The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Pitt,' Ep. 7-11: What's Up With Dr. Langdon?

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Rob and Joe are back at the busiest hospital in TV to speculate on what’s to come (21:17), follow the breadcrumbs to the big Dr. Langdon reveal (28:53), and take a look at the patient caseload so far (37:15). Plus, the return of flashbacks (53:31), and are there any ER cameos we’d like to see (58:14)? Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Try Coffee mate Creamers Now: http://coffeemate.com Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Production: Chris Thomas  Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode of the Prestige TV podcast is brought to you by CoffeeMate. CoffeeMate has been searching the globe for flavors that pair perfectly with coffee. So when they heard that the new season of HBO's The White Lotus was set in Thailand, they were inspired to bro up two new flavors, Thai ice coffee and pinia colada flavored creamers. They're available for a short time only. So for the love of coffee, go try them now. Hello and welcome to the Prestige TV podcast.

I am Rob Mahoney. I'm Joanna Robinson. And today we're returning to the pit. But as you can tell, we're doing it slightly differently that we usually do. Joe, this is a teaching hospital, as we know. You have so graciously handed me the scalpel to figure out how we're going to navigate this week. I mean, how are you feeling as my Dr. Robbie in this parallel, letting me do my thing out here? You're Rob Mahoney.

You're the Dr. Robbie. Are you not? I see what you're saying in this situation. Well, maybe I can be nurse Dana. You know what I mean? Just sort of like, seen it all, seen some shit. And you've seen plenty of show yourself. But I'm thrilled to be here and trying not to have a like a panic attack in another room or anything like that.

Well, chaos ensues at the pit. I like the Dana comp for you. You have seen some shit. You're also currently seeing some shit that we are covering elsewhere on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Come back. Two bites at the apple for White Lotus. You, Bill, Mallor, doing the instant reaction pods on Sunday covering White Lotus. You and I are circling back for the deep dive on White Lotus. And then we are doing

severance pods every Friday trying to figure out what the fuck is happening in that show. That's now, if you include this pod, four times in your feed that you get to hear Joanna Robinson this week. I hope you all realize how lucky you are. How blessed a life you are living. Three times that I get to record with you, Rob, in a given week. What a joy. A true blessing, a true joy, almost as much of a joy, Joe, as all of the emails we have been getting at Prestige TV at Spotify.com, the pit. And one of the prompts we had put out was this idea of the pit as a show that we like to watch, maybe not quite week to week, but bank two episodes or so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, kind of give ourselves a little pile, but not a full binge. How are you feeling with that sort of format

right now? Yeah, it's been interesting because we're not covering the show week to week, I tend to sort of skip a week and catch up and watching, I'm watching like two or three at a time, something like that. I've never let it go for the full stretch between our pod, so I'm like, you know, submerging myself in five hours of trauma or something like that. That's a lot of blood. But I think sort of, I did want to talk to you sort of more broadly about we've been talking about severance and White Lotus as week-to-week pods and sort of how the audience is feeling about lulls in the middle of a season or you and I were sort of talking about

this idea that like maybe people are a little unused to watching things week to week. I think the pit is like even way more than White Lotus and Severance is such a throwback kind of show. We talked a lot about ER when we first started covering the pit. And I think they do such a brilliant job of like bleeding storylines through so that you never feel

completely lost. Like this many, you know, we're 11 episodes into a 15 episode in season. I no longer need, not that I don't have them, but I no longer need nicknames for all the characters. I know who all the characters are. And that's great.

But we did. Yeah, we got a ton of email from people sort of emailing in ideas of what to call a mini binge. This is something that we asked about. We're at a little bit of a loss as to what to actually, how to trademark this model that we have invented, clearly you and I, for watching television. Yeah. No one's ever done it before and no one will ever do it again.

Here, we got a ton of emails about this. Someone suggested seconds. Sure. Intermittent binging. Okay. I see what they're doing. A sminge. I don't like it.

We're getting somewhere, though. We're not quite there, but I like the momentum of we're building towards. I love a portmanteau. Smidge plus binge is great, but the act of saying the word sminge is simply a no for me. Chunking. Okay. Like a chunk of episodes. That sounds like something else, though.

I don't know what it sounds like, but something else. Cluster viewing. Sounds a little clinical. Batch. batch viewing sort of thing. Twinging. We got several people saying twinging, twinge, twin ninge.

Anyway, a lot of people really liked the sort of like the idea of a twin for two and binge together, twinging. And last and last and least, and this is one I'm my favorite, is microbinging. Like microdosing, but you're microbinging. Yes, I like this.

Yeah. That's where I'm sort of landing is microbinging. My only concern about microbinging is that there is a breed of viewer, and if this applies to you, I'm speaking directly to you and I am begging you to change your habits and your life. Of people who will binge

watch shows, but watch them at like 1.5 or 2 or even faster speeds, I could see someone misunderstanding a microbinger's like, I'm just going to, I'm going to bust through even this binge watch at a, frankly, inhuman pace. Absolutely no. I know

that, I think it was Audible, got in trouble for putting out a sort of ad about how you should not listen to audiobooks at a faster speed than 1.0. I'm not here to like speed shame anyone necessarily. I'm here to speed shame you. I don't think it's the best way to enjoy a story. I would encourage everyone to watch it at 1.0. Have I listened to a podcast in my day at like 1.2, 1.3?

I have. Yeah. But watching a show, come on. What do you do? you are watching a TV show or a movie at anything beyond 1.0 speed, just read the Wikipedia summary. You're not enjoying it. You're not seeing it. You and I are not here for the same reasons, effectively. But I like those options. I do like the batch, the batch binge as well. A batch or the batch watching. Yeah. Maybe that's like the budding small batch baker in me where I'm trying

to rein in the portions a little bit. I'm trying to get things under control. I'm not trying to spend all day watching the pit. You know, I just want my two hours of dedicated emotional trauma and then I'm going to digest for a little while. Are you a small bash baker, Rob? Well, not usually. It was somewhat of a foreign concept to me, but at a certain point, you just have so many leftovers. And I can only eat 80% of a batch of cookies

so many times in my life before you start modifying your lifestyle. Got it, got it. All right. I think in particular it applies to the pit because of everything we've talked about this show. It is so dense. There are so many cases. There's just so much flying at you. It's incredibly stressful. We've been getting lots of emails from people in the medical community,

even still talking about the accuracy of this show, but also hearing from people who work in those fields who say, I can't watch it for that reason. It feels too much like being in the trenches a little bit, like the triage and the flow and the pain, like dealing with patients in this specific way in an ER setting over and over and over. And I would say maybe no more so than this batch of episodes.

