8:00 A.M. with Supriya Ganesh, Taylor Dearden and Rick Ladomade

Welcome to The Pit Podcast, the one and only official companion to The Pit from HBO Max. I'm Alok Patel, physician, journalist, and if it's about medical storytelling, I'm in. And I'm Hunter Harris, a screenwriter and cultural critic. Every week on this show, we go inside the pit to look at the characters, the storylines, the motivations that keep the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center running. And then we'll go outside the pit to talk about the real-world health issues that this show highlights so well. Today, we're talking about episode two, season two. I was very excited to talk to Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan, and Taylor Dearden, who plays Melissa King. Let's go. Today's shift starts now. Almost always our rehearsal is like just before we do it, which for some of the crazy stuff is like, how did we do that? Yeah, I like the lung flip. I'm still kind of like, what, like, how did we do Like, the first episode where it's like, I don't know how we did that. It's been a week, Hunter. I'm like, I've been so excited to talk to you. I feel like when I watch this show, I just take little notes, like, bring this up on the podcast. This is hilarious. Give us a recap of what happened. Listen, I always have my notebook out when I'm watching this show. The biggest, I think, development this episode is the tension between Dr. Ravi and Dr. Al-Hashmi. That's maybe my favorite kind of runner through this episode. But speaking of Dr. Robbie, is there a little romance between him and Noel, the case manager? I feel like there's a little bit of like a wink and a nod that even like Nurse Dana picks up on. And then we also have just a quick moment of a woman who had glued her eye shut, trying to put on lashes. Listen, I've been there. And she's asking for Dr. J and Dr. Langdon is like, I don't know who you're talking about. Can you tell me who Dr. J is? But I think the most shocking, stunning, I had to cover my eyes moment was the unhoused patient who comes in to get a cast off, and they open the cast and see maggots. And it is like Nurse Emma's first day. I also love how you see, once again, get to see how it just hardened and experienced that Charger's Dayna is when she's like, I see you brought some friends with you. Let's see those friends. Let's see those friends. With the cast spread. No. Um. Thank you. OK. OK. Oh, I see you brought some friends. Oh my god, are those? Maggots. I'll need ethyl chloride spray to freeze them off. Never saw that in nursing school, am I right? I'm so here for it. Absolutely hated it. Absolutely hated it. No, I will never recover, actually. I mean, I love Nurse Emma's reaction versus Dr. Mo, who's like, let's get rolling, versus Dana, who's like, of course. I bet people like ER doctors and people who work with certain populations probably saw this clip and were like, But here's the medical nerdiness. So this condition is called myiasis. And it's essentially when you get a parasitic infection, like a bug comes and lays their eggs in a wound. And then if you have wounds that are not properly cleaned, and there's a lot of tissue for those eggs to grow and for the maggots to like basically have Thanksgiving dinner every day. So under a cast where it's like moist, they have a perfect environment to do that. I'm sick to my stomach. I'm sorry for the visual, but it happens. Myiasis sounds fake. That sounds like my worst nightmare. The maggots in medicine, in science, like you got forensic myiasis, where like forensic scientists will look at, you know, maggots on dead bodies and be like, that's how long this body may have been sitting around. There's medical grade maggots. And then there's just cases like this. Listen, we can nerd out. I'll stop now in the maggot conversation before we lose our listeners. I might not make it through. A really good moment with a nun who has gonorrhea somehow. And is it Santos who has like the line of the episode, maybe the immaculate infection. I'm agreeing with you that that is the line of the episode. Yes. So it wasn't from God, the gonorrhea. It actually came from doing laundry at a homeless shelter. And that's kind of a very sweet moment of sort of checking your privilege when they all want to make a joke out of it, but the nurse is actually, like, doing God's work. 100%. One of the more heartbreaking storylines this episode is that Whitaker's patient dies, and he has to tell the man's widow that the patient died. But she forgets, so he tells her again and again and again. And I was like, oh, Whitaker, of course this would happen to you. I do appreciate that he approaches it with sensitivity every single time, even though he is repeating himself. It's that one, that scene like got all the feels. Because I think the second time he told her, she had heartbreak. He's not sick. And then she needed to know again. Then he took her to see him. Maybe Whitaker was thinking like, I need to physically show her. Right. And she doesn't even see, she doesn't realize. She's like, honey, I'm glad you're resting. Let's go home now. I was like, oh my gosh. This is like in the Titanic, that couple who just like holds each other and they're like, we're going down with the ship. I was like, oh my gosh, love, eternal love. Speaking of couples, there's a patient hitting on Mel. Good. And she kind of doesn't know what to do about it. And then the cops come and he knocks her over as he's like making an escape. I'm like, that's modern dating. That's what it's like. Let me tell you. It's a metaphor for modern dating. Also, if we were to have a side plot of any character right now, I want it to be about Mel, because right before he knocks her over, that part when he's like, what do you like to do for fun? She's like, I like the Renaissance Fair. And he makes fun of her for wanting to be an alter ego. And she's in the middle of saying that she has envisioned being a 17th century French woman. And then she gets knocked over. