Why everyone is telling you to watch The Pitt

Including me. I’m thoroughly Pitt-pilled.

We’re still celebrating the third anniversary of this here newsletter! And for said celebration, I’m offering 30% off a year of paid subscriptions! That’s $3.5/month, or $35/year. All proceeds will go to the Buy Dr. Santos a Goddamn Clue Fund.

Burnt out on monthly subscriptions right now? I feel you. You can also buy me and Dr. Shen another iced coffee one time!

“Locked in” looks different for all of us, b.

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I came into The Pitt a little skeptical, I’ll admit. I’ve never seen E.R., though it has a dope theme song. I’ve only seen three complete seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, and those were the first three seasons. I also tend to get a bit persnickety about how medical procedures are portrayed onscreen—like, a million percent of the defibrillator use you’ve seen is completely wrong—so I’m generally not a good hang here. But wifey loved E.R., and we needed a new show. So we figured we’d give The Pitt a try. And baybee!! I am proud to add my voice to the chorus of people telling you to watch it too.

Is the show utterly groundbreaking? No. Is it just a slightly remixed shot of 90s nostalgia? Not really. Is it an absolute showcase for gnarly practical makeup effects and prosthetics? Actually, yes, some of the best I’ve seen. The whole show really is quite something.

Now, to that “not utterly groundbreaking” point. Every medical drama needs certain elements to be legible. You need the cocky hotshot who cherrypicks the most “exciting” cases. You need the nurses who provide colour commentary and then snap into action as soon as they’re needed. You need the mass casualty event—a ferry crash near the hospital, a helicopter crash into the hospital—that pushes everyone on the team to their limit. The medical drama genre lives and dies by its tropes. The graphic nature of the injuries may be shocking, but the rest needn’t be. The Pitt absolutely has all these things, as well as hot doctors flirting and quipping away, and plenty of patient storylines designed to wrench your heartstrings. It’s designed to be familiar, without coming across as cliche.

A show like The Pitt has a lot to row against when it comes to not seeming cliche. It’s definitely not in the same camp as something like Paradise, a show that urges you to switch off most of your brain so that the plot twists are more fun than facile. But let’s be fair: medical dramas, like legal dramas, are all primetime soaps. So The Pitt leans way into verisimilitude to cut down on the soapiness. Unlike, say, Grey’s Anatomy, The Pitt only has two instances of nondiegetic music—the opening scene of the pilot, and the closing scene of the finale. Nothing is underscoring jokes or big emotional moments for you; it’s all just the acting.

This does not count, because this is diegetic, and she is untouchable.

The show uses enough of the current trappings of authenticity, like hand-held cameras, perfunctory industrial lighting, very unobtrusive makeup. There’s also a groundedness to the way every plot overlaps. It’s not a Case of the Week structure, with an A-plot and a B-plot that are thematically related, and a C-plot there for comic relief. Since we’re following this set of doctors and nurses through just one over-long shift, with each episode comprising one hour of said shift, everything is happening all at once. The ketamine overdose is happening at the same time as the clandestine abortion at the same time as the mother who gave herself ipecac so she could bring in her We Need To Talk About Kevin-ass son for mental health support.¹

All of this to say, it all feels very credible. Entertaining, but grounded in that very reassuring and flattering verisimilitude. And all of the series regulars make their characters feel so instantly lived-in. Again: familiar, but not cliche. There’s the one you want as your bestie (for me, Dr. Collins); the unrealistic office crush (Nurse Diaz); the sure, you can call this realistic, hon crush (Dr. Samira “SloMo” Mohan, baby). There’s the one you hate on sight and then begrudgingly have to acknowledge was right, about, like, TWO things.

I also have to make special note of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. As a non-E.R. watcher, the largest Noah Wyle had loomed in my life up to this point was his squirrelly henchman role in the J.Lo classic ENOUGH². And, I don’t know. He just always looked so young. Then all of a sudden³, he’s got shoulders, and gray in his beard, and slutty little reading glasses. Suddenly he’s not the skinny boyish one sprinting us to the crescendo of E.R.’s opening credits (the only other thing I’ve seen him do), but the senior attending physician of his own E.R. full of residents and interns for him to mentor.

Look at that warm eye crinkle.

Following his and charge nurse Dana’s example, this group of hospital workers really strives to embody the ethos of this hospital being a teaching hospital. That’s partly in the Grey’s Anatomy way, to explain why highly green medical professionals are given highly risky operations on, like, their first day on the job. But it’s mostly in a genuine way. Dr. Robby is patient (to a point), empathetic, wise, and responsive. Unlike McDreamy, Robby leads with humility, acknowledging when he has something to learn from one of his doctors. Even Dr. Langdon, the smuggest hotshot resident in the building⁴, allows himself to learn from Dr. King about how to connect with a patient with autism.

That’s our savage!

All of these things could have been true, and the show still could have flopped. But The Pitt premiered in January of this year, and has been running through some of the most terrifying and destabilizing months in recent memory. Every single day, we get fresh evidence that the people running this country are a most dangerous combination of brainless, spineless, careless, and heartless. It’s just a non-stop deluge of incompetence and venality. So it is just really nice to watch approachably hot people who are really good at their jobs take care of people in a crisis. It is really nice to watch people choose empathy and kindness over and over. It is really nice to watch Dr. Robby work his slutty little reading glasses.

And it feels like it’ll be way too long before I can return to the oddly soothing halls of an understaffed and overcrowded emergency room in Pittsburgh, PA.

Imagine you walk in and he does this.

1. The most infuriating case of the season, only partly because of the mother’s White Lady in a Tyler Perry Movie wig.

2. I am legally required to always refer to that film in all caps, otherwise my sister will pull an ENOUGH situation on me.

3. ENOUGH came out in 2002.

4. It makes perfect sense that he and Dr. Santos hate each other. They are the same person!