‘The Pitt’ Season 2, Episode 2: Hard at Work

Hello, welcome back to the PressSeeds TV podcast feed in person. I'm Joyner Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. And here we are in studio together. I know. They said it couldn't be done. Honestly, the best part. The bombshell himself is in the villa. I'm ecstatic. I just learned about this. We're here to talk about the pit season two, episode two. It's 8 a.m. on the shift. It's still 4th of July. Should we be recording these in real time? Like should we be recording this at an 8 a.m. hour? That's going to get dicey on the night shift, don't you think? Could be interesting. Okay, it could be fun. It could be a little punchy. Yeah. Sounds great. Punchy is my new brand. I mean, really all of ours. I've always said that you and nurse Dana have like very similar personalities. Very identical energies, really. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to start you with the same question I started you with last. Did you like this episode? I did. I mean, this felt even more like a setting the stage getting us on the tracks episode, I would say, than the premiere. The premiere had all these new characters that we're kind of introducing ourselves to and learning about. This was like, oh, this is going to be important. Three episodes from now. This is going to be important when spoiler alert, but if you've seen the commercials and trailers for the season, the power or the system goes out or whatnot. Right, right, right. There are all these little tips and tells that are happening right now where it felt like to me, a very enjoyable in season episode of the pit. I'm always down for it. Well made piece of furniture. You know, it really is. Okay, listen, before we started recording, I told you that there was a part of this episode that hit a very specific phobia of mine that I had to for the first time in the pits, I lived through the de-gloving. I've gotten through every quivering like. Bag of worms. Yeah. I've gotten through everything. There was something in this episode that I could not handle and I had to have someone tell me when I could look at the screen again. Okay. Robbomony is a friendship test. What do you think that is? That was putting myself in the mind, in the spirit of Joanna Robinson. What would bother me? A dark place to me. It's a lovely place. Please don't. I feel, I feel confident that it is the armful of maggots. It is the armful of maggots. I mean, how could it not bother you? I have a thing with maggots and I think many people do. I just have a childhood trauma with maggots that we can get into someday. Maybe not right now. I will say, I felt a tinge of relief. There's obviously a lot of lead up to that scene of like this cast is going to be pretty gross underneath potentially. Who knows how long it's been on there. I was fully expecting, crack the cast, things are crawling out in the same of like our rat scare of season one. Like we're going to get full on cockroaches in this thing, whatever. I was like, oh, it's just maggots. They're just eating the necrotic flesh. They're creepy crawly, but they're kind of stagnant. The person I was watching with is the daughter of an ER nurse. When they started sawing at the cast, she was like, it's going to be maggots. I was like, no. Oh, no. Then it was and I couldn't look. Okay. We got some well actuallys from the mail bag from our listeners. As we did last season, a ton of people from the medical community chiming in. A lot of Pittsburgh locals chiming in. We've got a lot of great information this week from the listeners. Where can they reach us, Rob? Just a reminder. Always at prestigedv at Spotify.com. For this show, for the pit, Dr. Side Banks, and that's the full word doctor, sidebanks at gmail.com. Were you upset at all inside of this episode when like the queen of coinage herself, Dr. Santos said, come to Jesus and you had to realize that our email is not cometogesusatgmail.com. I know. It was, I mean, immaculate infection was also very good. I have to say, come to Jesus at gmail.com is probably taken, but you know, day to dream. Okay. Here's some rapid fire mail bag stuff. A lot of people wrote in asking, where's the real Yinser accent? The real like die in the wall Pittsburgh accent. Nurse Dana is doing something, but it's not what people want. Maybe it'll show up in the waiting room this season. Who's say? It does feel fairly patient wise. In terms of the doctors and the staff, these are people coming from all over the country and all over the world. The email said that the doctors should sound like they're from all over the country, so like that. But the, you know, the Hanson pit crew inside of this episode, the Hanson family reunion, should they not be like dropping the like thick, thick Yinser accent? Perhaps they should. I feel like spiritually they did, even though they weren't saying it, but they were emoting it. Okay. On that note, one of our listeners, Casey wrote in, you know, we talked last week about the patient who's in the waiting room who is deaf. And Casey wrote in talking about how, you know, whether or not they get an interpreter for this person, Pittsburgh is known for having quote, a unique ASL dialect that sign language users from other parts of the country often struggle to understand. A virtual interpreter, because they had a virtual interpreter last season, a virtual interpreter who isn't from Pittsburgh may not be up to the task. That was delightful for me to learn. Incredible. ASL is unintelligible to other people and that's fascinating. This needs to be a plot point. I hope so. Also, we should note that woman we don't see in this episode. So she has been sitting in that waiting room for at least an hour as her name is called and they just cannot find a way to reach her or communicate with her because they don't know her situation. Right. Yeah. How long do you think she's going to wait? I mean, an hour seems light in most waiting rooms for ERs these days. So it might be a couple of episodes before we see her again. I don't know. Okay. Several emails from listeners very concerned with the guy flirting with Mel in episode one. I got to say, don't worry, it's not a problem. That guy's going straight to hell. He's not melking over. Yeah, we're going to have to fight him. I mean, it's curtains for him, honestly. We're very tall. He's fucked. But I think they were very concerned because hooking up with a patient is deeply against the rules. Sure. I mean, we see Stevens of Grey's Anatomy. We would like a word with you. But if the pit is striving for medical accuracy, if any of the doctors wind up hooking up with a patient, it's bad news. Very bad. Yeah. I mean, we were asking the wrong question in wondering, will they have a connection? Will Mel care about this guy at all? Yeah. As you said, not really relevant. It turns out to his entire circumstance, which is, I guess he's on the lamb now? Yeah. I