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. I want to hear more about Mel's alter ego in the 17th century. I mean, men never listen. That's why. But you know what is listening? Dang, all right. Is AI. Oh my God, what a transition. Dr. Al-Hashmi has an AI tool that she uses on a patient, and I'm like, no, my dad is not protected. But she says the AI tool can take notes, do a lot of charting, keep the charting time to a minimum and keeping bedside time to a maximum. I think we can watch that clip. Let's do it, because this is an important one. Dr. Langdon, you were more than welcome to stay, too. Uh, maybe for a minute. We're pretty busy in triage. Okay. Stevens, I have an app on my phone that can listen to our conversation and the details of my physical exam and write it all up in your medical record. Wow. It's protected, confidential. This is happening. Like, in real time, there are digital health tools and AI tools that physicians, that healthcare system are trying to use. And I think Dr. Al-Hashimi brings up an important point when she, like, first of all, shows the patient, I'm using this tool. Then she mentions it is HIPAA compliant, meaning like we're going to protect your data with it. And she clearly explains what it's being used for. But then she even like kind of covers it and says like, hey, we can't solely rely on AI tools. You got to make sure you check over your work. But there's another big scene when a gentleman comes in who has a prolonged erection. We call that pre-epism. And Dr. Langdon also drops this like heater of a line when he's like, is it a big one? I mean your anniversary. Like, great line. And then we move on again to more conversations about AI and that back and forth between Dr. Al-Hashimi and Dr. Rabi. She's, you know, having a very important conversation. I don't know if this has been your experience with Doctors Hunter, but she talks about how much time doctors spend charting on a computer, doing like whatever the administrative tasks they need to do and not actually directly with patient care. Talks about the patient passport efficiency. And then this almost like scene-stealing moment. Ambulance rolls in, and while Dr. Al-Hashmi was in the middle of this conversation, Dr. Ravi's like, let's do real medicine, because you have this presumably college-age student who is just combative, swearing, screaming. We hear that he's been tased, and it's like this massive little episode cliffhanger. Tased in the library, too. Like, what in the world? And this actor's going 120%. Credit to that. Let's see this scene. Take generative AI, for instance. ER doctors spend 40% of their time charting, only 28% of their time at the bedside. That doesn't sound accurate. I've included the study in my packet. Wait. And patient passports have been shown to increase satisfaction because they showed the time required for each phase of the visit. We got a bad of college kid. Looked down the library, tased in the neck by campus security. Five midazzling didn't touch him. Will you get the fuck off me, 29-01? 29-01, motherfucker! Fuck you! Fuck you! Tell me some more about your ideas. Maybe later. Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! I also like the way that Dr. Robbie kind of rolls his eyes a little bit at Dr. Al-Hashmi. Like, okay, we get it. Can we actually go do medicine now? I know. I think... Listen, this is such... I keep laughing at this, but it's such a real kind of back and forth that's happening right now, where she's like, let's talk about efficiency, and he's like, please let me just get to my patients. Yeah, I'm like... She still cares about patients. It's one of those things that like, this honestly could be an email. Like, we don't need to talk about this right now. This is not a real meeting. Every healthcare professional just saluted you, Hunter Harris. That this could just be an email. Should just be like a bumper sticker in every hospital everywhere. Well, thank you. Hunter, let's dial in a little bit on what I think is your favorite subplot. Okay. Going on right now. I'm ready. And that's two attendings with two contrasting ideologies about how to approach the emergency department, and maybe there's a little bit of personal tension there. We don't know yet. But I'm curious how you see their interaction, Dr. Al-Hashimi and Dr. Rabi, kind of affecting the rest of the staff. Mm. Well, I will say two attendings, both alike in dignity. I like that we trust both Dr. Rabi and Dr. Al-Hashimi, but when they butt heads, it's not because they don't respect one another. It is just that they do things differently. They approach the work very differently. And I think Dr. Al Hashimi comes in a little bit hot for being, like, Robbie's last day. He trying to kind of like