‘The Pitt’ Season 2, Episode 5: “BABY JANE DOE!”

6:53Jo:I just think marketing wise, like we already have Black Friday that week. I think we need a new name for that Wednesday.

6:58Rob:Do you want to, do you want to give a suggestion?

7:00Jo:I think we need to throw it to committee. I don't have one off the top of the dome,

7:03Rob:But I think we can do better. OK, Dr. Marianne wrote in to let us know. I'm just like leaving off people's last name in case like they don't want their entire professional career put on blast. Dr. Marianne is a bit underwhelmed with representation of nursing students when it comes to Emma. Right. She's like Emma should know way more than she's been known. It's been shown to know her being uneasy about starting an IV seems really unlikely. That would just been part of her training. I'm curious if her character is rubbing nurses the wrong way too. Maybe I just don't understand their training. And then, I mean, she had a whole laundry list of issues.

7:41Rob:This one really stuck out to me. And to you, Mr. Purell himself, it might stick out to you too. After Dr. Sidebanks reduces the guy's fractured tailbone, she grabs the curtain with her gloves on.

7:53Jo:That was fucking wild.

7:54Rob:That is so gross. It would never happen unless the doctor was absolutely terrible. Seems like a medical consultant would have caught that one. So we understand that she was trying to avoid, like, she's like, I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to give you my number. I don't want to do anything like that. But gloves off before we touch anything else.

8:11Jo:That would be like the equivalent.

8:13Rob:Robbie takes his glove off before he touches that woman's phone in this episode. Rightly so.

8:16Jo:You can't be cross-contaminating like that.

8:18Rob:No, no, no, no.

8:18Jo:I mean, touching the curtain, to me, is like if Ogilvy, after taking the absolute explosion in this episode, then went and like slip and slid down the hall.

8:27Rob:Oh, my God.

8:28Jo:You simply can't do it.

8:29Rob:How did it fill your heart with joy the way it filled my heart with joy when Ogilvy just got like the full blast of that poor woman's backed up material?

8:37Jo:I think it's what we needed. Yeah. To like, you need the cathartic moment of absolutely. I need to see Ogilvy covered in explosive shit. Yeah. But also, you know, starting to come around on like, man, that really does suck to be in that position. Sometimes you are the patient impacted. Sometimes you're the med student impacted. You know what I mean?

8:55Rob:That's very philosophical of you, Rob Mahoney. Before we get to our next topic, because it's Chilaquiles and I don't want to say anything about it in close proximity to what you just said. Okay. I'd like to take a huge detour. Let's zag. Before we started recording, you let Kai and me know that the reason that you have such enviable posture that many people who watch these podcasts comment on is because you were in—

9:19Jo:That cannot be true.

9:19Rob:It is a fact. Kai, corroborate.

9:22Jo:Yeah, it's true.

9:22Rob:It's a fact. Is because you were in youth orchestra?

9:25Jo:Well, I was in middle school. and high school orchestra.

9:28Rob:And what instrument did you play?

9:30Jo:What do you think?

9:31Rob:Oh, that's a great question.

9:32Jo:You know?

9:33Rob:That would give you such good posture? Like a woodwind instrument?

9:36Jo:Well, first of all, it's orchestra, so it's strings only. Oh, damn. You know, we're not full band. Were you a cello, Rob? I was not a cello. I probably should have been more of a cello bass, but... Violin? No, I'm too alt for violin. I had to go viola. You know, we got to split the difference. I was an exceptionally mediocre viola player.

9:54Rob:Okay.

9:54Jo:But you know what? You got to sit up straight one way or the other.

9:56Rob:What do you think it would take for you to play Viola on this? Viola. Respect my culture. I was correcting it before you said it. Viola on this podcast.

10:07Jo:There's not enough money in the world.

10:08Rob:Okay.

10:09Jo:Simply not.

10:10Rob:If we put up a GoFundMe. Okay. Not a chance.

10:14Jo:Not going to happen. Haven't I suffered enough professional humiliation this week? Fame chain.

10:19Rob:Duh. All right. Dr. Sidebanks, if you have an offer to get Rob Mahoney to play an instrument on this podcast. Okay. Tom wrote in to say, I'd like to thank the two of you for your treatise in defense of chilaquiles. I'd actually never heard of chilaquiles until your last podcast. But being the curious cook that I am, looked up some recipes online, made some this morning. They are amazing. Thank you so much for introducing these gems to my cooking repertoire. Have to ask, are you green or red sauce fans? First of all, this is like the thrill of my lifetime. Wow. That someone made chilaquiles for the first time because we were talking about it on a podcast.

10:53Rob:I've never felt more, like I've done more good in this world than to introduce someone to chilaquiles, I'm being honest.

11:00Jo:It's always nice to think that we create the kind of podcasts that would bring people together. But if I'm being totally honest, I would rather bring a person and chilaquiles together than any number of people.

11:10Rob:That's a match made in heaven. Do you want to answer his red or green sauce? I'm kind of a why not both. Yeah. And that brings me to my chilaquiles recipe, which I would like to share with you right now. Yeah.

11:20Jo:Walk us through it.

11:21Rob:All of these measurements are done with love, so I have no actual measurements here.

11:25Jo:Is that your general cooking vibe? Just like a little loose?

11:28Rob:No, but chilaquiles is like very forgiving, I think, in something like this.

11:31Jo:It is by feel a little bit.

11:31Rob:But like, you know, if you're baking, that's a science. And like, you know, sometimes when you're cooking, it's an art. Okay, so you take chipolis and adobo.

11:40Jo:Yep.

11:41Rob:And you chop them up and you fry them with some, you know, diced onion in a cast iron skillet, right? So get that, like, that's an excellent base for anything.

11:51Jo:Classic for a reason.

11:52Rob:Okay. you add either broken up to status or chips if you prefer. I like the broken up to status, but just because it gives like a nice irregular sort of experience there. And then you I add like green sauce, green enchilada sauce. I don't make my own. Would you make your own like tomatillo sauce from scratch? Well, it depends on the function.

12:13Jo:Seems like you're that kind of guy. I think if it is like I'm just like trying to whip up a hangover cure for myself, then yeah, if you got the bottled stuff, use it. But also if you're going to do it and you have time to do it right, do it right.

12:24Rob:Great. Okay. So you've got chipoles and adobo, onions, your chip or your tostada, your green sauce, and the sauciness, that's up to you. That's between you and your God. How saucy you want to make your chilaquiles.

12:36Jo:I feel like it's got to be saucy. It's got to be saucy, but not like, it's not soupy. No, no, no, no. That's almost a different dish at that point.

12:42Rob:Dry chilaquile, but I'm just saying like, you know, sauce with your heart.

12:46Jo:Yes. open. I think you want to walk the line of maximum absorption without the aforementioned soupiness. You don't want

12:53Rob:sog. Total sog. Okay. Then you make little nests, like you know, like little divots to crack the eggs into, right? Then you take that whole skillet and you put it in the oven.

13:04Jo:So you've got kind of like a shakshuka situation brewing in terms of the nests.

13:08Rob:Yeah, and then partway through you take it out and you put the cotilla cheese all over. But you wait till the eggs cook a little bit because you don't want just like egg cheese mess, right? Situation. And then you wait until your eggs are cooked to your desired level of sort of sunny side up or whatever. You don't like don't hard boil them, but they're in the oven. It's fine. And then serve with avocado, crema, small diced red onion, cilantro, and more cotija on the side. Lime squeeze? Oh, lime squeeze. Of course. Thank you for catching me on that. Anyway, that's my Jalil-Ghili's recipe.

13:39Jo:It sounds lovely.

13:40Rob:Yeah. And you don't need a cup of this or as many Chipoles and Adobos you can handle. But that's a little bit of a red and a green situation together. So that's what I would say.

13:53Jo:I think your vision is beautiful.

13:56Rob:That's an extremely white person's Chilaquiles though. So if I have offended anyone, please let me know. We love a finger wag. I should mention our Chilaquiles patient in this episode feeling fine on some Zofran going to the water park.

14:09Jo:Yeah, that's a bad idea. But the first part, totally fine.

14:13Rob:Okay, okay. Robbie and Dana are both like water park cesspool.

14:18Jo:Yeah.

14:19Rob:You agree. Of course you do. Mr. Purell, you agree.

14:22Jo:Well, look, it's just logic.

14:23Rob:That's a lot of people. Did you never have fun at a water park when you were a child? Of course I did. Okay, what's the water park culture like in Texas? It was quite robust. Okay. Extremely hot.

