In The Pitt, Season 2, episode 10, Robby and his crew dealt with 3 cases related to the waterslide incident. The first one was the woman who had suffered a leg amputation, which was cleared for replantation by Park the Shark. The second one was Derek, who had some chest complications, and he had lost track of his son, Zack, during the chaos after the accident. Despite the friction between Langdon and Santos, Derek’s chest was fixed, and Emma managed to locate Zack as well and also confirm that he was fine. The third one was a kid with a damaged windpipe who was brought back from the brink by Baran with the help of a surgery that seemingly nobody had performed before, even Baran. In addition to all that, Samira suffered a panic attack, Mel learned that Becca’s UTI was a result of her having sex with her boyfriend, and Roxie finally passed away. Now, let’s have a look at what’s in store in hour 11 of the PTMC’s Independence Day shift.
Spoiler Alert
Roxie is dead
McKay ups the dosage of morphine, and then she and Victoria leave the room so that Roxie’s family can bid her goodbye in private. Victoria isn’t okay with this, but McKay reiterates the point she has been making from the moment Roxie entered the ER: going out on her own terms is the only thing that’s in Roxie’s control, and they should allow her to exercise that control. Victoria is clearly shaken by this case, but instead of processing her emotions, she chooses to burden herself with more cases. McKay notices this self-harming attitude, but is not at liberty to stop Victoria from potentially triggering a mental breakdown episode. While checking the board for patients, McKay is informed that someone named Kiki is looking for her; she doesn’t want to be looked at officially; hence, she’s waiting at the park opposite the PTMC. Even though the ER is swamped with cases, McKay chooses to leave the building for a couple of seconds to treat Kiki, and she takes Ogilvie with her. She uses this opportunity to inject some more empathy into Ogilvie, who thinks he needs to hold some kind of moral high ground while treating patients who he comes across when they are at their lowest. Now, regardless of Ogilvie’s approach to treating patients like Kiki, he is pretty proficient at his job. He just needs to constantly stay grounded instead of floating around on his balloon of ego, which is why McKay suggests that Ogilvie join the street team.
Ogilvie isn’t entirely sure about that, but it seems like he’ll give it a shot. Sadly, while she’s gone, Roxie passes away, and Robby is the one who has to “call it.” When Robby spots McKay at the hub, he gives her the bad news, while reprimanding her for stepping out of the ER during a digital blackout and taking a student doctor along with her. Before McKay processes that, the plot thickens due to ICE. Monica wonders if they can move Roxie to the viewing room, because they need the room she’s currently in. Robby, who is always looking to chuck people out of the ER as quickly as possible so that the rooms are available for new patients, somehow finds it in himself to be empathetic and let Paul be with Roxie for a little while longer. Dana checks in on Lena, because she was like a part of Roxie’s family. She isn’t doing fine, but she wants to come back to the ER for the night shift because she thinks that working her way through her sadness is the only way to process her grief. Dana advises against that, because that’s not exactly healthy, and Lena actually accepts Dana’s suggestion.
Jesse Is Arrested By ICE
Pranita, an alleged undocumented immigrant, is brought in by two federal agents, Correa and Russo, because she “took a nasty fall” while they were arresting her. Robby and McKay jump in on the case; the latter theorizes that it could be a rotator cuff tear or an AC separation. Dana assigns a room for her, and while Robby keeps a close eye on the ICE agents, McKay and Victoria check out Pranita. After some preliminary exams, Robby states that Pranita needs to be X-rayed, which means she’s going to be there for a while. If Pranita was a patient who had entered the ER of her own volition, this wouldn’t have been an issue. However, since she has been brought in there by ICE, it means that as long as Pranita is kept in the PTMC, the agents are going to hang around there as well. Why’s that an issue when the Pitt has treated an inmate named Gus? Well, that’s because ICE is notorious for going after undocumented immigrants, or even immigrants with proper documents. And if patients and staff who belong to any minority community spot ICE in the ER, they’re going to bolt, as these fools are infamous for harassing anyone and everyone who isn’t White. Well, maybe due to the inclusion of POC ICE agents, the institution has diversified a little, and they go after White people who empathize with the plight of immigrants as well.
