Robby is NOT okay, and neither am I.
However, I’ll be elated when Noah Wyle racks up enough Emmy nominations to last a lifetime because they’re well deserved, especially as The Pitt Season 1 Episode 13 concludes with Robby finally breaking down.
Please, someone, hug this man!
Mel King is a Queen
The mass casualty doesn’t slow down in the slightest during another hour that sails by so quickly that I didn’t even make it through my own iced coffee. Sure, I had 32 oz worth of it, but that’s beside the point.
But let’s get into some of this installment’s MVPs —and there are so many.
We have my girl Mel, who is precious to my soul and was a total rockstar. She may have started the shift timid and unsure, but she’s proven through various crises that she’s the strongest of the interns.
If it wasn’t apparent that’s the case, Whitaker often looks to her for advice, and even Santos bounces ideas off of her. We don’t see Mel smile, not even a hint of it, and her eyes are so sharp and focused as she goes from one room to the next, one patient to the next, handling everything in stride.
It harkens back to when Langdon gave her one of his brotherly pep talks about how we need sensitive doctors like her. In a crisis, Mel’s sympathy, compassion, and sensitivity are all superpowers and none more so than in a situation like this.
I appreciate that they don’t make her crumble under all this, and her compassion isn’t viewed as a flaw or weakness. We especially see this as she still finds time to keep up with the one lady who is visibly in shock after this mass event and not doing well.
I also appreciate that Mel steps up in the quiet ways, with nothing flashy, egoistic, or opportunistic about it, and as a result, it’s more moving.
Mohan Thrives Under Pressure Overcoming Her “Flaw”
We also see Mohan do this.
I love this woman because she’s another element of bringing compassion to healthcare. Throughout The Pitt Season 1, the running theme for her was that she moved too slowly because, to provide individualized care to each patient, she didn’t log in as many as she should have.
On the one hand, Robby gets on her case about it, but his fondness for her always peeks through. He knows she’s an excellent doctor and that, in the ideal version of healthcare, she’s exactly what patients need.
As a result, even when he’s on her case, he compliments and validates her in kind. Can we take a moment to appreciate their bond, too? It fascinates me that Robby may not have blood children, but his paternal side comes through with some of his subordinates. Mohan is his work daughter, for sure.
Yes, the found family elements they squeeze into this high-adrenaline show are right up my alley (and worth a deeper dive, so let me know if you guys may be into something like that).
But Slo-Mo is a thing of the past because they placed her in the eye of the storm, and our girl stepped up. She triages and treats like a boss, showing she can move quickly and be decisive when it counts the most.
She barely blinked when she and Langdon ran into that issue with their patient possessing a firearm, but her most shining moment was drilling a burr hole on the fly for the hippie to aleve his cranial bleed. It was so incredibly badass!
Ranking Doesn’t Matter in a Crisis, Which Proves Refreshing and Effective (Sometimes)
What’s been interesting is the liberties that some of the younger staff get to take in the name of saving a life.
On the one hand, many doctors still manage to teach amid this crisis. On the other hand, some of the hierarchal approaches to medicine on a regular day or moment disappear when everyone is shoulder to shoulder, covered in blood, trying to save lives as best as possible.
The other baby doctors are starting to feel the pressure, though. Javadi took a backseat, outside of partaking in another ER nod at the helipad. Thankfully, no limbs were lost in the procurement of more blood.
Anyone Else Worried About Whitaker?
But she did check up on Whitaker, who didn’t have much to offer regarding his emotional state.
He’s mostly been quiet and almost lost two patients trying to keep up. He also drilled into that clown when he wasn’t supposed to, and it’s evident that the day is wearing thin on him.
Interestingly, he was one of the few who kept asking people if they saw the shooter. Maybe he’s afraid of what’s to come if that person arrives at the hospital.
It seems like even amid the chaos; others may have taken notice since Javadi and Robby both had a brief moment of checking in with the poor lad. Could he be burning out already? I hope not.
But then there are still the people who allow adrenaline to fuel them, and naturally, I’m talking about Santos. She still rubs me the wrong way, and her eagerness to do something risky and off the cuff to have her own badass moment was offputting.
And she did that, performing a REBOA on Carmen, whose awkwardly placed GSW proved problematic. If, for a second, it felt like Santos was doing it for the right reasons, it wouldn’t have been so irksome.
Abbot Continues to Make Everything Better
But alas, she got lucky and saved Carmen, and after a slight reprimand from Abbot, he also gave her the Badass Stamp of Approval. And if HE says it, when he’s PEAK badass, you know it matters.
So because one of my favorite characters cut her some slack, I’ll begrudgingly do the same.
