The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Pitt’ Episode 14: A Breakdown of Dr. Robby’s Breakdown

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Jo and Rob react to Dr. Robby’s moment (7:08) and question how much grace Dr. Langdon deserves (16:38)? Then, Part 1 of the PittFest investigative series: "What’s That Hippie Doing There?” (28:16), and the new anti-vax measles case (39:58). Finally, Part 2 of the PittFest series: "What Band Brought This Audience Together?” (45:38) Email us! [e-mail] Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Video Supervision: John Richter Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanne Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. We are here to talk to you about the pit, the penultimate episode of the pit, episode 14. Rob, we've got a lot to cover. A lot happens in any episode of the pit. I first wanted to just start by thanking everyone for their emails.

We got so many pit emails, Rob. The people know what's up. They're passionate about this show. Many of them work in medical or medical adjacent professions and others just have a lot of passion for music festivals, Joe. So PrestiGTV at Spotify.com is how you can reach us for any non-specified show that we're doing. And that's where the pit sort of has landed. We are going to cover this episode, episode 14. I just want to remind you all, in case you didn't hear us say it on the White Lotus Pod, we are recording our episode 15 coverage in advance because I will be out next week.

So you can still email us. PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. We love your emails. They will not be read on the finale pod, and that is not personal slight. That is just logistics. But you told me you were willing to do a personal podcast in which you respond individually to every email we get at prestige TV at Spotify.com. I feel so guilty when we can't get to all of them.

Here's what we're going to do, though. We've got a ton of emails. I've broken them out over our 14, episode 14 and 15 coverage, so you'll hear you. hear some listener emails in 15. That's because I'm saving them for that podcast. Chief among our emails that we got over the last week, Rob, are people weighing in on who's playing Pit Fest. It's frankly my primary concern at this stage in the season.

This is energy you put out into the world. Yes. And the people have answered. My suspicion is that they notice that you like to wear extremely cool band t-shirts when you podcast. Very generous. And so they're like, we got to bring our A game for Rob Mahoney. So we're going to come through with our pit-fist answers.

Here's what we're going to do on the Presti-CTV podcast. Just in case you're not tuning into this podcast just to hear me read a list of band names. We're going to break this up into a four-part prestige TV podcast investigation. We've got four categories of Pitfest emails that we received. We will be reading two of those categories this week, two of those categories next week. So that is, we're going to break it up. And at the end of the day, Rob, I believe we will have gotten to the bottom of who is playing Pit Fest 2025. A couple other email things that we got before we get into breaking down episode 14.

Real quick PSA at the top of the episode. And I'm going to do it until things change. please do not send us an email that you source from chat gbt this is not something we want we love and respect you you can do whatever you want with chat gbt in your own home but when we put a call out to folks for emails we're looking for like human experience human opinions human thoughts and feelings joe is already in the void i am in my literal closet we are desperate for human interaction we want human contact not chat gbt answers so just putting that out there um i got some very human answers to the fact that I misuse the word

enervate when I meant invigorate and I shall never do that again. Atone, Joe. Atone. And also, I want to apologize to our listener, Vita, and any Grace Anatomy fan, and specifically Sandra O, for

besmirching that show and saying that people did not ride on top of patience while doing chest compressions on that show, that they certainly did. and Sandra O's Dr. Christina Yang, who is actually generally one of my top five favorite fictional doctors, did it a plenty on that show. So I apologize for getting that wrong.

I will atone for that. And then we got a really interesting email from a listener, Candice, who works as an ASL interpreter. And she was talking about in response to one of our other emails we got about people going to concerts when they are deaf and hard of hearing. And she says she's worked for 25 years as an ASL. interpreter and has worked in festival settings like Pitfest. It's not uncommon, she says, for deaf people to go to music concerts and festivals. And she says, I actually interpret musical

performances at a consistently once a month and in the summer it's more. And something that Candace noticed that I missed in the episode when the Pit Fest attendee, who is deaf and his mother, arrive, that as he's being wheeled off, he like very sort of almost out of frame signs I.L. why I love you, which I missed. And when I read that in Kansas email, I started to cry, so I just thought I would share that with everyone else. Okay. I'll also say the ASL interpreters at concerts.

Yeah. I would imagine, look, I think there's a lot of ASL and ASL, any kind of translation work that's very literalized, right? That's very, I need to get the substance of this. Translating music is really where these interpreters get to cook and these translators get to cook. And it's so impressionistic with ASL specifically that watching them do their thing is as entertaining in many cases as whatever is going on on stage. Are you thinking of anything specifically because I will let you know that I watch the entire Kendrick Lamar halftime show as interpreted in ESL and it was amazing.