Anyway, what everyone in the staff fears comes to pass as they notice employees and patients running away from the ER to avoid getting arrested even accidentally. McKay informs Robby that they are fast-tracking Pranita’s X-ray, and while they are prepping the machine, Victoria has a chat with Pranita so that she doesn’t feel as anxious as the ICE agents want her to. A few minutes later, McKay shows Pranita’s X-ray reports to Robby, and since there’s no fracture, he tells her to get Jesse to give her a sling and discharge her so that the ICE agents leave the building and everyone can feel safe again. As Robby is saying this, he notices one of the agents chatting up Monica, probably to get some confidential information about the patients in there so that they can arrest them too, and Robby just explodes. The ICE agent uses that as an excuse to drag Pranita out of the ER before she has gotten her sling. Jesse protests and is promptly arrested by those idiots. While Jesse is being dragged out, Robby tells him to not utter a word that can be used against him, and he orders Dana to call in the legal team. Unfortunately, they are busy with the digital blackout. So, now the PTMC has to go into detective mode to find out which detention facility Jesse is being taken to. No, they can’t follow Jesse to that facility, even though Victoria really wants to (Victoria had the presence of mind to record the whole thing), because the ER is understaffed and overworked already. So, Robby tells everyone to just get back to work while he figures out a way to save Jesse. I have a lot of things to say about ICE, but I’ll just let the episode do the talking.
Baran Saves A Suicidal Mother
Mel is still trying to extract information about Becca’s sex life from her, and she is understandably uncomfortable about sharing such details. This angers Mel a lot, and she almost goes off on Becca, but since Langdon enters the scene on time, he’s able to whisk Mel away to the ambulance bay for a breather. But instead of calming down and getting off Becca’s case, Mel starts investigating her personal life because she’s afraid that something nonconsensual has happened between Becca and her boyfriend, Adam. Langdon kind of lets Mel speak her mind, and it seems like she is coming to the realization that she is infantilizing Becca for no reason. However, just before she has her lightbulb moment, a new case enters the ER, and Mel is forced to put Becca’s case on the back burner. The patient in question is a boy, Micah, who has been brought in by his mother, Brenda Azurmendi.
Apparently, Micah was playing in the front yard of his house with his tricycle, got tired, climbed into the car, and then lost consciousness. So, it’s unclear if it’s the heat that got him or if he suffocated while napping in the car, which had no ventilation. Whatever the reason may be, Baran, Perlah, Kim, Mel, and Langdon work on bringing down the kid’s temperature. While that’s going on, Mel excuses herself so that she can be by Becca’s side while she gets discharged. Becca doesn’t exactly appreciate that, because she is offended by the notion that Mel doesn’t see her as an adult with feelings, emotions, and autonomy. Mel hopes to smooth things out with Becca while watching the Independence Day fireworks, but Becca dashes those hopes by revealing that, for this year, she’s breaking the ritual and watching the fireworks with Adam and his family. Mel gets an earful from Dana when she is spotted using the red phone to get Adam’s contact details from Middle Hill. Going back to Micah, he starts showing signs of recovery, and that seemingly assuages Brenda’s fears. However, at the hub, Joy tells Robby and Baran that there’s something off about the mother, as she has not shed a single tear ever since she entered the Pitt. Based on that, Baran checks in on Brenda, who is doing relatively fine after seeing Micah be pulled from the jaws of death. That said, she grows concerned as she learns that he might experience some psychological or physiological changes because he almost died. Since Baran has other cases to look at, she tells Brenda to stay strong and heads out of the room momentarily.
When Baran returns to Micah’s room, Brenda is gone. The nurse says that she has “stepped out,” so Baran goes outside to check if Brenda is loitering around the PTMC. She does find her standing on the footpath with the intention of stepping into oncoming traffic. I can’t explain how loudly I screamed and then heaved a sigh of relief when Baran saved Brenda from dying by suicide. I know the most clichéd response to this action is asking how a mother can do this to a son, but if we look at this through an empathetic lens (just like Dr. McKay taught us to), we can understand what must have compelled Brenda to take such an extreme step. The important thing is that the moment has passed, Brenda is safe and in an involuntary psych hold, and now she can work on herself while ensuring that Micha gets the appropriate care. Amidst all this chaos, Dana spots Mel going into the ER, and she goes after her to check how she’s doing. Mel admits that she isn’t exactly angry at Becca for keeping secrets; she’s sad that Becca is going to live a “normal” life while she is going to end up alone after dedicating her own life to being Becca’s support system. Dana advises Mel to celebrate Becca’s love life instead of pitying herself for not falling in love before her sister did. Mel isn’t in her 90s; she is young, and she’ll find love. She just needs to stop feeling sorry for herself and be open to new adventures.