set everything aside I about to go on the road whatever But she keeps asking him like question after question You can tell that he feels a little bit a little bit sort of paranoid about having someone looking over his shoulder like literally all of the time But I wonder, will people maybe reject Dr. Al Hashmi just because she's new? Like, the pit is very... Everyone's, like, in a routine. Everyone feels very comfortable with one another. And she is a little bit of a disruptor, no? I mean, is that how you feel about her? I have a hard time even calling her a dis... I guess disruption doesn't have to be a bad thing. No, I don't think it is. Maybe disruption without the negative connotation. I mean, I struggle with that, too. Well, you're an SF person, so maybe disruptor has a little bit of connotation for you. That's true, yeah, tech disruption. That's what she's doing almost. She's coming in here with some tech disruption. But to your previous comment, perhaps this could have been an email ahead of time. They could have talked beforehand saying, hey, I'm coming in to shadow you before you go on sabbatical to the Alberta Badlands, and let's talk about these tools. And I wonder if the staff has experienced this before or if they're like, hold up, like Dr. Robbie is, is like the captain, but then some of them are like, no, we need this, this fresh perspective. Yeah. Tell me if this is your experience, because I wonder how much the staff is used to having multiple doctors, multiple residents, multiple bosses, maybe. So they're all pretty quick on their feet and not just taking a side or you can't really like, you know, turn your back on your attending. You have to listen to them, right? Yeah, I think you're totally right. I think the residents are just like, Hey, I got an attending. Who cares about this patient, my situation? The one thing they're probably adapting is, how do I work with this attending or how do I impress this attending? Do I impress this attending with my fund of knowledge, with extra teamwork skills, with empathy? And you should be doing all those things. But there's a little bit of maybe tweaking of your approach. Yeah, because people work different ways. I'm so glad you brought up, do I impress them with my font of knowledge? Because Ogilvy, can we talk about him? Ogilvy is going all out. I respect how smart Ogilvy is, but I'm a little bit like, oh, my gosh, put your hand down. It's like teacher's pet almost. Like, I hate someone who's like first hand up in a class. Like, please relax. How do you feel about him? And have you been in a circumstance where you're like, I so respect your knowledge. However, we do have a job to do. And you, you know, just like rattling off facts. Is that super helpful in this moment? I feel like everyone has been around someone who wants to remind the world about their experiences or how smart they are. We call them one-up mushrooms because anytime you say something, they'll try to one-up you. Oh, that's like Mr. Me Too. Yeah, like just someone else is like, oh, you know, actually like, you know, in 1971, I wrote 17 papers. I mean, I'm like, dude, I get it. You're cool. But let's work as a team together. But yeah, Ogilvy is really coming in, Santos calls it, as a gunner. And he's really trying to impress everyone. She almost like puts him against Javadi in that scene where she's like, he's your competition. There's a question for you. Yeah. Is he trying to impress Dajjal Hashimi by speaking Farsi, or is he spitting game? Because he drops that line when he's like... Or she's like, oh, so you learned the language. And he's like, enough to break the ice. What are we doing here? I'm sorry, I cringe so hard. I really think it's a little bit of both, but he seems like the kind of person who would do anything to get a little bit of a leg up over someone else. And I almost wonder, are the other residents in that room, or I should say the residents in that room, a little bit like, okay, we get it. Like, you went to medical school, like, so did all of us. We all know what you're talking about. And it's, um, I like that Dr. Robbie sort of calls out, like, we work as a team here. And so this sort of, like, recitation of textbook knowledge, of all of these complicated terms, does not really do a lot to, like, improve patient experience and care or to really make your teammates want to work with you. Uh, nailed it. No notes. Hunter, I was very excited to talk to Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan, and Taylor Dearden, who plays Melissa King. Not only because their characters are fascinating in their development, but also, when you watch a show like The Pit, you're always curious, like, how much is the actor, like, the character? How different are they? Super fascinating. And it's also exciting because now Dr. Mohan is a fourth-year resident. Dr. King is now a third-year resident, R4, R3. I'm doing long division. I got you. I'm gonna make, like, a family tree or something. Just to show you how this progresses. But anyway, let's check out this interview. This is a good one. Slate. Great, we should hire him. Especially saying Slate is a choice. Taylor, Dr. King has been going through a lot this season so far. In these first two episodes, she's hit on by a patient, and she's also named in a medical malpractice lawsuit, which is causing her a lot of anxiety. Can you sort of talk to