Code Triage, Emergency Department!
As the call goes out over the intercom, Dr. Robby is already gathering his forces. PTMH is closest to the shooting at Pitt Fest, and will receive the brunt of the casualties. But while a TV medical drama has always loved a mass casualty event, as this one continues to rewire the entire genre with its unique urgency, Episode 12 of The Pitt plunges the viewer into this tense preparation, and right alongside Robby’s staff. “How many casualties?” Mohan asks as modular “disaster bins” are rolled into the ED and Gloria announces a full-hospital lockdown. The answer is currently unknown, just like the identity of the shooter. (McKay: “Did the police find David?”) As Robby delegates his residents, interns, and medical students onto specific response teams, and the ambulance bay transforms into a triage receiving point – “Most will probably arrive by car, several victims per vehicle” – the Pitt also welcomes extra help in the form of night shift early arrivers.
“We’re a MASH unit now,” says Dr. Jack Abbott, Robby’s colleague and a combat-trained former military doctor. They won’t have time or space for anything but gurneys full of victims, with four beds to each trauma bay. Zone assignments for wounded and caregivers alike will be designated via colored slap band. There is no patient big board, no electronic monitoring of treatment. It’ll be Sharpies and wrist tags, and if you run out of room, write the details on patients’ foreheads. “We have five minutes to try and stabilize the reds, Abbott says. “After that it’s OR, ICU, or morgue.” Victoria Javadi’s eyes widen. An hour ago they were all anticipating the end of this shift. With the mass shooting response, just like The Pitt itself, things have reached a new level of really real.
Dr. John Shen (Ken Kirby) is another new arrival, and as Robby stations him at triage, he notes with curiosity and some trepidation how Shen keeps talking about the weather and slurping on a Frappucino. But there is no time to argue, and with senior resident Parker Ellis (Ayesha Harris) also arriving – “Put me in, Coach” – Robby turns to face what’s coming with veteran calm. Police vehicles full of shot-up people. HVAC and construction contractors opening the crash doors of their vans, which inside resemble Hueys landing after receiving casualties from a firefight. And all the while, while Robby performs expert scans of triage and the cases filling the ED, his eyes silently plead that neither Jake nor his girlfriend will be among the carnage.
Chad, McKay’s layabout ex, is not a beacon for solidarity. But Chad’s drawn face is all of us as he talks his way past security by dropping his “wife”’s name, only to find a trauma floor overflowing with patients – while McKay and others often kneel on gurneys, steadily working beside puddles of blood – and corpses being wheeled past him to the morgue. Javadi immediately incorporates Dr. Abbott’s advice, pivoting quickly as the ED runs low on vital supplies like breathing tubes. To pivot is part of what the med student has already learned. But it’s also grounds for Victoria to school her renowned surgeon mother, Dr. Shamsi, whose help in the ER is welcome, but includes her frowning at such “unconventional” improvisation. “Read the fucking room, Mom!” Nearby, McKay sends Javadi a smile of support.
As the yellow (minor), red (major), and dreaded black-and-white (beyond help) zones continue to treat and sort, we catch a few interesting little moments. Despite everything, or perhaps because this is happening, Abbott and Robby continue to teach their young staffers. (After all, they will be the leaders for the sad fact of future mass casualty events.) “You got this, Dr. King,” Robby told Mel, after placing her in charge of Zone Yellow. “Who intubated?” he asks, jumping into the fray of a chaotic trauma bay. “I did,” is the confident, simple answer, and the senior attending manages a tight smile. “Mohan is on fire!” When Dr. Santos catches a possible YouTuber faking a wound in order to film action on the ED floor, she drops his phone into a bloody wash bucket. (“Oops.”) And while Robby worries they will send cases upstairs to an already slammed OR, Dr. Walsh (Tedra Millan) flashes a little rakish confidence, Dr. Garcia-style. “No you won’t – we’ll blast through these, tying off the bleeders and slamming on vacuum dressings.”
There is another new arrival on the trauma floor, and even if his help is welcome, it’s a TBD sticking point for Robby. “You should not be here,” he says when he spots Dr. Frank Langdon treating a patient. But Langdon, while interacting with Dana, Santos, and others in such a way that it seems clear he’s using the mass casualty event as his personal professional recovery project, also clarifies the other fact of his participation. “None of these people should be here.” In this kind of moment, it’s all hands on deck. And Mel, who is not privy to the facts of his dismissal, brightens when she sees Langdon on the floor. He also takes the time to compliment her and Whitaker on a quick-thinking patient “catch.” It’s just like old times! Or, three hours ago!
There is blood everywhere in the Pitt, and tension bunched in everyone’s features. An old hippie patient, grazed by a bullet from the unknown mass shooter, vocalizes the human condition in the only nation where this regularly happens. (“No pain, just a lot of sadness for the world we live in.”) Theresa is pulled aside by the cops and questioned about her still-missing son. The younger PTMH staffers are nervous, but also psyched to contribute at such a rapid emergency clip, and the veterans keep everyone and everything moving forward. (It’s incredible that it took til halfway through this episode for Dana Evans to get up on a desk in her high-vis vest and start giving orders.) Over time, The Pitt’s real-time format has come to feel natural. But as Episode 12 carries its tension straight into the next ep, and the next wave of patients – Robby alerts Shen to the ambulances returning to the scene for more pickups – every second of this TV medical drama has never felt more real.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
The post ‘The Pitt’ Episode 12 Recap: Really Real-Time appeared first on Decider.
