The Pitt Season-Finale Recap: Baby, It’s All Right

How’re we doing, Pitt crew? I’ll tell you how I’m doing. I’m terrible. Not because the season one finale of The Pitt was bad. It’s the opposite, in fact. “9:00 P.M.” is about as satisfying a finale a show like this could deliver. I am reveling in the wonderful television we’ve been treated to in this episode, and all season long. I am reveling. But I’m also bereft. I’m bereft because now we have to say goodbye to the doctors and nurses and staff of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and not to be a brat about it, but I don’t want to. I’m not ready. The credits came up on the finale and I said aloud, “I’m really going to miss everybody.” For the record, I do have friends and a life outside of television (sort of). I just really loved getting to spend 15 hours with these people. Didn’t you?

The PittFest shooting is mostly wrapped up at this point. The last patient going upstairs to surgery is on their way. Several victims are processed and given actual beds in the ED. We learn that the PTMC team saw 112 patients throughout that ordeal and 106 are going to live. The word “miracle” gets tossed around a bunch in this episode and everybody makes it clear that the miracles are the doctors and nurses and the work they did this evening. Nothing short of incredible. Even Gloria thanks the staff. The police are so grateful they do Robby a solid and give McKay a reprieve in regards to her ankle monitor until the morning. It’s all quite nice. I mean, what these people lived through this evening will surely change them forever and they’ll probably be plagued with nightmares from the carnage and the screaming, but it must feel somewhat good to have their efforts recognized.

If you thought with that horror show behind us things would wind down for our friends, I guess you haven’t been paying attention? You should know by now that The Pitt is just a never-ending stream of trauma and stress and occasional heartbreak. That’s what we do here and we like it!! PTMC might be closed to trauma at the moment, but trauma does not give a shit. Trauma finds a way. And this time around that way is a Code Tan: A hospital staffer named Hector gets wedged behind a van carrying supplies and his entire pelvis is crushed. Robby is so out of it that most of Hector’s care — especially once they find some internal bleeding — falls to Abbot and Walsh. I’ve got to say, I’m kind of digging the vibe between these two. He’s a cowboy who practices medicine with military sensibilities, she’s a surgeon who plays by the rules. Maybe I’m seeing things because I’m just so desperate for this show to have the teeniest tiniest bit of romance, but I nominate these two to hook up in season two, if nominations for such a thing exist.

But back to Robby: Just because he was able to pull himself together enough to get his team through the mass-casualty event doesn’t mean that he’s okay now. Remember that this was a tough day for Robby before he even walked through the hospital door this morning, and now on top of all that Dr. Adamson grief is all the fresh grief he’s carrying from this shift, mass casualty and otherwise. Plus, this man has barely sat down in 15 hours. The exhaustion is all over his face.

Not that any of this is an excuse, but it’s easy to understand why Robby isn’t exactly acting like himself. He’s still super harsh in the way he talks to McKay about the David situation. That whole thing was mishandled from start to finish, but when McKay goes to her superior, her mentor, looking for some reassurance, he offers her none. She does wind up “fixing” things as much as possible. She has another conversation with David in which she calmly talks to him about how his “eliminate list” is a form of violence against women and how this, right now, could be his second chance to turn things around. Later, she spots him reluctantly participating in his psych consult. It’s all very messy, but I think McKay can go home feeling good about David in the end.

Where Robby really goes wrong is with the measles kid. Yep, we’re still dealing with the lady who is happy to just stand there and watch her teenage son die rather than give him the spinal tap necessary to properly treat his reaction to the measles. And yep, she still sucks so hard. But again, this doesn’t excuse Robby’s actions here. Realizing Flynn’s dad isn’t totally on board with watching his son die, Robby takes Mr. Edwards aside… and then he walks him over to the makeshift morgue to show him the bodies of people who died. They couldn’t save them, but they could save Flynn. Mr. Edwards calls him an asshole, and he isn’t wrong. Even Abbot is stunned when he learns what his friend has been up to, and you know that dude has dabbled in some below-the-board activities in the name of patient care.

Robby certainly crosses the line here, but the move does have the intended effect. Later, Mr. Edwards finds Dr. King and tells her they want the spinal tap. You can tell from the way Edwards is sweating through the procedure that he is lying about his wife giving the okay, but by the time she returns to the room, King and Ellis are far enough along in the process that they can finish. Even if Mrs. Edwards takes her son to a different hospital, the spinal tap is done and Flynn will be able to be properly treated. Mr. and Mrs. Edwards will definitely be getting a divorce, but this feels like a win all around. King’s little smirk as she holds steady to collect the last vial of spinal fluid is deeply satisfying, and Mrs. Edwards can, as the kids say, kick rocks.

Robby’s emotions aren’t only running high with patients: Frank Langdon is still wandering the halls of the ED hoping for a second chance. I get it, Langdon is scared, but he’s going about a possible redemption in all the wrong ways. He pulls Dana aside to plead for her help even though the woman is clearly going through something — he does tell her not to leave, that they all need her, but then he promptly goes back to being a whiny little brat. Dana trusts Robby here and reminds Langdon that he should do the same. Robby will always do what’s best for him.