14:33Jo:There's like a Six Flags spin-off, at least there used to be. I don't know if it's still there. Water park, you know, associate park. I have to say the moment that radicalized me, I grew up in North Texas. One year in the summer, we had like a plague level cricket event where some migration pattern, swarming pattern. I don't know what it was. You angered the Old Testament God. Someone did. I didn't do it. I was but a child trying to float down the lazy river. And you come up for air from underwater and the surface of the water is covered in dead crickets. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe I don't need this.

15:06Jo:Maybe I don't need to be doing this.

15:07Rob:Okay, I'm going to give you a pass because of this biblical event that you experienced. So outside of that, you're pro water park. Water parks are great. Are they? Yeah. Raging waters, Windsor Waterworks. You're going to get wet. Come on, it's great.

15:21Jo:Other bodies of water, sure. Even like a public pool seems orders of magnitude cleaner than whatever's going on at a water park.

15:29Rob:I will say that like I have more of a fear of heights now than I did as a child. But I do remember that there were like certain water parks where you basically had to like hike up like several stories of stairs of like probably rickety wooden stairs to get to like an obscene height and then you just fling your body down the slide and you're like and you're like this is fine this is this is fine um i'm pro water park uh that's all i have to say about that um nat who uh runs the no context the pit account on instagram and and twitter yep wrote in with a correction for us about the the source the origin of dr robbie's name yes um so we had mentioned this connection to a different uh dr abenovich um but no wiley has said that dr robbie is named after his paternal family who are ukrainian jews ravinski was the family name and so he and i think it was john wells uh were sort of going back and forth about like you know robbie and his jewish faith and Noah Wiley's connection to that and he said Ravinsky and they were sort of workshopping it and got to Rabinovich from that.

16:36Rob:But that is the source of that. Makes sense.

16:38Jo:I mean we did say last week it was just a theory that these people are connected.

16:42Rob:We like facts on this podcast.

16:46Jo:We certainly do.

16:47Rob:Sometimes. Speaking of facts, our listener Renee who has a business read by Renee did a little star chart work for us.

16:57Jo:Speaking of facts.

16:58Rob:That's what I'm saying. Okay. Controverbal facts. To recap, you are a Cancer. I am. Kai is a Capricorn. I'm a Libra. We actually heard from a couple people that Cancers and Capricorns are like match made in heaven, sort of. You and Kai.

17:11Jo:This bears out in my experience. You hear that, Rob? Together forever.

17:14Rob:Birds of a feather. And then I, a Libra. Fish of a feather.

17:17Jo:Something. I don't know.

17:17Rob:I, a Libra, just am here to balance the equation, apparently. But okay. For Rob, having the sun in Cancer means his ego and life force energy, think calling and what lights him up, is tied to Cancerian traits such as caretaking, emotional bonds, having a good read on others, i.e. intuition, boundary issues, etc.

17:36Jo:Woof. Okay, yeah. You're going well. I don't like being perceived, but okay.

17:42Rob:Renee said, without knowing everyone's charts, what I'd offer is that your group has a dynamic balance of elements. Libra is air. Capricorn is earth. Cancer is water. Capricorn and cancer are sister signs, which means they are polar opposites and will move through the world in complementary but also starkly different ways. Having a leaper in the mix is hilarious because they're the peacekeeper and round out the team to ensure everyone is on the same page and collaborating harmoniously.

18:06Jo:I do find that to be true.

18:07Rob:Oh, okay. Great. Well, here we are. A perfect trio for a podcast.

18:12Jo:But it sounds like we need, like, if we have a firebender in here, all of a sudden we got a journey going, you know? Okay, all right.

18:16Rob:What's Prince Zuko up to? Let's give him a call. Morning Glory milking farm.

18:22Jo:Yeah, I've heard of it now.

18:25Rob:A couple things. The three of us did discover that there are multiple books in this series. Yeah. Rob, would you care to share with the class what we learned about the following? So Morning Glory Milking Farm is about a minotaur.

18:38Jo:Yes.

18:39Rob:Being milked. Do you remember who the leading men of the following two books are?

18:43Jo:I was alarmed to find out that it was a Mothman.

18:47Rob:Yeah, that's how you pronounce it. Is it not? Mothman. A Mothman. Baby J. Doe.

18:53Jo:I can understand the vaguely sexual appeal and the dangerous draw of many mythical creatures. Kai, did you clip that? I'm saying I can understand the appeal. Someone's going to need to explain Mothman to me.

19:10Rob:I feel like I already explained it to you. First of all, Kai destroyed his entire algorithm looking this up for us. the Mothman is adjacent to the whole like fairy smut movement inside of a romantic novel

19:25Jo:why not just make him a fairy

19:26Rob:because we're dealing with like mythological monsters

19:29Jo:a Mothman is a mythological monster? yeah is it? yes what mythology?

19:34Rob:there are Mothman horror movies

19:36Jo:well sure they're prophecies in fact okay great

19:40Rob:and the third one was a werewolf which is like kind of basic bitch that's easy to be honest with you okay

19:44Jo:to follow up Minotaur and Mothman with Werewolf, I think they could have done better, frankly, at that point.

19:50Rob:The real Rise of Skywalker of this trilogy. Our listener, Elsa, your question was, to quote one of our listeners, how could this be profitable for Frito-Lay? You're like, what is the point of milking all of these Minotaurs? Exactly.

20:03Jo:Well, I think it's just one, right?

20:05Rob:No, it's a milking farm, so I believe it's a whole... Oh, wow. We have a lead character and her hero Minotaur, but I think it's a whole farm system of Minotaur.

20:14Jo:So she establishes relations with one of the Minotaurs on this farm, but presumably not the others.

20:20Rob:Is the plural of Minotaur Minotaurs?

20:22Jo:I would assume. Okay.

20:24Rob:Minotauri. Minotauri. Okay. We were going to talk about the pit in a second.

20:28Jo:I'm not sure we are.

20:30Rob:Elsa wrote in to let us know that the answer is stronger, quote, stronger erectile dysfunction medication. Yep. And then she said, anyway, I don't actually want to go into the details of this. All right.

20:43Jo:I like how you crack this door open and then you slam it shut.

20:47Rob:Okay. These last four are very, very on topic. Okay. Jenna wrote in. I loved this. Jenna wrote in to let us know that there is an age-old, deeply rooted feud in her husband's hospital between nurses and the lab. Did you read this email? Yes. It cracked me up. Nurses apparently, quote, never label their samples correctly. And the lab scientists, quote, always send samples back for, quote, frivolous reasons. Their battles are many, Jenna wrote, and vicious. These people's grandchildren will still be fighting over whether or not a particular fluid sample needs to be double bagged in the pneumatic tube system.

21:22Rob:At the beginning of episode four, I mentioned to my husband that it was so nice the pit lab got the bulimia patients COVID and flu tests back so quickly. My husband quipped back while they probably had to set it back a few times because the goddamn nurses didn't label it correctly. I, Jenna, immediately stuck up for our queen Dana, insisting there's no way Dana isn't insisting all of her nursing staff, they label their tubes properly. Cut to several minutes later when Dana tells her nursing student, not once but twice, that she needs to initial and label the tube with Joy's blood in it. Sweet, sweet victory for me, who loves to be right, as well as victory for those lab scientists who probably very much appreciate those impeccably labeled samples.

21:59Jo:Not a victory for Emma, though, who proceeds to throw that tube directly under a rolling cart. She's just like, oh, bah. To the previous email, Emma's portrayal so far is pretty rough. I agree. Like she's by far the most like babe in the woods character on this show. Just seems to have the least like institutional knowledge, not only of like how to operate in this space, but like what she is doing on literally any level.

22:21Rob:I'm going to need some sparkle from Emma soon.

22:23Jo:I hope we get some.

22:23Rob:I don't think we got any Emma in this episode at all. No. So sparkle soon to be determined. If you are listening to this podcast and you know of other feuds inside of the hospital, Nurses V Lab is a great one to learn about. But if there are other canonical feuds, I would like to hear about them. We love a feud. Truly. We got an email from a listener who denied, you know, put her name on the email, but identified as someone who has a son who is deaf. And she said, the number of times healthcare providers will look only at me and speak to me instead of to him is honestly staggering. It feels like something that should be obvious.

22:58Look, you're patient when you're speaking to them and don't talk about them as if they're not there. And yet, sadly, it's incredibly common.

23:04Rob:I really appreciated the show highlighting this and bringing awareness to such an important, often overlooked issue. And I really agree. I don't think we spent a lot of time talking about it. But, like, we love Donnie. Donnie is great. Donnie is also new to his position. That's true. And so is learning on the job here in triage. Doing a great job. But, like, kind of fucked it up in this particular exchange last week. We didn't really talk about it. Anything you want to say?