It’s not going to be a 12-hour shift
Robby wonders if he’ll be able to get out of the ER on time, and Dana says that that’s completely up to Robby and his ability to control his ego. The ER, under Baran’s supervision, is perfectly capable of functioning properly; but since Robby thinks that his presence there is more important than anything in the world, he can’t leave his department in anybody else’s hands. Robby doesn’t take that truth bomb very well, and he chooses to ignore Dana’s comment by going to Duke’s room, but his X-rays are still pending. Before heading there, though, Robby says that he is willing to play nice with Baran for the next 2 hours. While taking Roberto’s case, Santos says that she isn’t going to resist the tasks that Dana sends her way, even though it hinders her charting plans, because there are only 2 hours left in this shift. At the hub, Victoria overhears Joy saying that she wants to pick up an easy case so that she can clock out within the next 2 hours of this shift. So I have to point out that this is actually a joke on the characters.
Everyone watching the show knows that there are 15, not 12, episodes in this season of The Pitt. And since each episode represents an hour of the shift, our protagonists are in for a 15-hour shift, not a 12-hour one, and I can’t wait to see that realization dawn on these donuts in real time. By the way, when Robby gets his hands on Duke’s X-ray, he doesn’t look really happy, because he spots something that could be an enlarged thyroid, an enlarged lymph node, or a tumor. So, Robby advises Duke that he should go for a CT scan to know for sure what exactly’s troubling him. Duke just asks him if he’ll be around after the results come back, and Robby assures him that he will. In case anyone was wondering how Robby’s 12-hour shift is going to turn into a 15-hour one, this is how, and I have a feeling that Duke is not making it all the way to the end. However, if you want to be optimistic, maybe Robby will steer Duke away from the jaws of death, and then he’s going to ride into them on his motorbike. Oh yeah, I am still sure that Robby is going to die or get severely injured before going on his sabbatical.
Santos and Langdon Finally Have That Argument
Whitaker checks in on Santos, and it seems like, despite Garcia’s educational notes on how and why she should forgive Langdon, Santos can’t compel herself to bury the hatchet and shake hands with the guy. Luckily, Santos isn’t paired up with Langdon for the rest of this hour of the shift, and she goes with Whitaker to take care of Roberto, who has suffered an elbow injury while trying to catch a baseball from a home run strike. No, the ball didn’t injure him; someone fell on top of him when he tried to catch it. That said, he is very possessive about the ball, which is why he doesn’t want to do anything, not even take morphine, that’ll require him to part ways with the ball, even for a second. Well, taking the morphine would have helped Roberto with the pain, but since he doesn’t want it, they send him for an X-ray to check what the damage is. The results show that there’s a posterior dislocation, but no fracture, which means that they need to get the ball back in the socket. Given how that’s a pretty painful process, Whitaker recommends local anesthetic, but Roberto is dead against any kind of drugs. So, Whitaker and Santos give up on convincing Roberto to get through this process as swiftly and painlessly as possible and let him power through the treatment by screaming at the top of his lungs. Mel arrives to assist the duo and witnesses one of the most hilarious, slapstick moments in the history of this show.
I like how unbothered everyone else in the ER is, because this is probably a common phenomenon over there; someone or the other always comes along who thinks they are macho enough to experience pain for fun. That said, when the time comes to write the procedure note, which Mel will submit at the hub so that Roberto can be sent to ortho, Santos and Whitaker start playing hot potato, because they have been writing so much all day. This overstimulates the already overstimulated Mel, and she just drops the clipboard and leaves the scene. At the hub, Baran asks Langdon why there’s so much tension between him and Santos, and Langdon gives her a Season 1 recap of his conflict with Santos. Langdon says that he has been meaning to talk to her, but he hasn’t found the right time. Given how the shift is about to come to an end, Baran urges Langdon to go up to Santos and have that chat. Langdon takes Baran’s advice and tries to smooth things out with Santos. However, Santos is in no mood to forgive Langdon, because she thinks that he is a fraud and his claim that he has changed for the better is a lie. Yeah, this is just going to serve as ammo for all the Santos haters out there. For the record, I totally understand where Santos is coming from; White men get free passes all the time regardless of what they do, while other people don’t. I also believe that Langdon has become a better human being. So, I suppose this dynamic has arrived at a stalemate, and it’s not going to break until some kind of a miracle happens.
