The Pitt Season 2, Episode 1 Review – “7:00 AM”

Another day has begun at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center – and this time, it’s a holiday! Set 10 months after the end of season one’s “9:00 PM” (and returning to air a beautifully brief nine months after it aired), season two’s “7:00 AM” begins with the expected flurry of storylines for The Pitt‘s cast of emergency medicine professionals – and of course, a new, eclectic group of patients to provide the emotional and narrative backbone of the much-anticipated season.

Beginning with the bright morning sun welcoming Dr. Robinivich to his Fourth of July shift in the ER, it isn’t long before The Pitt‘s season premiere is flying through a handful of big reveals – Robby’s going on sabbatical! AI has arrived at The Pitt! It’s also Langdon’s first day back! – and introducing an incredibly dense amount of new patients, medical mysteries, and ominous character allusions. It also doesn’t waste time grabbing audience’s attention, with a knife wound leading to an open chest cavity in the opening ten minutes, putting the show’s (now Emmy-nominated) technical effects team right to work as we see the Pitt at its full medical and intellectual power.

From there, the episode blossoms into any number of interesting directions, using the knife wound patient’s emergency as an anchor for the first fifteen minutes and its flurry of reveals – the largest of them being Langdon and Dana’s individual returns to the ER, and the arrival of Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, Robby’s replacement as the senior attending in the ER (and one whose propensity for using algorithms and training residents on AI technology makes for an eyebrow-raising introduction). And while things may have changed – new medical students Ogilvie and Kwon now follow our second-year residents around, and Dana’s trying to quit smoking – much remains comfortably the same, from Mel’s awkward interactions with humanity to the faces Javadi makes whenever her mother (who Santos is now angling to work under) comes into the room.

Given the premiere’s incredibly dense nature, let’s do a Robby and take a quick lap around the ER to touch on the season’s many narrative pieces:

• Of the returning residents, Mel finds herself in the most interesting position, facing a malpractice deposition for the first time in her career. As Santos points out, this is an unfortunate reality many emergency professionals face at some point – but it’s not a stretch to see how challenging this will be for Mel to keep a handle on this season. Between that (which offers The Pitt another potential opportunity to break out of the ER for a scene or two) and cute patients flirting with her, it’s a big premiere for dear Dr. King.
  
• Cassie finds herself in another case of patient interpretation, with an aggressive, slightly belligerent patient who appears to be suffering from a brain injury of some sort (despite insisting he’s only there for a wrist injury). While her legal situation of season one remains unresolved, it seems her story will initially be more externally focused to start season two.
  
• Langdon’s reintroduction to The Pitt is an emotional salve for Mel (in the episode’s most adorable moment), but between his attempts to reconcile with Robby, and his too-easily-resolved confession to Louie (one of the patients he was stealing medication from), there’s clearly a big story awaiting Langdon in the season’s later episodes.
  
• Dr. Whitaker takes charge of the morning influx from nursing homes, which includes an old man whose POLST provides a nice callback to season one’s old man, whose DNR was initially denied by his children. Here, suffering is avoided thanks to the directive – although in the moment, the disillusioned detachment the new residents show towards the end of his life is certainly unsettling.
  
• Santos once again finds herself in a position of reaching potentially dangerous conclusions – only, instead of Dr. Langdon’s drug use, it comes this time in the form of a young child, whose treatment of a chin injury lead to the discovery of a lot of bruises, bloody urine, and questions about the potential physical safety of a young child. Cannot think of a worse doctor to be in this position than the occasionally self-righteous, impetuous Santos.

• Poor Emma takes on the role of this season’s Whittaker, her first job helping an incredibly dirty, smelly old man clean himself up out behind the emergency room. Through Emma, I’m hoping season two will open up Dana’s character and backstory a bit, as her sudden push to retirement last season feels grounded in a character history worth exploring a bit further.
  
• Other interesting patients who get brief introductions in this hour: a nurse with a nasty eye issue; a very nice woman wearing a waitress uniform for a diner that closed 20 years ago; and sadly, a woman with Alzheimer’s who is revealed to be the wife of the man Whittaker let pass earlier in the episode. (There’s also a nasty open dislocation that comes in the final moments, of what appears to be a construction worker. Always an interesting avenue for a medical show).
  
• The big reveal in the third act comes from the discovery of an unattended baby in the lobby. Though we don’t learn much outside of some speculation, there’s clearly something in the baby’s blood panel that shocks the new, algorithm-loving attending.
  
• Speaking of Dr. Al-Hashimi, she also introduces new “patient passports” on her first day, which feels like one of those “improvements” in administration that only make the process of healthcare more inhuman and algorithm-driven (note the scene where a dummy dies thanks to an algorithm – also notice how the doctor blames them for pieces of information you’d think a useful AI would provide).
  
  If you are handed a packet full of a patient’s information, there’s no impetus to form a rapport or relationship with them, which leads to less nuance, less human connection, and more heartless, ruthless healthcare decisions. Of the many new elements of this season, this is one I’m probably most interested to see develop.

Somehow, The Pitt manages to cover all of this in 52 minutes, without really ever letting its narrative drag, or falling too far into the rabbit hole of one story that leaves others feeling undercooked or misrepresented. The sheer breadth of it is impressive – and with each one, the breadcrumbs of the deeper psychological (or in many of them, sociological) elements just starting to peek their way to the surface over the course of “7:00AM”). It’s exactly what a sophomore premiere should be; effortlessly reminding the audience of what brought everyone back for a second go-round, but with enough tweaks and new elements alluding to another fascinating, emotionally resonant day in the life of the Pittsburgh Medical Trauma Center.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Welcome to The Pitt reviews! Future reviews will be more traditionally formatted, as episodes focus in on specific stories and characters with each episode – but the premiere has so much going on, this was the easiest way to break it down.
  
• Lung flipping, manual heart pumping, sternum cutting, insane amounts of blood loss… all of this, from one medical case. I know it was The Pitt showing off a little bit, but goddamnit, it works for a reason.
  
• In this week’s TMI: Cassie is ready to get laaaaaaid.
  
• “Dr. Al-Hashimi, what is that?” “Irish?”
  
• “Giant Balls of Disrespect was the name of my band in high school.” “And my nickname for my ex-husband.”
  
• Wait… are Samira and Dr. Garcia hooking up? We need more details, stat.
  
• “It’s a miracle what a little soap, water, and human decency can do sometimes.”