SPOILER ALERT: The following will reveal plot points from the Season 2 finale of HBO Max‘s The Pitt.
HBO Max’s critically acclaimed medical drama The Pitt has put Season 2 to bed tonight, following a heartbreaking finale that saw Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) narrowly escape the darkness of his mental health crisis.
This season, Robby suffered internally until he could no longer do so on some occasions when he took it out on the staff. In the Season 2 finale, you see him square off with Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) just moments after she poured her heart out to him about the seizures she suffers following a childhood bout with malaria. She was looking for understanding and perhaps the guidance of a doctor she respects and admires, despite the issues she had observed in the emergency room across the Fourth of July weekend, but was met with the opposite.
Al-Hashimi ends up bawling in her car about Robby’s lack of empathy and perhaps the hypocrisy of it all. Robby continues to prove he is not capable of working the long hours, especially in an emergency room setting, where he knows that every life they are unable to save eats at his soul, among other things.
He clashed with Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) in the middle of her own crisis, as well, and Langdon (Patrick Ball) during a delicate time in his life where he’s working hard on his sobriety. These are but a few examples of how his deterioration is beginning to affect those looking to him for guidance.
Then there’s the whole thing about him planning a sabbatical that was really a plan to perhaps end his life. He is suffering, and one can only push through for so long before one can’t any longer. He needs help stat.
Show creator, writer, and executive producer R. Scott Gemmill confirms that even with everything that they put Robby through in seasons 1 and 2, the character has yet to hit rock bottom.
“I don’t think he’s hit rock bottom yet. He certainly had some stumbles. Robby has a long way to go to heal himself, and he hasn’t really even started the sabbatical, which is a double-edged sword. It could be very good for him to go away, but I think he is a little suicidal, and that’s got a lot of people concerned. But he’s also a grown man, and there’s only so much we can do. So, the big question at the end is: is he going to go, and if he does, is he going to come back?” said Gimmell.
Regarding Robby’s relationship with Al-Hashimi, Gemmill opens up about what challenges he was hoping her character would bring to Robby in order to help the character grow.
“One was to show somebody who wants to do things a little differently, and how reluctant he is to change. But also, Robby’s struggling. He had his big meltdown last year, and he’s still reeling from that, specifically because he’s not really doing the work he needs to,” Gemmill shared.
He continued, “Robby’s not getting the help he needs. He’s very good at treating other people. He’s very good with patients, but he’s a terrible patient himself. He doesn’t take his own advice. And the way he’s treating people throughout the day gets worse and worse, because he’s getting very snappy, and it’s all self-loathing, more than anything. But it’s to show that he’s not the normal Robby we’ve come to know and love, that there’s something going on that is a little bit disturbing.”
With his behavior starting to affect his colleagues, there’s the potential that he will start to wear them down, which is dangerous for a working emergency room that needs to be focused on teamwork and saving lives. Gemmill addresses how the above can become problematic, but how it’s also an important part of the character’s journey.
“I think that’s part of his problem, and that’s part of what his journey is going to have to be if he wants to be the best doctor he can be, because it is affecting his work. Like the way he treats Langdon. He gets Langdon to the right place and convinces him that he’s a good doctor and still has his skills, but he does it in a way that’s somewhat unacceptable,” said Gemmill.