23:29Jo:I mean, I think the difficulty for people in these spaces, especially in someone in Donnie's position, I'm trying to like maximally absorb the information as it's coming.

23:37Rob:Right.

23:38Jo:For what you would want to look at the person who's speaking to you, even though that's technically not the person who's actually conveying this information. It is difficult to walk. And I think especially in these like ER type environments where it's so fast paced, it's so fast moving. Like this is not, you know, going to see your normal primary care physician and having an established relationship. And I like that we get to see Donnie learning on the job in this way and figure out how to communicate with different kinds of patients.

24:00Rob:As we've mentioned, we really like that the show, you know, the turnover rate is so fast on these cases that everyone has a chance to be a hero and then fuck up and then be a hero and then fuck up. And so nobody, I mean, maybe Ogilvy in this episode, but nobody is like left hanging out to dry for a long time. I hope Ogilvy didn't hang that out to dry.

24:22Jo:Gross. You gotta wash it.

24:23Rob:You gotta burn it, honestly. But like, you know, the rise and fall of these characters is a thing we love about the past. Yes.

24:33Jo:Do you think we see any more of that deaf patient? Yes, I do. I would hope so. I would think of the things kind of lingering in the air. Baby Jane Doe. Baby Jane Doe. Baby Jane Doe. Harlow, I believe, is the name of the deaf patient. And then Jackson has just woken up for his psych exam.

24:49Rob:Right, we get like, we interact with Jada slightly this episode, but it's sort of like in a holding pattern. We'll come back to you. Yes. Harlow, I suspect like the many frustrations of going through this system as someone who can't sort of advocate directly for themselves I think is something that Pitt would want to sort of show us her entire day here in the ED. All right. Last two emails. An anonymous listener wrote in to let us know that Taylor Dearden has said, and I'm quoting an interview. I found this quote in Us Weekly quote, I think Mel is asexual. I don't think that's part of how Mel would think, especially at work.

25:27Rob:She's a hyper-professional. So in terms of like shipping Mel with Langdon or shipping Mel with Boba, criminal guy, that's not where Mel's brain is. Now, Mel seemed a little like, hey, this guy was flirting with me. Like, that's kind of nice. But I like that read. Our listener was writing in saying that they really liked the read of Mel, not oblivious to the fact that the guy was flirting with her. Not at all. Just like deeply uninterested in just doing her job, you know, trying to do her job.

25:56Jo:I mean, we should also say, even if that's true, asexual does not necessarily mean aromantic. It's true. It doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate a certain kind of affection or attention. That's true.

26:05Rob:Last but not least, several people reminded us that Victoria Javadi was also interested in the beauty social influencer who Samira treated for mercury poisoning last season. So she was like, how many followers do you have and stuff like that. So Javadi's career as a social media influencer was seeded last season. That was a good reminder. I think it was seeded by the state of modern life, you know?

26:28Jo:Just all of this. Yeah. And then maybe stoked perhaps by hearing that sweet, sweet follower count. I do have a quote from the actress who plays Victoria Javadi about this.

26:39Rob:So she said, in terms of this plot line, like this isn't the last we'll hear of Dr. J and her following. I hope not. we have a video about tough co-workers to hopefully watch i don't know if we'll get to see any of these videos but this is what she said about first of all she said this plot line is here to sort of challenge preconceptions about young women in social media and then she said quote i think her online community has built her self-esteem in real life and she said victoria is part of the ipad generation quote it's a place that she's comfortable in a way that other generations I don't think can really relate to.

27:12Rob:Also, you know, she's a really isolated kid. She's significantly younger than all of her peers and she has been for basically forever. She's so isolated in real life. So to find any kind of community, whether that's in real life or online is incredibly valuable to her. I'm really glad that she's like learning to have spaces where she's valued. And I think that her TikTok is a beautiful thing. So I thought that was really sweet.

27:33Jo:I also think it seems like a beautiful thing. I also would not be surprised if in its way, it comes with its own professional repercussions, maybe not legal as we've made very clear, but for a not doctor to represent herself as a doctor does feel like a problem.

27:46Rob:I think that's illegal. Is it? I do. I mean, I definitely do.

27:53Jo:It seems like it would be, but we don't throw that term around loosely anymore, Jo.

27:57Rob:No, frowned upon in this establishment. Could lose your license. But I think, I wonder if there's sort of certain loopholes in the social media space. Like if she doesn't, like what's her handle? Is her handle Dr. J or it's certainly not med student J. So I don't know.

28:15Jo:That doesn't SEO.

28:17Rob:It sure doesn't. Okay. That's our, I'm telling you, these mailbags are, I know it's a lot, but that's not even all.

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29:51Rob:All that we got. We get a lot of great stuff from you guys. Let's get into this episode. It's hour five, 11 a.m., and I'm going to start with, with might be MRSA, which is not MRSA. This is really, this case really exists to give us more Langdon and Robbie friction. I have a really interesting quote from Noah Wiley about this, but like, I'm curious, like, did you have a favorite part of this particular interaction? I will just say when they roll the patient at the very beginning of the episode and Donnie is telling, you know, Robbie what's going on and, And Patrick Ball as Langdon, like, sort of heaves a sigh and closes his eyes like, here we fucking go.

30:33Rob:I have to deal with this now. I really like the way that Langdon was pushing back on Robbie, which is something that we said we were missing. I mean, he seems quite defensive in doing so. I couldn't follow whether or not he – who was exactly right in that scenario. But, again, it's that sort of, like, someone pushing back on Robbie's orders in a way that we wanted. or anything else that you've got inside of the storyline.

30:57Jo:I think even within the gray area of who is exactly right, you see Robbie's care over the course of this episode, I would say deteriorating based on the fact that he seems to be fighting battles everywhere, all the time with everyone. Like he is spinning out in a way that clearly he is oblivious to, but many other people are noticing. And the case with Langdon is a great one where it's yet another case of a doctor almost like not even talking to the patient. Like he has kind of like blocked her out because he is focused on this like pissing contest he's having with Langdon about proving whatever Langdon says has to be wrong.

31:29Jo:It has to be something else. There have to be different criteria. And this is a side of Robbie that I think is really important to the show because there is the part of him that is impulsive in a way that will grab that woman's phone and tell her boss like back off. Or she'll sue you. I will back her up and she will sue you. There's also the part of him that will slice open that woman's leg with a scalpel just to kind of like prove a point. And so you need all of that stuff.

31:53Rob:Prove a point, but get her the care she needs as quickly as he can get it. Maybe. Potentially save her leg.

31:59Jo:Again, but this is why this character can exist in this space in the cowboy way that he does. It's like sometimes you got to be the cowboy, but also it's a little fucked up to do that.

32:07Rob:Definitely fucked up. We get the July effect rears his head again with his surgical consult.

32:12Jo:We need adults in the room.

32:14Rob:It's like cell phone to take photos for Garcia. We did have like many emails about necrotizing fasciitis. Do not Google that. Don't Google image search it. It's not something you'll enjoy. Doesn't seem chill. No. But here's what Noah Wiley, this is really fascinating to me. Here's what he says about Langdon. He says, initially you believe it's because a student has betrayed the teacher and the friend has lied. Then poke that a little bit more and you can see where the teacher feels a degree of guilt over having had this happen under his auspices. And he didn't notice it and wasn't there to save it from happening.

32:51Rob:You poke it a little farther and Langdon represents somebody who's just come back from the therapeutic road. Someone who's had the courage to face his demons and to humble himself into admitting that he needed help. And that he was in over his head and needs to rebuild his life in a more honest way. So to the unexamined person, Robbie, that's kryptonite. And he'll talk more about therapy, which I'll talk about a little bit later. like Robbie's hesitancy around therapy. But like the fact that Langdon who is, yes, quoting lengthy passages from books, but also just like going up to like the guys in the betting board and just being like, I got rehab bills.

33:24Rob:Like I can't do that. You know, like he's just being very honest and open about sort of like, I'm working on myself. I did this. He's not lying. He's not hiding. He's like, I'm working on myself. I'm going through this. And Robbie's like, I can't look at that because that looks like something. That looks like something I should do and I don't want to. Completely. You know what I mean? So I thought that was really interesting.

33:44Jo:And it's the kind of thing where, yeah, like intellectually, I'm sure Robbie understands that this is a healthy process. But there is a part of him that thinks that the way you process being in this kind of space is going up to the roof every night or getting on your motorcycle. Zoom therapy with no helmet.

33:59Rob:Yeah.