mean, what if Lang didn't catch us? Oh, who knows what could happen at that point? I'm gonna go over. String him up. Hang him up. Okay. On the 4th of July front, we got a lot of listeners curious about a couple of things. Number one, do they do depositions on the 4th of July? A reasonable question to ask, I think. We'll see what the status of that is. I'm still hoping for your scenario, though, that we get Dr. Ellis and Dr. Shen from the night shift. And most importantly, Miesel mom. Yeah, Miesel mom herself. All the above. I've been missing her. We need their official statements. Our listener who went by AFI, I believe, had a sort of like a laundry list of things that they were surprised was happening on July 4th. Why would Dr. Langdon's first day back be on a holiday? Why would Emma be starting on a holiday, like all these things? But what was really fascinating is we got a bunch of people on the side of the medical community wrote in about the quote unquote, July effect. This was very interesting. Fascinating. This is from Abigail. Quote, former ER nurse here sharing what all the hospital staff know under different names. What in America is referred to as the quote, July effect. This is when all the new interns, a.k.a. short coats arrive and all the previous newbies take on more responsibilities, leading to an increased risk for errors and poor patient outcomes. It's a time of increased stress in the department, juggling new levels of knowledge, dare I say new egos as well. And as a nurse, protecting your patients from the short coats and their lack of experience when the season launched on July 4th. This is my immediate outcry to my husband who isn't in the medical field and bought it warranted sharing in an email. To our favorite podcasters. So the July effect. I mean, we're already seeing like Whitaker is taking on this instructional role. We've got a couple of new faces in here. But if, you know, if the trailers have told us anything about what's happening this season, there will be a, you know, a trying circumstance is going to happen this season. And we're already sort of on the back foot as people are moving up the ranks in the work chart. So I thought that was really interesting. And Whitaker seems especially positioned to screw up. Like the amount that Robbie is poking his head and being like, great job. Great job, bud. You're doing perfectly at this moment, which means you certainly will not screw up in a huge way by episode eight. I'm very concerned. Very concerned about our Huckleberry. Oh my gosh. On that note, by the way, one of my favorite emails we got was someone naming Whitaker's new haircut, which is the Tennessee waterfall, which I didn't know. But apparently that's the official name of that haircut. So thank you so much for that information. All right. What else do we have in the mailbag? We're almost done here. Oh, Dr. Travis McVeigh wrote in, and I have to read this because it's on behalf of the anesthesiologists and my dad's an anesthesiologist, my uncle's an anesthesiologist, like shout out the, You come from a long line of anesthesiologists. Shout out the drug doctors. Dr. Travis McVeigh's like medical professionals love the pit because, you know, of its accuracy is like, except the anesthesiologist because the anesthesiologist character last season was like a bumble fuck. And like unlike other doctors who are allowed to like succeed and fail, Yes. there was no rounding of this particular individual. So justice for the anesthesiologists on the pit, I guess. The season is young, you know, a different anesthesiologist might swoop in and be splendid. We got a new doctor in this episode, Dr. Caleb Jeffries. Did you were you able to figure out sort of what his role was? He seemed like he was coming in because he was consulting on the Alzheimer's case. I assume something in psychiatrics. That's my thought. And also Robbie seemed did not like him, not thrilled, like, support, you know, collegial, but also a little standoffish in a way that like, maybe Robbie talks to him. Maybe, maybe Robbie does work with him. Oh, like, they're like, Hey, bud, saw you saw you right in without a helmet on. Yeah. Well, should we have some talks about what's going on up here in the whole brain? Well, there is mention earlier in the episode with Santos, like, have you talked to the trauma counselor? Like, have you done your requisite appointment? I assume in conjunction with the mass casualty event that all these people live through and work through. Maybe that's happening in house. I don't know what the ethics are around that. I thought it was so interesting to track his different reactions to people because, of course, we get nurse Hastings, who he is having some accurate extracurricular. Hello, what is so funny about nurse Hastings? Noel Hastings is how much data hates her. And I'm like, OK, well, then I can't like her. Are you sure it's hate? Do you think it's not? I don't know what it was. They don't seem to like each other at all. I don't think they have the warmest relationship. I detected a little bit of like, girl, are you sure? Robbie? Yeah, like, we're talking about the same guy, right? Yeah. Clearly can be warm and fuzzy, but also all that baggage, you know? Rob, did you see him hold a baby in this episode? He did. It was very cute. It was very sweet. It was very good. So there's Dr. Noel, that's it's nurse Noel. There's that. There's Dylan, the new social worker. So he like loves Dylan. Yeah. He's like, Dylan, what's up? And then he's like, thanks so much, Caleb. And I was like, OK, Robbie, I'm tracking this. I do miss Chiara, though. I really miss her. I mean, I love a ginger, so welcome to the show, Dylan. But kind of a ginger man bun, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's all possible worlds, honestly. Do patients wander into the ER from the ambulance bay I asked last week? The answer is yes, sometimes. Yes, sometimes they do. Depends on the hospital. Where's Mateo? We got a special email from front of the Pod Matt Mitovich who asked the showrunners, our Scott Gemel, about this. Mateo the season is quote, working the night shift. So we will see him maybe as the night shift comes on. Are they going to pull the night shift in later in the season? I don't know. But it's possible we only then get Mateo in the finale, something like that. I mean, we just have no choice but to continue our plea for a corresponding spin off night shift series. I just don't know why we don't have this. Is that the fall series? Yeah. We get this in January and that in September. And it flows one right into the next. Yes. Maybe I'm asking too much. Look, the pit is already very prompt, right? They are turning around these seasons. Stretch yourself thinner, please. We want more. More pit. Pid nights. We can't get enough. Oh, pit nights is very good. Oh, and Dr. Robbie not wearing a helmet when he's coming into the hospital. Noah Wiley