‘The Pitt’ Season 2, Episode 11: The ICE Episode

20:54Rob:It's different, but also is it same because these are his daddy issues and Victoria is dealing with her mommy issues. and Robbie would say that it has no place in the ED but guess what we're all we're all navigating not in my ED I do have so much empathy for people going through mental health crises which Robbie seemingly is it's harder for me I mean this is just a day in the life of Robbie this is another bad no good very bad day for Dr. Rubinovich here but like I did not have a lot of time or space for LinkedIn last season how are you feeling about him now? great we can talk about it we'll talk about the Santos thing but like I have to say, I'm not.

21:31Rob:Yeah, well, I know. We're on different pages here. But Langdon's trying to get help. Yes. And as someone who is actively trying to get help, he does do a little bit of a pity party that I did not want to be invited to at the end of this episode. Sure. But he's someone who has had major issues, and now he's trying to get better. Yeah. And I have just a lot of space for that kind of story. There's a section of this episode where he is majorly white knighting, right? Like he is helping with Becca and Mel. He like comes outside to help Mel. We see him running inside with a child in his arms. You know what I mean?

22:08Rob:Like there are these moments of just sort of like Langdon, what a guy inside of this episode, right? And then there's the Santos interaction. And so I, again, we love a character who's both right and wrong inside of an episode. I know that like all season you haven't had as much space for Langdon as I have, which is fine, which is absolutely fine. Tell me what rubbed you the wrong way the most about this. I'm assuming the Santos part. Yeah, I think a lot of it is the Santos part. And I agree with you. Langdon has had some incredible moments all season, even within this episode. He's been dishing out his apologies.

22:45And you can parse those apologies and you may feel different ways about them. I think the idea that he comes up to her. And again, this is one of the people who knows the truth. Right. And he's treating her almost like she doesn't. Like he's apologizing for being an asshole, which he was on her first day. He was an asshole in a way that was like, would have torpedoed her entire career. Yeah. Would have had massive professional repercussions.

23:08Rob:It was a shitty apology. He doesn't own any of that. He's just like, I was mean to you. And if I could go back and do it differently, I would do it differently. And I just found it like for the history of these characters, which granted was only one day and a long time ago, woefully insufficient for what he ultimately tried to do to Santos on that day. I don't disagree with you. Yeah. I don't disagree with you. And that I think, I think her response is really good. Yep. Her turning around and just being like, you know what? No. Like, you don't get to pretend like that's a real apology. Yeah, I'm not going to excuse it.

23:46Rob:I kind of like this, though. I do, too. He's trying and he's failing. And in some ways, it's easy with Mel because Mel adores him. She apparently is on the short list of people who don't know the truth about why he was gone. He does a great job with the heat stroke kid. He's a talented doctor. Definitely. All these things are true. And then when it comes to the amends part, specifically with Santos and Robbie, he is not nailing it. And I think that that is, again, great writing. I think it's wonderful writing. I think setting up this dynamic in this way, which as you mentioned in the email section, Langdon is her superior and can correct her on all of these medical procedures, but she also knows what happened and in a way holds that over him in a way that kind of like completely messes with their power dynamic.

24:34And I think part of what has rubbed me the wrong way, even though he says like, you don't have to accept my apology, but I want to give it, the way he has carried himself throughout this season is as if he is like entitled to acceptance.

24:46Rob:I don't agree because I think for a lot of the season, he was sort of like ducking around with his tail between his legs, you know? But then here he comes up and it's like as soon as he gets the slightest resistance to his apology, it's, but it was so hard for me. My wife almost left me. Like I have all these, and I think Santos is absolutely right. Like this is what happens when you mess up. And I just don't hear a lot. I hear a lot of taking accountability in going to rehab for the substance abuse issues. I don't hear a lot of accountability for the workplace shitstorm that he started to create and has not really been held responsible for in any way.

25:22Rob:I agree with you. I agree with you. And I think that like, but I think he's, I think I just agree with our listeners that are, and I think you raised this point too, where it's like, this all should have been handled before he was allowed back in the EDU. No doubt. Which is Robbie's note for Dana. and Dana's like, ah, listen, we were short-staffed. So like, all of this should have been handled. As our listener Amanda pointed out, there should be like, HR should be involved in any interaction that he has with Santos going forward. In fact, he should be on the night, like they should not be on the same shift together.

25:55Rob:You know, like if he's to come back to the ED. Yeah. So I guess this is my long-term pitch for pit after hours, pit night shift, add Dr. Langdon. Is that too much power to have? Pit HR, the web series. Dr. Ellis, Dr. Shen, Dr. Abbott, Dr. Langdon, and Mateo on the night shift. I do think this is one of the areas that's complicated by not everyone knowing, right? It's like if this were all out in the open and somehow Langdon still kept his job, I think a lot of those measures would be taken. But how many people forget the fact that Langdon stole drugs even know the exact history he has with Santos?