us about where she is emotionally when we pick up with her this season? It's a rough day to start with, knowing the deposition is that day. So she's definitely in a different mood than all of season one, and kind of a different Mel, and quite distracted the whole time. And yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough day. Supriya, Dr. Mohan. Yes. A little bit of her personal life kind of comes out in this episode, and we hear her walking and getting annoyed with her mom on the phone. By the way, for my own edification, were you speaking Tamil? Yeah, I was. Yeah. I knew it. I heard Saudi, and I was like, Tamil? Anyway, why do you think this moment happened at that time? Why did it bubble up? And where is the line between personal and work life for Dr. Mohan? I think what happened with her mom was really sudden. She's had this surprise engagement. So Mohan's father passed away when she was pretty young, and she always just thought it was gonna be her and her mom, and then all of a sudden, this new boyfriend comes out of nowhere. They get engaged, they're going on this cruise around the world, and Mahon's kind of like, Oh, like, what about me? Like, I had planned the rest of my life around you being here for me, actually. I planned my career around you being here for me, actually. Um, and I'm so happy you asked about the Tamil, because I, it was actually my mother tongue. I've lost so much of it. So it was really nice to re-explore that, um, in this, in this season through this character, because I really think she feels her dad a lot when she speaks Dammel. I think that's how she feels connected to him still. And I think it was just really great being able to relearn it a little bit. And yeah, I don't know about the line between personal and professional. I think it really... She really is having a hard time keeping her personal life out of the hospital today, and her mom simply won't let her have those boundaries. So the cultural context, that's already one area where there's a blend between Dr. Mohan and the real Dr. Mohan, Supriya. But also, I read that you were actually considering going to med school. You were a tutor for the MCAT. MCAT sucks, by the way. I took it once upon a time. So it's very impressive. You did. He's a doctor. But it's cool. You were? But you were a tutor for the MCAT. You got nearly a perfect score. I got a 99 percentile score. I'm saying, listen, it's very... I think the audience needs to know. So that's why you have to let me say it. The audience needs to know how impressive it is to be a tutor for the MCAT. And then you got cast... While we were shooting season one. Get out of here. Wow. Yeah, I was shooting while... I was like, well, maybe they'll write me off. Maybe they'll, like... I don't know, maybe people won't like me. She'll be like, oh, God. Hold on, I gotta go. A student needs help. And I'll be like... This is, like, not even method acting. Ridiculous. You're just the real person. So what got you to change course and say, actually, we're going all in on acting? Well, I mean, I came to America being like, okay, I'm just gonna do the pre-med thing and I'm gonna audition on the side. And the more I audition, the more it started working out, and I was like, okay, well, maybe I need to give this a shot. And actually, right before I got the job, we had our strikes. It was the actor's strike and the writer's strike. And even after, things weren't really working out. And so I was just like, oh, maybe I should just, you know, most of my resume is padded in this direction. I should just do this. And so I studied for the MCAT, took it, was tutoring it, and then this worked out right after. So it was, yeah, kind of wild. This is a question for both of you. Can you talk to us a little bit about what it's like to perform these medical procedures on camera and, like, how you practice or pick them up ahead of time? Not much ahead of time. Almost always our rehearsal is, like, just before we do it. Okay. Which, for some of the crazy stuff, is, like, how did we do that? Yeah, like, the lung flip, I'm still kind of like, what, like, how did we do, like, the first episode where it's like, I don't know how we did that. The Hylam Flip. Yes, Hylar Flip. Thank you. I was like, lung flip, lung flip. You know, the craziest thing was when we flipped it. I remember I asked the doctor, I was like, so they just leave it like that in there? And she was like, no. That's why he's going to the OR, so he can like, strip it up. Yeah, it's just to stop the bleeding for a bit, man. That's all. And this is why I didn't do that. I would have been like, yeah, you're great. Just stitch and bust. And like, hey, like, weird bar story. Oh, one of my lungs is upside down. What about you, Taylor? What was it like to see the procedure written in text and then do it live in reality 3D? They don't write the procedure in text. They say the procedure happens. Because when we actually go to set, everyone steps off and it's just us and a doctor. And we do the whole thing from start to finish there. So it's not even written in what actually happens. So we'll hear it and we're like, I don't know what that means. I'm a little scared. And then sometimes it's like, oh, that's pretty easy. But most of the time, it's very much not. Yeah, I think we didn't realize how crazy that was gonna be until we saw an image of what we were about to