Scene Study: 'The Pitt'
Lessons in how to be a person in the world, courtesy of the hit Max series.
What is wrong with us?
The answer to that will likely be too long and too detailed to fit within the confines of this essay, this website, or this internet. But if we had to rapidly summarize the contours of the problem, a good part of it seems to be that too many of us have stopped believing that other people’s problems have any relevance to our lives, that we might play any tangible role in offsetting others’ grief or pain, and that we have collectively chosen to celebrate puffed-up purveyors of cruelty instead of people who quietly bestow kindness.
Hey, let’s talk about The Pitt instead, OK?
The new Max series, created by R. Scott Gemmill and executive produced by ER’s John Wells (and the subject of a lawsuit by Michael Crichton’s widow, who claims that the show is an unauthorized reboot of the ‘90s classic), is set in a Pittsburgh teaching hospital over the course of one very long shift. Each episode occupies an hour of the day, with Dr. Robinavitch (ER vet Noah Wyle) and his staff of trainee physicians wrestling with all manner of catastrophes, disasters, and mysteries. Every episode is a variation on a singular theme, but for our purposes, let’s look at the fourth episode, “10:00 A.M.,” in which kindness and medicine are disposed in roughly equivalent doses.
Each room in The Pitt is a problem. Each one requires a diagnosis. Sometimes this is a medical problem. Sometimes this is an emotional or spiritual problem. Some problems are life-threatening, and some are modest. Some come with terror stalking their approach, and others are more workaday. Each solution is different. This is a show in which an unfathomably giant number of doors are opened and closed, and countless squirts of hand sanitizer are dispensed.
After the paywall, subscribers will learn:
how The Pitt’s characters use their humanity to solve problems
how The Pitt serves as a metaphor for life in America in 2025
what The Pitt can teach us about facing adversity