26:29Other than like they got into it in front of other people.

26:31Rob:I'll be interested to see how Dr. Al-Hashimi handles knowing the full information. Right. She's been offering him a lot of grace, but she didn't have all the information. So we'll see what happens. Anything else you want to say about Heathstroke Kid? I thought it was a really interesting joy moment that joy was sort of like in a role. We usually actually see Santos in where she was just like immediately very suspicious and judgmental of this mom. Robbie has his like, hey, man, you don't know how trauma is going to manifest. It might manifest like me being near tears all the time inside of my ODT.

27:04Rob:But you don't know how trauma is going to manifest. And then this woman tries to walk into traffic and Dr. El-Hashimi sort of stops her. What do you want to say about this? I mean, it's a horrifying plot line in a lot of different ways. I, for one, appreciate the quandary that Langdon raises at the end of the day, which is what happens if her son recovers before she has been cleared to leave what could be an involuntary psych hold. Right. That's just like a quagmire I love the pit digging into. I also think we as TV viewers are conditioned, like Joy, to look at the people who walk in who are acting a particular way and being like, is there something more here?

27:40Like, what's the wrinkle to this story? And I say this with all due respect. They cast the exact kind of woman you would cast if this were like a weirder, more horrible, even more nefarious plot line than it is.

27:54Rob:Tell me what about her rings that way to you. Yeah, Catherine Dillon Ortiz, who I think does a phenomenal job in this episode. She just has kind of a haunted look to her. Okay. In a way that it's like, if there was going to be a mom who intentionally or kind of intentionally hurt her kid and came into the pit, like a Munchausen by proxy plotline or something. Sure, sure. I think you would also cast her for it. Okay. I don't know how to parse that other than the pit is clearly hand-holding us into some degree of skepticism. Like she's behaving oddly in a way that I think makes your alarms want to go off, even though it is seemingly clear by this episode that it's more just like the trauma associated with the guilt of her circumstances.

28:35Rob:I don't know about the casting though. I will take that into consideration. Are you like a murder podcast person or do you enjoy like true crime? Absolutely not. I don't know if you had like your profile set up of like, you know, different kinds of murderers. I mean, look, not to profile too deliberately, but like - You love to put people in boxes. This is why you love The Pit because The Pit is all about just boxing people. No, they don't. I just see like a wispy, far away, kind of maybe whitish, pale woman. And I'm like, okay, there's like something happening here. And I don't know what it is exactly.

29:08I'm trying to figure it out and Joy's trying to figure it out.

29:11Rob:Were you on Joy's side when she grabbed Perla's wrist to take the kid's heart rate? And Perla was so upset about it. Yeah, Perla was not on her side. She was like, get the fuck off me. It was really good. I really liked it. That part of it was fascinating, though, in terms of the treatment of a boy like Micah, who's the one who comes in with heat stroke. Like this idea of the Braslow tape where you don't have the weight necessarily. Fascinating. I think that's just one of those little details that I'm sure if you work in a hospital, you're like, yeah, obviously. And for dummies like us, we're like, oh, this is the most interesting thing I've ever heard.

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31:18more at clinickids.com slash 100kk. That's clinic with a K. Clinic Kids is registered 501c3 nonprofit.

31:25Rob:Did you have a funniest moment of this episode? I feel like there were low-key a lot of very funny moments in this episode. I did love the absolute disbelief from our guy Roberto when Whitaker has to explain that he's basically never seen a baseball game anymore or in his life, but certainly isn't watching it now. I know who Roberto Clemente is. So like, Even if you're not from Pittsburgh. I mean, come on. You're sports adjacent enough to have osmos that. Joanna Robinson knows who Roberto Clemente is. Mike is also related to our guy Roberto, who refuses any pain meds because he does not want to lose this game ball that he caught.

32:00Rob:When he screams, when they reduce the fraction, he hollers and Donnie does not flinch. Unfish. I cackled. It was so good to me. Is that just his time in the ED? Is this a callback to him being like, I can't hear babies crying? anymore. I didn't even put that together. That's a great call. We get so many moments in this episode where he's just being a pro. And Emma's like, what is it that Donnie's doing? Should I also be putting on gloves? I just assumed it was that, but it might be the baby crying. Anything else you want to say about? Well, so while we're in the Roberto section, Santos and Whitaker are doing this together and then they rope Mel into it.