34:00Jo:And it makes sense that he would take that out in his way on length. It not makes sense because he should, but because that's the way human beings unfortunately operate. Right. And I think where, what I'm kind of waiting to see is again, like the repercussions this is having on patients. And another part of that sequence is when nurse Jesse asks him, like, should we get Langdon in here in case we need to intubate? And Robbie's like, absolutely not. Like, don't even worry about it. And so in doing so, it's like, that's a woman who is in dire minute by minute changing condition. Right. Seems like it might be a good idea to have a doctor in the room.

34:30Rob:I was so confused by Robbie walking out of that room at all. like the alarms are going off and he's like get ready you know get her ready to like intubate and then he just like walks out to check in on other things i was very confused by that that's a great call i'm curious to hear from the many medical professionals who watch the pit and i guess listen to this podcast thank you so much why would you listen to us um to let us know like robbie slicing that woman's leg open is that like beyond the pale bad or is that sort of I'm getting this shit where it needs to go sort of move. Yeah.

35:05Jo:It's at least this is how you get sued like that category, right? Dr. Al Hashimi would never.

35:10Rob:You can't make a fun pun out of malpractice and Robbie. Santos and charting. Yeah, this is the ongoing plot of this episode is that Santos keeps trying and failing to get her charting done because Dr. Al Hashimi has like threatened her essentially. This is still like -

35:23Jo:Oh, straight up threatened her.

35:24Rob:One of the toughest things I think this character has done this season. And I hate that it's bookended with why don't you give my generative AI app a try? This is the thing. Like, it's really tough. I'm really trying to root for Dr. L. And I like the moments that she pushes back on Robin when she's like, why are you treating me like one of your residents? Why don't you go ahead and give me the download on your patients if I need to give you the download on my patients? Like, all that stuff I really liked. But, like, threatening her Santos and then saying, well, if you use my AI, it'll be fine, that's tough for us, an anti-AI podcast handle, you know?

35:59Jo:It's tough for us as an anti-AA podcast, but also just tough in terms of these office interactions, right? Like these are two people in a workplace environment. You came in on day one, threatened Santos's progression, which as we know is maybe the single most important thing to her. Right. And then try to swoop in to soft sell this platform that you think is very important. Like this is what's difficult about this character to me because you're right. Within this episode, I think she does a lot of really good and like considerate things and things that would get us on her side.

36:27Rob:I like the way she's treating Langdon. Exactly.

36:29Jo:The kind of encouraging word she has with Langdon. Absolutely. I think the way she shows care for Jada, Jackson's sister, like she's doing and saying a lot of the right things or things that are just kind of like positive and representative of good caregiving. But then she's doing stuff like this. And I just don't like the balance of that right now. And maybe it's meant to be that way, but it's, it just makes her a tough character to fully align with.

36:52Rob:It's tough right now, but this is the constant way in which the pit likes to challenge us. We talked about this season one with santos or i would say i kind of liked her from the start but i think a lot of people were bumping on joy and then like have really come around on her yeah uh as ogilvy's stock continues to plummet she gets her shot and shots in on ogilvy and then joy has a great episode here and we learned some more about her psychology so like but this interaction that robbie and dr l have about ai right that he's saying well they would expect us to treat more patients all the while getting rid of these various positions no no increase in pay blah blah dr alashimi says i'm not advocating for erasing my profession and i wrote you sure about that my notes you sure about that uh we get the lord off the do we already know she has a son we got i think that would that felt new to me yeah and says nothing can replace family which i don't know felt if that felt especially chilly to robbie who like very clearly does not have a family life that he talks about.

37:52Jo:Well, that motorcycle does not have a sidecar, you know? It's really him out on the road all by himself. A little sidecar for baby Jane Doe? Baby Jane Doe. Somebody.

38:00Rob:Robbie and the baby on the road? First of all,

38:01Jo:I'm not putting baby Jane Doe on a motorcycle in any capacity. That is a death machine.

38:06Rob:What if she's just encased in helmet? We need a full-on bubble. Yeah, a bubble for baby Jane Doe. That's the only way

38:11Jo:I'm willing to accept it. Okay, all right. But in this journey, again, we're trying to figure out how to empathize with Dr. Al more over the course of the season. The one part that I'm always going to have a hard time with is this is a woman who's, yes, very qualified, very sharp, walked into a new workplace and led with, you're doing everything wrong and I'm going to implement systems to fix all of the shit you're doing. And like, that's always going to be a tough sell for anybody who's there.

38:36Rob:I also think like she could have waited until tomorrow to start implementing.

38:40Jo:Seems like maybe she could, but for the structure of this show.

38:44Rob:The premise of the show dictates that she must do it today. I did like this moment when Santos turns down what turns out to be the necrotizing fasciitis case. And this is the second one, I think, second exciting trauma that we've seen her turn down. She turned down one earlier when she was on the case of the young girl where she was just like, I want to focus on this. I can't get distracted by that. In this case, she's trying to catch up on her charts. But compare that to Santos, who was just sort of like a dog with a bone in the first season, just chasing anything that's more exciting, more exciting, more exciting.

39:19Rob:so that felt like a really good evolution for her character. Definitely so. And as the pit loves to do, it loves to highlight issues inside of the entire system. The show? So, subtly, often, Rob. So, this idea that doctors have to stay for hours after their shift is over just to complete their charting is, you know, a good problem to identify. Speaking about flaws in the system, do you want to talk about the Diaz family?

39:45Jo:I would love to.

39:46Rob:Okay.

39:46Jo:I mean, specifically, Joy's part in this story, which as you said, like a really shining moment for her. It was excellent.

39:51Rob:Really good.

39:51Jo:I also like that it's kind of positioning her as like Ogilvy is the book smart. She's the street smart a little bit, right? It's like she is understanding the ins and outs of the logistics of this by having a lived experience. And we've seen throughout the pit the way that like these characters' own lives kind of influence the way that they go about their practice. And for her, it's like how you maneuver in a hospital space. She's had to go through the system in a way that, you know, like Dr. Bangs maybe hasn't to date, really hasn't had to navigate a parent with leukemia or like the crunch of finances, right?

40:22Jo:Like everybody is coming to these things differently. And she's coming like to this post through the wars of how do you possibly finance staying in a hospital when it's prohibited for almost anybody?

40:32Rob:I just really loved learning this information about her because I think it will make, if anyone can stomach rewatching The Pit, a rewatch really interesting because some of her earlier standoffishness when it came to like elderly and dying patients is just sort of like, this is trauma that she's carrying. I'm like, I'm curious what area of medicine she wants to go into where she won't be around dying patients.

40:53Jo:I'm not sure there is one.

40:56Rob:But clearly she's like, she doesn't have her sights set on the ED. So she's not like given this rotation her all because she's like, this is my nightmare of a place to be. but like something that you could have chalked up to like callousness or frivolity or superficial nature or something like that is really her just, you know, a la Dr. Robbie not wanting to look at LinkedIn. Like I don't want to look at this thing that reminds me of this really hard life event that I went through with my family.

41:24Jo:Just pure defense mechanism which is a more appealing in human quality than like not caring that these patients are dying, right? Yeah. That conversation happens kind of working in conjunction with Samira Mohan as well and I like their exchange a lot and in particular, Dr. Mohan's kind of established herself as I think like the one person in the pit who cops to being wrong the fastest. Like she gives Joy the side eye when Joy even raises the idea of moving Orlando Diaz out of the ED and yet is proven wrong so quickly in terms of the financial relief that could offer to his family and immediately just owns it.

41:59Jo:Immediately says, I was wrong. Like I didn't judge that correctly just because she didn't have the information. It's like, I've never seen Langdon do that. I've never seen Robbie do that. I think it's one thing if you're a med student who's just like coming up so quickly and learning so much on the fly. But for an established doctor to do that, I don't know that we've seen it with the speed of that.

42:16Rob:I mean, we did see Langdon do that in season one with Mel with a neurodivergent patient when he was like, how'd you do that? I wasn't getting in there with him and you really did that.

42:24Jo:To me, that's like a slightly adjacent thing, but I take your point.

42:26Rob:But I also take your point in that a lot of these doctors have massive egos and are not inclined to admit faults so readily. Priya Ganesh, who plays Samira Mohan, gave this interview where she was talking about Samira's evolution as a character from last season. This idea that she's learned how to trust her gut more than she did in season one. She's better at balancing her time with patients than she was in season one. She's like, but she's still the empathetic patient advocate doctor that we see in season one. So her being so insistent that there is a solution for the Diaz family is sort of this evolution of that slow-mo stuff in season one.