has talked about that in interviews, and he's like, oh, yeah, something's going on with Robbie that he's not wearing a helmet on the motorcycle. So it's not for nothing that we noticed that. In terms of Dr. Al-Hashimi, I have a lot of questions for you about Dr. Al-Hashimi in this episode. A lot of our listeners wrote in, they love her from L Word Generation Q. They love that actress. And apparently she's like incredibly chaotic and mischievous and fun on that show. I didn't watch it, so I have no association with the actress, but a lot of people are really excited to see her. So that makes me, this is a tough episode. It's kind of like the first big thing I want to talk to you about. So I'm excited to see where that actress goes, but as they're setting it up right now, it's... They're not giving her a lot of mischief and fun to do. No, she's a very by-the-books person, but we got a good email about that too. Last two emails really quickly. Jeff Cober, who I told you, is coming later this season from Buffing Van Bars there. We're on Cober Watch. Was also on the show China Beach, which is a before our time, but it was another John Wells show. And apparently John Wells, who's co-creator of the pit and of ER, used a lot of China Beach actors on ER. So this is him being like, come on over, Cober. So is the loop. Come on over, I'm really excited. And last but not least, and this one's for you. Our listener, Casey, let us know that on the ASL captions for the show, they have basically given each doctor their own sign, and the sign for Dr. McKay is essentially Dr. Banks. Oh my God. So that's for you, Rob. That's for you, Rob. That's for me. I know. How do you feel? You feel influential? I feel seen in a way I didn't think I could be seen. Right? Like anticipated. They knew exactly where I would be coming from, anticipated my every need, and they really did. They met you. I would like to, I'd be curious to hear what the names for the other, like is it Crash for Dr. Dravati? Probably not, but we'll see. Okay, so it's episode two, it's 8 a.m. Written by Joe Sacks and Ars Scott Gammel, and directed by Damian Marcano, who directed four episodes of season one. He's like a pit go-to director. So this is just like, as you said, like a really like classic, we're in the middle of it episode of the pit. Nuts and bolts, needles, lots of liquids. Maggots. Maggots certainly, invite, maggots welcome. Lots of liquids coming out of lots of places. But let's talk about Dr. Alhashimi, right? Weird fake out cliffhanger in regards to the baby, unless there's like a later payoff. What do you think about that? Yeah, we don't know. She seems very concerned about the urine screening in particular, right? Wanting to get that right, wanting to make sure it's not contaminated. Maybe that's just due diligence. Maybe it's something she's seen before, but it was a classic pit like, oh no, let's just go back to work. Don't worry about it, it was very odd. We get the AI demonstration and the mistrans transcription of a drug name, which seems, she seems not that bothered. I was quite bothered by this. Generative AI is 98% accurate. Not in our field. I've used AI generative like transcription tools as an attempt like, would this be a helpful thing? Is this useful? They are riddled with errors. They are horrible. I spend more time scrubbing them, fixing them than if I had just transcribed it myself. The idea of transcribing a patient meeting with not just nuance, not just meaning, but like so hyper specific and tailored. Like you get the medication wrong? Completely, like they mixed up an anti-psychotic with a sleep aid. This is not a good look for AI. I'm going to go back to the AI boosters inside of this episode. And this is just not a good look for our question about Dr. Helishimi versus Robbie. Because Robbie is right, quote unquote right, about three things in this episode. The urine sample from the baby, she's like, we got to do a catheter. He's like, nah, I got a trick. It's like the baby. Rub it, stummy with some cold damn thing and voila. Before we catheter babies, like can you have a meeting? Can you have a conversation? Reducing the shoulder dislocation. Mel's just going to shove four fingers in the armpit. We got it. We don't need to take it up to the OR for that. Oddly satisfying, seeing the shoulder pop into place. Very disconcerting that your fingers could then get pinched in the closing of that wound. Did not like that part. And then intubating the guy choking up broccoli. So she's wrong or if you want to call it that. Robbie gets to be right and smug about it three times this episode, which is a lot. How do you feel about that? I mean, as we talked about before, there's room in the show for everyone to be right and wrong at various times and really their proxy war is not just about AI, but specifically gut versus AI. I think there's a really interesting conversation to be had about the role of instinct in medicine. Like it's like such a human thing about what are the associations you grasp for? What are the fringe cases that you have seen in your experience that like there's something about this that is off or familiar and your brain is connecting those dots can be incredibly informative, can also be wildly biased based on your personal experience. And so AI and gut as counterbalances for each other. I love the concept of is are the AI presentations in this show being shown as that compellingly? Not so far. Not yet. Right. And maybe they will be. And that's kind of what I'm hoping for from Dr. Alashimi is a more convincing case of how this helps. Well, I think what's really interesting is that, you know, I'm trying to think about the pit teaching us how to watch the pit, right? As you talked about. And so like when someone comes in, when a little girl comes in presenting and seemingly a victim of abuse, I think we're all just sort of saying like, hey, is there something else going on here? When a nun has gone a rea of the eye, is there something dicey? No, she was just changing bedsheets or whatever the case may be. When Dr. Santos showed up in season one and she was just like a real tough case for the first few episodes. And then when she starts getting suspicious of Langdon and then she's ultimately right, I think that was a show being like, see. Gotcha. She was a pain, but she's right. So are they doing something similar with Dr. Halshimi or is it just going to be Robbie is right, which I think is like the less interesting version of that. You know what I mean? They need her to have some legs to stand out. I think they need to do a couple of key things with this character. One, they need to give her some room to have fun or just be a person who is not strictly an advocate for systems. Right. It's clear that these are passions for her in terms of expediting the process of getting patients in and out of the hospital, getting the numbers up. Like she wants to make this a