We're talking through episode 11 today. Things are just getting increasingly emotional, increasingly gut-wrenching. And with where we are right now, Joe, How are you feeling about the show overall? How are you feeling about some of the emotional heft of what's being thrown at us? Thanks so much for asking me. I'm having such a good time with The Pit.

And I'm so glad it was Rob's sort of idea and insistence that we come back before the finale and do a sort of mid-mid, mid-way check-in. And I'm so glad. A mid-j. Yeah. I'm so glad you did because I love this show. I think it's phenomenal. and I'm so emotionally invested. I think from a like sort of dissecting it as a craft point of view,

I think it's brilliant the way that they've built these characters up slowly. Like when we first start, we felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of characters. But again, like I said, now I feel like I understand the storylines for everyone. They're complicated relationships. The very complicated characterization of people where you don't have anyone who is a villain or a hero or anything like that. But even with someone like Langdon who had, of course, like a big episode 10, I went back and sort of rewatched, you know, some of the episodes in this window or actually all of the episodes in this window. And so watching the build up to that Langdon moment and watching like all the wins they give him or all the moments of kindness with Mel or anything like that. Like they're not trying to paint someone as, you know, that's the point.

is like he's flying under the radar. Surely not. Oh, yes, it is him. Or, like, you know, there's wins and losses for everyone. There's people who frustrate us. And then it turns out that they're the person we need in any given moment. So all that stuff is really, really good. And I think having episode eight, which a lot of people like not only wrote in,

but sort of like tweeted at us, blue skyed at us, you know, whatever about episode eight, which has the honor. walk for our like sort of our day one case and then this you know this young girl who dies drowning absolutely gut-wrenching emotion and I think it's having it at the almost exact midway point of a 15 episode season is so smart because they really earned they earned that and we are really feeling for all not just like it would be sad no matter what if we had to watch like a parents grieve a little girl who died accidentally, but to watch Robbie have to navigate that

or to watch Mel have to navigate the nuances of talking to the sister with like the little stuff bear and stuff like that. Like that's all stuff that is extremely earned deep character stuff for us at this point. And then this is the last thing I'll say and I'll wrap up. Like we, I think 11, you were so smart to pick this episode, maybe by coincidence, but like this is the perfect episode to check in on because it feels like the rest of the season is going to be something else entirely. We're going to swing into a stretch of dealing with a mass trauma, a mass shooting.

And so to think of it sort of broken down that way, and we were making all these jokes at the beginning of the season about like a 15 episode season. And I think I even accidentally said 18 episodes, a 15 episode season in this economy. But like, look at all you can do when you have that time to stretch and grow, you know? especially structurally too, not only are you hitting all those emotional beats and those character beats that you mentioned, but we're now at a point in the story where Langdon is out. Collins has been sent home. The kids are going to have to step up and play an even bigger role in the treatment of so many patients. And Robbie himself is kind of coming apart at the seams and really can't stand still for more than 30 seconds at this point because he's being pulled in all these directions. And so when you have all of these disparate bits of character development, you know, Mel has been acclimating herself really well to figuring out like how to really.

regulate and the emotional toll of being in this specific ER. Whitaker has been learning how to communicate with patients and the patient's families a lot better. We've seen kind of the slow role development of that and him finally get some wins. He also snapped a rat's neck. We're going to move on. Wait, wait. Before the rat's neck, I really am so sorry to interrupt you in your flow.

I really need a Rob Mahoney weigh in on the moment when Whitaker crumbs akimbo at the workstation. And Robbie comes out and he's like, we don't eat out here. and like Robbie like angrily slaps the crumbs basically on onto the floor. Rob Mahoney, crumb take? And we wonder how we got rats. You know, it's really not a great mystery. And as far as Whitaker's behavior, less concerning than the fact that he has a full-on conversation with the rat when he encounters it in a subsequent episode.

So everyone is coping in their own way. Some people will listen to some ocean sounds. Some people are calling their kids. Some people are talking to rats. Santos is out here being right, I think, to a degree that we needed her to be right. Like, we needed her to have some wins. We needed that character to follow her instincts on some things and turn out correct, not just about Langdon, but like the MDA, MDMA seizure, the person who's like in the ice bath.

She's actually the person who gives like the winning advice, basically, on how to keep that person alive. And even Javati's staying on her feet, you know? She's probably taking the biggest else of anyone, some big swings and misses on. on the office dating. Yeah, you know, it's day one. You don't have to swing that hard that fast. She tried. She really tried it.

She really did. But she's keeping at it. Who can blame her? Mateo is the... He's a hot commodity. Absolute dream boat of the ER. Absolute. Ex-husbands are coming in taking one look at this guy and being like,

I have identified the problem. Oh, I can't wait to talk about Chad. I'm a big, big Chad fan, honestly. Chad is, he seems like. like pretty bad, pretty bad dad, seemingly a bad skateboarder. Oh, yeah. Questionable judge of character and his future partners. We're going to get into all of that.

But I think we also, too, in some of these characters, especially the more senior members of the staff, we've reached the point in the patient cycle where they are starting to treat almost like mirror versions of themselves. Like Collins helping to deliver a complicated pregnancy. You have Dr. Bangs, who's treating this like single mom with her, you know, young daughter who's kind of taking, care of her and they're having to confront all of these different things about their own lives.

Honestly, I feel like that's kind of true of this show for the viewers, too. Like, every case is not going to hit you. But good Lord, Joe, you put a little girl writing a card to her dead sister in a waiting room and I'm just going to be torn apart. I think there's so many different beats that can really hit you hard emotionally on the pit. And for me, I think that one most of all, but I got to say the honor walk too, I also found just tremendously affecting. And a lot of that is because of the production of this specific show.

It's not just this idea, which I think is elegant and is noble of everyone. And it really reflects not just a different mode of TV making, but a different sensibility of the characters on TV, this idea that these are noble people doing their best at their job and taking a moment to honor this patient who died. But also the production value of a show that says, we don't need Treekly music over the top of this. We don't need an overwrought speech. like you're just going to let it ride and you're going to you're going to believe that you have built the character and the story enough to that point that all of this is going to pay off in such a huge way and it really did when so okay two things the it's hard not that you ask me it's hard for me

to pick my favorite character my favorite performance like no wiley obviously is like holding the show up on his shoulders but like um i i said this last time i do think that mel Taylor Dearden is Mel. There's so many little choices and little moments and little reactions every time she, like, asks if she can, you know, sit in on a case and she just gets excited about, like, whatever that it's going to be. Have you ever seen a person so happy as when she finds out she gets to pick thousands of pieces of gravel out of a man's leg? Oh, my God. After getting hang out with a dog, she's having a great time. She's thrilled. I love her And so to watch her

Her uncertainty Her all of this sort of stuff And then to watch her with this little girl Because the little girl with the card is sad Obviously The teddy bear Like hugging the bear Mel's whole like tell the bear

And we know that Mel has this relationship with her sister And it's just like That absolutely killed me But then when Robbie was like We would like to come to the funeral for your son during the honor walk, I was just like, I lost it.

