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This article contains spoilers for The Pitt season 2 episode 3.
Bro, what is in the air on The Pitt season 2? It’s 9 a.m. on a typically busy Fourth of July shift in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center emergency room – complete with dislocated shoulders, distended bellies, exposed brains, the whole nine yards – and everyone is horny. Not 20 minutes after Drs. Javadi and King have drained multiple syringes of blood from a dangerously erect penis, The Pitt season 2 episode 3 finds itself in a curiously randy mood. The sexual energy is subtle, in keeping with the show’s realistic style, but it’s there all the same.
Less than two hours after she complained that she needed to get laid, Dr. Cassie McKay appears to be giving off pheromones (or folks just realize that Fiona Dourif is very pretty). A kindly old patient who can’t sit still flirts with the good doctor in a playful, grandfatherly way. His romantic odes to McKay’s beautiful eyes are followed up by a more sincere expression of romantic interest from a fit stud in a U.S. soccer jersey. When things die down for a moment of quiet, dual attending physicians Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) and Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) resolve to go their separate ways with a curiously charged send off.
“Splitting up so soon?” Robby jokes.
“Your’e free to see other people, Dr. Robinavitch. I’m looking for cooperation, not commitment,” Al-Hashimi grins back.
Ma’am. That is way too hot for 9 a.m.
The Pitt throwing itself an early Valentine’s Day is another example of the way it effectively establishes episodic themes even within its stylistic restraints. It’s also a helpful reminder of why the show’s fandom is Like That. Many well-crafted popular TV series lend themselves to some passionate shipping from the terminally online, but The Pitt‘s partisans have really found a way to stand out from the pack on social media. After the pure yearning presented in “9:00 A.M.,” I’m ready to join the fan-cam crafting masses.
Even the patients seem to be in on the simmering sexual tension. The agitated Mr. Williams (Derek Cecil) gets a diagnosis and it’s a grim one: a four centimeter mass in his frontal lobe that is likely a brain tumor. But his spirits are buoyed by the arrival of his ex-wife to the hospital thanks to an outdated emergency contact form. Not only does the now-Mrs. Lambdin seem quite concerned for Michael’s well-being, she’s also intrigued by the fact that his tumor may have been present years earlier and responsible for his sudden aggressive behavior. One can see her imagining a blissful life as Mrs. Williams once again once Dr. McKay supports her theory.
Then there are the Yees, a married couple that Robby and Al-Hashimi attend to following a car accident that killed a motorcyclist. (No, the motorcyclist wasn’t wearing a helmet. Yes, he is killed instantly. And yes, the doctors immediately seize upon that fact, causing Robby to lie and claim that he always wears his.) Mr. Yee (Eugene Shaw), it turns out, was experiencing hypokalemia, an incredibly rare condition that shifts potassium into cells and causes temporary paralysis. Once he wakes up, he bears witness to an explosive screaming match between Benny Connors and his girlfriend regarding the condition of Benny’s daughter Kylie.
Like Mark Yee himself, Kylie is the Pitt’s second “zebra” of the hour, diagnosed with the exceedingly rare Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP). But Mark doesn’t know that. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to end up like that couple, so he asks for Dana’s (Katherine LaNasa) help in composing a filmed video to his wife. Unfortunately, Mrs. Nancy Yee (Angela Lin) has already been brought up to surgery to address internal bleeding that Robby and company missed – perhaps because she was ambulatory and alert, or perhaps because the doctors didn’t want to interfere with a loving wife’s care for her husband.
While romantic energy provides a thematic throughline, the rest of the installment keeps the baseline chaos levels high while introducing several new conflicts. The case of Jackson Davis (Zack Morris), the young man brought screaming nonsense into the Pitt at the end of last week’s episode, comes to a speedy resolution, if not conclusion. When Jackson’s tox screening comes up negative for any hallucinogens or psychoactive drugs, overzealous campus security officer Tony Chinchiolo (Kurtis Bedford) has to answer for his use of a Taser. Meanwhile, Dr. Langdon and the young’ns get an insightful look into what home life is like for the legendary stockcar racing family, the Hansens. It involves a lot of drug sharing.
And what would an episode of The Pitt be without a check-in with our beloved teddy bear, Louie (Ernest Harden Jr.)? The fluid has successfully been drained from Louie’s stomach (and seemingly shattering his previous record of over a gallon), but now the tooth pain is starting to flair up again. May the TV gods watch after the ailing alcoholic because we need him to continue to deliver Pittsburgh fun facts like he does regarding the Zambelli fireworks family.
Louie isn’t the only example of The Pitt putting its setting to good use. The most compelling patient introduced in this hour arrives rich with painful Pittsburgh history. Brought in with a severe burn to her leg, Yana Kovalenko (Irina Dubova) is a wonderful firecracker of a woman, delighting in Dr. Robby’s (albeit lapsed) Judaism, razzing his dangerous choice of transportation, and advocating for him to settle down. She also, however, is revealed to be suffering from PTSD due to her experiences with the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, a real life 2018 massacre that remains the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in American history.
Yana’s conversations with Robby and nurse Perlah Alawi (Amielynn Abellera) are simple but affecting. They represent the show finding novel and unobtrusive ways to conjure up quick pathos. The scenes also serve as a reminder that not every American medical drama need be set in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Human tragedy isn’t confined to the coasts. The Pitt has plenty of it to go around. No wonder its doctors need a release.
New episodes of The Pitt season 2 premiere Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max.
The post The Pitt Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Cooperation, Not Commitment appeared first on Den of Geek.