better experience for the patients and the doctors and caregivers both. Right. That's all very important. She needs to be a human being. Right. And right now they have written her to just be kind of like a device to explain this stuff and fight for AI. And I'm just not pulled in by that yet. I'm really hoping we get some different sides of that character. We did get a really interesting email about that that I want to read in a second, but I will say like adding to that, you know, what I said in the episode one is like, okay, Mel and Dr. Mohan worked with her before and seemed to like her. Yes. So that was like a point in her favor, right? But then when Mel comes is like anxious about her malpractice suit and zero bedside manner from Dr. Alashimi who's like, I've never been sued. So I don't know, you know? No moments of kindness, no moments of outreach as of yet. And there's going to be plenty of opportunity for that stuff. But so far, again, she's been written as somebody who is trying to make her case kind of a soft sell. Yeah. About these AI functions. And I thought it was very notable that when she wants to demonstrate it, she basically calls over all of the youngest people in the room, right? It's all the student doctors. It's like, let me try to get you. And Langdon. And Langdon by association. Langdon by. Yeah, he's out quickly. Be like trying to drum up some support from within for something that she thinks will help, but I think the rest of us need to be sold on a little bit. You kids love your devices. They really do. Here we go. Okay. Joy certainly does. What is going on with Joy on her phone? Joy, chaotic. Good. Maybe. I don't know. Well, here's the deal. I am so out on Ogilvy that any, the way that Joy gives them shit brings me joy. So I'm in on Joy. I want to talk about the Ogilvy-Javadi relationship specifically. Cause I think that's a great wrinkle for the show. I want to get to that. Before we do, Ogilvy, I mean, brown nosing in multiple languages now, was there a little something extra on his relationship with Dr. Alashimi? When he's talking about, specifically the line delivery on it being enough to break the ice. It was very breathy. It was very forward. Maybe that's me reading into it too much, but it felt like you want a different kind of teachers petting out of that relationship. There was just something happening. You felt like he was on Grey's Anatomy and you were like, that's not the show. I don't want that show. That's not the show. Okay. Interesting. Before we go off of Dr. Alashimi into more Ogilvy stuff, which I do want to talk about, we got this email from Deepa, which I thought was really interesting about sort of how they're setting up the gut, sort of cowboy doctoring that Robbie does. Versus the process and procedure of Dr. Alashimi. And this is what she says. I really, really hope we're not going to a place where what we were trying to say is that Robbie is the better doctor, but I worry that that is partly where we're going. One of the things that shows like this perpetuate is the idea that, quote, cowboy behavior in medicine is in general good, and that you should be suspicious of folks who are to buy the book. I think the pit has awareness of this, but it also loves Newell Wiley. The reality is a woman in medicine would never be allowed to act in the way that Dr. Robbie does in terms of doing certain procedures in the ER versus ICU. Things he's never been trained in, et cetera. The show wrote a lot of this off in the first season by using the lack of inpatient beds and the mass casualty to get around those things. But she's like curious to see how it plays out here. And so like having this female attending be so by the book, and be so interested in process and procedure as sort of like a way to make her mark in the medical world versus Yee-ha, that is Robbie. I thought that was really interesting. I think it's a great call. And also again, I don't want to kind of forecast too much with a show like this, but as I'm anticipating whenever the systems do go down, something like the patient passport program would be immensely helpful. So there are elements to her approach that are not just like technology, technology, technology. She is not a robot. There's things that she's preaching that would be legitimately huge for the pit if they actually incorporated them. And there's things that Robbie does that not just because of his cowboy nature and how cavalier it is, but how hard it would be to replicate or how hard it would be to teach or how hard it is to instill those instincts in other people. I think those could be at odds in a way where she does have again, like more of a more sound ground under her as she's making that case. To go back to the sort of malpractice thing when Robbie's like, I've been sued four times. Don't worry about it. She's like, I haven't been sued. It was not the thing to say to soothe Mel in that moment, but also Robbie's just like, whatever, sue me. I don't care. Let's talk about Whitaker. Whitaker's two main cases. So we've got Louie. And then we've got the dementia patient. Let's talk about the dementia patient first. This was devastating. This was something that like, even if you could see it coming, which like for those of us who have had dementia in our family like, but like to have to go through that again and again for both Whitaker and this woman was just like really hard to watch. What did you think of it? Well, I think especially the way that Whitaker understandably is like flummoxed by what to do, how to do this. This is not a by the book situation, right? Like I don't even know what the right approach would be if you knew it. And so watching him trying to figure it out in a real time and have to reiterate. And I wouldn't say it's played for laughs, but it is played for absurdity to a degree. You know, like in the moment, there's like a little bit of like a, it's so daunting. Like what are you supposed to do the second time around? You have to tell this woman that her husband has died. And she is saying the exact same thing she said the first time, but like, oh, he's never, he's not sick. Do you feel like the kindness is to like not tell her? Like why put her through that if she's not going to be able to remember it? I feel like you have to though. I think one like legally, you probably have to, right? Or at least you have an obligation. Maybe it's not legal. Like how many times do you have the legal obligation? I don't know. But I think that's why it makes sense that the logical endpoint of that journey is getting her in the room with her husband, right? You can't call her every day and remind her of this as she goes through the rest of her life, but she can have a closure of a kind in that room at that time. And then after that, like you do what you can, but it's not, it's kind of out of Whitaker's hands. Yeah. And then we have Louie. And we got a really distressing email about