I absolutely lost it. And I think this show is phenomenal. And that's a great, great example. We talked about this sort of, in earlier coverage, the fentanyl overdose, the teenage son with the fentanyl overdose, who is now become an organ donor,

that's a, eight episode long arm. And so you don't get that. And he actually died, I would guess, in episode four or so. Like it's been a long tale in terms of the parents processing as much as actually treating their son. Right. Exactly. And so you don't get, even on like, you know, ER, Gray's Anatomy or whatever, like you don't get an eight episode usually. Yeah. An eight episode arc, you know, unless it's like a love interest for a character or something like that.

This is just like these parents. going through this inconceivable, terrible thing. And so then to watch the whole hospital kind of come to a standstill for this moment felt right, you know, for a character that we had been invested in this long. Or something like Doug Driscoll punching Dana, like something that we built towards for like five episodes, something like that. Like it was, you knew and I knew last time we talked that this was going to go off in some way. This is not how I thought it was going to go off. to go off though, but it was just sort of like they built that and they earned it. You know, yeah, absolutely.

I think all those powder keg elements really work. I think there's a lot of subtle writing in the show that helps you as a viewer understand. Not just what are the affecting cases to you personally. Like, you're going to feel what you feel when you watch this show. But you can tell that the doctors and nurses on the floor are asking about the little girl who drowned, are asking about the kid who died from the fendil overdose and the family. Like you can tell the cases. the instances that are really hitting everybody hard where they want to know, even if they're not

working those cases, they want to know a little bit more about them. And I think you're right that Noah Wiley is being put in a position to just hit home runs every single time, not with big emotional speeches because there's no time for a big emotional speech. But just these just interrupted before we can even get started. But he gets the moment. He gets the reaction. He gets the bit of tenderness that he's expressing to these families. And there will be a push for him. I am sure. come award season. There will be a push for the pit overall as a dramatic series, I would think, come award season. I really hope there is one for Taylor Dearden, too. I think I agree with you that not only is Mel such a great, well-conceived character and one that I think could very easily

edge into something overly broad on a different kind of show. Overly quirky. Exactly. Overly quirky. So it's a great character, but that performance is wonderful, even on a really deep ensemble cast. Yeah, it's very much, that's such a good point. I hadn't thought of it. that way that this could like easily be a sort of monk-esque lead of her own character's welcome kind of medical show and the fact that like it's just such a nuanced. And again, like I said last time, like I've seen Taylor Dearden and other things and this is not her usual speed. So it's even all the more impressive to see her with her sort of like mousy blonde hair slicked all the way down the glasses on and just sort of like fully embodying this this character. And again, Mel works so

well on her own, but then also, like, her connection with Langdon. Yeah. Work so well for the overall, like, symphony that they're trying to craft here because, like, Langdon, budding head with Santos or, or being arrogant about this, that of the other thing. Um, if we send him home and he's just been like Dr. Ken the whole time, then it, it's not as, we don't feel the betrayal that Robbie feels. Robbie feels betrayed. And we do, too because we were like, we're rooting for you. Because in all these other edges, you have these softer rounded moments that really

we connect with. When he admires the way that Mel deals with the patient on the spectrum, you know what I mean? And he's just sort of like any, and he seems like someone who's like willing to learn a bit despite all the things he already knows. That's a character we want to root for. And we're excited to see how he grows from there. Is this the last we see of him?

I don't know. He's calling him. bunch. You mentioned Collins and Langdon go home, but does that stay true if it's an all hands on deck mass shooter situation? Maybe not. And the timing at this point, there's like an hour left in the shift, but obviously more than just one hour of television left. So something is going to stretch on here. We saw, I think, at the outset of the season, a lot of the previous shifts cases kind of rolling in, right? Like the mother-daughter abortion plot line. There was like a veteran who had passed away that Robbie had to meet with their family.

Right. So we're at the point where the cases are trying to bleed over into someone else's problem theoretically. But yeah, there's a mass shooting, which it seems to be. And I hate to say, Joe, I hate to take too big a victory laugh. We called that from Jump Street. Pit Fest. Pit Fest was not looking good. Everyone was a little too jazzed at the prospect of going to Pit Fest.

As soon as Jake was like, can't wait to go to Pit Fest with my girlfriend. I'm like, oh, no. Not looking good for Jake. But I agree. with you, it seems like, just based on the frequency and quantity of calls, Langdon will be back in some capacity, even if it's just a one-off conversation with Robbie or something at the end of the day. Can I ask you? I don't want to spend too much time on, like, speculating what's to come because there's so much to talk about what has happened. Obviously, we're covering several episodes.

I have this dread watching Robbie handle this. And they're obviously sort of seeding this. I'm like, is Robbie being set up to be, not take the fall for like the drugs missing, but like, who knows about it right now? Dana knows. Santos, who is like, nobody else really likes her sort of character. Even Garcia's turning on her at this point. And then all season, what have we been hearing, Robbie's off today, Robbie's having a bad day, don't worry about, you know, don't mess with Robbie today. like we've got the princess and perla our beloved philippina nurses are like gossiping about it like um so i'm like is there is there a version of the story where Robbie isn't believed or however it was

that he handled it was you know and then we and then Langdon comes back anyway i'm just worried about Robbie i'm really worried about him like you know and i'm worried about a season long he's erratic he's erratic he's erratic sort of warning bell that's been ringing, you know. I could see that outcome. I could also see, you know, we see him hesitate to flush the pills. We see him try to basically give them back to the patient that the pills were stolen from in the first place. Yeah.

There's obviously such a bleeding heart, compassionate part of Dr. Poppy, where I think he's going to draw the hard line on LinkedIn can't come back here. But in terms of this is the kind of information that would sink a doctor's career, right? That would cause huge professional repercussions. Lose your license, I think. Lose your license. Yeah. And so will Dr. Robbie draw the line at you can't be here and you need to go to rehab or you need to seek some kind of treatment, but I don't want to torpedo everything that you've been building.

