‘The Pitt’ Season Finale Recap: Goodbyes Are The Pitt’s

“We just came through the worst mass casualty incident in this city’s history, and you two are fucking around with this? Are you serious?” Would that we all had a Dr. Robby on our side, when someone with power arrested us largely without cause. Sure, Dr. Cassie McKay (awesomely) took an IO drill to her court-demanded ankle monitor. But the senior attending’s valued resident was also part of a trauma team that treated a total of 112 victims from the PittFest shooting, including the critically-wounded colleague of McKay’s arresting officers. “They saved his life,” one of the other cops on the scene says. “They saved a lot of lives.”

McKay is set free with a promise to address the issue of her destroyed monitoring device. But Robby’s powers of persuasion have limits. His patience ground down in the wake of his emotional crucible from last hour, Robby gets called an asshole by the anti-science dad whose son is critically ill with a measles infection. He had brought the guy into Pedes, repurposed as a morgue. To see the young people in there, like Jake’s girlfriend Leah. To make an impression on him that science is not the enemy. Maybe these parents in the episode 15 finale of The Pitt, who are so against a lifesaving procedure like a spinal tap, should have been watching its entire first season. Like us, they would have seen in action a medical profession that wishes only to help. Even if they get punched for their trouble. 

“Yeah, I’m an asshole,” Robby says to himself after the guy storms out. “Who’s trying to save your son’s life.” 

It’s a theme The Pitt drove at continually. As the work continued its unceasing rhythms, often defined by the never-not-busy churn of turnover in Chairs – and made to reach new levels of tension during the mass casualty response – we learned about the relentless dedication of the staff at Pitt Trauma Medical Hospital. Not through the love life dramas of this medical drama, but by observing their work ethic and bedside manner. It’s the same theme Robby hits on as he gathers the day shifters for debrief after 15 hours (episodes) on the job. Senseless violence like the PittFest shooting represents “the worst of humanity,” Robby tells the group. “But it brought out the best in us.” Remember way back in The Pitt Episode 1? Robby gave a speech to the newbies that was part encouragement, part throwing their fresh faces to the wolves. But now we know them – Santos, Javadi, Whitaker, King – because we’ve seen them grow. Mostly good, some bad, plus some fainting and getting peed on. It’s the same reason we’ll miss them, and hope the characters’ respective medical rotations will allow them to be part of The Pitt’s time-jumping Season 2. “None of us are gonna forget today,” Dr. Robby says during his debrief. “Even if we really, really want to.” 

As their shift winds down, it’s gonna be hard for someone who is wired like Dr. Mohan to do so. She experiences the post-adrenaline lull first as wanting more – let’s work another 15 hours! 30! – and then as a series of full-body sobs in the bathroom. McKay offered Mohan sound advice – “This job can’t be your life, Samira” – and also seemed to get through to David, the almost incel, about how his feelings could also cause harm. (“Imagine if you felt that way everyday from half the people that you meet. Because that’s every woman’s life.”) Robby ends up on the roof of the hospital, and in a reversal of ep 1 has to be talked down by Abbott. (We get the sense these two have been alternating their monitoring of each other’s cope for quite some time.) And when Santos catches Whitaker repairing to an unused hospital room upstairs – financial circumstances have forced him to sleep there during rotations – she says “Huckleberry” can stay in the guest room at her place instead. A multi-camera sitcom featuring Santos and Whitaker as roommates, filmed before a live studio audience and set in The Pitt Universe? Book it for the offseason hiatus!      

Some resolution of the Dr. Langdon situation will also have to wait until next season. He argues with Robby about it here in the finale. Robby says “this job can fuck you up if you let it” – and he says Langdon let it. But it gets heated, because Langdon compares his own struggle with benzos to the rumors of Robby’s emotional breakdown in Pedes. Langdon also lobbies Dana, who carefully navigates what she knows. “Robby thinks I’m a fucking drug addict!” And the world’s best ever charge nurse has a simple reaction to that. “Are you?” She assures Langdon that Robby will do what’s best for him, which isn’t exactly a vouch for the disgraced resident’s character, but at least suggests there are avenues other than Langdon losing his medical license. The other question that comes out of these exchanges is Dana’s own situation. He’s struck by her statement, almost in passing, that she herself might be “fucking done,” and we see her collecting photos of her kids from the nursing desk. Later, after a few kind words for Robby about his mentor Dr. Adamson, Dana disappears around a corner. “See you Monday,” he said. She never answered.

You are a character on The PItt, or you are a viewer of The PItt. Either way, it’s been an extremely harrowing, occasionally terrifying, profoundly sad, and sometimes incredibly joyful real-time ride. With many of these emotions occurring simultaneously. So how does an ice-cold can of Iron City sound? We all deserve it. In the park across the street from the hospital, Robby and Abbott meet up with Javadi and Mateo, Princess and Donnie. Abbott removes his lower leg prosthetic. And they offer a toast to what they just went through, to those they saved, and to those who they could not. “To the Pitt crew,” who keep working in medical caregiving, despite its potential to scar their souls. At the end of the day, they just want to help. And they’ll be back to do it again. We all will.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.