43:08Rob:She also said this really interesting thing. She says, quote, she's on Robbie's good side at the start of the show, which is a great difference for her. So this idea that, like, Mercurial King Robbie and, like, are you in his favor? The sun shines on you. And if you're not, it's very cold in the shade. oh it seems it so I thought that was really interesting and really telling

43:28Jo:I think you see a bear out of this episode too both in terms of that balance that she's found and the fact that she is on Robbie's good side Dr. Moen's been being pulled in and out of rooms oh yeah we need you constantly we need you here we need you and to me that is an outgrowth of everything we just talked about but also an outgrowth of the fact that Robbie does not want to delegate anything to Langdon and so you see the crunch that that puts on the next most senior resident correct to now have to do basically everything

43:52Rob:exactly let's talk about Nurse Noelle Hastings, shall we? Being very spicy with Robbie. Sharing some personal information on Robbie that Dana would prefer not to know. Dana's like pissed. She's like, why are you telling me? It wasn't even that personal. But it's just like... It's intimate. It feels unprofessional to Dana. I mean, it is. You know what I mean? It's just sort of like, he wouldn't want you... Like, don't gossip to me about what he does in his... It felt like a way that Noelle was like, I like Noelle. I'm not trying to throw her under the bus. But Dana is like deeply uncomfortable with like both this relationship she thinks is a bad idea from both sides.

44:30Rob:And then also, you know what I mean? And like also she doesn't want, you know, she's like it kind of felt like Noel was like, I know what he does in his bedroom. And I want to tell you right now. It did feel that way a little bit.

44:41Jo:She's flexing a little bit.

44:42Rob:This is the other part of Noel Wiley's sort of talking about Robbie and therapy. He talks about this is a really interesting part. He talks about, he alludes to this idea that in the ER, you can make a ton of really deep, like, emotional connections quickly, fast turnover, they're gone, right? It's a very, very high turnover rate. So you can, like, feel like you're getting emotionally nourished by being Dr. Robbie and coming in and, like, people, patients love him as they should, you know, all this sort of stuff like that. but then he doesn't have to like let them know really much about him at all.

45:18Rob:And he doesn't have to like be in that relationship for very long. He says about sort of Noelle Hastings, it depends on which frame you put around it. On one hand, you could say, oh, look at that. Robbie's got a social life. On the other hand, you look at it and go, oh, Robbie's got a social life where there's always an out. There's always an escape hatch. There's always a ticking clock on it and a point which he's not willing to go any further. We're looking at someone who flirts with connection but isn't capable of connection. There's no character who talks about having gone to dinner with Robbie or having hung out with Robbie.

45:46Rob:We never get a sense that he sees any of these people really except for Noelle outside the hospital. Even in that relationship, they keep it very professional at work to not have anybody special. Really, do they? To not have anybody special.

45:56Jo:So you can look at it and go, oh, it's... Let me stop that right there. Everybody knows. She is making eyes at him while on the phone. Yeah, yeah. And once he pulls the, like, let me just tie my shoe move. Again, who are we fooling?

46:09Rob:This is how he ends the quote. So you look at it and go, oh, it's cool that he's feeling good enough today. But on the other hand, it's just another form of half-assed therapy. So I love this. He also referred to Dr. Collins as the one who got away, which was an interesting wrinkle. Also, Noah Wiley said, so in that scene last week where Whitaker is talking to Louis about Dr. Collins and that she's gone to Portland and has a child and all this sort of stuff like that, that Dr. Robbie was not supposed to be in that scene. And Noah Wiley's like, what if I poke my head in and hear that? And we get to see how Robbie processes how he feels about that.

46:42Rob:Something I think that is interesting, though, in characterizing, in this sort of like, the pit is not an ER spinoff.

46:49Jo:Which it's not. Legally. Legally. Not an ER spinoff.

46:54Rob:The way in which his character is really unlike his character, Dr. John Carter. That's true. John Carter was like the new babe in the woods. He's the sort of veteran thing. I actually think he's kind of modeling Dr. Robbie a little bit on George Clooney's Dr. Doug Ross. And this does not like... Would you not? That's kind of how I feel. I feel like Noah Wiley was like at the very beginning of his career. He saw what Dr. Doug Ross did for George Clooney and he's like, I wouldn't mind some of that. So this idea of like, if we think Dr. Alashimi is like flirting with him at all, which is kind of unclear.

47:33Rob:I'm clear about that. I'm clear. But Dr. Doug Ross, as played by in his primo prime George Clooney, walk around the hospital. Everyone's flirting with him. And he's like, commitment, no thank you. But empathetic doctor, yes. He's a pediatrician. He was just like so lovely with the children coming out of the hospital. And so everyone's like, oh my God, you look like George Clooney and you're such a sweet pediatrician. And then he's like, no, no, commitment, no thank you. So I thought that was interesting. And on like a much different level, I have talked about this before, but I have like a, I have a degree of social anxiety.

48:11Rob:And one mode that I really, really enjoyed was when I worked in bookstores and I loved going up to the cash register, working the cash register, which like when I was like a manager, I wasn't supposed to do, but I love to do because you have these like really fun interactions with people and then they're gone.

48:26Jo:Yes.

48:27Rob:And it's just sort of like my social anxiety doesn't have time to kick in because it's just like two or three minutes. Charming, charming banter. What are you reading? Blah, blah, blah. Joke. Did it make you laugh? Bye. Like that's that's like a really comfortable mode for people with social anxiety. So I don't think that Dr. Robbie is that. But I was like, I really relate to this idea of like, I love to get my emotional connection and social juice out of people who are just sort of like here and gone. Let's keep the turnstile moving.

48:54Jo:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like in and out. And it makes total sense that like a setting like the emergency room or ICU, you'd be establishing those incredibly deep connections that you talked about.

49:06Rob:Right, right, right.

49:06Jo:But the fact that he can just put them off, the fact that he can just wander from room to room in a way that even his subordinates can't. Like there's just so many ways for Robbie to distance himself when he decides to do that. And he pretty much decides to do it all the time.

49:18Rob:Dr. Jefferson, who's here, the psych consult, is like surprised when Robbie calls him a friend, right? Oh, the F word. Oh, my gosh. Right?

49:26Jo:A little facetiously, maybe. Of course.

49:28Rob:Of course. Dr. Jack Abbott, is that a friend of Dr. Robbie's? Seems like a friend. At least a work friend. But they're also kind of like work frenemies to a certain degree. Are they? I didn't really get the enemy vibe. Not enemies, but like in their very first interaction, the very beginning of season one, There just seemed to be a little bit of like tension. I don't know. I don't know how to describe it.

49:51Jo:I think the tension is one of them wants to jump off a roof.

49:54Rob:At any given time.

49:54Jo:That's a real tension.

49:55Rob:At any given time. And it changes daily, hour by hour. That's a real back and forth. You know what I mean? Okay. Does Robbie have any other friends?

50:01Jo:I don't know that he does in any meaningful sense that we have seen.

50:05Rob:Right.

50:05Jo:And I don't get the sense that, as you alluded to in Noel Wiley's interview, has a very robust social life. Like Noel, he has a kind of intimacy with. She knows that he keeps the TV on in his room at night.

50:16Rob:because I can't stand any silence.

50:17Jo:I also did feel very seen by that. I mean, again, very guilty as charged on that front. But like, by her own admission, it's more of like a seven-week-itch kind of relationship that they have.

50:28Rob:Yeah, exactly. So I, like, this is really interesting to me. What about other, like, who do you think, there's Mel and her sister, who do you think in, of the staff here has the, like, healthiest home life?

50:43Jo:Healthiest or, like, most active? Because those are not necessarily the most active. The same thing. I mean, like, I could see Santos and Garcia getting after it. Sure. Right? They're about town. They've got a lot of friends of a kind.

50:53Rob:Dr. Whitaker farming benefits.

50:56Jo:I mean, that seems like a meaningful relationship. Okay. You know?

50:59Rob:Okay.

51:00Jo:He's playing like Jerry Maguire with her son, basically.

51:03Rob:Tough. That never felt healthy to me.

51:06Jo:It doesn't go great.

51:07Rob:But then it does in the end. Mixed messages, Cameron.

51:10Jo:That's a classic, like, rewatchable is what happens the next day situation. Like, I don't think that relationship is great for anyone involved.

51:17Rob:Dana has a lot of photos of her family around. True.

51:20Jo:But again, these people work so much and so intensely. I think it's hard to then take some big part of yourself and give it to other people.