32:36Rob:And Mel has to put the clipboard on the ground to get these squabbling kids to fill out the paperwork. But Whitaker checking in on Santos. Yeah. And like saying, I have to tell you something, right? I'm guessing about like how I was sitting for Robbie. I would assume. Earlier in the episode or a different, yeah, earlier in the episode, Robbie is asking Mel, do you have anyone to talk to? And while she's in the middle of saying, no, actually I don't. He cuts her off so that he can yell at McKay. I love that both because it is the exact opposite of the tact you took with Samira Mohan for no reason of like, can you express a single bit of regard before you move on?

33:14but then he also moves on mid-sentence anyway.

33:16Rob:Right. So Robbie's just, I mean, he's in a place. He's having a day. It's a lot. For Whitaker to like, see her, know more context about how she's feeling than like, other people do or care to have, you know? Like, Robbie has talked to her a little bit but Robbie's been talking to her about Whitaker more than anything else, right? And like, Dana hasn't really been checking in. You know, Dana gives her some like, oh, where's the sass? Where's the snapback from you? Like, is this Santos? You know? But Whitaker's like, are you, are you okay? Like, how's it going? What's going on? You know? And I just, I love that relationship, you know, and how we see, and then like, it makes me reassess.

33:54Rob:I can't remember if we talked about this at the time, but it really makes me reassess all of Whitaker's edginess around Langdon because like, yes, he knows, but also he has more reason to care because he cares about how Trinity is doing, you know, inside of his return. Completely. I mean, he seems like just like a naturally pretty caring person, perhaps to his detriment, perhaps to the point of being pulled in all these different directions at once. We'll see. Farm benefits. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's coming back to him in some way. And I love that you mapped that out with Robbie earlier in terms of him seeing something in Samira that has really cost him in his career, potentially in terms of that empathy.

34:31And you have to wonder with Whitaker too, someone who he has taken under his wing, who he thinks very highly of, who he has tried to ward off of, not just like having boundaries with, you know, Farmhouse Amy. Amy. But also just like, I think you're caring for people all day. And at some point, you have to care for yourself. Like it can't be all from here to the street team to Amy and back. Like at some point, it has to be Whitaker time. And I don't know that our guy is getting that much of it.

34:57Rob:He seems to enjoy being on the farm. He does. I don't know. Let's talk about Mel King. Tough day for Mel King. Do you feel like the entire reason the deposition storyline exists is to put Mel on edge enough that it would be believable that she would sort of like lose her shit on Becca in this way. I kind of do. If that's it, if that's the reason why we heard all day that she has a deposition and she's worried about it, I don't know that the payoff is worth the, the juice is worth the squeeze there. But like, when she lost her shit on, because actually I think I would believe this anyway because like when she, when she's like, Becca was lying to me, her concern about consent, her concern about, and then her checking in on Becca and she's being like, can I have Adam's parents' phone numbers and Becca's like, why?

35:39Rob:You know? And then Becca just like leaves, you know? And then for Mel to express her fear to Dana, where she's just like, I've watched Elf one gazillion times. I've poured everything into my care for this person, expecting that it would be the two of us. And this would be my life outside of work, would be my life with my sister. And she's got a boyfriend and maybe that's the future that she envisions for herself. And then what is my future if she completely moves on from me? I just I thought that was really well done. It is something that like it's it's not often done inside of a context like this.

36:21Rob:You usually see it with like a parent who is who has poured everything into a kid. And when that kid wants to separate, as naturally kids want to do often in adolescence or whatever from their parents, they're like, well, what do you mean? I've just like poured so much into you what do you mean? To put it inside of this different dynamic is I thought really interesting and a really interesting payoff from the Becca-Mel relationship in season one. Absolutely. Where yeah it just seemed like all elf and cupcakes all the time. Yeah. And it can't be. Pasta and pizza. Pasta and pizza of course. I do I'm very interested in that idea of how do you care for someone to the degree that Mel cares about cares for and about Becca without treating them like your child.

37:02Yeah. And it's a really weird thing to do, to have to do over a long enough term, because the wires get all crossed up. Like people, when they are dependent on you, even in a, you know, like an assisted communal living degree, it just kind of like hardwires into your brain that you need to have certain responsibilities for them. And you start infantilizing them, conscious or not, by like asking for their boyfriend's parents' phone number and even like hounding the facility for it. I completely get how Mel wound up in this place. And I agree with you that I don't think we need the deposition to do it.

37:33Couldn't this day have just been stressful enough? Like so much of this episode to me is we are reaching the point in the shift where everyone is. It's 5 p.m. There's only one more hour left after this one, as many people will tell you. Everyone is running off fumes. Nobody at this point in the day has the like emotional capacity to metabolize the things that are happening.