Louie from our listener Travis, who said bluntly, no bedside manner in this email, Louie is a goner, tough. Quote, while he does have, while he does need his abdomen tapped, the fact that they highlighted his dental decay makes me think that he has an infective heart valve, which is causing a shortness of breath. Strep bovis is a mouth bacteria that when introduced into the bloodstream, the mouth sore can land in a heart valve and cause havoc. Dr. Langdon's familiarity with the patient is blinding him from making the correct diagnosis. So Dr. Langdon being sort of wrapped up in his emotion and Whitaker perhaps in his inexperience missing something. I think whether or not Travis is right, I do think it would be for Louie, someone we spent several episodes with in season one and is prominently featured in these first two episodes to lose a patient like that. Yes. But is that interesting for Whitaker who went through something like that in season one with the heart patient that he had that sort of like suddenly passed away because he missed something? Is that feel repetitive? Is that interesting? What do you think about that? It definitely could be repetitive. I mean, that's a risk with any medical drama, right? There are certain things, there are certain patterns that are going to repeat. And one of them is missing symptoms. It's one of the most glaring parts of any medical process. Like it's damning for anybody. I do wonder in this case, if it's one where we could get the AI part of the conversation looped into it. We got an email from Jackson, who's a statistician who's done a lot of medical research. And one of the things that Jackson talked about was like conceptualizing AI and medicine as like chat GBT is thinking about it all the wrong way, right? And it's taking hyper specific vetted sources of research and data and using those to make associations that you might not otherwise make. And so in this case, yeah, your blindness based on your familiarity with the patient or the fact that Louie's been in so many times, it's like, we're just doing this again. Like here we go. He knows what to do. Yes, exactly. It's another day at the spa. And so you get into the pattern of not even looking at the tooth in the way that you need to look at the tooth. But you plug those symptoms into a system that has more tailored data. Interesting. And maybe all of a sudden there's some different kind of alarms going on. So what you're telling me is we are now a pro AI podcast. I'm not saying that. Wow, stunning turn of events. Did you have a favorite moments episode? If I have one, but I want to hear if you have one first. Favorite moments. Let me hear yours first while I stew. Okay, so Mel falls on the ground, hits her head. Who does Dana get to like help her? Dr. Langton. Of course. This is already great. The cops from season one are back, right? Officer Underhill, who is like missing Dr. Collins a lot is back. They've distressed Mel, Langton ushers them out, goes to close the door, turns off the light. Which is something that Mel taught him in season one when they were dealing with a neurodivergent patient and she closed, turned off the light and was like, it's really noisy in the ER. When Langton did that for her, Rob, I cried. I don't blame you. I'm sorry, I cried. I thought it was so beautiful. And they've put me in such a good position Rhi Langton this season. I'm just really rooting for him. And like, I love a comeback narrative. I love all of his interactions. Like Dr. Alishimi being like, I've heard all about you. You know, and Javadi and Whitaker being like, that was weird and awkward. And then the conversation he had with Mel where he's like going around and making amends to people, working up to talking inevitably to Santos and to Robbie. How about working up there, actively avoiding each other. And it's mutual. But he's gotta get there before. One would hope. Before midnight, times on July 4th, you know. And so his relationship with Mel was very special in season one. So to like have this moment, I just really loved it. I think you're right too. And it's one of those moments, again, Mel, a character who we're all invested in and care about and seeing her get decked by this asshole. Fuck that guy. We're furious, right? Like I'm on the trail. I'm on the hunt, right? I'm trying to get this guy behind bars. Yeah. And to have someone like Langdon. Sure, he knocked over like a convenience store, but more importantly, he knocked over Bill King. This is what matters to us. And Langdon doing something for Mel, as you said, that not only reflects their past history, but it's like the kind of thing you do for somebody, the kind of kindness you show them when you really see them and understand them. Right. And it was just like such a beautiful moment. Inside of season one, when Langdon was doing a bunch of shit that was really aggravating, when Mel handled that narrative urgent patient in season one, and he's like, that was amazing. Like how'd you do that? That was incredible. Like you taught me, you know, I'm not just teaching you, you're teaching me cheesy, but you know, to watch him sort of put those principles into practice for her, I just thought that was really good. This is another reason I have high hopes for a Dr. Alashimi rehabilitation image-wise over the course of the season. There's really not any other characters in this show who are an asshole to everyone or incompatible with everyone. There's a corner for everybody to find kind of their people among the staff. And like this is a perfect example of that. Where you put Langdon and Santos in a room and it's like, yeah, fuck this guy sometimes. But you put these two together and he never let her down, even though he definitely let her down. He definitely let her down, which he acknowledged. Also, it never affected my work, my guy. It affected your work. I don't know what to tell you. Someone on Twitter put up a screen grab of like our first shot of Langdon in chairs at the beginning of episode one in his Penguin's hat. And the catch was just like, that feeling when your back hurts a little. I was just like, yeah, how's your back doing, guy? Joe, how did you feel about Mel? Another kind of, like another one of my favorite moments of this episode is before Boba Guy runs out on her and we find out his true colors, he's kind of prodding about what she likes to do for fun. And there's two parts. One, I want to get your take on the renfair elements of this. I'm very curious. Of course, I have takes on this. She doesn't seem like a mead girl per se, but I think she'd have a great time there. Wow, what a shout out. Shout out to the mead. But moreover, Mel being the kind of person who has to take a second to think about what she actually likes is really sad, but also makes sense given her life. Right, the scene that we had at the end of season one where she's like picking up her sister and she's like, what movie