The Pitt Confirms It’s One of Today’s Best Shows with Intense, Empathetic Season 2: Review

When The Pitt Season 2 premieres, it’s the Fourth of July, and the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is bracing for impact, given all the things that can go wrong during Independence Day celebrations. Ten months have passed since the roller coaster that was Season 1, as Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) contended with a 15-hour shift in the E.R. that featured all sorts of medical drama, and now Dr. Robby needs a break. Before he can set off on his planned sabbatical, though, he’s got one more day of work ahead of him. And it’s going to be a brutal one.

The Pitt’s first season received a lot of attention for a bold and innovative strategy drawn from the past: Despite being a streaming series, those 15 episodes premiered weekly on HBO Max, helping to build up audience interest and momentum as the series ran over the course of months. It was also a longer season than most streaming shows get, old school television qualities that helped propel the freshman show to Emmys domination.

Success on that level can lead to new levels of pressure, but Season 2 shows no sign of that kind of stress. Instead, based on the first nine episodes provided to critics, creator R. Scott Gemmill and the show’s writers (which include Wyle) have preserved all the aspects of the first season that helped it click so well, while adding just enough new elements to feel like the show is continuing to evolve. In short: What the best shows do, especially after a stellar first season.

Related Video

Thanks to being set during a national holiday most people spend drinking and doing stupid things, there are a whole new range of medical emergencies, including a competitive hot dog eater with serious indigestion and a tragic fireworks mishap. Yet as much fun as the show has gagging us with explosive bodily fluids (“big season for butt stuff,” I texted a fellow critic while watching), it continues to navigate its own tone with the precision of a Formula 1 racer, shifting gears into heartbreaking drama with professional ease.

Occasionally, the final line of a scene will land with maybe a little too much melodrama, but the show deserves to be commended for taking its subject matter as seriously as it does. It’s a heavy season in terms of subject matter, too, touching on immigration issues, the impossible costs of health care, and the tragedy of addiction. One episode very thoroughly walks the audience through all the steps involved in administering a rape kit, with an incredible performance from Season 1 Emmy winner Katherine LaNasa — confirming, once again, that Nurse Dana is the nurse everyone deserves at their bedside.

The Pitt staff has experienced some changes between Seasons 1 and 2, including the quiet departure of Tracy Ifeachor’s Dr. Heather Collins (referenced briefly in dialogue) and the addition of some new student doctors. There’s also the introduction of Sepideh Moafi as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, the new resident who’s coming in to replace Dr. Robby while he motorcycles around the country on sabbatical: Dr. Al-Hashimi has some big ideas about how technology, especially AI, can improve workflow for doctors (despite the drawbacks).

The Pitt (HBO Max)

Delightfully, Season 1’s newbies are still around, with a little more experience yet no less charming: Watching Isa Briones, Taylor Dearden, Gerran Howell, and Shabana Azeez treat their respective patients with their unique points of view is a reminder that great characters have always been the core of great television.

That’s the great strength of The Pitt — while the show might be led by Wyle, it truly is an ensemble piece, with countless actors each getting at least one quick moment to shine in an episode. The magic trick is how quickly so many characters manage to pop on first introduction, an alchemy of casting and writing and acting that leads to this emergency room feeling like a real and vibrant place.

At the center of this show is a keen awareness that those who visit the Pitt for treatment may be experiencing one of the most seismic days of their lives. Says one patient, musing on the fight he had with his wife just before a car accident injured them both, “You think everything’s so important — and then you see.” For those who work there, however, these traumas are tragically routine. An episode of The Pitt sometimes feels like a dozen mini-dramas all happening at once, each profound or amusing in their own special way. All leaving behind at least a little bit of an impact.

With its grounded tone and a very non-Grey’s Anatomy-esque allergy to needle drops, The Pitt represents both a reinvention of the medical drama genre as well as a reminder of why the genre was so dominant on broadcast TV for decades. The debt owed to the original ER remains incalculable (something ER creator Michael Crichtons’s widow is currently exploring with a lawsuit). Yet The Pitt’s evolution on what’s come before has led to something modern, captivating, and essential. Yes, you’ll have to wait a week to watch each new episode. Yes, it’ll be worth it.

The Pitt Season 2 premieres Thursday, January 8th on HBO Max. New episodes debut weekly. Check out the trailer below.