37:54Rob:Just Donnie. And it's I think it's really just honestly because I think he remembered to eat all day. He's the only one who's been regularly hydrating and eating. Him, Perla, maybe Dana, the only ones who are surviving to this point. No princess in this episode. Where do you think princess is gone? Is she in radiology? I'm terrified, but maybe she is. She's picking up a couple extra running shifts here and there. But everyone else is collapsing. And Mel is among them where she's just like losing her mind at the idea that her sister would be able to make a decision when it's clear that she's capable of making decisions.

38:24Rob:And for Langdon to gentle parent Mel in a certain way and just be like, you know, are you her legal guardian? And she's like, no, I have durable power of attorney and we're doing this thing. He really walked her into that one. He took her gently by the hand and walked her into it. But also like him coming in when Mel is like yelling at Becca, being like, Dr. King, step outside. You know, like I don't, again, I'm in the Langdon tank. It's fine. Joe, do you think there is any movie that you have seen 164 times? Wow, that's a great question. Uh, 164? I mean, per mil. Do you, is there a movie you've seen 164 times?

39:01The only one I can think of is I had a period in my high school life where every night to go to sleep, I would put on A Few Good Men. And so it's like, inevitably, I probably have. It depends on what you consider to be a full watch, you know?

39:14Rob:Can we, I'm sorry, can we dig into this a little bit? Yeah, let's unpack it. What was it about A Few Good Men that really just sort of like gave you that sense of security? I think it's like... Is it because you needed someone on that wall? I didn't need someone on that wall. I needed to feel it. You wanted someone on that wall. You needed them on that wall. I never put it together in quite that way. But this is what me and Robbie have in common. We need to really interrogate our shit. Like genuinely. What do you think it is about it? Well, you're a Sorkin guy. I'm a Sorkin guy. And so I think there is a rhythmic patter that is just very comforting to me.

39:46I think there's also something about like that specific style of 90s filmmaking where it's like the kind of like orchestral and instrumental scores that come in, the exact way that it's shot. Like it's, it is very comfort viewing and maybe that's just the era we came from, but it is for me.

40:01Rob:Yeah, I know you, I know you like to go to sleep to a movie. You like to wake up to a DVD menu sort of thing in the era of DVDs. Were you ever like a TV show to fall asleep to or was it always movies? Oh, Buffy for a long time. Hell yeah. Yeah. I mean like, have I spent the equivalent amount of 146 viewings of Elf watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Yes. But those are many episodes. Obviously. I don't even know what would get close. Like maybe certain like musicals when I was a kid that my sister and I just watched over and over and over again. I mean, that's the Mel and Becca vibe. It's true. It's true.

40:36Rob:While we're talking about Buffy, should we talk about our guy Duke played by Jeff Kober? We should. By the way, I just think he looks great in this episode. Like he's not doing great internally. But like the silver curls and the like almost like piratical like mustache. I'm really into it. We get what we expected, though, which is like bad news for Duke. Truly shocking. And it's going to take a couple hours. And so Robbie's like, yeah, guess who's staying beyond his shift? Surprise, surprise. Yeah. Guess who's staying for his shift? And Dr. El Hashimi sort of like asks like, hey, does Dr. Robbie usually leave on time?

41:06Rob:And Dan is like, sometimes. And I feel like the answer is never. Almost never. But, you know. I'm glad, though, that we had some indication of what that might be. This has been like the meta textual dance all season is how does a 12 hour shift become a 15 hour season? if there's not like a mass casualty event where everyone is working triple overtime. If it's only like three people were injured at the water park, not everyone at the water park. Yeah, exactly. And I frankly love the idea within this episode that Dana lays out. This has been a crazy day. The cyber attack has thrown a lot of things for a loop, but it's not that crazy.

41:38If Robbie needed to leave, he could leave. Granted, that's before everything flares up with Duke and he has this like personal attachment and investment in seeing it through, which makes complete sense. But so much of this season is going to be about like where can Robbie let go and what is he willing to let go of? And that's clearly a struggle for him.

41:55Rob:I think it'll be interesting to watch like who goes home when. You know what I mean? Like Santos, we're set up for her to be there very late because she has all of her like charts to take care of. But like, who's the first person to go home, do you think? Who's the first out the door? Who has the healthiest work-life balance? That feels like, Princess might already be gone. Okay. She might have checked out. Gone. She seems like she really has her life in order, to be honest with you, in a way that few characters on this show do. Also a candidate we should note for who might know the truth about Langdon because she was the one who stumbled into the Robbie-Langdon conversation.