do to this prosthetic, and I was like, oh, my God. Or you see the prosthetic and you go, that's a lot more involved than I thought it was gonna be. I have a question about costuming. How do you stay in costume with this continuity when it's all kind of one day? Are you pulling from different looks, or it's the same to keep continuity? Oh, it's the same. It's the absolute same. I mean, like, you're only gonna change if you're Whitaker and getting a bunch of fluids on you. Yeah, it's all the same. And, you know, our costume designer is great at, like, walk around, don't commit to this yet. Walk around, sit in it, feel how it feels before you say yes, because it's seven months of this. So, yeah. But it's also interesting. It's, you know, we can't gain weight, we can't lose weight, we can't get in shape if we weren't at the beginning. We can't lose muscle if we came in really jacked. And so just to keep everything the same as much as possible. So I have a question from the transition from season one to season two. For the viewer, they may not realize how big of a change that could be when you're a resident and you're moving up from R1 to R2 to senior. What was it like for Dr King Dr Mohan to step into these new roles What do you think it was What was challenging What was great about it There are I mean there still some times where I see something written and I like look it up and I ask the doctors and then consult with the writers, and being like, I would know this by now. As an R3, like, my character would definitely know this by now. So, um, it's great to just have so many people at your disposal to answer the questions for you. But, yeah, I mean, uh, Mil, you'll see Mil teaching. which is a whole different thing. Yeah. I think for Samira, I was trying to show that she feels more comfortable at the start of the season. I was trying to make choices in terms of leaning on furniture and sitting more comfortably in things, as opposed to the tenseness that I think she had at the beginning in season one. Just to show that she feels like she belongs more in this environment, I think. Whether that last all season is something to be learned. and she kind of has one of the worst days of her life. I don't know. I think they can compete. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's like up there, but yeah. No one's having a good day. No one's having a good day. The only competition is who's having the worst day. Wow. Incredible. Well, thank you, guys. Thank you. What can we expect? Give us a little nod to what viewers can expect for the rest of the season. Oh, um... Gross. As always. Um, I think you get... you see Samira lose control. Um... Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, and I also think, you know, Viagra sales are gonna plummet. Yeah. All the ED medication is going to... There's gonna be an incredible lack of ED patients in the ED. Yeah. Um, after episode two, for sure. Samira's going wild and don't buy Viagra. All right. is going to watch that episode and rethink everything. For sure. We're here for it. Thank you both. Thank you. I loved that interview. I loved that day. I have to just, like, shout out Taylor Dearden, who was wearing slippers on the press day. And I'm like, period. You go, girl. Like, I need that. Like those hotel, like, spa slippers. No, Eloise in Paris. Eloise at the Plaza. Yeah. She was Eloise at the press junket. Yes. she's hilarious like i i didn't realize how incredibly fast and witty and funny she is but as impressive as she was the fact that supriya ganesh who plays dr mohan was an mcat tutor during season one just tells you how incredibly brilliant the mcat is a rough exam anyone who's applying to medical school knows all about that you have to score you have to have a great score in order to be a tutor like people are paying you to teach them how to take that test i mean that I was like, wow, that's a hidden pearl. Do you remember your score? Is that something that you would recall? Of course. I don't remember the percentile. Okay. I'm gonna say 99th percentile. I definitely wasn't 99th percentile, but I was an MCAT tutor for one subject, MCAT biology. I also love that thing about their costumes, that they really do stay in the costumes the entire season, which I'm kind of like, hmm, in the show, they're only in the costumes for like 15 hours, but as they're taping, it's like, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours That's a bit much for me. For sure. And even since we're reflecting on it, it was interesting, insightful, how much of Dr. Mohan's character has elements of Supriya. And she mentioned, you know, Tamil being her mother tongue. And like that little nod to her actual heritage. I wonder how many more characters have small nods to their real individual. Yes. Hundra, it's so hard to watch this show and not have a deep appreciation appreciation for all the props, or maybe I'm just a medical nerd. I don't know. But obviously, there's other props too. There's maggots, which I know that you squeam when we talk about them. That was an impressive visual element. So I'm excited to go outside the pit and talk to people who work in props and help bring these visuals to life accurately. Because let's be real, medical professionals are very annoying to watch medical dramas with because they pick apart every and I think there's no single inaccuracy, except for this