I have such professional respect for you to this point. And part of the reason I wonder if we're headed in that direction is this show is not ER. Legally speaking, the pit is not ER. We must reiterate for all purposes. If Michael Cratin's widow is listening, this is not ER. Some spoilers here for ER because I know a lot of people. started watching it as a result of the pit. So if you don't want to hear spoilers,

please, please jump significantly ahead here as I drop a little bit. But there's a big ER storyline where Noah Wiley's character, John Carter, gets hooked on pain killers. And if you conceive of this show, which is not ER, as something that was perhaps written

to be a sequel to ER, it would make sense that an older John Carter would want to be compassionate to another addict going through a similar situation. And, and maybe try to help Langdon in some way that we haven't seen Dr. Robbie help him so far. It's so funny, we're still talking about that ER spoiler

in case you skipped ahead to here and you're wondering. It happens deep into the show to John Carter. Deep-ish. That show ran for a long time. I mean, six-ish seasons of network-length television then is quite deep. There's a moment in this stretch of episodes when Robbie sort of twinges his back. and I was like, is there a version of this show where Robbie has the baggie of pills in his pocket and he like takes one? And I was like, they can't do that again.

They can't give us John Carter 2.0. I can't do it. But I did think I was like, I was like, oh no, Chekhov's back muscle. I have no idea. Look, back pain is no joke. It does not fuck around. Very sympathetic to anyone who needs to take drugs for back pain. It will absolutely mess you up.

but in a closing the loopway it was really cool to see Noah Wiley on the other side of a very similar confrontation like you can go back and watch these scenes on YouTube from ER did you watch them I did watch them

there's some like very beat for beat similarities as far as the kinds of excuses that addicts try to make in these situations the ways they try to evade like it to give Noah Wiley that opportunity and to come at it with such like uncompromising

emotional heft like there is not a moment of hesitation him. It is a black and white issue. If these drugs are in your locker, you are fucking out of here. And he's right to do it. And I don't think at this point, you could ask for a better, like, a better medical-oriented actor to deliver that sort of moment in a show like this than Noah Wiley. I love that you're toe-dipping ER. That's really exciting to me. I think that, like, I'm curious to hear, again, as you mentioned, we've gotten so many great emails from medical professionals.

Press ThtTV at Spotify.com if you have insight into this. I'm curious about the caution. It's a legal issue. It's also a reputation issue. We did get an email from Kieran who mentioned that not only is this sort of

a moral issue for someone like Dr. Robbie, but Robbie himself would be legally responsible for anything that Langdon did as a resident who's like under his umbrella. I'm curious about the secrecy around. you know, him asking data to look into this, him saying to Santos, like, please don't talk to anyone about this. Her talking to Garcia, Garcia saying, I want nothing to do with this.

Also, you're trouble. Like, fuck you, Garcia. Yeah, not good. Like, I want nothing to do with this. So, like, yeah, is this a, I don't want to be called into court to testify? Like, or sort of circling the wagons around your own, you know, sort of like, I don't feel like. I remember this from medical procedurals, but definitely from like a police procedural or something.

Like I don't want to know about this misconduct because we have a strict policy of like protect our own or turn a blind eye or whatever. And once you say it, then we have to act on it. Yes. Like I was, it was giving that for me. I'm very curious to see how that all pans out in the next four hours question mark or is this a season two plot. I don't know. It's true. Yeah.

I mean, these things could definitely stretch on. And to the extent we've not seen the end of Langdon, it could be in a season two return in some capacity or another. Season two is a court case. Honestly, would not hate it. And frankly, given how many of these medical cases are bumping up against the law at this point, there's so many like legal and police implications of so many of these cases they're trying to work out. A real missed opportunity, Joe, on a Chicago med style branching out, spin off. Like, where's our pit PD? Oh, pit law?

We're just leaving money on the table. I mean, don't threaten HBO with a good time. They're in the IP business these days, Rob. You never know. Would watch. But how did you feel about the Langdon reveal in general? You mentioned you revisited some of the episodes. Like, now that you know where things end up for him,

did you see enough clues and breadcrumbs and indications to think, okay, this makes sense? Well, we had talked about this because the previous episode we covered did have Santos being like asking questions. Yes. And we were talking about Santos as a kind of character where, it's so easy for us the audience to not believe her because she's so abrasive. And so the way in which the show is sort of testing us on that front.

But watching her ask Mel, for example, Langdon's pet, his favorite. All of our favorite, if we're being really honest about it. If Mel had noticed anything about Dr. Langdon and she was like, no. And she's like, well, he sweats a lot, but I don't know that might. might be genetic and I was like, I mean, or an addict might sweat a lot if they're like in between doses or whatever. You know what I mean? Like I was like, that's interesting.

But yeah, the progression of Dana showing her sort of the system of how to enter the drugs and take them out. Essentially, my understanding is that he was resealing the containers with medical adhesive as his purple adhesive. And so I think essentially when Santos sees the purple adhesive used elsewhere, she's like, oh, that's what this is. I thought that, I don't know, I thought it was really brilliantly rolled out. And, like, right before the reveal reveal, you have Collins accusing Langdon

of being an adrenaline junkie. And he's like, what'd you call me? You know? He does react very strangely. I will say, this is the one bit of that did not work for me because I agree with you. I actually think it was quite deftly threaded in terms of very small markers that you would easily gloss over. until the adrenaline junkie remark, because, yes, him reacting that way to someone calling him any kind of junkie makes sense under the circumstances.

The reason she's calling him an adrenaline junkie is because he's talking about, can I make it to the grocery store to buy some salmon after work? So it felt like they really wanted to get to the adrenaline junkie and they just like, okay, salmon. Or, Rob, Rob, as a person who on this very podcast feed has asked for fishmonger advice. I have. Did you feel personally attacked by this question? Look, I think, look, you're not going to make it to a fishmonger after work. Fishmongers are very much like a 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. kind of endeavor. So you're not going to get the highest quality product, but can he make it to a reasonably good grocery store to get a piece of salmon? I think he can, and I don't think that makes him an adrenaline junkie.

Yeah, no, I don't think adrenaline junkie is the word I would use, but I did kind of like her point of. of like you always have to do the most. Yes. You're getting the dog for the family. He does seem like he's just impulsive in chasing after things in a way that contrasts with how we see him as a doctor, right? And this is sort of the idea of someone who can be sort of competent to a point in their professional lives so they can obscure what's going on underneath, obscure their addiction.

But when you really look under the hood, they're just doing erratic things all over the place for themselves and the families for everyone around them. It's tough scenes for Dr. Langdon. As I mentioned, I don't really need the nicknames anymore. I know who Lyndon is, but I did change his name in my nose from Dr. Ken to Dr. Benzo, just so he knows that that's his new updated name. It is updated. Dr. Bags is eternal.