42:28Rob:But she didn't really understand what she was seeing. I don't think so either. At all. She was just sort of like, Robbie lost his shit and I didn't really understand why, you know? But she saw Robbie be big mad and look, she just got her ear to the ground on basically everything. I wouldn't underestimate Princess ever. Never. Not once in my life. She's either in radiology or she has taken her winnings and is like, hit the casino or something like that. I don't know. But I hope she's enjoying herself. I hope so too. Yeah, Princess, first First One Home does sound pretty right to me as well. Maybe Donnie.

42:53Rob:On the Duke front, though, because you mentioned Buffy Vampire Slayer, quick pause or skip ahead if you don't care. But Rob and I are huge Buffy Vampire Slayer heads. Yeah, we care. And there's been big Buffy Vampire Slayer news. The reboot has been canceled. You and I had sort of like near identical reactions to this. What was your reaction, Rob? The way in which it happened, I found quite disappointing, especially the story from Sarah Michelle Gellar about how one of the executives involved, like not only is not a fan of the original show but bragged about never having finished it. So that's like one phase and then what hit today we're recording this on a Wednesday this morning both Variety and The Inkler came out with like sort of like Hulu's response which is like a hit job back at Chloe Zhao it's Chloe Zhao's fault.

43:33Rob:Anyway, point being they cannot make it work. I choose to believe it's the executives. I choose to believe there was like a George R.R. Martin style conversation at a dinner table and it's like what do you know about Clem? You know? How much I'm going to give you the test. Yeah, yeah. How much do you really know about this show. That's a great, is that the benchmark? Like, tell me about club. What's the proper currency for a vampire poker game? If you don't know, I don't want to know you. It's kittens, Ralph. Of course it is. I think I know. I was worried about this no matter what. So I think you and I both were like, maybe this is for the best that it not happened.

44:05Rob:You know, and like people who worked really hard on it. Of course. You know, like all of that, that's really tough. The young actress who thought she was going to be like the new Slayer, like all of that stuff is really, really tough. Anytime you're trying to capture a tone that is, 20, 25 years old is almost impossible to do. Yeah. Like even if you literally just took the exact writing from a Buffy episode and tried to run it today, it just would not land in the way that it did. That's been our sort of Buffy sidebar. Anything else you want to say about Buffy or Duke or Robbie in the context of Duke?

44:33I mean, I'm sad that Jeff Cobra will not be reprising either of his Buffy. I guess neither of them are really reprisable.

44:39Rob:It's true. But in the Buffyverse, maybe they could have been. I think a third role for Jeff Cobra would have been in order if the Buffy reboot had gone forward. Okay, let's take a hard pivot to the ice storyline. It's here. It is. The long-awaited, do you want to just start with a quick living out with the pit as we head into this ice storyline? Kai, could you please do the honors? Living out with the pit. It's so beautiful. It's gorgeous. um agents Carrera and Russo are here uh with this poor woman Pranita who just wants to let her daughter know what's going on with her um agent Russo specifically who stays masked the entire episode and is played by the tallest person I've ever seen it's quite tall like I think Peter Claffy of the Night of Seven Kingdoms would look like small compared to him uh Is this more what you thought an I storyline would be?

45:43Rob:Is this what you wanted? How did you feel about it? I'm glad that it came through in a more overt and adversarial way. Right. That it was not just like, oh, these Haitian parents got deported and now we're going to deal with the after effects. This is in the show's face. It's dealt with overtly within the plot of the episode. Right. And as far as the living out goes, Joe, I mean, we get the standard issue, Dana alerting everybody that no matter of your status, of course you're entitled to emergency treatment. They say it twice. They make it very clear. Dr. Bangs is on the beat the whole episode.

46:14Like, can't she make a phone call? Can't she do this? Like trying to connect all the dots. I do think that this episode lived out like no episode of The Pit has ever lived out before. And it's because of one specific thing.

46:26Rob:What's that? Robbie chews this ice guy out. Yeah. Reads in the riot action. Right. You need to get out of my ED. You're costing me patients. You're costing me nurses. And in, frankly, the most unbelievable turn of events in television history, the ICE guy is like, no problem. Well, no problem. But then he, like, manhandles this woman who's got a torn rotator cuff or something like that. It's true. And then arrests Jesse. It's also true. Jesse got arrested by ICE. That's happened. Welcome to the resistance, Jesse. Jesse, you were always my favorite. But you're telling me this guy in that moment would, that would not be, there'd be no pushback in that conversation?

