Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Pitt Season 2, Episode 3!
My big takeaway from last week's episode of The Pitt is that the series has acquired an enhanced sense of humor in Season 2. There's definitely a more lighthearted quality to the goings-on in the emergency ward right now. That doesn't necessarily change in Episode 3, though this one veers a little more in the direction of heartwarming character moments. As before, the takeaway isn't so much, "Gee, this series has lost its edge," as "Crap, they're buttering us up before things really take a turn, aren't they?"
Episode 3 chronicles what appears to be the last (relatively) calm and peaceful hour of the day shift before chaos breaks out. As such, it's able to devote a lot of time to furthering the handful of key medical cases that have cropped up so far. If anything, my one complaint about this episode is that it emphasizes the patients over the doctors a bit too much.
That's especially frustrating when it comes to Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), a character I really feel isn't getting the full attention he deserves so far in Season 2. It's also a bit weird to see so little of Mel (Taylor Dearden), given how much emphasis the previous two episodes placed on her malpractice suit and generally frazzled mental state. But, to be fair, I wonder how much the weekly format plays into that problem. Will it be as noticeable to anyone who binges the whole season later on? Probably not.
In any case, what we do get out of Episode 3 is a lot of scenes that emphasize the compassion these doctors show for their patients. That continues to be the theme of the scenes with unhoused patient Troy Digby (Charles Baker), and with the Louie (Ernest Harden Jr.) subplot. And it comes across in various other storylines, such as the husband and wife who reconnect after a terrible motorcycle accident, or the terrific scenes between Robby and the Jewish burn victim. Her references to the tragic real-world Pittsburgh synagogue shooting of 2018 are haunting.
As much as the show does a great job of conveying the agonizing, soul-sucking nature of working in a major American hospital ER, it's also nice to see the flip side. These doctors and nurses genuinely care about their work and about bettering the lives they come into contact with. These patients are real people with real pain and suffering, not names on a spreadsheet. These scenes don't come across as hokey or maudlin, but they do serve to inject a much-needed dose of optimism into a series full of pain and suffering.
Another highlight of Episode 3 is seeing the Kylie Conners (Annabelle Toomey) case play out and reach its dramatic crescendo. After Dr. Santos nearly pushes Kylie's father to physical violence, it turns out there's a much more benign explanation for the girl's many injuries. The series really needed to knock Santos down a peg and remind us that she can't be right about every personal crusade she undertakes, and that's what we get here. It'll be interesting to see how and if this defeat weighs on her going forward.
As much as this is a heart-warming and oddly soothing installment of the series, the final moments make it clear that it won't last. The Pitt is about to get a huge influx of new patients. I wouldn’t say the new season is off to a slow start by any means, but it will be a nice change of pace seeing the tone darken and the tension in the ER start to ramp up in Episode 4. Just how bad can it get? Considering how early in the day we still are, I'd guess pretty bad.