should we watch? It was an elf again. It was an elf again. And she's like, or we could watch literally any other movie and then her sister's like, no elf. And she's like, all right then. Another day of life. We'll get pizza and pasta and watch elf, sounds great. So yeah, like the fact that she only can think about things that her sister likes to do. But I'm so excited for Mel King, Renfair Nerd. This is really exciting to me. She has an alter ego, which is a 17th century French woman is what she said. And I mean, we deserve. We deserve in season three for Mel to be called in from the Renfair. I have the same thought. She's in the bodice, hip hip a-za. And we get to like, she's gonna do the accent for us. Like we gotta get the whole alter ego going. Like I demand it. I demand it. We all deserve this. We absolutely do deserve it. And you know what, we can stage whatever time of year is necessary to make it appropriately festive. But we do need it. Depends on where you are in the country, but like fall is a good time for a Renfair. I would think so. So yeah, we, you know, sounds good to me. Okay, on the Dr. Landon front, he's got the girl with the glued eye who said she wanted to talk to Dr. J who worked in the ER and he's like, I don't think so. The only Dr. J, and she's not a doctor, is Dr. Javadi, is Javadi, right? Sure. Oh, and Julia serving, yeah. Right. Just very clear. Probably like I have a reputation to make today. This is Pennsylvania. Do you feel like, do you feel like, it could be Dr. J? Do you feel like she was talking about that Dr. J? I don't think so. I think she does say she, no? Yeah. So who is this Dr. J who knows everything and Landon's like, I don't think so. Is there a mystery imposter doctor? Oh, I would love an imposter doctor. There's a lot of weird storylines we could unspool, but yeah, I have no idea who Dr. J could be other than Javadi. Yeah, so that was just like a curious little moment. Seed dropped. Somehow Javadi, yeah, I don't think it would be Javadi under these circumstances. I don't think, no, because Victoria wouldn't be like, I don't know what to do. She's not cowboying around the ER. But she has strut in her stuff. No, she's posturing. Oh, absolutely posturing. So where are you, Ogilvy versus Javadi? There's really no question. It's Victoria. How could you be on Ogilvy's side? That sucks. That guy sold out Whitaker. Fuck him, honestly. I really don't like Ogilvy. Like he does know a lot clearly. Sure, he's got great hair, but... He's got hair. Oh, he's got hair. Tough from Dr. Sidebangs over there. Wow. Well, maybe that's his problem. Needs more sidebang. Needs more swoop. Okay. We're often saying, but honestly, even apart from who's side we're picking, Samira Mohan, reaction shot queen of our time. Absolutely. As she plugs stuff in on the computer, it's just like, why the fuck am I in this room right now? Tremendous. This is a classic diabetic wheel, just do the procedure. Yeah. Real like sort of Fuji from Shogun sort of like level. And it's fun to see Mohan in this role because as we talked about people moving up the org chart, like doesn't she just seem more senior in these first two episodes? For sure. Seems more senior. And she's kind of rounded the corner in a way that certainly the student doctors have not and the younger doctors have not. All right, Ogilvy. So here's my villain ranking for the season. Okay. One maggots. With a bullet. Number one maggots. Number two, AI. Number three, the guy who knocked Mel King over. And number four, Ogilvy. Those are my villains of the season. Do you have anything on your villain ranking? If I didn't know about the pit and you just wrote those things down on paper, I'd be like, are these Mission Impossible villain rankings? Ogilvy does sound like a Mission Impossible villain. Absolutely. But no notes, that checks out to me. You have nothing to add. In terms of other villains? I mean, who else do we even have in the, I guess if there is like an abusive father to this little girl, that would be a villain. What a segue. Should we talk about Santos and Stingts? Oh, and I do want to add bottom, I want to be very clear, bottom of the villain list. The woman who poured bacon grease down her cousin's sink. Yeah. Well, simply will not stare. No. It robs kitchen. Not in my kitchen, not in anyone's kitchen. That is, you're asking for serious plumbing problems. No, like I really agree with that, but I also, why would you ever pour bacon grease down a sink when anyone was even near it doing dishes? This is why she's on the villain list. You're right. She's number five, I think. All right. Let's talk about Santos, this little girl and the new social worker. So we got a bunch of emails from people with like various other diagnoses for this little girl, like that is not necessarily pointing to abuse. So a lot of like the medical professionals who watch this show are like, it could be this, it could be that like, don't, as Robbie said, don't jump to conclusions. As Dylan said, don't jump to conclusions, right? Yes. Santos is like, I'm here, conclusions are here. I had nowhere to jump. Here they are. So there's a couple of things going on. On the one hand, when Robbie's like, hey, you want to join this trauma, you know, think about season one Santos, what's next, what's new, what's like, what's the coolest case that I get on? She's like, no, I want to stay here, I want to get this right. So that's growth. We love that. Hot headed assumptions from her, where she has blind spots. I don't know. How are you feeling about this? I mean, like glaring personal blind spots, right? Like this is a heat seeking missile of a case for someone like her, understandably. Why wouldn't she think that this would be a possible end point? I think the thing I'm flagging is, this little girl, Kylie is warned about, you know, the blood draw they're about to do about like, oh, you can look away or let us know if you want to, you know, a distraction, basically. A great, great, great, great moment. Great, great moment. She's not really bothered or fussed in any way whatsoever. In a way that makes me wander with all of the bruising that's happening, all of the injuries that she's sustained through. She says like soccer and skateboarding and all those things. What if those are true? And she just doesn't really experience pain in the way that other people do. It's that Jack Quaid movie. Yes, she is. She is a super. She is novocaine. Okay. I hope it's that and not something much darker. Yeah. And I, you know, I hope she's going to be okay. All right. Do you want to talk about the patient who took a double dose of ED medicine? Yeah. Yeah. What do you want to say? I guess if we have to. I mean, Mr. Randall. This has been a huge week for prosthetics on the prestige feed overall. Yeah. You know, just a lot happening. Yeah. This was one I got to admit did not see coming. Oh, freezing. Look, I walked into it. That was