47:06Rob:But he also wanted to leave. Oh, he did want to leave. You know. He wanted to leave urgently. That part is true. You feel like he would have like arrested Robbie for chewing him out? I mean, there would at least be like a fight, you know, at least be a screaming match. I think it's, the way that Robbie is positioned through all of this is so interesting because at first he's just like, he's just like, let's comply, let's comply, let's get them out of here. I'm not happy, but let's get them out of here. the fact that people are just like pouring out of chairs people are just exiting swiftly because ice is here they're waiting for five hours in the waiting room and they're like fuck this so Roxy has died and she's still in the room where she died and Monica who we've been enjoying Monica the woman who has like come in because she knows where all of the forms are kept is like hey should we move that body to the viewing room And Robbie's like, no, we're going to leave it there, whatever.

47:59And she's like, should we?

48:01Rob:And then Dana snaps at her in a very, like, brusque way. Then later, we see that Monica is, like, a little chummy with Officer Russo. Oh, I didn't even notice that. I'm just talking to Mrs. Patterson here, like, blah, blah, blah. Is Monica MAGA? Wow. And is there some sort of cut scene? Because, like, we get a scene where Dana's like, they raided Joe's in Green Tree. And I did look up Green Tree, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh. that is kind of like a little bit of a blue dot surrounded by, it's, you know, in a lot of, as are a lot of places in Allegheny County, like kind of close, but this one has gone Democrat and then like a lot of the places around it have gone Republican.

48:42Rob:I was just curious why they called out Green Tree specifically. I was sort of like, it's a largely white, seemingly quite like somewhat affluent Democratic suburb. And so they like ice rated a restaurant in this area. She says that and Monica's like, oh, I love that place. But I was just wondering, I'm curious. I don't know the answer to this. If there's like a cut scene where Monica says something like pro ice or like, you know, and then because I was just curious why Dana snapped at her so aggressively, seemingly out of like nowhere when she and Monica have been so chummy, you know, for a few episodes now.

49:17It's a great point. I don't know why that reaction would track within the course of this episode.

49:22Rob:Right. They haven't really said anything that would have like set Dana off to this point. Right. So yeah, I can't really make heads or tails of it. But Monica being like, he's just like leaning across the counter, like having a kiki with Monica at the front counter. And I'm just sort of like Monica lady. But listen, you can't, it can't be all living out with a pit all the time. There's some MAGA-ing happening in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I also, I like and I appreciate that executive producer Noah Wiley. Yeah. and Robbie by proxy is not necessarily the person to deliver it. And I really appreciate where Robbie is positioned in this episode, which is his stance, as you said, is kind of like, let's comply, let's comply, let's comply, let's get through this.

50:04And his opposition is not preachy and soapboxy. It's like, this is my ED and you are getting in my way of treating patients. It's like, it's almost more ego than it is principle.

50:14Rob:Yeah, that's interesting. But like, so what we had heard, and I'm sure there will be plenty of articles interviews done about this. We were recording this, you know, before the episode comes out. So I'm sure there will be, you know, as much as there was buzz about it before it happened, I'm sure there will be Noel Wiley interviews or John Wells interviews or whatever talking about how they want to thread the needle on this. But a lot of the buzz before this episode hit was that they were told by the network to slightly both sides this storyline. Do you feel like they did that in any way? I'm not saying they should have.

50:49Rob:I was just sort of like, do you think Robbie not being like, get the fuck out of my ED from the very beginning, but like opening with, hey, let's just move forward. Is that their version of sort of like kind of both sides in it? Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? I think it's probably the closest you're going to get. I also think you could be right in that things could have been cut or trimmed out to begin with. I also think having one character in a mask the whole time gives you a lot of ability to ADR around an entire plot line if you wanted to. Very true. Many of these conversations could have gone quite differently in the original cut.

51:23I have no idea.

51:24Rob:We know from interviews that they shoot a lot of footage for pit episodes and then sort of hem it back. So, you know, there's plenty of stuff that could have been cut out of this episode. I mean, clearly Nurse Jesse is arrested. We don't know if we'll see him for the rest of the season. It's five o 'clock. Yeah. I mean, now it's six o 'clock. The lawyers are tied up with the cyber attack. Like, are we going to see, and we're not leaving the ED to go like find Jesse. No. Something I thought was interesting is that Javadi filmed it. And Javadi, who has a social media presence. Dr. J herself. Right.

51:59Rob:So is Dr. J going to post about? Dr. Justice? Ooh. Nice little pivot for Javadi. Kai, can we hear that jingle one more time, please? Living out with the bitch. Dr. Justice. One more dangling thing. I don't know if it'll come back or not, but of all the patients who have fled the ED as a result of ice being there, we also get mentioned like some of the staff and nurses, even those with like accepted status have fled as well, just out of, you know, safety basically. But Mrs. Torres, who Samira is looking after, has like a blood clot in her leg that could be like a life-changing or life-threatening ailment.

