THE PITT Post-Mortem: R. Scott Gemmill Breaks Down the Season 1 Finale

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for THE PITT season finale.]

THE PITT’s first season ended with a number of characters facing make-or-break moments after a nightmarish shift.

Dana (Katherine LaNasa), the ER charge nurse, was seemingly ready to make the biggest move: After enduring the chaos of a mass casualty event overtaking the emergency department—right after she was physically attacked by an impatient patient who was unhappy about his wait time—she made it clear she might be quitting.

Even the news they caught her attacker wasn’t enough to change her mind, as she contemplated whether she should even bother pressing charges. “I just want to forget this whole f—ing day,” she told Robby (Noah Wyle). 

Instead, she removed her personal items from her workstation and was non-committal about seeing people at the next shift. 

“I think it was a breaking point for her because of what she’s seen,” THE PITT creator R. Scott Gemmill tells Give Me My Remote. “And it’s indicative to society as a whole right now that somewhere, along the lines, we lost any modicum of civility or respect for each other. It’s a federal offense, I think, in New York State to assault a bus driver—but it’s not a federal offense to assault a medical worker. What’s up with that?”

“She really laid it out in her [earlier] speech, where she said she’s been a victim of abuse or assault before, spit, kicked and punched—but they were always from unhoused people or people who were having a mental health crisis or on drugs or drunk,” he continues. “And in this case, it was just an angry patient who didn’t get back in time. And so I think that for her was the breaking point: That there’s no excuse for this kind of behavior. And the fact that it happened…the real statistics for assault on medical workers is really horrible. It’s an extremely high number of victims on those daily shifts. I don’t think that was always the case.”

Though unrest is escalating everywhere, it’s especially complicated—and alarming—in medical environments. “We see the world is more–certainly in this country, especially—torn apart, bifurcated than it has been in decades,” Gemmill says. “I liken the ER to a canary in a coal mine: An ER sees society’s ills before they really become prevalent to the population. Where does fentanyl first show up in the overdoses, where does AIDS first show up, where did COVID show up first? It all shows up here. And the violence and the aggression is no different.” 

“So I think she just got to a point where her job—she’s dedicated her life to helping people and this is how she’s rewarded,” he continues. “She tried to talk to him, she tried to be reasonable with him. The guy was unfortunately a bit of an a–hole. But that’s unfortunately the world we live in. Just look at all the road rage. People are so angry and I think she doesn’t want to deal with that anymore.”

When season 2 picks up months later, “She has to think about whether she wants to return and in what capacity,” Gemmill teases. “Does she want to really come back and do this again? I think if the [second season] was to take place sooner than it did, she would not be back because she has to really do a little soul-searching to see if she’s ready to give this up. And that comes with other things: Is she ready to be at home all the time? Does her husband want her home all the time? We’re going to explore that. And how she’s different if she does come back.”

And Dana isn’t the only one whose future at the hospital is in question. After Langdon (Patrick Ball) was sent home due to stealing controlled substances, he returned to help with the aftermath of the Pittfest shooting. When the shift was over, Langdon desperately tried to convince Robby the situation wasn’t as bad as it appeared—he wasn’t getting high, he was just treating withdrawal symptoms, he insisted—but Robby made it clear the path to return would be complicated: Inpatient treatment, followed by random urine tests, at least tri-weekly NA meetings—and it was all a part of a multi-year commitment to his sobriety.

But where will viewers find him in season 2? “Well, Langdon, if he wants to come back and work ever as a doctor, especially in this hospital, he has to go through some form of rehab,” Gemmill acknowledges. “We leave that in [his] capable hands. So if he wants to come back, he’s going to have to have done the sort of bare minimum of recovery. And it’s very extensive. What Robby tells him at the end is accurate. You’re looking at multiple weeks in rehab and then years of diversionary treatment, random drug testing, and it is a five-year process to get it sort of under your belt and move forward.” 