purely accidental. Of all the things I thought we were going to see on the pit, I probably should have anticipated this. I bet if we reach out. We've seen one in season. We saw in season. Oh, this case. I mean, this very specific thing happening. This has to happen with alarming frequency, I would think. There was so much. They drained so much out of that penis. There's again, there's a lot of fluid coming out of Louis. Like gallons of fluid or liters of fluid. And then yeah, this is a lot of blood. So much blood. This is why you don't cast luxatio erecta? Is that the spell? Don't cast it. This is what happens. That's great. That's a good stuff from you. Anything I want to say about Dr. McKay? We haven't talked about her much in this episode. Yeah. I mean, she's so what is her case load right now? What I'm trying to get to talk about. She's got the guy with the erratic sort of personality that he's going for a CT scan. And he seemed quite pleasant in this episode. Quite. Yeah. He's all over the place. I assume we're going to learn something from that scan, but we have not seen the results yet. Actually, my favorite Dr. McKay moment is when she clocks was going on with Robbie and Hastings. And she's like, yeah, OK. You don't have to be a master impasse to clock the way these two are just like eye fucking each other in the middle of the ER. But still, when she's just like, OK. And Robbie's like, she's quite perceptive. Robbie just quoting Shakespeare as he is want to do. So funny. All right. And then on the Hanson pit crew, the old bacon grease thing. Sure. Given that we saw two members of his family come in with those matching shirts, doesn't it feel like we're going to see many more members of the Hanson family throughout this 4th of July? Well, one was in the waiting room, right? Right. Their father or somebody's father was in the waiting room. But I just feel like if you have the family reunion shirts, we could just be getting Hansons all day long. I would really. I mean, I don't hope so for their case, but it would be a nice bit just stringing them along. If anyone's going to blow their fingers off due to fireworks, don't you think it's the Hanson pit crew? They are the prohibitive favorites in the group so far. Of all the people we've seen. I would absolutely buy it. Joe, I do want to talk about Javadi and Santos. Yeah. Not a rivalry in the way that she has with Ogilvy, but I thought like her. Oh, yeah. Newly formed. But Javadi's comments to Whitaker about like the shitty nickname thing, about like kind of insinuating, is she really your friend? You know, for all of the chumminess we see among the staff to start this season, they've been working together for quite a while now. But it's interesting, this like very clear dividing line between Javadi and Santos. Yeah, I think that's interesting because I, you know, it felt like in season one, Whitaker and Javadi are like bonding over Santos being such a pain in the ass. But now Whitaker's her like roommate and bestie. I know. Like it's a different dynamic. So maybe Javadi is missing. And he's been promoted up, you know, because he's a year ahead of her. So now he's no longer like a med student with her. So she doesn't really have like an equal on the floor because there's like Joe, Joey and Ogilvy, but they're like quite new. A little younger. But she's not that far ahead of them. No, she and Ogilvy I think are the same year, they're fourth years. I believe so. But I just mean he's like new on the floor. She doesn't have something like a comrade in arms who's still at her level because Whitaker is now getting a doctor's paycheck. So, you know, lonely times for Javadi. It seems like alienated by her mom or at least consistently angered by her mom. Right, lost her ally who's like, Santos sucks, right? You know, so. And Mateo's on the night shift. What's a girl to do? What is a girl to do? Mateo needs to come back earlier. He really does. Earlier than later, yeah. Anything else? I mean, this was also, as far as the ongoing gnarly watch of this season. I mean, a lot of candidates. I mean, there's a needle into a giant prosthetic boner. Like I don't love seeing it. I'm gonna be honest with you. When they were talking about massaging it, how did you feel about Robbie's moment when he was like better her than me? And then he's like, I didn't mean that. I'll be outside in the ambulance, babe. Don't at me. I like that he's kind of constantly stepping in. Don't call HR, please. I mean, this is the thing. If you're gonna have him be the cowboy, be the cowboy a little bit. We know he can be incredibly empathetic and considerate, but he's also a little fast and loose on stuff. You know what we haven't talked about really? Who's that? Is Dana, because she touches a lot. She's constantly bopping in and out with charts on people or checking in on people. But in terms of her own storyline, there's a conversation she has with Robbie about how punchy she is, right? And which you quoted. But Dana's mindset after the Doug Driscoll incident last season and what is sort of weighing, is or isn't weighing on her. She has Cavalier as she seems. She gets to be guiding poor little lost land Emma around. I believe she handed her like a vomit bag when the maggots came out, right? But she knew. She was ready with it. She was ready with it. But what's going on with Dana? You know what I mean? I'm curious. You're telling me that kind of abrasiveness could be a defense mechanism? That's crazy, Joe. Couldn't be me. Couldn't be me. Absolutely not. But yeah, I mean, look, she's uniquely positioned because she is bouncing between literally every case on the floor, really. How could you not once steal yourself from some of the things that are happening around you, just with the incredible level of tragedy and pain flowing through the ER at all times. But in particular what she saw over the course of season one and what was inflicted on her personally, I think anyone would recoil a little bit, would pull back a little bit. And she can't take herself out of it, clearly. Like she is a sicko for this kind of work in the way that Robbie is and everybody else is. Like they want the adrenaline rush. They want the panic. And yet they're also weighed down by it and burdened by it. It's the full package. It's everything. Anything else we should talk about? Along the gnarly lines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I do want to nail down, like what was, I assume the maggots are the most unpleasant part of this episode for you. For me personally, yes. But is that worse than a shoulder getting popped back into place exposed? Is that worse than needles into sensitive areas? Can I, should I tell you my maggot story? If you're comfortable. Okay. Will I be comfortable? When I was a kid, my cousins, like my cousins would come over on Easter and we would do Easter icons, right? And we would, we would hide, that my parents would hide not only