Fucking great. But yeah, I've had a really, like, I find those particular, like, and it's not just concerts because that's amazing, but I've also watched ESL interpretations of like musicals. There's just like a lot of fun, like dynamism that they put into those specific performances. It is a practical job of conveying meaning, but it's also a kind of performance when you whenever you get music or art involved in any capacity. Last but not least, the helicopter situation that we talked about last week as an ER reference. A lot of people emailed in saying yes and put your mind at ease. This is an ER spoiler.

We said at the end of last week's episode, once again, we're here to talk about a helicopter incident that happened on ER, a show that aired decades ago. Just in case. Twas the rear rotor blade that took Dr. Romano's arm. And you know that now because you watch... I have seen it. I sent you the YouTube clip, so you have seen it happen. See, I thought you were going to allude to the other ER spoiler, which is apparently this guy who got his arm lopped off by a helicopter blade is then summarily crushed by a

different helicopter at a different time, which I got to see that episode. That sounds insane. This time it's personal. I feel like it was just the very next season. They were just like, and a helicopter falls off the roof. of the building and he's down on like ground level outside and gets crushed by a helicopter this time it's personal. Okay. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fanduil predicts.

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I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood?

What is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on Carvana. Pick up these may apply. Let's get into the episode.

Let's start with a question that you posed last week when we saw Robbie sort of lose it, let's say, in the de facto morgue in the Peds room. And you were wondering who was going to find him and who was going to set him right. Yes. How do you feel about the fact that it was Whitaker here? I actually feel pretty good about it for two different reasons. One, he gets Robbie on his feet, but that's about it, right? Robbie is mobile, but still full on breaking down in real time and not dealing well. And I would say actively avoiding many of the situations that are happening on the floor.

There's lots of stuff going on. He's like, yeah, I can't deal with that. Right now, I'm not going to deal with you right now. I'm going to zero in on the things that I can control that are very tangible, that are very specific right in front of me. that feels true to the circumstances. And also, I mean, with Whitaker specifically, the idea that ultimately this is someone who had to be coached by Robbie on how to deal with loss and how to keep moving and how to keep doing your job.

We love to close a loop, Joe. I am a sucker for that kind of storytelling. So when he repeats Robbie's words back to him, that's when that got me. That landed for you. Yes. The follow-up conversation sold it for me as much as anything. Here's a couple things I liked about that. Number one, you know, something we haven't really talked about much with Robbie is his faith or lack thereof, which he, you know, he talks about. I'm not even sure I believe in God. But we see him clutching the star of David necklace and muttering the shim of prayer. And this is something that I thought was really interesting. I, I, um, I, um, I, um, I, I was going back through and I asked some people who remembered ER better than I did.

I was like, was John Carter. I knew that he wasn't Jewish. But I was trying to remember of John Carter on ER, Noah Wiley's character on ER, if he was Christian or Catholic. His family is very like Kennedy-coded. I was like, are they Catholic? Is this come through? And the answer is no, that there is no sort of like religious connection to Dr. John

Carter and ER. So however this show is conceived as a continuation of John Carter or not. Which is, we should say, again, Not ER. Legally speaking, this is not ER. E.R. And legally speaking, this is not a John Carter performance. So this added aspect of his Jewish faith, which he both has and doesn't have,

I thought was a really interesting shading on the character. I really liked so much of what Noah Wiley is bringing to this breakdown. Yes. They can get real cartoonish in movies and on TV sometimes when characters have. have to have these moments. They can either get way too loud, way too expressive, or way too kind of crumbly, mumbly in a way that just doesn't feel emotionally true. And I think the idea of Robbie shutting down, a guy who has seen a lot, who has experienced a lot, even today, to say nothing of the rest of his career, having to find a moment of some kind of clinging

faith, regardless of what he actually believes or actually thinks in kind of a more neutral, sobering moment. I found that to be really effective. I also thought we got a great email from Timothy, who was talking about how there's this quote that many physicians know regarding the sort of like graveyard of patients that they've lost. And the quote is this, every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery where from time to time he goes to pray, a place of bitterness and regret where he must look for an explanation for all his failures. And that's Renee LaRees-Shoe. That's such a great concept and is clearly the idea that they're tapping into more so at the end of the last episode than here. Right. Now he is praying trying to find peace and stability to. just like get on his feet. But the last time we saw Robbie, he was muttering through all the events of the day, all the people he had lost, all of the cases that had kind of gone awry. Right. And this is, this is, again, just one day on the job, one shift.

And this is got the kind of processing he has to do to be able to continue on with that. I also like, to your point that didn't make it like, Whitaker shows up with a pat answer and everything's fine. No. When Whitaker pulls him to his feet and then Robbie shoves him away. Yes. I really liked that moment. Whitaker's assessment, too, is quite frank, which is we are fucked if you do not come out here, which is true. Like, he's just being honest about it.