Well, he definitely would’ve, until Langdon finds him outside and really fucks things up. Not only does Langdon basically demand Robby not report him, which could cost Robby his job, and not only does he never take responsibility for what he did, but he also, in a last-ditch effort, tells his former (?) boss that Robby’s just as fucked up as he is and that he knows Robby had a menty b in the pedes room earlier. The only second chance Langdon is getting now is a nice, long rehab program. Although, Robby does end their fight with a loud “FUCK YOU!” so who knows if the guy will have any chances after this evening. Even as a recent Langdon apologist, I cannot feel bad for him now. We should’ve known he would be trouble from the moment we learned he had no problem surprising his family with a dog without discussing it with his wife first, and that is on me.

Compare Langdon to Robby: Even though he is emotionally frayed, our sad boy knows he has to pull himself together once again in order to give his team what they need. What they need is a heartfelt speech about how proud he is to make them all silently weep in the middle of the ED before he sends them home for the night. As if we haven’t all cried enough this shift!! It’s lovely and Robby can barely get through it, and once again I find myself asking the question I’ve been silently wondering this entire season: Can somebody please hold this man?!

Don’t worry, things get sadder! Katherine LaNasa has been stellar all season, but goddamn is she absolutely heartbreaking in this episode. The wistful look she gives the ED as she packs up her things. The little quiver in her chin. Although I cannot imagine such a breakout character not returning for season two, Dana sure looks like she’s made up her mind not to come back to this job. She finds out that Doug Driscoll has been arrested, but not even that can make up for how this place has hurt her. I mean, she’s the one who said it — and Robby repeats it in his speech — that “this place will break your heart.” And right now, her heart is broken. But even with all that, as she is walking out for maybe the last time, she finds Robby looking at a picture of Adamson and she stands there comforting him. She tells him to give himself grace. She is a true hero to the very end, that woman.

Alas, Robby has no room for grace at the moment. He goes from that interaction to a devastating one-two punch of Jake telling him that he isn’t his friend or his dad and he can “fuck off,” and then having to sit in the viewing room with Leah’s parents and break the news of their daughter’s death. Now, serious question: Can we burn the family viewing room down to the ground? It brings only harm!!

After these two interactions, Robby can feel another breakdown coming on. Who wouldn’t? I know Jake will eventually come around, but I would be in the fetal position by now if I were Robby. Robby instead decides to take his emotions to a higher elevation — he goes to the roof. And yes, in a lovely full circle moment, Abbot finds his friend up there, attempting to process the day. I will be watching this scene repeatedly for the next few days, it is so good. As if Robby couldn’t break your heart anymore, I sobbed along with him when he admitted that he felt like a failure, like he wasn’t there for his team when they needed him the most. It could not be further from the truth and Abbot is there to make sure he gets that through his skull. “For what? Forty seconds? Three minutes? 10 minutes? So fucking what?” he tells his friend. Abbot makes sure to get right up in Robby’s face so he knows Robby hears it when he tells him that he “rocked that shit down there tonight.” It’s fast and it’s dark out and yet the gesture makes such an impact. And the fact that this is two men being vulnerable and emotional and supportive of each other? What a scene.

The guys head over to the park across the street to join up with a few other members of the shift — Princess, Donnie, and eventually Mateo, Javadi, and Samira — for a quick beer to unwind before going home. It’s the least intense moment of the series and a perfect way to send our people off. They toast to their colleagues and to the patients they lost. They laugh about how absolutely insane it is that this was Javadi’s first shift and promise her the next one will be much easier. “I really fucking hope so,” she responds. And then another ambulance siren interrupts their break from thinking about their day, and Robby is off for the night. He pops those earbuds back in and that Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise song picks up where it left off in the first episode, and Robby starts walking. Just another person heading home at the end of a long, long day.

Discharge Papers

• If you didn’t think you could love Mel King more, you’ll change your mind by the end of the episode. The woman must be outside-of-her-mind tired, but when she picks up her sister, Becca is so looking forward to their usual Friday night plans — dinner and a movie — that King could never in a million years disappoint her. She summons all the energy she has left and the King Sisters head out for an evening of spaghetti, pizza, and Elf. Mel King, once again, too good for this world.

• I’m so happy The Pitt gives Santos some truly redeeming moments in the finale. She has never shown more empathy for a patient than she does with Max, the kid who came in from PittFest blue. Santos figures out Max attempted suicide and she opens up to him about her friend — who was involved in the sexual assault she alluded to earlier in the season — killing herself. She couldn’t save her, but she wants to help Max. She was admonished earlier in the season for using her own experiences to connect with patients, but I’m glad she ignores that lesson here.

• In a fun twist, Santos discovers that a broke Whitaker has been squatting in an empty hospital room upstairs. She finds him dancing in a towel after their shift. And then she does something completely surprising: She offers him the spare room at her place for free. I could not be more obsessed with this development, please give me bonus footage of what will be going on in that house, I am begging you.

• We get to watch Samira feel the full effects of an adrenaline high followed by a crash back to reality. Having her decide to finally, for once, socialize after work is a nice button.

• The Pitt softens the blow of goodbye by giving us one last look at Robby in those glasses, and I will treasure that gift throughout the hiatus.

• I knew The Pitt would not leave us hanging on the Myrna front. Our babe is back in handcuffs and back at the hospital for “seizures.” She’s an institution now, and if she doesn’t return in season two what are we even doing here?