like the plastic Easter eggs, but also like a hard boiled egg that we had died, right? Sure. Wait, question. The egg is still in there? It's not just the shell. Do you not? Yes. Joe, I have notes, but please continue. You would de-egg your Easter eggs? Yeah, you drain the shell, then you die the shell. How do you, how do you drain in it? Like you make a little hole, a little incision. I'm a surgeon. Are you the egg surgeon? You did this? Yes. I mean, I know that like, like Russian crafts people do it. Oh, it's not that complicated. When they sort of like, like, take an egg or whatever, but like, what are you? It's very achievable. Okay, we did not do that at my house. And it, and it's a very sad ending. What can I tell you? That's how you get maggots. And that's why you always leave a note. Okay, so listen, but one Easter egg hunt was not enough for us that year. So we, the cousins, the four of us, like hid Easter eggs for each other. We're like, you know, someone's going to be sure. We went down the age list, the youngest hid some eggs around the house and we collected them and we were missing one. And she said, I don't know where I hid it. And we were like, oh, okay. Well, what could go wrong? Turns out she hid it in the, like, I had like a trundle bed, like a drawer beneath my bed. And she like hid it in there, which had just like a bunch of like childhood stuff in it. So one day I opened that drawer to take out something and there, it's kind of just made a sound. There were just maggots everywhere. How many are we talking here? I didn't take an egg out wrong. I screamed and ran from the room. And I slept in a different room that night. Is there an egg covered in maggots? Or is it like the whole trundle bed is covered? Not the whole one. A corner of the trundle bed was a mass of maggots. Look, that's already too many maggots. I'm not saying it's not bad. One is too many maggots. All right. Okay, so that's my thing with maggots. Look, I get why that would be traumatic. I get why you would see this and be like, hell no. Frankly, I would be too. The idea of removing a cast of all things and finding maggots piecing on your flesh underneath. Have you broken a limb before? Oh, I have. Just this past year. Oh, that's right. Yeah, broke a bone in my hand. But that wasn't, you didn't have like a cast on for a very long time. I had a hard cast pretty briefly. So it was not the kind of thing where maggots would be festering underneath. I broke my arm like several times as a child, this one arm, biking, rollerblading, like any wheels were basically. With love and respect to my own hygiene, casts don't smell good no matter what when they come up. There's nothing you can do. No matter what. And then maggots, guys, I'm sorry I have spun out so much about maggots, but this is really a problem in the part of the episode. I also thought that, you know, for a show that can sometimes, not indulge, but showcase these incredibly grizzly parts of medical work, just kind of yada-yada past that we're going to cut off this bacon, grease, burned man's skin. Like we're just going to snip it all away. I'm not saying I wanted the close up, but I've been conditioned to expect it and we didn't get it. Well, there's still time. There's still time for the hands of Pit crew to surprise and delight you. All right, well, that has been the Pit season two episode two. Mm-hmm. Oh, before we go out, Joe. Oh, please. I want to flag one thing. Please. Look, a lot of cases being juggles. A lot of cases from the premiere we didn't even get back to in this one. I had my mind on one person in particular, and it's the guy who came in with three full bags of prescription medicine and like, you know, homeopathic medicines of all the things he was taking. He's a natural path. There was like two big of beat to not come back, right? On the one hand, maybe on the other hand, that's just a shorthand for like, we got emails about it from doctors being like, we've seen this in the ER. This woman with a small dog in a bag and like many, many like totes of like supplements and opinions. It was like, it's like Robbie's rant about Dr. Google last season, right? It was just sort of like, they come in thinking they know more than we do because they've Googled. And as someone who takes many supplements myself, I see myself in this photo, I don't like it, but I would never take a small dog into the ER. So there's that, I've got that going for me. Unacceptable. All right, well, Dr. Cy Banks at gmail.com, press.tv.spotify.com. We're doing industry this season. We are. With Jody Walker, the great Jody Walker. A legend. So season four of industry rolling along. We got a ton of emails for that show, but we have not nailed down a specific one yet for that show, but press.tv.spotify.com. Is there anything you want, Joe, from our emailers for the pit? Oh, is there anything you're curious about? Any perspectives you're... Have you ever seen a maggot? Just in life? All your maggot stories? Tell me your maggot stories. Maybe it'll like, in your me to the maggot trauma if we get a ton of maggot emails. Right. Yes. Send us your maggot stories. The frequency of maggots, undercasts, in hospitals, I guess I would be curious about, also the frequency of double ED dosages. Yes, have you ever drained a penis over the course of an hour? I guess, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever massaged the cloths out? It's a great question. Sometimes you gotta go analog, you know? You really gotta do it. How do you dispose of bacon grease in your household? What's your method, Rob? I'm gonna like, put it in the jar. Yeah, you save it, because you use it for something else. You just use a ramekin, honestly. Heat safe, great for everybody involved. How many ramekins do you own? Oh, so many. Different sizes. You never can have too many. You're a real ramekin guy. Honestly, best use green onion pancakes with bacon grease, very good. How do you recommend? Listen, do you think if you were to get a vanity license plate, it would just say ramekin on it? Do you think that captures your vibe? It really does, you know? It's really you. Look, I love a small dish. Yeah. I love a cretin' barrel, you know? All right. I think we're tapping into something. Guys, if you have any ramekin deals from Rob, for STTVSWATABON.COM, I'll take them. I'm sad that the pigeon suggestions have dried up for you. That was one of my favorite eras in the email. I'm gonna admit. Thank you to KyGraydy who's right over there in the room. I know. What a legend. What a thrill. Justin Sales. Yes, always. For his work. To you. Thank you, Joe. Thanks to my cousin Corinne for traumatizing me about maggots for the rest of my life. And we'll see you. Thanks to Dr. Langdon for turning off that light, for doing a nice thing for Mel in this episode. You make me cry. I was screaming about maggots and then I cried. The pit has everything truly. We'll see you soon. Bye.