That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, but I'm adding Dr. Benzo into the mix. There was a point in this section of episodes, too, where Mirna, who's the woman in the wheelchair in the waiting room perpetually, just sort of like snoozing, snacking, chopping it up with the doctors. She tries to re-nickname Whitaker turned Huckleberry as pussycat. Yes. I'm not

in favor of it. And this is all pre-rat. So, you know, like, it really was like a it was nominative determinism at the end of the day. I think she really willed the rat thing into happening. Wow. I love that. How do you feel about the other side of the Langdon issue, Joe, which is to say we have been talking all season about Santos, about

how we feel about this character. you're right that we identified her to be wrong early to be right about something big later that just seemed like where the narrative thrust of the show was going. But where does all this leave us with Santos? Because we learn a lot about her in these episodes and the way she navigates. Do you feel like it changes the way you look at her as a character? I think not only the Lingdon issue, but also the storyline where the father was potentially molesting his daughter and his wife was putting progesting. thrown in his coffee. I think that her,

I mean, the moment there where she has, you know, security stand outside the door and sort of his posturing, that's like a big dramatic moment. But what it reveals about her as someone who is like hypervigilant to the misdeeds of perhaps men specifically and perhaps men that other people admire, I think that all works together of a piece that she is, her abrasiveness is hand in hand. Her abrasiveness perhaps due to whatever terrible shit she clearly has gone through in her life,

goes hand in hand with her ability to see through facades quite easily or easier than some other people can or not fall for charm, etc., etc. And so I think I really love those as sort of like interlocking pieces of information we get about her. And I also think that like even with the, you know, with Mel or Javadi or Whitaker, see, I know everyone's name now. Sorry, it's pussycat. Crash, you know, et cetera. She's not, she's not being as shitty with them as she was in the cell. Yeah, she still being kind of shitty.

Yeah, she still being kind of shitty. I honestly appreciate it. Like I'm really glad that post-Lengden, she's not warm and fuzzy Santos all of us. Like she still is abrasive. She still is who she is. And I like that before the big reveal with Langdon, we get so much messy context between them. Like when Langdon blows up at her. Yes.

In the one time where she tries to do something to benefit the team and not herself. Like the timing of that is so perfect. Because isn't that when she's giving Dr. Mohan cover basically for saving the MDMA patient? Yes. But I wasn't sure if that's what she was, if she was, if she did it altruistic. to give Mohan cover, or if she did it intentionally because she was trying to

antagonize him into revealing his two colors. Do you know what he mean? I do know what you mean. I mean, I would think that would be very deft of her to operate in that way. Her explanation was, hey, he's mad at me anyway,

so might as well be me. But given her, she doesn't seem like a nice person who would cover for people for no good reason. So I kind of, and this is just, my interpretation, but I kind of like the idea that she was like, I know how to, I know how to set

someone like this off. And if I set him off in front of other people, they'll see what I see in him. You know what I mean? Very well observed. I think that's absolutely in the cards. And I think the fact that we get those sorts of scenes that we get Santos continuing to be, you know, I think especially with her fellow, like the fellow residents and the fedicle and the med students, like she still is puffing her chest out a bit. She still is a transactional operator at the end of the day. And I think even with Langdon, okay, she's right and I, you know, all of that. But I do think she also kind of likes being the one to tell other people like, oh, Langdon went home. Oh, 100%. She can't wait to tell Garcia. And it's under the guise of, oh, can you please

not talk about this to anybody else? But I feel like she really just wants to tell someone that she was right. I think that's part of it. And again, that's part of the, what's done really well about the show, giving us these characters who are, Santos is right, she is in the right over Langdon in this particular circumstance, but also is still going to challenge us in terms of rooting for her.

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Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Boershead committed to craft since 1905. Are there any cases in particular you want to talk about? We mentioned Chad, the skateboarder. We talked about the dad, possibly. abusive dad who's being dosed with progesterone. I'm open to those. I'm open to any way you want to take it.

What's stuck out for you in terms of the caseload? The ringer is a sports network in theory, right? So I've heard, yes, yeah. I know you're a basketball guy, but do you want to talk about our teenage baseball player with the eye? This is one of the norliest things I've ever seen in my life? Big, gnarly alert alarms in my notes. watching a scalpel that close to an eye is an incredibly uncomfortable experience.

And I will say this, basically this exact thing is the reason I never made it past Little League Baseball. There comes a point where the pitches and the line drives are just coming a little too fast for what I'm comfortable with. And now you see why this was, this was tough. Oh, it was nasty, like great makeup job on the eye and then like, yeah, watching. I mean, we see digging around an eye. And also like the crowding of a baby. Like there's a lot of like great body part prosthetic work going on on this show. But yeah, the eye and then the way that the eye storyline with the father in the room and how Javadi is sort of like over identifying and how Dr. Banks is clocking all of this and Robbie is consulting.

I just thought that was just sort of like a perfect brew of like here's to your point. a case that mirrors a doctor and another doctor learning a bit more about, you know, their fellow employee and all of that. And I think what's interesting, something that we had talked about in terms of the challenges of the concept of the show, let's set it in the ER over, I guess, 15 hours of a shift. Something that I was pointing out a difference from ER, if Michael Crichton's widow is listening is like we are not going home with our doctors the way that we did on ER.

But the way in which they found ways to bring home into the ER, I mean our guide Chad, obviously your favorite character, Chad is here. Of course. With Harrison. So Dr. Bangs' home life is represented. Jake swings by for the past is right. Javadi's mom obviously works there. We get Santos's like abuse background.

We get Mel facetiming her sister. We know that Langdon's got. got to get salmon on the table for his wife and kids. So there's ways in which home life is making its way, as it would, in a workplace. Right. But I think just sort of like clever ways to sort of bring all of that in without some of the clumsy exposition stuff we had sort of flagged in the first couple episodes, like with, I think Dr. Bayes especially, like just some stuff that felt a little bit like, you know, blatantly expositional. This is more sort of like let's weave certain home. life stuff into the main plot.

I thought all that's really smart. I think Mel is at least my favorite. It sounds like your favorite too. Dr. Bangs, though, maybe the most improved player as the season has gone on. I've really come to appreciate her place in the show. And even some of her bedside manner, which I thought she maybe shared a bit too much to some earlier patients. But at this point in the season, you can really understand and feel her frustrations with

trying to help people specifically who are not prepared to help themselves. Like the sex trafficking case. The woman who's being sex traffic. I mean, really thinking like really light on her feet with Dana too in terms of, oh, we're going to whisk this woman away to the CT scan room so we can have a private conversation with her. Like she's doing everything right and just cannot get this woman to admit what is happening. And I think that's such a relatable instinct and frustration to have to be the person who's

like lining everything up just so and then it still goes to shit. No wonder, Chad is like still really into her. her. No wonder, I don't know what Mateo isn't to her. I'm Dr. Banks. She's got something. For me, most improved player is either Javadi or Mohan. You're saying Javadi, even though she whiffed on the date offer so badly. But that was just like so humanizing to watch her do that. It's again, though, it's day. There are two things in the show that have stuck out to me as like, you're really doing this in the same day. One is her asking him out on her first day of work. The other one is Robbie and Gloria having the same administrative conversation.

station on the hospital floor eight times over the first six hours of this shift. We got to get, Jake and Steve and several other people emailed us about the Gloria. That's what straight's credulity of the 15-hour shift concept is like how many times Gloria is down there. Now, if Gloria comes down for a mass shooting, that makes a ton of sense, like, that she would be down there. But like, how many times a day can you be like, improve your, you know, turnaround time or improve your patient scores or whatever or else. It's that's it's it was a bit silly.