51:27Rob:This is something that Fiona Dorff said about Cassie McKay. That we know Cassie is a kiddo. That whole dynamic is very messy and fraught. But she talked about in terms of Cassie perhaps risking her license, who's to say, to go on this date with this guy, is that Cassie's in her 40s. has, like, fucked up in her life, married to a shitty dude, has a kid that she loves, had an ankle monitor for a time, but put herself through med school and just sort of, like, on the other side of this, like, grand reinvention of her life in her 40s and just sort of, like, okay, what else?

52:04Jo:Yes.

52:05Rob:What else? What do I want to come home to? What do I want to, like, fulfill my life with? And so, hot guy in an art gallery. Also, by the way, we got some meals from people who are, like 9 p.m. date. I don't think she's going to make it. It's a long day. You know, at the pit. Well, it's like, is she still going to be at the pit if there's an emergency?

52:25Jo:Oh, I see what you're saying. Is the nine o 'clock hour going to come and go?

52:28Rob:And she's just like, I missed it.

52:30Jo:I think she's going to check out. Clock out. Girls got needs. The art gallery calls.

52:35Rob:Okay, okay. So you don't care what the massive emergency that surely awaits us?

52:40Jo:Well, let's talk about that for a minute because I do think there's a fascinating thing happening this season. And I've seen it and I've heard it and people I know who are watching the show of just like, when is the thing going to blow up? Right? Like, I think some of it is the precedent of season one. Of the mass casualty. Of having the mass casualty event that you know is going to stir something up.

52:57Rob:Yeah.

52:58Jo:Some of it is just, it's a 15 episode season. And story-wise, something has to shake something up. But I'm curious for you, Jara, how you felt about this season overall so far now that we're, what, five episodes in? Have you felt yourself wanting the thing to happen, whatever that thing is? What?

53:13Rob:Crossing my fingers for a mass casualty event, Ramoni. I didn't say that. Because I'm a good person. Thank you very much. I talked about this, I think, a couple weeks ago where, maybe it was just last week, I don't know.

53:26Jo:The betting board being back, and then like... Sinkhole, by the way, bad use of doubling down. Would not advise to bet on sinkhole.

53:35Rob:Donna, you're a new dad. You don't have money for this. Anyway, I really do like LinkedIn not getting in on the betting because he was like such a... like his compulsion and his compulsive actions around, you know, they call him like an adrenaline junkie around sort of the betting board or like, I got to go get this salmon for my kid or I got my kid a puppy and didn't talk to my wife about it and all these other things, you know, like.

53:55Jo:I like how I got to go get this salmon as part of the adrenaline junkie, like profile.

54:00Rob:Rob's like, please don't call me out like that.

54:03Jo:God forbid a guy has a cedar plank, you know.

54:07Rob:um but i think that uh you know so again to watch him say no i can't to that okay but to go back to the betting board and the sinkhole terrible idea i agree but like it's the betting boards here it's a number of people's first day at work there's like patterns of repetition definitely and so in that way that's i think leading a lot of people to be like okay and next in the rhythm of the season that I understand is a mass casualty event. So, or why else are we here on this day in the pit? And could there, you know, is that something that's going to happen this season? I would say probably. Could they surprise us this season and it's just like a day in the pit?

54:44Jo:I'd be down for it.

54:45Rob:Maybe. And we get, I mean, given that it's longer than one shift because they always have to have an excuse to have them there past their shift, right? It's true. And it's not just doing your charts. But maybe then we can just get in a couple hours of the night shift one season. It's true. And you and I would never say that. And maybe that's this.

55:00Jo:Maybe we get Dr. Bangs in the art gallery. You know, maybe we get these people off the clock.

55:04Rob:I don't think we're leaving the ER. Casey Bloys is like, the budget is tight for a reason. Okay, we've already brilliantly covered Ogilvy and Mrs. Randolph's constipation. Anything you want to add to that? There's no we in disimpaction, I think, is a pretty good line. Anything else?

55:24Jo:I mean just that even this even like everyone is over Ogilvy's whole deal in this episode even as he is continuously humbled over the course of these last couple weeks it's just he's such a tough hang that I really again don't mind like a shotgun situation in which he's covered in shit like this is the bed that he has made for himself

55:45Rob:it's this smirk when Joy last week's episode had like a potential blood exposure and he was like smirking like she's out of the running because she has to go like give some blood guess what buddy you got tb now you got tb and shit all over which is apparently just

56:04Jo:a thing that happens that's that was a crazy the more you know moment from the pit that if you are a doctor and i think this this the qualifications were like an urban emergency environment basically

56:13Rob:you're gonna get tb if kai has 90 hours to spare perhaps one day we should do a super cut of like all the lessons that Pitt has taught us about the medical profession. And just like after every single time it's just like the more you know, the more you know, the more you know.

56:29Jo:Along those lines, if you hear the stomach gurgle, run. Like you cannot be in the line of fire.

56:34Rob:Run, don't walk. And I gotta say, Whitaker... Or at least duck. Whitaker like backed up. Oh, he tried. He did. He tried. He sort of.

56:42Jo:Not that hard. Santos would not. She did not try. She knew just what to delegate.

56:46Rob:She really did.

56:46Jo:And which side of things to be on, frankly.

56:49Rob:The art of delegation. Speaking of Dr. Bangs herself, We get this new case, which seems like it might be a bit of an ongoing case, which is Roxy and her husband and this hospice situation. We get the return of Lena, who's the night shift nurse, who is also a death doula. This seems like it's going to really upset me, this storyline.

57:09Jo:It's already upsetting me quite a bit. And I think upsetting Dr. Banks quite a bit. Right. To what you were just saying about how she's reached this point in her life of wondering like, well, what's next? What do I do with myself? Like, how do I build a bigger, fuller life after everything I've been through? She's forced to confront in this episode, like staring down, meeting this woman, Roxy, who is like a similar age to her with similarly aged kids, going through end of life care because it's like rapidly spreading cancer. And not just that, but seeing Roxy then have to reckon with the loss of her own autonomy in real time, right?

57:41Jo:Even just within this very brief period she's been here, has been forced to learn, oh, you thought you could walk around your own home where you were hoping to stay comfortable until your day finally comes, now you're going to need a hospital bed. Now you're going to need a wheelchair. Now you're going to need to bring around these machines and these things plugged into you at all times. You can see her world getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Why wouldn't Dr. Banks feel really acutely about something like that given her own relationship with her kid?

58:10Rob:I also think the depiction of her husband is really, really well done in terms of the cost. like he's not complaining no and he's not talking about how hard this is but how hard is for roxy to watch him like to lose her own autonomy but then to like watch him and we don't know what's happening with the boys i like her kids either but she's got a 15 year old son so that's like a boy on the verge of like manhood who's like how much responsibility does he feel inside of the situation, but to like feel, this is not how I think she should feel, but to feel a burden upon the people you love. And I really loved this portrayal of this husband.

58:51Rob:I thought it was really, really good because he's like, he's concerned and he's grieving, but there's also this sort of like, I'm used to also getting things done, which like Lena comes in and she's like, I'll take care of But him knowing every milligram of what medication she takes and just all – I think this dynamic is really, really upsetting and compelling and one of those multi -episode arcs that – I don't know if this is an end-of-life story. Is Roxy a person who's like, I don't want to do this anymore? If this is not a kind of life I want to live anymore? I don't know. That's a sense I get from this story.

59:38Jo:It's definitely the suggestion of this episode in which she just wants to get up and go to the bathroom. Right. And is forced to confront the production that will be required to do that. And then she even attempts to do it and dangles her legs off the side of the bed and breaks down in pain and crying. And as you said, her husband is there to comfort her. But it's like, to me, like my read on her in that scene, on Roxy in that scene, is her coming to understand exactly how much will be put on her husband, on her kids, on everyone around her, so long as this is her current state of being. And it's like, that's an impossibly heavy thing for someone to carry.

1:00:12Rob:And I think introducing the concept of a death doula, which is not maybe a role that a lot of people are familiar with necessarily, like is an opportunity to understand this idea of like compassionate end of life care. Yeah. And what it means to be able to make certain decisions around that, even if it's not the decision. Like certainly her husband strikes me as someone who's like, I want every single second with you. But is that what she wants? And how will that conflict play out is sort of what I'm anticipating there.

1:00:40Jo:I mean, it's only going to get heavier from here. Pretty devastated.