“So if Langdon wants to be a doctor—and, in his own words, it’s the most important thing to him— he’s going to have to step it up,” he continues. “And he’s going to have to walk the walk and talk the talk. It’s not easy. And benzos, those are very difficult to kick, as a matter of another element of it, because of just the chemical nature.”

And they weren’t the only ones facing potentially career-changing moments: Robby had a secondary spiral when he discovered more of the staff knew about his brief emotional breakdown in the aftermath of being unable to save Leah. (Leah, a victim of the Pittfest shooting, was the girlfriend of Robby’s quasi-stepson Jake.)

“I broke,” Robby lamented while trying to get some air on the roof.  

“You didn’t break,” Abbot (Shawn Hatosy) insisted, saying it was a brief moment in a very long day. “That is what happens when you’re in a war and nothing makes sense.” In fact, Abbot insisted, Robby “rocked that s— down there tonight. We all did.”

For the writers, figuring out when and how Robby would emotionally crumble was an evolving process.

“We knew he was going to have a break, but we didn’t know where it was going to be,” Gemmill says. “We knew it was probably going to be during a mass cass. We knew, writing 101, you want that break to come at the most inopportune moment for him, so [the question] was where would that be. And, to be honest, it moved a little bit. Because [as we were breaking season 1 we were figuring out] when we had the mass cass, when are certain things gonna happen? Is Jake gonna be hurt? Is Jake gonna be shot? Is Jake going to be killed? Does Jake have a girlfriend?” 

“We knew we needed to get Robby to that breaking point,” he continues. “We set things in, obviously, from the first episode, but you have to give Noah the tools to get there, as well. It’s not like I can ask him just to break down. It’s a very collaborative process, and it’s great having Noah in the room, writing, with us. It’s just very collaborative: What do you think you want? Do this here? Is this good? Is this going to get you where you need to go? How can I help you?”

But after the emotional roller coaster Robby went through in season 1, Gemmill acknowledges he “sometimes feels guilty” over what he’s putting his longtime collaborator through. (Gemmill and Wyle previously worked together on ER.)

“I feel like Peter O’Toole in THE STUNT MAN, making him do these crazier, crazier stunts,” Gemmill jokes. “I sometimes feel like I’m just torturing Noah emotionally, just poking him, ‘Let me see you cry now. Let me see you cry.’ But he loves it because it’s such a challenge for him, too.”

Wyle is back in THE PITT writers’ room for season 2, which has been breaking stories for the show’s sophomore season for about three weeks.

“He’s with us all the time, which is really great—that doesn’t happen very often, to have your lead in the room with you,” Gemmill says. “It’s great. [But it means, normally,] I don’t get to surprise him with stuff [in scripts].” 

Robby will also have a decision to make about how he moves forward: Abbot offered up his therapist’s number, which Robby contemplated using.

“Robby’s whole journey moving forward is really about recovery after what’s happened, after the meltdown, which I think was the best thing, probably, for his character in terms of healing,” Gemmill says. “You’ve got to hit rock bottom, sometimes, before you can start to get back up. I think that really was his sort of hitting rock bottom to this point in his career, for sure. And because it was public—he thought he was sort of protecting himself [in trying to isolate while he broke down. But [after realizing how many people know], the chances are it’s gone through the whole hospital. So he’s forced to come to terms with it because it’s going to be an issue. Everyone’s going to know about it. So he has really no choice, because if it gets to Gloria, then there’s going to be some questions.”

“So he has to really be proactive,” he continues. “I think, ultimately, that was a wake-up call for him, too. When he’s on the roof with Abbot, he’s basically admonishing himself for what he’s allowed to happen. So I think he realizes he doesn’t want that to ever happen again, right? So the only way to prevent that, really, is he can’t re-swallow all that s—. He’s gotta get rid of it once and for all. The only way to do that is probably through some form of therapy.”

But even the best of intentions may go awry in season 2. “Robby is not the most prone to take advice,” Gemmill previews. “I think he’s very good at giving it. So part of the challenge is for him to be accepting the help that he really needs and not trying to outsmart his therapist.”

THE PITT, Thursdays, Max

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