Especially I feel like in episode one or episode two of the show, you could have him have one meeting with Gloria in which the stakes are established. Like you've got to get your patient satisfaction scores up. You've got to move people in and out of here quickly. And then it informs the way you look at the action over the course of the whole season. But she doesn't need to keep coming down with various venture capitalists being like, we're going to buy your hospital. Listen, she put that sharp blazer on that morning. She was really feeling herself. She is a lot to say.

I can't blame her. But for Mohan, like, you know, aka Slow Mo, like, I think that, like, watching her have these wins, have these wins in her way, watching her be right sometimes and wrong sometimes. She, I think, has the most, like, it's never easy to say. Oh, her way is the right way. Because sometimes her way is the wrong way. And so watching Robbie get exasperated with her, but then defend her. You know what I mean? Watch him with the drug-seeking patient, the guy who's in town for his daughter's wedding, watching Robbie chew her out, but then be on her side in front of the patient.

I find her a really fascinating aspect of all that. And then watching her interact with the other, the residents and the med students too, I think is really interesting. Yes. Yeah. I think there's a bunch of little miniature crises of confidence happening with all these characters. You see that with Mel sometimes or she's wondering, like, do I have the special thing that these are the special sauce that these other doctors have?

Do I have my thing? How could she think that? So soon after she, like, walked into this guy on the spectrum's room and, like turn off all the lights and closed all the doors and was like, let me go get a little model of an ankle bone for you so you can understand what's going on. Like, Mel, you are made of special sauce. You're the best. But then she met Patch Adams. And she's like, well, we got, we have bits now. I'm not equipped for that. No, not all of us can do bits. That's true. That's true. But, but Dr. Mohan, to your point, like her, her case and her results are so

complex and are so complex in ways that even when she is successful, as you said, it's not what Dr. Robbie wants and in the way that he as a doctor would treat those patients. And that's such a fascinating idea, this concept of you can be very right. And also this other doctor can be right in their way and still be disappointed in you, despite the fact that you help treat this patient. It puts her in such an impossible place, especially as she is overcoming this sort of like empathy hump of wanting to spend so much time with people and wanting to overdiagnose and overcare. and she's having to do things a little faster and learn on the fly, and she's having to give herself pep talks along the way as many of these doctors are.

The old empathy hump. Yeah, absolutely. Where are you? We talked about the baseball injury. As far as gnarly watch goes, I think there are a couple key candidates. Tell me. One, yes, the high school baseball player with the swall and I who has to have the blood drained out of it. Two, the burn victim who has to get full up, sliced and diced to relieve the pressure in his abdomen,

You know, in a very, like, alien egg hatching kind of way. Yeah, like 90% death probability, according to Langdon. That's a lot. That's a lot to put him through. They do all, they put all these resources. Yes. Into something that they know is probably not going to go. And, you know, like all the time they spent trying to revive that little girl,

all the time they spent trying to help this burn victim, knowing that he, it's unlikely. Or all the moments, have we talked about this in the beginning? the season, this idea of like how much the jargon's flying fast and furious. But the way in which they use it to, like, you have something, I think it was our guy, Nurse Jesse,

you know, Silver Fox Nurse Jesse on the phone, like, gets off and he has like a, I don't know, a potassium read or something, whatever it is, on the little girl. And the way he just says it, like, I don't know what that means, but I know what that means. Which is like, it's curtains, right? It's not good. We're done. And so they'll say something that means nothing to me about stats and what this reading is.

And so then I have to rely on their reactions. They're just sort of micro reactions sometimes, especially when they're trying not to have like a big reaction in front of the loved ones. I think that's like a really, a really brilliant thing. I'm so impressed you, by the way, that the more senior members of the staff communicate so directly and succinctly with the families of the victims as they're. are treating them. Right? It's like we are, it's,

all alarms are going off. They're trying to get someone's heartbeat up. They're trying to get them to breathe again. And they're also conveying all this information to their loved ones who are panicking in the room trying to figure out what's happening.

And that's where you see some of the younger members of the staff, like trying to figure out how to do that. How do you multitask in a way where you're giving chest compressions and briefing the patient's family as to what needs to happen for them to get their breath back? There's also these little moments of, especially with, again, senior staff,

where they will communicate to someone like this person's not going to make it, but we're not going to say that out loud right now. You know what I mean? So like when Dana comes up and there's the sister of the little girl and she gets just like one look and she's like, should we go color? You know what I mean? Like this is what's needed here or when they go in and, and Kyara, the social worker is in with the little girl and her grandmother. And they just like walk in and give her a look like it's no. It's a no.

you know. There is a lot of that shorthand. I will say there is still at this stage in the season a little bit of very special episode sauce on top. And I think Kiara gets burdened with a lot of it because she's always brought in late in the game and she has to explain the social issue that they're talking about. The one that jumped out so badly,

I thought in this set of episodes, is after Dana gets hit, after she gets punched in the face. And you can tell how revered that character is. By the way, everyone is doting on her. Absolutely by us. It's a great performance. It's a great character.

And then you get this actual line of dialogue from this otherwise very good show. Violence against health care workers is a national problem. And it's only getting worse. Yeah. It's a bad line inside of a great moment where they start talking about strikes and then like Robbie, like, voice like voice them off on Gloria. Like that's a great moment. Did we, I'm sorry, did they interrupt your narlo meter? Oh, yeah, yeah.

I think there's just, I'm going to put the miracle of childbirth off to the side. That's kind of its own thing. The other one that registered for me was the guy who came in with the partially de-gloved finger, the bone has to be sanded down. And as this is happening, he's taken a pass at Dr. Collins. Find you a guy who can do both. Who among us? But like, it's an always-noe for me when it comes to a de-gloving. That's just like an automatic absolute.