show, because the props are accurate. Totally. And today we have the man behind them, the pits property master, Rick Ladmaid, to talk about everything that goes into making every single thing that we see on screen. Rick, thanks for being here. I gotta tell you, I don't think I've ever been more excited to talk about maggots ever. Super cool. I have to ask you, when the writers, when the team first decided, like, we're gonna have maggots in this scene, can you walk us through what it looked like the first idea, the conception, to it appearing on our TV screens. Yeah, um, I think we... The first thing we did is, obviously, in the script, the script is really about, um, this character named John Digby. He's an unhoused man, comes into the emergency department, and he has this really gnarly cast on his arm that's just brown and disgusting. So they bring him in to the emergency department, they give him a shower, clean them all up, and then they go to cut the cast up. We use a real cast saw to cut through the cast, and we pry it apart. And when they pry it apart, they see this character has a six-inch wound on his arm, and there are about 100 live maggots crawling over the arm. So in order to do that, we have to backtrack a little bit. We have to get, you know, we use animal wranglers. We have to contact the Animal Humane Society as well because we want to use maggots. Well, what we realized is maggots are a little dirty and they're really difficult to get and they're small. So, we instead went with waxworms. Waxworms are bigger, they don't stink, they don't bite, and they're really active. So, when you put them on a cast inside there, they move around like crazy. So, the scene is really they cut it open, and they spread the cast apart, and what you see is, first of all, the effects department puts like this slimy yellow kind of web stuff in there. So when you pry apart the cast, it looks like there's like this infection pulling apart. And then you discover there's a bunch of maggots in there. So it's pretty gross. And then we have to use a spray called ethyl chloride, which freezes the maggots. And then we scrape them all off into like a four by four container. So in order to do that part, We need to have fake maggots as well. So we use the real wax worms, we put them in there, did the scene where you open it up, you establish it. Then we do a scene where we put all the fake maggots in there, which are basically silicone maggots that we've had made or we buy like at a fishing supply store. And we do that and then they spray it and they take it off. So, you know, one of the interesting things about that is, just like an actor, everything is real. We try to make it as real as possible, but everything has to be 100% safe. So the actor has to be safe because we're using a real cast saw and we don't want to hurt him, but the maggots, we need to make sure they're safe as well. So if we put 100 maggots in this cast, we have to count every single maggot when we pull it off his cast so that no maggot or waxworm actually gets hurt in the process. So I guess if we're backtracking a little bit in the meetings, we were trying to figure out the best way to do that. And I think, you know, ultimately what I just explained was kind of the route that we went with was using waxworms and it worked perfectly. And so my job is just to make sure that we keep the communication going as props, so I'm looking for the fake maggots or the fake wax worms, whatever works. And then at the end, you know, it all comes together because just we have an exceptional crew. The communication is great. And ultimately, what we want to do is be able to go from the concert meeting to the production meeting and say, we've got everything that we need to make this happen. We'll do tests on it. So we'll actually, for this main actor, for the character John Digby. We actually had his arm molded so that we can actually build multiple casts. I think for the cast cutting scene, for instance, we built 12 casts, and they're exactly the same size as the first cast. So they all fit on, they can all slide on. We'll do a test. We'll do a test where we're cutting the cast to make sure we put enough padding so that nobody gets hurt. You know, we'll do a test with the maggots. We'll usually not do that with a character, but we'll do that with a volunteer, like someone from the production office, who were like, yeah, I'll do it. And then, you know, we put the waxworms on there and everything. And so, and then everybody comes to watch the tests. So the director will be there, the producers will be there, the writers will be there. And anyone in the production office that wants to, you know, see these gross little waxworm mechids. So that's usually how it works. I mean, it's just, it's a collaboration of like every single department coming together and approving the process. And then when we're ready to film it, it's usually pretty flawless. I have a newfound appreciation for that scene. No, I mean, no waxworm left behind. That's great. No waxworms left behind. Can you tell us a little bit in general, what is the most difficult type of prop to make or produce and why? Um, well, you know, we did this thing. We have, you know, in our trauma rooms, we have, um, these devices. They're called glide scopes. And they're basically, um, video laryngoscopes. So what it allows, like, our cast view, our