52:39Rob:Well, like what Samira says is like, it's not an issue if we take, you know, Yeah, if you do it right now. Yeah, super easy to take care of because you're here. But, I mean, that calf looked crazy. It looked really bad. Yeah. And if three hours from now, Miss Torres gets rolled in unconscious, that would be such a bummer, but an understandable after effect of this kind of storyline. That leaves us with a cliffhanger, which is Emma and the Gulf douche. This dude comes in. They had to, the EMTs had to sedate him just to get him in there. his, I don't know if I want to call him a friend. He's a bro.

53:19Rob:His shitty golfing buddy who doesn't know anything about his life is like, this guy sucks, but his golf game certainly sucks. He did. The wide-eyed nod from Emma as he's talking about what he shot today. Yeah. Incredible. But I'll be back in a couple hours to check out on him, but maybe he won't. Is this guy recognizable to you? Oh, is he recognizable to you? Oh, not as an actor. I just mean, just in the world of male friendship. Oh, I know so many of these guys. Yeah. Tell me more. I mean, you already alluded to the idea that like you spend an incredible amount of time participating in hobbies with people.

53:57Rob:And some of them, it's like, we know nothing about each other. Okay. So like, I know that you like, you play tennis. You do pick up basketball, right? So you do like sportsman-like activities with people who you might not know anything about. But if they wound up in the ED, Ramon. Well, I would. You would be like, I'll figure out who their family is. Yes. And I'll wait here with them until their family arrives or something like that. You're not like strolling out of the room. I'll be back in a couple hours, maybe. So that's different. That's different. But would I expect them to? I don't, I think I would be surprised if they did.

54:32Rob:Really? Yeah. I mean, look, there's levels. There's the people who you're like actual friends with or friendly with. That's a different thing. But then there's just people who I see you for an hour or two every week. and we have no real relationship, but you're going to come and maybe, you know, bop out for a little bit and come back in a few hours. Honestly, that's more than I would expect of a golf bro in these circumstances. Okay. Topsy, I mean, like, I thought you had a, like, stronger community inside of your extracurricular activities. So there are circles. There's the strong community and then we're going outward.

55:03These don't seem like the best of friends. Okay.

55:05Rob:If you had, like, a peripheral. Yeah. Okay. This is a third circle at minimum friend. But I know that that might be true. Well, I don't know. I don't know, but I don't understand your tennis world. I'm trying to. I feel like I understand your pickup basketball world. Do you? No, but like better. But like if you're booking, like if you're on a golf course with someone, doesn't that feel like someone you know you're in? You have to like book the time on the course together, right? You do. And like you're in the cart. Like it just feels like. These aren't like two twosomes who got grouped together in a cart.

55:38Right. These are people who actually golf together on a regular basis.

55:42Rob:They work together or are business associates or something like that. The fact that he's a douche and doesn't give a shit about him, know anything about him, I believe. But I just think golfing lends itself to a bit more emotional intimacy inside of that space. You would be surprised. Okay, probably. You'd be very surprised. But Emma's in a stranglehold as the episode concludes. I mean, a full-on chokehold. I fully believe that this kind of thing probably does happen from time to time. it felt quite dramatic in a way, like a little overly dramatic. Oftentimes the pit cliffhangers are. They are.

56:13But I thought this one, and maybe it's just because there's like imminent physical violence. It's like, it's very scary what is happening to Emma. Absolutely. I'm terrified about it. This was one where it's like, I really need to see the, like what happens in the next episode immediately. Right. So from that perspective, effective. But it's also just like, maybe it's just, it's at the end of a long pit day and it's like, now people are in fucking chokeholds out here. Like, what is happening?

56:37Rob:It's six o 'clock, Rob. It is six o 'clock. I do want to talk quickly about Roxy. Of course, yeah. Because she does pass in this episode, as we talked about. I like that we don't know if her older son ever got the chance to say goodbye or if you wanted to. I kind of like that that's hanging in the air. Yeah. I also want to call out, Joe, Jake Kring Shrifles did a freelance piece for us at TheRinger.com called The Pit as Told by Its Patients. Oh, cool. in which she interviewed a bunch of our background actors that we've been praising throughout the season, these patients who've been coming through for single or three or four episode arcs sometimes.