But even relative to an eye swelling and scalpling? De-gloving. I just think the fact that we've come up with this word for it, which is so evocative. If there were like a similar word for eyeball swelling, then, then yeah, but de-gloving. We haven't talked much about Collins among all the other. Is that, do we feel like that says something about the impression that the character's making or the way she, I mean, obviously watching her Miss Carrie inside of this batch of episodes having to then, you know, having just helped a young woman with, you know, you know, know, abortion and delivering this baby and her reactions to all this. But I think chiefly for me, it's that conversation that she has with Robbie in the ambulance

is like the real, you know, like Dana's with her, all of that sort of stuff. But the Robbie Collins stuff, which again is something we clocked right at the beginning of like they seem like they have a history. Yeah. But once again, having our beloved princess and Perla be like those two tough. totally fucked. And then to have that conversation in the ambulance where, you know, she tells him basically that she aborted their child. Yeah. And he has that reaction of like wanting to support her through what she's currently going through, wanting not to like want to like want to support her in the decision she previously made while also grappling this guy who like has Jake but doesn't have like kids of his. own like this other future

you know of like what would that have been you know he and he says inside of that conversation like I had it coming like you know I wasn't I wasn't showing up inside of that relationship that's before he hears this part but like so I don't know that Robbie would have been a great father material in that moment but I thought that was just he's hospital daddy

yeah there you go oh delightful but um because scrub daddy is trademarked and already taken by those sponges. It's a great point. I honestly didn't think about Scrub Daddy, but he is that too. But that scene, I thought, was so well-written and so well-performed. Yep.

I thought that was easily the standout of the Colin stuff so far, which I don't love saying because the things that that character is going through are so heavy and emotional. And, look, Joe, you and I have found ourselves spoilers for other shows we're covering on the Prestige TV podcast talking about miscarriage a lot lately. And it's something that I feel like TV taps into very often as this identifiable, understandable pain point for so many characters who are pregnant, for so many characters who are trying to get pregnant, who are desperate to be parents, who are like trying to embrace that life change for themselves. I don't know what it is about the Collins presentation in the earlier episodes of this season or that character or that performance. None of it is bad, but I don't think it ever popped for me until this conversation with Robbie. And maybe that's as simple as the circumstances of the show didn't really allow for it.

Like she is keeping everything so buttoned up. Yeah. That she doesn't have her moment to kind of let emotionally lose. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good point. I think her serenity throughout the season has been like an important ingredient in the mix here. But her relative serenity. But like, yeah, giving her that moment, that conversation with him, I thought was so good, him sending her home.

I hope that's not the last we see of her for the season. season. Yeah. I hope so too. Well, as far as what we have still in the air, you know, there's some, some cases still in process. We obviously have the shooting at Pit Fest, which I guess we'll see if, if Jake and or his girlfriend are among the people rolled in and certainly hope not.

Robbie, it really does feel like he's kind of coming apart a little bit. His shorter to anger. He has less help than he did at the start of the shift to say the least. He's already having a rough day, as you said, he's been very off from the start. don't feel like he's going to be dealing with everything super well over this last part of the season. What do you feel like we have gleaned from the flashbacks? You know, we got a little bit more flashback information since the last batch of episodes. Like what is your understanding of what happened on that day?

That way you lost Dr. Adamson. I think we got the sense. So there's this bit of explanation about, I think it's called the ECMO machine. about how basically at a certain point, Dr. Adamson had to be taken off the machine, that they basically kept him on it as long as they possibly could, but there came a point where other patients needed it. And so to me it was, it is, of course, about, you know, Dr. Robbie having to deal and treat, a deal with and treat his mentor in this incredibly difficult circumstance, right? High anxiety environment of kind of a COVID hospital setting,

but also the, like, the agonizing give and take of the resources in a hospital setting. when a bunch of things are happening at once. And I would assume we're about to get a bunch of people rolled into the ER coming from Pitfest. Difficult decisions are going to have to be made as far as who do you keep on these life support systems. Which patients that are in the hospital now are going to have to be moved or relocated or taken off those systems in order to prioritize people coming into real and immediate trauma. And so I kind of feel like that's what we're heating up as much as anything is this idea that you have to make split-second medical decisions that almost necessarily put other people's life in jeopardy. the ECMO machine is an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and yeah it essentially like keeps we yeah they explained it where can you where do you get one of those can you like eBay that shit? I don't know I think you call the same number you call to get Interpol to come to a white lotus.

So yeah, okay so that's my understanding is like it was COVID times it was rough anyway. Adamson's all in this machine resources are thin as they constantly talk about and another patient needed it. So it's not just that his beloved mentor, which inside another very special episode plotline, which is the, you know, the ambient, like the origin of the EMTs and all that sort of stuff like that, which is really cool history that I didn't know about. So I loved learning about it, but it was in a slightly very special episode kind of way. But inside of that, we have that the dementia patient with the pacemaker knew Adamson. And so could like talk about him as well. I thought that was really effective. But yeah, to think about Robbie as someone who went to, like, make the call to take his mentor off this life-saving machine because resources were stretched so thin inside of a national health emergency is, yeah, something that surely will pop in the final episodes.

Are we going to see? So will Langdon and Collins come back on shift? How much of like other doctors are going to come on shift to help with a mass shooting? Or the other shift that's due to come in, you know, the next shift that's due to relieve them. Like are we going to add a bunch of new characters in the back section of the season? Are we emotionally prepared for that much capacity to be? I just learned everyone's name, Rob. I don't think it's going to be that many more.

I would love a Sean Hatticey return, right? Maybe he's coming in for the next shift. He can help kind of ease some of the load on Robbie. It's just it's, he had a nothing part for 10 minutes of one episode. I would have to think he's going to be back in the mix at some point. And maybe that will be enough. I think Collins might be back helping and actually treating patients. And Langdon will come back, but not be allowed to help.

Right. You know, maybe some conversations, maybe some closure on some of that plot line. But ultimately, he made his. bed. Yeah, Sean Hadessey is what I'm like sort of most looking forward to because if you go back to that original conversation they had, um, I was expecting more of him. Like it's been so, not that he was going to come back on shift because he was at the end of a long shift when we saw him at the beginning of the season.

He was on the roof. Yeah. Staring down the edge, Joe. I think he needed a minute. It wasn't great. But I was like, Arbena, I assumed we would like see him in flashbacks or something like that, but no, I am eagerly awaiting. You know, it's like, all of our shows are bleeding together, but I'm just sort of like,

where's Patricia Arquette and where's Sean Havocet? The 90s person in me wants to know. Well, what else jumped out to you from these episodes? Is there anything else you want to hear before we close out? Great question. Thanks so much for asking. Okay, so we got an email from Lauren. I don't want to, I know you're just toe dipping on ER. You're not an ER expert, so I don't want to like strain you on this. But like Lauren emailed to ask us if we could pick an ER actor to make a cameo in the pit. Who would it be in why? Oh, yeah. I'm not going to necessarily ask you that question, though if you have an answer, because I know you know some people are on ER, but like my question is more,

do you want an ER cameo? Or do you feel like not only just would that give Michael Crane's widow more fodder for a legal case, but I would feel like a little gimmicky and side of a show that's not very gimmicky, you know? It's tough because it's not gimmicky, but also it's a Noah Wiley medical drama. So by definition, it sort of is. I can't pretend that this isn't what we're doing here. Yeah. That said, as someone who is not that familiar with ER, other than the core cast and the

history and overall, like, the indelible impression left by that show, I'm not super eager for it. I like the cast that we've established. I like this group of characters. Do I need more tyranny rolling in? as the mom of one of the shooting victims. Like, I don't, but I'm not going to be mad about it. Okay.