My love fest for Abbot knows no bounds. His and Robby’s partnership fuels me. They work effortlessly well together and understand one another profoundly.
Abbot and Robby’s ability to show the kids how it’s done with old-school tactics that work in crisis is thrilling. Abbot’s “go-bag” full of goodies and all of these things they can’t have the budget clear for delighted me.
You can tell that this job causes him so much pain, but he also eats, sleeps, and breathes it. It’s his calling, and it consumes him. Abbot cannot be anything else.
Also, the Night Shift is just built differently. Shen and Ellis were still rocking out in triage, and we can add Bridget to the Badass B-List crew.
The Shooting Hits Too Close to Home For Robby
The real drama of the hour was the shooting hitting close to home for Robby when Jake showed up in a truck bed with a GSW to his leg, cradling his dead girlfriend.
The pure relief on Robby’s face when he heard Jake’s voice made me sigh in relief, too. But then he had to go into action, attempting to perform a miracle: saving Leah.
Except there was no saving her, which was abundantly clear. The bullet tore through her heart, and the likelihood that she’d survive even on a day when they weren’t putting band-aids on bullet holes was slim.
Robby had the task of desperately trying to resuscitate his son’s girlfriend because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting Jake down or losing another patient, and he was reliving the trauma of losing his mentor.
It was heartbreaking to see Robby breaking in front of everyone, the cracks showing to anyone who was paying attention, but no one could do anything about it because it was too chaotic. Robby was checking out, trying to save Leah, leaving Abbot to take charge a bit more and delegate and divert.
Dana, bless her, knew Robby was having a hard time, and she was right by his side the whole way through, even when she knew it was a futile battle. The looks she kept exchanging with Abbot felt like daggers to my heart as they tried to figure out the best way to get through to Robby.
He exhausted the use of blood allotted to patients and tired himself out. There was a pool of blood around the gurney, but he persisted until the reality hit him when he didn’t get any indication of life.
His laser focus on getting to Jake to tell him the news despite all hell breaking loose around him was impactful, and when he pulled Jake into that room to break the news, you could tell he was barely keeping it together. But it’s the morgue scene that was the most gutwrenching.
Campaigning for Noah Wyle’s Emmy Win NOW!
It’s painfully symbolic that the same room reserved for babies just starting their lives turns into the place where they store those lives that ended.
He thought taking Jake to the room to see Leah would help the boy process better, but if anything, it just amplified his own pain.
Jake’s grief, manifesting into lashing out at Robby for being unable to save Leah, was expected, but damn, did it hurt so badly. Robby, telling him how he did his best, descended into recounting all the lives he lost just that day. And it’s been far too many for a single shift.
He was on the edge of that proverbial ledge, not unlike Abbot at the start of the season. Jake was so caught up in his own grief that he wasn’t listening to Robby, and Robby was spilling his feelings, knowing that he wasn’t even being heard.
But Robby pushing Jake out of the room so he could break down was the exact moment that broke me, too. Robby has been hanging on by a thread since he clocked in that morning.
He’s experiencing PTSD thinking about COVID and losing his mentor, and that day went from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.
But even knowing that he wasn’t ready to allow anyone to see him in that much pain made me so sad for Robby. Hopefully, someone can find him in that room because he’s falling apart.
The worst part is that we saw this coming a mile away. But there’s a beauty in the breakdown because it’s so raw.
At some point, you can’t take but so much before you fall apart, even the best of us, like Robby. It’s oddly cathartic knowing that even when it’s heartbreaking as hell, it’s cathartic.
Observations and Feels:
- McKay drilling a hole through her ankle monitor will catch up to her, but I laughed so hard. Did I mention that woman is a badass? Because she is. Who puts restrictions on a hospital anyway? It’s stupid!
- Langdon’s desperation to get Robby to talk to him and acknowledge him would be funny if we weren’t in the middle of a crisis and Robby wasn’t about to crash out any second.
- The kid who overdosed at the festival was funnier than he had any right to be.
- I appreciated the scenes showing how Kiara and Lupe helped a woman identify her husband and informed her sensitively. People tend to underestimate how difficult that position is.
- Do we think David is the shooter? Surprisingly, he showed up with a bad attitude, looking for his mother, but maybe he isn’t behind this!
- I hope Collins is getting the best sleep she’s ever had. I just knew my girl would clock in at some point, but nah!
Over to you, The Pitt Fanatics.
On a scale of 1-10, how devastated are you when you see Robby crying in the morgue? Let’s discuss it all in the comments below! You can also check out our The Pitt Recap for a full breakdown.
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