1:00:43Rob:We also get a prisoner comes in, Gus Varney, who was assaulted. And this is this again, this story kind of feels like it's just getting started. But we get the like, you know, the frustration of the compassionate care doctors with the guard who is there with the handcuffs. I mean, like this isn't really like a prediction podcast or a show or whatever. but the way in which the handcuff stuff keeps coming up is this a like we will wish he was handcuffed or is it more um can we not show compassion for someone even if they have done horrible things that have put them in a in a position where people have a feeling they should

1:01:28Jo:be cuffed you know i feel like this could be a place where the pit swerves against that expectation and there comes to be a moment where it's like, he's not cuffed for whatever emergency reason and there is some kind of episode or some moment where somebody's in real danger. Just because the pit does, look, it lives out with the best of them. It wants to show a particular view of people, of systems, of politics, of everything. But it also at some points wants to show that even like the most well-meaning people can make critical mistakes because of the fact that they're well-meaning. Like that going above and beyond just because you care is a good instinct, but not always the right instinct.

1:02:04Jo:And so I could absolutely see a moment where one of the doctors or med students is in danger because they either insist that the cuffs are not put back on or just by chance they're not put back on at some critical moment. That reminds me of one of our listeners,

1:02:19Rob:I cannot remember who, emailed to call out Jackson, the law student, that that whole character profile, the fact that he's a law student, the fact that perhaps there's like schizophrenia emerging right something like that was the profile of a patient on er who was involved i don't even want to spoil this even though er was on like a million years ago but like one of the most dramatically upsetting things that ever happened on er and specifically happened with noah wiley's character on er is connected played by david krumholtz a character uh that's maybe one of my earliest exposures to david krumholtz um but like i don't think they're repeating that storyline someone was like i predict that this is going to happen.

1:03:00Rob:I'm like, I don't think they're just like copy pasting one of the most famous and shocking ER storylines over into the pit.

1:03:06Jo:It would be a reason I would say they're explicitly not going to do that.

1:03:08Rob:But that was an example where like compassionate care met its limit inside of a story. So like with this guy, Gus Varney, who I believe, I think his mouth is blocked, but I think it's him who says amen sister when Samira is like, that's just my mom calling ignore it. I think that's this guy. Paper thin skin. Like malnutrition is sort of what I was thinking. The skin strength of an 80 year old. Something degenerative.

1:03:39Jo:It could be a lot of different things. But at bare minimum, this guy's got a broken jaw, fractured ribs, cuts and bruises all over his body. I mean, he's in a terrible way and clearly needs a lot of attention and care. But how that manifests and at what costs, I'm definitely eager to see.

1:03:57Rob:I would like to acknowledge that previously I called out the pit for generations perhaps not knowing certain pop culture references when Langdon made a MASH reference. And the fact that Whitaker doesn't know who MacGyver is does a Dr. MacGyver work here. Now we're aware of what generation knows what. Love that. This is what we needed from Donnie, though.

1:04:19Jo:We needed Langdon to say pros from Donnie. He's like, what? What?

1:04:22Rob:But also, I guess shots fired the CBS MacGyver reboot, which ran for five seasons from 2016 to 2021.

1:04:29Jo:But also did it?

1:04:29Rob:Did it exist? I'm unsure. Lucas Till would like you to know that it did exist.

1:04:35Jo:Again, Woody?

1:04:38Rob:That was an interesting moment because that was a real opportunity for like, I think what I would expect from a beat like that is for Robbie and Dr. Al Hashimi to share a look of like, these kids, they don't know anything. but they didn't like Robbie was already gone when Whitaker had that reaction.

1:04:54Jo:The look is between us and Whitaker or us and Mel.

1:04:56Rob:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Langdon and Dry Ice Burn Guy.

1:04:59Jo:Yeah.

1:05:01Rob:I'm wondering if this is like the real Yinzer representation that people have been clamoring for.

1:05:05Jo:We get a Jagoff and a Yaguning me. Sure.

1:05:11Rob:And those both felt like strong Yinzer language to me. Jagoff especially.

1:05:16Jo:This has become like a surprisingly gooning heavy podcast. I don't know what's happened around here.

1:05:22Rob:When were we talking about Gooning before?

1:05:23Jo:I mean, just given all of our milking farm representation we've had on this pod, which is just a Gooning subgenre all its own.

1:05:29Rob:Sure.

1:05:30Jo:You know, there's just a lot of Gooning happening.

1:05:32Rob:I guess Jagoff, that's also the origin of Jagoff. I loved these brothers, these horrible brothers. Anything you want to say about this?

1:05:38Jo:I mostly love that there was just zero hesitation from Langdon and Donnie on wanting to see the video.

1:05:43Rob:Yeah, I want to see this video.

1:05:44Jo:The most human interaction on the entire show is like, how could you not?

1:05:47Rob:Yeah, the Donnie and LinkedIn friendship is really a treasure for us this season.

1:05:52Jo:I just love this on the pit in general, that for as weird and crazy and gnarly as things get, a doctor will sometimes just like stop to snap a picture of some crazy... Of someone with a fork up their nose. I mean, how could you not?

1:06:02Rob:Yeah, yeah, yeah. The family crest being the Penguin's logo?

1:06:06Jo:Seems fitting.

1:06:07Rob:If you and your brother were to get a family crest, what would it be?

1:06:13Jo:Maybe the logo to Wet Hot American Summer? Really? You know, why not? Full back tat.

1:06:18Rob:Wow. Okay.

1:06:19Jo:We share many things, but maybe that among all.

1:06:21Rob:Okay. All right. I love that for you. Okay.

1:06:24Jo:See, I can't even ask you this because you have shared tattoos. Like you have mutual tattoos with at least Mallory. Two people, actually. Who's the other person?

1:06:31Rob:Someone I don't talk to anymore. Cautionary tale.

1:06:33Jo:Interesting.

1:06:34Rob:Here's the story.

1:06:35Jo:Yep.

1:06:35Rob:I was in Austin, Texas.

1:06:37Jo:Yep.

1:06:37Rob:Getting a tattoo like you do. A tattoo I had planned for a really long time. It's my almost famous tattoo. Okay. The uncool that I have written on my wrist here. Um, I had planned this out for years. Uh, a friend of mine, and she was a really good friend of mine at the time, was in there with me and she's like, I want to get one too. And I was actually like, I don't really want that. You can't do that. Um, she got on her ribs, the, like my tattoo that I had been planning for a really long time and I didn't know how to say no. So I was just sort of like neat. Then we had a, maybe that was the first red flag.

1:07:10Rob:And then we had like a massive friendship blow up and we don't talk anymore, but I have a matching tattoo with her. that I never wanted in the first place.

1:07:18Jo:You simply can't do that to other people. You can't co-opt a tattoo. You can't stolen Valor a tattoo. Yeah. Especially when it's been a multi-year process. These brothers, they're in it together.

1:07:27Rob:Right.

1:07:28Jo:They want that logo on each other's bodies as an expression of who they are.

1:07:31Rob:This is also like impulsive teenage jag-off behavior and we were not that young.

1:07:36Jo:That's a new category we're going to go through every week. What was the impulsive teenage jag-off behavior of this episode? It could be anybody.

1:07:42Rob:All right. So Mr. Billings comes back with his the dislocated shoulder guy comes back he really wants something to eat or drink because it's been hours and he's been waiting to go in surgery um i had when i was i the first surgery i had last year um the there was like a lot of emergencies came in before me and i don't that's fine i don't mind waiting um and so then i could not like i was there like all day and i couldn't eat or drink that's fine but my friend who was there with me was losing her mind she's like she can't have water. I was like, I'm actually fine. And my friend who is a much like a better hydrated person than I am was just like, how are you surviving?

1:08:20Rob:And I was like, I don't know. We're in a like a high stakes situation. I think all of your other sort of functions shut down, but I was like, I'm fine. But this guy wants a beer. This guy's like, give me a beer. Give me something. I deserve it.

1:08:33Jo:But I love that for you. I love that you've reached a point in your life where you have more like a can't she have water friends and fewer. I will also have that tattoo. You know

1:08:41Rob:what that's a real upgrade it's a real it's a it's a really good point um robbie snags a beer and he snags it for louie and that brings us to louie i gotta say i don't know if you read the episode descriptions before you actually don't press play yeah did it tip the hand it was like langdon and robbie have to work together to save a patient that they really care about i was like who the fuck could that be guys and it was like in the three-line episode description the redditors have already been all over this like i i saw it in our screener site i was like did they put this out publicly and then I saw that the writers are like RIP Louis essentially so like and it's the end of the episode too like it's it's a wild thing to do but what did you make of um we'll get back to like Whitaker and LinkedIn in a second but what did you make of a Robbie stealing a beer

1:09:25Jo:for Louis I mean it's clearly an extension of his whole his whole deal okay seems ill-advised

1:09:31Rob:it seems ill-advised it's not something Dr. Collins would do like absolutely not clearly But do you feel like he's like, oh, Louis is like, Dr. Collins always hooks me up.