doctors, is when you are, um, intubating somebody, basically putting an airway down their throat, we use this, um, video glide scope. So, when we're shooting the scene, there's a giant monitor, and you can see the action going all the way down the throat of a character. So the way we do that is, um, we built this, um, throat model. Um which is pretty cool From the outside of it it looks like something like out of an alien movie I not kidding But the inside of it is so incredibly detailed It's maybe, like, about 18 inches long. And, you know, it's the epiglottises in there, the trachea. And so, we film that separately. And then, um, and then we burn it into that screen so that it's seamless. So, what you see is the actor's starting to put the laryngoscope down and you see all around it because it's video. And then we cut it and then we put the rest of it on the screen. So it looks like it's continuing all the way down. And then we start with, you know, a full length ET tube where they're starting to feed it into the actor. And then what we'll do is we'll cut it and put the shorter version in there and then use a holder. And it looks like when the it looks like we actually successfully intubated a patient. And it looks super real and super good. Wow, that's fascinating. It looks so real. And like, that does. The level of detail you put into it makes it so, like, the fiction is suspended. You're in there. It's phenomenal. Has anything about your process changed on the pit between season one and season two? Um, you know, I mean, I guess we are like our biggest critics. Um, so, I mean, my process is always to make everything look as real as possible. The first season, it was about trying to figure out how do we get this beautiful hospital that Nina Russo, the production designer, made into a real, living, breathing home. hospital, you know, every little thing. There are literally thousands of props. So it's reaching out to like every manufacturer that I could possibly reach out to, at least the ones that would, you know, would let me. So I think this season is a little different because now I'm really aware of our biggest audience out there, like the medical community, doctors and real nurses, because they're the toughest audience out there, and I think that they notice everything. So, they critique everything. They audit every little scene, and they'll be the first ones to call you out if you do something wrong. Mm-hmm. And so, it's really important to us to try to get it right. And this year or this season, I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that every teeny little thing is like the best we can possibly produce. Because the best compliment you can get from, especially from the medical community, is them saying, the pit is so real, you have to watch it. And that's what we want to see. And that's what we've been hearing from everybody, is that it is as real as it gets. You know, I mean, I've worked on a lot of shows. And I know most of the shows that I've worked on are, you know, they're going to be a little more uh, melodramatic. But I think The Pit is a little different. It's about... It's about the grittiness. It's about... It's about the pressure of being in an emergency department, which is a lot different than anyone else's, you know, obviously doing. So, you know, my focus is on just to make it as real as it gets this season. Which you nailed. You and the crew nailed, Rick, because I will tell you, as a medical professional, accuracy blows my mind. Also, this is how I convince my colleagues to watch the pit. I'm like, it is so medically accurate, like, you will disappear in the set. You know, and so I wanted to ask you, does it change at all when you're creating a prop and the actors are now gonna be handling it, gonna be throwing it around, doing multiple takes? Does that kind of change your prop design? Does it make it challenging? No. I mean, the thing is, you know, before we design something, we're certainly gonna make sure that it's gonna work properly and function properly. Um, you know, and, you know, on a show like this, 99% of what we do are real medical props anyway. Right. So, I mean, the biggest challenges are trying to get these things because you can't just go to like a store and buy, you know, a pair of cardicentesis tray, or you can't go to the store and say, yeah, I want a triple lumen central line. You're just not going to be able to go to Amazon and buy one. You can't, no, you can't get this stuff anywhere. So, like, my process is I get up super early, and I'm usually there before most of the crew members arrive. My team, and I have a pretty big team, and I actually, I mean, we work with some companies like McKesson, where we get a lot of medical products and stuff, where most hospitals get a lot of products. But most of these procedure things, you just can't find anywhere. So, I'm actually on auction sites at 5 o'clock in the morning, where they're having an auction in New York. And like, maybe some of this stuff, these trays are, you know, it's a pigtail tray or something. And we're doing a pneumothorax or something. So, you know, I'm trying to like get these items that are expired so that the medical, you know, they can't really be used. But we can certainly use them on our show. And that's how I try to find things. It's manufacturing a few things. It's promoting things with all these