57:10In particular, Brittany Allen, who plays Roxy. Yeah. I liked her interview a lot. She was talking about, I mean, for one, just the exhaustive, and I mean that in multiple senses, level of research that she did to kind of get in the head of somebody who would be dealing with this much pain. But also how being on the pit set, which you mentioned earlier, they shoot so much. There's so much going on. There's so many people buzzing around all the time. Right. Feels to some of these actors who are coming in on guest starring roles like overwhelming in and of itself. And so there's something kind of, I think, transportive based on these interviews about parachuting in and trying to tap into this really deep emotional place.

57:51And there is so much happening around you that it feels as if you've been, you know, wheeled into an ED.

57:56Rob:Shibana Aziz, who plays Victoria Javadi, like, the look she gives Robbie, the silent look she gives Robbie inside of that, you know, when he goes over puts his hand on Roxy's husband's shoulder and then like, just like, you know the glisten of the tear in her eye she's not full on crying there, she looks so young and just, you know, and Robbie sort of watching in real time someone lose another layer of their innocence you know, inside of an already tough day for Victoria because she already like, you know had this oversight happen and stuff like that. And so it's just like, everyone's having a tough day, man.

58:33Rob:This 4th of July sucks. It's not good. No. But you're right, the glistening work across the board has just been incredible this season. Noah Wiley, too. Oh, he's the king of glisten. It's every conversation he has, he's on the verge. He's like near tears, yeah. But yeah, Javadi's been in that place for a couple episodes now. I think she's done a really wonderful job. Anything else you want to mention? I have one good thing, one bad thing. We talked about the xylazine wound that Kiki has across the street. The necrosis. Absolutely disgusting. Good early. Don't like it. Yeah. The second most gnarly thing for me, and this is a regular appearance on The Pit, the rib spreader.

59:06Rob:Oh, yeah. God, do I hate the rib spreader. I understand it's necessity. Right. But every time it comes out, I'm just like, oh, Jesus Christ. You're like, it's not supposed to go that way. We're not supposed to stretch like that. You know, if I really want to dig deep, I think this is part of why sometimes if I see people with like very intrusive gauges in their ears. Oh. I have like a visceral reaction to it. No offense if you were one of these people, but it's like... Rob is casting his version of the furry community and now also the piercing enthusiast. Well, only if you're a basic furry. Okay.

59:37But if you have gauges, just know if they are a certain size, I am like a little upset about the way that your ear is contorting. I don't like visible ear holes. I don't like ribs being spread. I don't like any of that stuff.

59:49Rob:Okay. What's your good? Let's go back to Javadi for a second. Okay. Just an incredible moment from Robby. Javadi, why don't you glove up and show Dr. Shamsi that you belong in the ET? Yeah. Very good. Cue fist pump from me on the couch. Let's fucking go. Thanks, dad. Work dad showing up. Manual massaging of the heart. Get that thing pumping again. I mean, Javadi shows up. And we talked earlier about, you know, Ogilvy freezing in those moments when he is kind of like, I mean, learning human empathy for the first time in this season. What is this? What is this? What is this emotion? His heart grew three sizes in this hour.

1:00:20Yeah. But Javadi is the one who picks up all the slack in that conversation. She does. Ogilvy, I do want to give appropriate credit, owns the fact that this was his problem to begin with, but it's Javadi who's like helping to save the day.

1:00:31Rob:And like fucking Dr. Shamsi who's like, was this you? Come on. Come on. How unuseful, to put it mildly. Good episode of The Pit. I rather enjoyed it. A lot. A lot. A lot. And only going to be more. I'll be very curious to see how people respond to the ICE storyline. But I enjoyed it. I mean, I did enjoy it, but I thought it was well done. We'll be back for the final hour of this shift. We will see. Email us, drsibangs at gmail.com. If you have a different theory as to who goes home first from this shift. If Princess is already gone, what is she doing with her money? Any other prompts you want to give our listeners?

1:01:05In theory, McKay's supposed to be getting ready for a date soon.

1:01:08Rob:Nine o 'clock? I feel like she said nine o 'clock. It is a nine o 'clock date, but she's got to get home. You got to get cleaned up. Who knows what's going on with her kid today? Child care. You think that hoodie is not a date hoodie? I mean, maybe it is. I don't want to make presumptions. Clearly, it worked for him in the first place. He was on board. He loved it. Yeah, maybe you just show up. Yeah, you show up in the hoodie that brought you. Chart for three hours, go straight to the date. Exactly. Who's last to leave? I mean, it's probably Robbie. Yeah. He's not getting on that motorcycle. I would be surprised at this point.

1:01:36Rob:Thank you to Kai Grady. Thank you to everyone else here in the Sycamore Studios who helped us here today. We will be back with Love Story. We'll see you then. Bye.

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