1:09:41Jo:He's just trying to win friends.

1:09:43Rob:And influence people. I mean, I don't think that Heather would ever steal a beer for Louis. No. But like Robbie's like, oh, Heather, like Dr. Collins isn't here. I'll help Louis in my own Robbie way.

1:09:54Jo:It's certainly an attempt to do something. Is it an attempt to help? I think he believes it is.

1:09:58Rob:Right. Okay. Back to like the Librium and Whitaker stepping in on LinkedIn. That was a real moment, I think, really well executed by all actors involved. I do have some questions about Whitaker later in a crowded trauma room talking through his feelings about it.

1:10:16Jo:This is one of my, of all the things that these shows do, including The Pit, one of my least favorite medical show tropes, which is a bunch of people mid-surgery or mid-procedure all venting about their individual plot lines across a body to each other or across a patient to each other. It's like, again, you couldn't wait 10 minutes? I understand you're running around all day.

1:10:37Rob:I don't mind having this conversation in this episode. I just really wish it had been a one-on-one that he had. Probably not with Santos because she's too involved in all of this. But, like, surely there was someone here.

1:10:46Jo:She's literally getting him, like, wrist-deep in shit just for the sake of doing it.

1:10:51Rob:But, I mean, like, Santos and... She's talked about this, about... Issa Brunas has talked about this, about how Santos this season is so... unsure of herself uh not just she's getting things wrong today but just sort of like she's really rattled by langdon being there like one of the last things langdon said to her was that she doesn't belong in in the ed and stuff like that so she's having like a real like do i actually belong here season versus her like very cocky first season um but yeah whitaker not in a crowded room that like gossip galore there's like tons of people in there what the fuck and then we hear LinkedIn here is Louis coding and then LinkedIn and Robbie get to work.

1:11:34Rob:I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't think, we've been saying for a while, we don't think Louis is going to make it out of this. How do you feel about this being the sort of like cliffhanger moment of this episode?

1:11:45Jo:I feel okay because I feel, I feel confident that it's going to resolve in a way that's not just like, oh, he's fine. He's fine. Those are the most annoying cliffhangers. This is something we've been anticipating. And if anything, I would say the biggest surprise is that it's happening so soon. I thought maybe we'd have another episode or two with Louis. maybe do some more light dental work or something happening before he ultimately ends up in dire straits. But this is, I mean, it's coming really fast and I'm sure it's going to hit everyone really hard.

1:12:11Rob:Yeah, to your point about Robbie, the cost of Robbie's, I don't know, inattention or personal preoccupations, our listener, Travis, who's a doctor, wrote in and said, Robbie's a maverick and likes to be the person who lets the residents shine. A good example of this is Louis, whom Robbie has not examined or talk to outside of exchanging pleasantries. This person says, I think they're missing a diagnosis, which a number of our listeners wrote in with the same diagnosis. But Robbie wants to let Whitaker shine because it makes him look like a good teacher. So this idea of like, that there is, you know, like an upside to this of Robbie, like one, you know, it's a teaching hospital wanting to encourage people to grow.

1:12:51Rob:But like maybe especially with Whitaker, who he's like is his shiny pet project. he's not giving him as much oversight as perhaps he needed in a circumstance like this.

1:13:02Jo:Definitely. There are lots of different kinds of hero complexes and Robbie clearly has one. And he likes being the doctor to swoop in and do the radical improvisational surgery. But he also likes being the teacher too and being shown that he is right by proxy. I feel like that's inevitably where we're going with this. And ultimately it's one of those things where Garen Howell's like so good at playing sad that it's almost inevitable. He will be forced to...

1:13:27Rob:He looks sad even when he's not sad. He just has a little puppy face.

1:13:31Jo:And that puppy's about to get kicked real hard by life. And dealing with the aftereffects of that, I mean, he already did some of that in season one. But the realities of working in this environment, as tragic and traumatizing as that might feel to Joy, is like, you just have to do this over and over. Like, people will just die and die and die. And people you care about will come through and they'll come back like you thought it was resolved, but it's not. I feel like the pit unquestionably handles that repetition very well. And the sheer attrition of what it's like to work in this environment.

1:14:00Rob:We talked about this before, but the constellation of people who will be impacted by this particular death, like when you're talking about someone who is a regular. And you think about Langdon and his particular guilt around Louis specifically. Robbie who has known Louis and Dana who has known Louis for a long time Perla who's been really in the mix here with Louis this season everyone's just going to be what does it mean we've talked about we've seen this sort of moment of silence but what does it mean when a death like this occurs where it's just like someone who has no friends and family perhaps and sort of no place to go.

1:14:47Like the friends and family

1:14:49Rob:are the members of the emergency department.

1:14:53Jo:Yes, that's where we're getting into very like, at least maybe this is just me as like a West Wing person, but very like Toby showing up for a random homeless veteran whose coat was found with his card in it.

1:15:04Rob:Don't make me cry. It's a devastating episode.

1:15:07Jo:But you're right. Like all of the saddest things we've seen on the pit to date have mostly been people who have no association whatever whatever with the doctors. A couple exceptions to that, but I would say some of the most heartbreaking plot lines are just random strangers having the worst day of their lives. Louis is not a random stranger. And some of the reason that Robbie is bringing him the beer is because he's not a random stranger. That's not a thing he would do to just anybody. It is a gesture of a kind. And again, is it the right thing to do or not? I think people can disagree and probably the answer is no, but I'm not mad about it.

1:15:39Jo:I'm not mad about it, but it's also like not textbook. And that is kind of Robbie's general zone. And it's certainly his general zone with somebody who he feels like he knows well enough to know Louis, to know like whatever happens today, Louis is probably coming back here one way or the other. And that's a fatalist way to look at it, but it's the track record.

1:15:56Rob:What's the saddest the pit has ever made you? Like what storyline got you the hardest?

1:16:01Jo:I think season one, I mean, look, like the drug overdose teenager was tough walking, like everyone stopped, the hero walk out. That one was tough. But honestly, for me, I think it was the adult siblings trying to find a way to say goodbye to their dying father.

1:16:15Rob:Yeah.

1:16:17Jo:And learning what that really means. That, again, I think this show is masterful in just the variety of cases it will present you. And wherever you are in your life, it's going to needle at that point in time really, really hard. And I'm not going through anything like that personally right this second. But we all stare down some version of that in time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it got me really hard.

1:16:38Rob:That hero walk I think about a lot and also Dr. King, Dr. Mel King talking to like the little girl whose sister died. I almost forgot.

1:16:46Jo:Okay, sorry.

1:16:47Rob:This has been the Prestige TV podcast, a very uplifting and fun podcast to listen to. I mean, I did love the woman who potentially exposed Ogilvy to TV.

1:16:57Jo:Yeah.

1:16:58Rob:Consider minding your own business was a great line from her. She's right. Yeah. You got time to let us do that? Where the fuck do you think I have to be? Like, I really liked her.

1:17:06Jo:Everyone is over his whole deal.

1:17:07Rob:Yeah, yeah.

1:17:08Jo:Even people who just met him 15 seconds ago.

1:17:10Rob:Worst bedside manner in the entire, and that's, and Joy's here, and he clears that bar, you know?

1:17:16Jo:Joy leaps over it, not even close. Yeah, yeah.

1:17:19Rob:All right, did we do it?

1:17:20Jo:I think we did it.

1:17:21Rob:All right, well, thank you, Rob Mahoney. Thank you, Joe. Thanks to Kai Grady.

1:17:26Jo:Always.

1:17:27Rob:And thanks to baby Jane Doe. And we'll see you next for our industry pod, which is coming early this week, because industry is dropping early, because of the Super Bowl, ever heard of it? So, I think our industry episode is going up Friday or Saturday, something like that. Somewhere early. A little early. And PrestigeTV at Spotify.com and DrSythanks at Gmail.com. You work at a water park and want to let us know it's a perfectly safe place to be.

1:17:55Jo:No one who works at a water park is going to defend it. They've been through too much. They've seen too many things.

1:18:00Rob:All right. Okay. Follow up.

1:18:01Jo:If you thought this was an explosive shit episode, can you even imagine?

1:18:05Rob:Wrong. Come on. I'm sorry. Come on. What's the worst thing you, a water park employee, have ever seen at the water park? Oh, boy. And can it beat Rom's Old Testament infestation story?

1:18:18Jo:I'm talking tens if not hundreds of thousands of crickets. It was a lot.

1:18:23Rob:Texas seems like not a great place. All right. We'll see you soon. Bye.

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