different medical companies that love being on our show. and, you know, and then it's renting a few things. And then it's me trying to, you know, find the rest of the items that's needed to complete an episode any way that I possibly can. Incredible. I want to, like, be in the room during one of these auction battles. You should. Yeah, no, I need you on my eBay, like, helping me acquire some stuff. Yeah. That's good. I mean, we do a lot of that. Awesome. I did not think that prop making was so much about relationship building. That's so cool. I spend so much time on Zoom. We want the show to be real. It's not about superhero doctors, you know? It's just, it's like people doing their jobs as realistic as possible. And they're feeling the pressures, you know, of overcrowding, of like underfunding, of nurse shortages and stress. So the least we can do is surround them with everything that's real in their world so they can actually react to it all. That's what props is all about on the pit. And I always say, you know, drama never flatlines on the pit. Drama never flatlines. Wax storms are never harmed on the pit. Yeah. That's kind of corny. You might not want to use that, but... No, it's good. I'm putting it on a T-shirt. I want it. I also want the... Rick, I need you to write, like, a book about relationships and marketing, Because I feel like I've learned a lot about how to win friends and influence people, but the Rick edition. I've been doing that my entire life, and you know what? I really love it. I've built up so many relationships doing it. It's probably the funnest part about my job is reaching out to people and really trying to sell them on what we're doing. It's a whole challenge in itself. And not counting waxworms, I'm imagining. That feels like... Yeah, not waxworm. But you know what's funny? I don't know if you watched last season. And we did black widow spiders. We did cockroaches. I mean, I'm just curious to see what we're gonna do next season. Oh, rats. Yeah, the rats. We did rats. Yeah. Rick, thank you so much for joining us. This was so fun. You're so welcome. Yeah, Rick, this is a lot of fun. I like you. I hope people, like, have a newfound appreciation for every little prop you see on the show. Rick, thank you. You're welcome. I hope so. Thank you so much. So that was maybe, like, the most fascinating conversation I think I've ever had about props. I cannot get around, like, counting the wax worms. That's crazy. I have so much appreciation for the dedication. And I love that Rick just mentioned how annoyingly difficult the medical audience is when it comes to winning over their approval, because it's true. People, like, look at every single detail doctors, nurses do, and they try to find something that's wrong. And, like, just hearing from Rick about the measures they go through for the medical accuracy the props. Like, I'm slow clapping right now. Yeah. And also how a lot of this has evolved over the years, how well you can show something, how accurate it can be, and how they're even creating their own devices. That was super interesting. For sure. And after hearing about how Rick designed that throat to make sure that the intubation looked accurate on the video monitor, I very much want to get invited to his Halloween party now. Oh my gosh, you know it's going to be Like, wow. It's just a medical zombie-themed Halloween party. You know me, I like all the terms this show uses. What do you think of if I say luxatio erecta? It sounds like a Lady Gaga song. I'm not gonna lie. I was gonna say it sounds like something sexual. Maybe it sounds like an adult movie, but it's actually referring to an inferior shoulder dislocation, which is what that gentleman has. The guy, his hand is, like, upwards like this, which is kind of the classical presentation. And the way it usually happens is somebody falls upright. You can imagine that your hand gets pushed down, so the top part of your arm comes out of the shoulder socket, but it goes downwards. And that's what we see. We see the bone. Exactly. It's cool, right? Nice. That's a good one. Yeah, so if you ever, you know, like, people who are tumbling off of motorcycles or possibly falling backwards in a chair or falling on the head or something, please don't get in that situation. but if your arm is up and it gets pushed downward, you might be winding up in an ER stuck like this. Got it. Good to know. And someone may yell, Luxatio Erecta. That's it for today's episode of The Pit Podcast. We will be back here every Thursday, right after the new episode drops. You can watch us on HBO Max or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to comment a question, a hypothesis, a theory, even in the comments. The Pit Podcast is a production of HBO Max in collaboration with PRX. The executive producer of PRX is Jocelyn Gonzalez. Our managing producer is Courtney Florentine. Our editor is Lucy Perkins. Our production managers are Edward Ochoa and Tony Carlson. Our video producer and editor is Anthony Q. Artis with assistant editor Damon Durrell Hinson. This show is engineered by Tommy Bazarian. Special thanks to Joe Carlino. The executive producer of HBO Podcasts is Michael Gluckstadt. The senior producer is Alison Cohen-Sorokach and the associate producer is Erin Kelly. Technical director is In Sung Hwang. I'm Alok Patel. And I'm Hunter Harris. We'll see you next week in The Pit.