Noah Wyle should have just secured himself the Emmy, brilliantly portraying a broken down, vulnerable, broken, grieving, in pain, and overwhelmed Robby in what may be the best episode of The Pitt yet -- it's hard to decide, with every episode top-notch -- continuing to prove it's easily the best show on TV right now.
All season, The Pitt has been building to the final scene of this episode. The ED continues to be inundated with patients from the shooting at Pitfest -- including Robby's stepson Jake (Taj Speights) and his girlfriend Leah. Jake, fortunately, only has minor injuries, especially compared to Leah, whose injuries were fatal. But Robby refuses to give up on her, working on her long past the point he should stop, giving her more blood than he should, and resulting in everyone clearly very concerned about her. Then, after he tells Jake she died, the young man insists on seeing her, and so Robby, though he shouldn't, brings him to the makeshift morgue.
"The fact that we've saved as many people as we have is a f**king miracle," Robby tells him. "But you didn't save Leah," Jake says. And that's when it begins... "I don't know how many people I've helped today, but I can tell you every other person who has died," he says, emotional, as flashbacks show him with his mentor, Dr. Adamson, when he died during COVID. "There was a man named Mr. Spencer who died in front of his children and an 18-year-old who was braindead from a fentanyl overdose, and a guy with a heart condition and a little girl who drowned trying to save her sister, and I'm going to remember Leah long after you've forgotten her." And when he realizes he's breaking down, he rushes Jake out of the room and collapses to the floor, crying. Wyle's work, from his failed attempt to save Leah to these scenes with Jake and the ending, is the best on a medical drama in a long time.
Having Jake blame him for being unable to save Leah "is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back," Wyle tells TV Insider. Watch the full video interview above.
Filming that final sequence was "cathartic," he admits. "I, many times during the course of the season, had to suppress that wellspring of emotion and find other ways of channeling it because it was ever present through most of filming for me. So I looked at that date as almost like a release date. That was the day I finally got to unload what the character had been carrying the whole time. So in a very kind of masochistic way that actors look at things like this, I looked forward to that day with great relish and really enjoyed it."
It feels like Robby is grieving for his patients and for himself in that moment, but Wyle isn't sure his character's conscious of what he's dealing with exactly. "I just imagined floodwaters rising and him not being able to get to the top and get any more oxygen and then the panic of the realization that this is happening and he can't keep it from happening," he shares. It's "just a perfect storm of shame and pain and embarrassment and un-dealt with grief."
Abbot (Shawn Hatosy) does try to stop Robby from working on Leah once it becomes clear that he can't do anything and he's spending time and resources on her that could be used to save 10 other patients. Hatosy thinks that it could've reached a point where his character, a vet, really had to step in if Robby hadn't stopped when he did.
"Having seen stuff like this before, he understands where Robby's going and that he needs to go there. It's also the blood; there's only so much. It's not just his efforts, it's the resources, which are just at such a premium need," Hatosy explains before praising Wyle's performance. "But Noah, his performance as a doctor, he's the best. There's no denying that. He's the Laurence Olivier of doctor acting. But his performance in the show -- the layers, the depth of emotion, his ability to lead and to be charming and compassionate -- it's a masterclass, and I'm blown away by his performance every week. I'm a fan. I watch these episodes and I work closely with him, and I'm amazed and learning even at this late stage in my career from him."
Patrick Ball's Langdon may not be Robby's favorite person at the moment -- the attending sent him home after realizing he's a drug addict and stole patients' pills, but he came back on his own to help with the shooting victims -- but he still calls out and offers to help with Leah.
"I'm seeing my best friend coming up against the worst of what we face in this job, and losing anybody is really hard, but for the most part, we do everything we can to maintain a sense of boundaries and a sense of compartmentalization. And then you have somebody come in that you know and that is important to you. And those boundaries, those walls crumble," Ball says, speaking as his character. "And I know him deeply. He's my best friend, and I can see that he's going down and we're on the outs in that moment and I don't know where I stand. I don't know if I have a job, but I know that I'm watching my best friend fall apart."
McKay (Fiona Dourif) also knows what Jake and therefore losing Leah meant to Robby as she witnessed what happened across the ED. "He's the anchor in the hospital, so if he can do it, there's hope that everybody can do it sort of," explains Dourif. "And so to watch that figure break or come to a breaking point, I think feels resonant for everyone. I both look up to Noah Wyle and as McKay look up to the character, to Robby. So it was watching someone really get tested."
Looking ahead after that devastating ending, there is a hole for Abbot to step up. "I also think that there is room for a reversal, if you will, whereas when we first meet these two, Robby is helping Abbot deal with some things, and there's an opportunity maybe ahead where Abbot can help Robby," Hatosy teases.
Elsewhere in the episode, when McKay's ankle monitor goes off, malfunctioning and interfering with patient care, she drills a hole into it. She knows she'll "probably" get into trouble for that. Given what was happening at the time, Dourif doesn't think she even had time to consider all the consequences.
"I think the priority becomes very clear, which is saving the people who are dying and being disfigured in front of her. I mean, when she makes that decision at that moment, it's clear that this girl might be paralyzed. Those are the stakes that's happening," she says. "And the ankle monitor was unfair to begin with. So I think that's where the decision came in."
Plus, when Santos (Isa Briones) can't find an attending to help with a procedure on a patient, she steps up and does it herself. That impresses Abbot, though he does also remark that she never should have done it on her own. It's very different from the tension that's existed all season between Santos and Langdon.
"Just because of the nature of who [Abbot] is and how he operates and makes decisions in the moment regardless of protocol, I think he respects her just knowing that she went through with the procedure without approval, because ultimately that's what she did was she saved a woman's life, and that's all that really matters," Hatosy says.
He adds, "I do think the dynamic, too, is interesting, to see Langdon and how he shows up and how I just approached it. There was nothing specific said, but to me, there was room for -- because it seemed like Langdon from time to time was looking for a new mentor, at least when we were doing it. And Abbot is just kind of standoffish, which I thought was a fun way to play it." He's also not sure how much Abbot knows about what happened with Langdon, "but I'm sure he knows something."
What did you think of this episode, especially that gut-wrenching final scene? Let us know in the comments section below.