Did you have an answer for this? Who do you want to see? I will say for the ER diehards who are listening or the newcomers. I won't spoil anything with this character. But the actress Kelly Martin played a character called Lucy Knight on ER, and she and John had like a friendship and whatever else ship. And she was involved in like a very important storyline in ER. I think that would be really fun because there's other actors.

Like, I mean, if Clooney were on or, you know, et cetera, et cetera, if Juliana Margulies wanted to show up. And Clooney has shown he will show up for the check, whether it's an espresso or DC or otherwise. Like, he will show up. It's true. Eric LaSalle, who played Dr. Benton, who was Carter's, like, mentor. Like, you know, there are other things.

But, like, Kelly Martin would be a great one because, she's not, she's done a lot of like lifetime adjacent stuff, but she hasn't done like a ton, a ton of stuff recently that people will be like, oh my God, it's George Clooney. That's distracting. Right, right, right. But oh, it's Kelly Martin. I remember her from, I don't know, I think it's like two seasons of ER.

That could be kind of fun. But yeah, I don't want anything gimmicky. And I kind of like the level of actor we've seen come through. I'm not distracted. I recognize a few of the sort of like, hey, it's that guy sort of. This was one of the prompts I had for you, Joe, which was which of the that guy guest stars,

did you enjoy the most? Were you the most excited to see? We've had so many patients and patients' families rolled through. Who stuck out to you in that regard? Okay. I don't mean to be like weird about this. Chad is played by Rob Heaps,

who is a British actor who was in this show called Impostors that was on for like a season he's done a couple other things but he's in this show called Imposters that it was about like a female con artist which is just like catnip to me, love that that was such a good show and it was just like completely

ignored and canceled and sort of like in the heyday of FX and these other networks having these just like really fun shows that no one's watching and so as soon as he showed up I was like oh my god it's the guy from imposters I got really excited.

And I think he's doing such a good Chad, like the Chaddiest Chad. Oh, extremely Chad vibes from this guy. And it sounds like you're endorsing all of that character's decisions and just general demeanor as well. Great dad. Love, love his girlfriend. She seems great. Yeah. We do learn that apparently the reason Dr. Bangs has the ankle monitor on is because of it seems a restraining order from the girlfriend.

Yeah. Yeah. What prompted that in the first place? We don't know. But I'm going to get smashed windshields. That's what it sounds like to me. I'm on Dr. Banks's sign, honestly. We're full Dr. Banks around here. What is it? Like a bonus mom t-shirt? Bonus mom. It does not go well. I hated it. I hated it. So yeah. So, yeah, Rob Heaps is as Chad is my is my that guy. How about you? Who's your that guy? Well, since I am hosting. I am going to do a classic House of Our Smuggle. Oh, hell yeah. Okay. And I'm going to do Marguerite Moreau, who plays the mother of the girl who's seeking an abortion, or I guess the aunt, the actual aunt of the girl seeking an abortion, who I know from Wet Hot American Summer, one of the greatest comedies ever made. You may know from the Mighty Ducks or various other properties, if you prefer. But she's bringing in her daughter, sorry, her niece, who's played by Abby Ryder Fortin, who I thought was just amazing in Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret. And I had totally forgotten until it clicked for me about halfway through her appearance in the show that, oh my God, This is the titular Margaret.

Here she is again crushing it. I was delighted to see them both. It's so like these kids grow up so quickly. From puberty to seeking an abortion. Just like that. It'll blink of an eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great.

That's a great smuggle. Great one. There's so many great ones, though. And it's really one of the delights of this kind of show that you can have a cast as big as this, that you can have as big of a medical cast as this. And everyone can sort of have their moments. And yet, I don't think there's any doubt that this is Noah Wiley's show. You know, it's never, it's never really in danger of being swept out from under him.

And I think his feel for how to navigate these spaces as an actor, much less that character feels as a doctor, is a huge part of the reason it works. I'm trying to think who he's going to be up against at the Emmys. And it's going to be, I mean, like Jason, Isaacs and Adam Scott are going to be in the mix with him. For sure. Yeah. Interesting.

We got a long year of TV ahead. We also had a very important public service announcement from Dr. Robbie in this episode about, you know, the podcasts that are. that are radicalizing the young men of this country, the youth of this country, Joe. And I am just here to say that we here at the Prestige TV podcast, we are here to teach your children. We are here to raise them,

to give them the values that you want them to have. So long as those values, I would say, are Walton Gaghan's propaganda and severance theories. If those are important to you, then we are here for you at the end of the day. You know, Rob, it's so nice to meet a like-minded individuals here to promote certain agendas for the youth.

follow question for you on that front. Yes. Do you think the shooter at Pittfest is our teen with a list? Or is that too tidy? It feels like a big old red herring to me. Yeah, I agree. You know, I'm, I think if that happened, Dr. Robbie would be in such a bad spot

as the person who basically delayed the process of calling the police, delayed, delayed, delayed, for the sake of it, what is admittedly, an incredibly thorny situation. to navigate, right? But the fact that they made him say the line about like he's a young man with a future in front of him and it had to be Dr. Bangs being like, it's not good. Dr. Banks being like, what about the girls on the list though? I mean, at least he apologized.

This is what got us on Dr. Banks' side at the end of the day. Like, somebody needed to call the cops on in-cell kid, her words not mine. Page, Dr. Banks, with all of your concerns about the language. Correct. I think the police probably needed to be called in that instance. And in this case, it may have been called too late, whether he's the shooter or not. It's true. But that is it for us this week, Joe.

We will be back for the finale. Thank you to Donnie Beecham. Thank you to you, Joe. Thank you to John Richter and C.T. and Justin Sales. Thank you to you for all of your emails about the pit to Prestige TV at Spotify.com. Keep them coming. What you think about Dr. Bangs, what you think about the rat problem in the hospital. What do you think about the, you know, the crack in getting his moment of dignity?

You know, really these episodes did have everything. It's beautiful. Really a beautiful thing. Thank you for listening. See you soon. Bye!