Ogilvie Almost Gets Green Killed
Joy checks in on how Samira is doing and even offers her some advice on how to deal with panic attacks and depression, but Samira aggressively assures her that she’s doing alright. Samira checks in on Mrs. Torres, the patient that she was about to treat right before she suffered a meltdown. Torres has swelling in her calf muscle, and Samira says that there’s a possibility that she has a blood clot in her leg, which could lead to some serious complications. So, they need to do an ultrasound and maybe use blood thinners to fix this issue. Once Torres signs off on that, Samira orders the test and checks her other patients until the results come back. She teams up with Ogilvie to look at Green, who is still waiting for his pills, and she assures him that she is in touch with the pharmacy and trying to acquire them as soon as possible. A few moments later, Victoria, Samira, and Ogilvie find out that Green has lost consciousness, so Samira tells Perlah to clear a trauma room for them. Robby joins them, and the first thing he asks is who did the work-up on the patient, and Ogilvie admits that he is the one who messed it up. In addition to pulling out that glass shard and showing a general lack of empathy, Ogilvie has really hit the trifecta by putting Green in harm’s way by not checking his aorta. If he did, he would have spotted the ruptured aortic aneurysm, which means that Green is bleeding out. Ogilvie is so shocked by his own failure that he forgets about his intubation tally and lets Victoria do that task. Robby notices Ogilvie drowning in guilt and gets him to work on his patient by pushing blood into Green’s body so that he doesn’t check out completely, and that sort of works. Victoria has been shaken by Roxie’s passing, and she seems to be finding stability via this case, but that progress goes out of the window with Shamsi’s entry because Garcia isn’t available yet.
And like every other South Asian mother, she assumes that the blunder that’s led Green to the trauma was done by her own daughter. Victoria made one mistake with logging her patient on the board, and that’s completely excusable, because she’s working through an unprecedented situation: a goddamned digital blackout. To suppose that every mistake in the ER is going to be her fault is just unfair but expected from a South Asian parent. Thankfully, Robby is on Victoria’s side, and he gives her the opportunity to show why she’s fit for the job that she’s doing and that she can choose to pursue her own dreams on her own terms instead of being remote-controlled by her mother. Green is eventually stabilized and sent to surgery. Does Shamsi apologize for her idiotic behavior? Nope; she asks Robby about ICE being in the building and takes off. Ogilvie and Samira apologize to Robby for being ignorant, and while Robby treats Ogilvie with kid gloves on, he essentially punches Samira in the gut bare-knuckled. In response to Robby’s criticisms, Samira just says that maybe all this shows that she’s not fit for this job. By the way, every single one of Robby’s critiques applies to him too. He has blurred the line between his personal and professional lives several times. He is not mentally stable. He thinks chaos is better than following a system and actively demeans Baran’s efforts to make things simpler. So, even though Robby thinks that Samira is his punching bag for the day, she’s actually a mirror. Anyway, when Samira goes back to check on Torres, she finds out that her patient has left the building out of fear of ICE. Well, let’s hope that she returns since the coast is clear, because that leg was not looking really good.
Emma Gets Choked Out By Curtis
An unresponsive 42-year-old golfer, Curtis Larson, is wheeled into the ER, and he is knocked out because the first responders had to give him Versed to calm him down. Add to that the alcohol that Curtis had consumed before treating everyone at the golf course as enemy number 1, and you have a patient who is pretty cooperative. Donnie and Emma take him to one of the rooms, and he’s kept under observation until he regains consciousness. That’s when one of his friends, Ralph, shows up, and he states that Curtis’ actions were quite uncharacteristic. Curtis has gotten drunk before, but the way he picked fights at the golf course was unusual, to say the least. Donnie says that they are going to do all the necessary tests on him to see if it’s just a case of “drinking too much” or something more serious.
Emma tries to learn from Ralph if he knows anything from the patient’s family, and the guy straight-up says that he isn’t aware of such details about Curtis’ life because they never talked about it. And the way he puts it makes it seem like Emma is the stupid one for assuming that a couple of friends who go golfing with each other would be familiar with one another’s family members. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like Ralph is all that concerned about Curtis, because he takes off after learning that he won’t be waking up for another 3-4 hours. In the ending of episode 11, Emma checks in on Curtis, and he wakes up all dazed and confused. And instead of listening to what Emma is saying, he proceeds to choke her out. The shot on which the episode chooses to end makes it seem like Curtis is going to kill Emma, and nobody’s going to notice it until it’s too late. If that happens, I am going to riot. That said, I have a feeling that someone will notice and they’ll free Emma and subdue Curtis. By the way, does this subplot remind you of the altercation between some golfers and Nick Tarnasky? Everything from the golfers’ clothes to their drunken demeanor just made me think about that viral video. Do you think the show is making a reference to that incident? Let me know in the comments below.
