the two she had today were her first in months, she can clearly no longer drive a car safely, let alone practice emergency medicine. Their hard-earned respect for each other dissolves into a shouting match audible throughout E.R., ending when Robby tells her that if she doesn’t report herself to the hospital administration, he will.
Dr. Al pulls herself together and leaves for the night, but she can only drive her car about 30 feet from her parking space before the reality of her situation finally overcomes her. We leave her crying there in her stopped car, her fate in the E.R. now uncertain. (There was once a time when it appeared Dana might leave and Dr. Collins would be back, so it’s difficult to guess these things.)
Next up is Abbot, one of Robby’s closest friends. Robby opens right up to him. Abbot reminds Robby that life “can be unbearable and brutal and ugly and heartbreaking, but it’s also beautiful and hilarious.” It’s not life that’s bothering Robby now, though, but death. “A part of you dies when you see a fellow human pass,” he says, and he has seen deaths beyond count. With each one, he feels a piece of his soul is being leached away.
“Go on a cruise,” Abbot says, having none of this. “Find someone to help you dance through the darkness.” He concedes this last bit may be a song lyric. (If so, the reference is nothing obvious.)
At the last minute, Robby catches Langdon and apologizes for mistreating him throughout the day. Langdon, who in the past hour has had to urinate in a cup for a humiliating drug test and learned that one of his patients lost most of her leg to necrotizing fasciitis, is not in a gracious mood. By now he is familiar with people like Robby, he says: He meets them in rehab. “You need help, Robby,” he says, repeating it for emphasis. “You need help.”
Robby’s final meeting of the night is with Baby Jane Doe, one of the season’s first patients. (Another, the charming Digby, is seen parading through the park wearing Whitaker’s missing ID badge.) Medical professionals are allowed to take custody of an abandoned child temporarily, but Dana has been unable to find anyone willing to do so.
What are we to make, then, of the fact that the last thing we see before the closing credits roll is a teary-eyed Dr. Robby, himself abandoned by his mother as a child, repeatedly telling the infant she has “so many wonderful things to see and people to love” ahead of her? Will his road trip sabbatical become paternity leave? Considering the way this baby instantly brings out Robby’s most optimistic, humanistic side, I certainly hope so.
Throughout this grueling day — and this 15-week season, a long one in the streaming era — we’ve seen heartbreaking outcomes for patients like Louie, Roxie and Orlando. We’ve also observed medical miracles, the two most recent being Dr. Langdon’s manual spinal readjustment and the all-hands-on-deck rescue of the pregnant woman and her baby. There have been hospital closures, computer shutdowns and many Fourth of July-related illnesses and injuries.
When the rooftop watch party for the Fourth of July fireworks finally commences, the day’s darkest events are written all over the faces of McKay, Mohan, Santos, Javadi, Mel and especially Nurse Perlah. She sobs in Dana’s arms while they all watch the city’s big celebratory display. No one is smiling. No one is feeling lifted after a day of death, depositions and deportations. With a patient and a nurse in ICE custody, no one looks proud to be an American, where, to paraphrase lyrics by the MAGA favorite Lee Greenwood, at least they know they’re free.
The multicolored lights of the fireworks shine down on faces uncertain about the future of the country being celebrated. Their uncertainty is sadly familiar, the opposite of the assurance Robby tries to make himself and the baby feel. “Everything’s going to be just fine,” he said. No one can know that for sure.
I did say there was catharsis as well as pain, though, and that’s where final scene comes in. After the action fades out on Robby and the baby, as the credits begin to roll, we hear crowd noises and then voices, singing the opening lines of Alanis Morissette’s poison-pen classic “You Oughta Know.” It’s Santos and Mel, out doing karaoke together and really giving it their all.
Are they note-perfect? No, but a good karaoke performance isn’t about perfection; it’s about commitment. As Mel and Santos thrash and scream and whip their hair around — Mel even loses the glasses! — they’re giving the most you can ask of anyone, on a karaoke stage or anywhere: their all. They do the same in the hospital, but considering the day these two have had, I hope they are having too much fun to think about it.
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