And, you know, they start calling Robbie Captain, which have they been calling him that all season? Maybe here and there? I feel like it was, like, was really ramped up in the last, you know, like here at the end. Like, once the mass casualty starts, like, I feel like this idea of where a mass unit, you're our captain really starts to come through. true. And another thing that I really liked is when, you know, Whitaker basically winds up in there because he loses Rochambeau to Santos. And when he comes back out with the blanket and she asks him sort of like, what do you see in there or whatever? And he doesn't say anything. And, you know, I believe that Whitaker won't. Like of all the people define him, I think Whitaker is like one of the few, you know, there's a few other like maybe Dana and like whatever who wouldn't. gossip about what he saw there. But I also like that in that before he goes in there, or even in the direct aftermath before Robbie, like, pulls himself together and walks out, we get a lot of people saying,

have you seen Robbie? Have you seen Robbie? Where's Robbie? Where's Robbie? Like, that you can't even leave for five minutes without everyone if you're, like, and we experience this early in the season when the man can't even go to the bathroom at a certain point in his shift. I still have not ruled out blighter infection. You know, a lot of things are going wrong for him right now. Like, this man could have a UTI. You could have some stuff going on. He's going to have to get checked out.

But I have two questions about this whole sequence, Joe, for you. One, how differently does the end of season one go if Santos wins rock paper, scissors? And it's, I would say the intern at this point with the worst bedside manner, the worst doctor-to-patient relations. What happens if she has to treat? That's all the ships in Santos? You know, some things are just meant to be. And I think Whitaker was meant to win that game. Do you have another question for me?

Did we get the clown in the ER just so he can call this whole thing a fucking circus? Did we reverse engineer the clown just for that line? I really hope not. I hope not too. I hope not. Look, it just, it felt like that's what they were trying to set up the whole time. I'm going to say this. I didn't include it in my official roundup, but we got more than, more than,

than one email intimidating that perhaps insane clown posse was playing at pit fest and that's how a clown wound up in the air. That's not what a juggalo looks like. No, it's not at all what a juggalo looks like. Now, if you told me Dr. Robbie some years ago had a juggalo moment, I'd buy it. You see it? Demographically, I'd buy it. Part of what happens here in the immediate aftermath is that Robbie goes back on the floor.

Gloria is glorying as she does. And I got to say, Gloria in her pink blazer, has been an irritation all season, a rather frequent visitor to the floor in a way that seems implausible over the course of an ordinary shift. But here in crisis mode makes a lot more sense for all of the sort of logistics in PR that she has to do. Robbie explodes at her, which I think is about like in terms of how they use Gloria this season, I think you all had a moment early in the season where we're like, enough of. the Gloria Robbie interactions. Yes. But I have to say if she just showed up here at the end to sort of like be the functionary of the emergency situation and Robbie lost it at her.

Yeah. I think that would be harder for us to roll with than Robbie being like all day with this shit, Gloria, leave me alone. And Dana and Jack clock it immediately. And what do you think of this explosion? Like this is the, we had the freak out and the breakdown. Right. But this sort of explosion.

We had the Langdon confrontation, but this felt like, you know, this is just a much more public version of that Langdon interaction. What did you think of this? I think we're setting up throughout this episode, a lot of occasions in which Robbie is having an inappropriate emotional reaction to something because, again, he is not post breakdown. He is mid-breakdown. Regulated, yeah. Completely dysregulated. I think this one is really important. I also think the beginning of the measles case we start to unpack here is also very important because it's so.

clear that Robbie is right in terms of the medicine. And it's so clear that he is wrong in terms of the way he is talking to these patients, like the parents of this patient. And having that dynamic, I think, is really crucial to show sort of the frustration of where you're building to in hour 14 of a 12-hour shift. A key part of this breakdown that is happening for Robbie over the course of episodes is the Jake factor, right? Obviously, his inability to save Leah but the fact that we see several times this episode, Robbie just clocks Jake. Yes.

Without even talking to him, right? I would say actively steers around him for the majority of this episode. After she sees this explosion, Dana goes to Jake. That's what she sees. Like her move after seeing Robbie explode is to go to Jake and hug him and cry. The next thing she does is. is pull Langdon out of a case. And we don't see her do it,

but clearly she pulls him out of a case and asks him to talk to Jake. And so Langdon goes up to talk to Jake at Dana's behest. And then Robbie gets to see Langdon stick up for him to Jake and say if he couldn't save her, nobody could. Did this feel genuine to you from Langdon? Or did this feel manipulative at all, knowing that Langdon knows that he has to make up some ground with Robbie?

I think it probably is genuine. You know, there's pretty much universal respect for Robbie as a doctor. And if anything, people were trying to ward him away from doing too much in a crisis circumstance. Like he was going so far above and beyond treating Leah as he would any other patient, that they're having to get him to move on. That said, this exchange makes me super nervous about how Robbie, who is watching this exchange with Langdon and with his kind of like surrogate adopted kind of step. stepson.

Yeah. And the amount of leeway he may be willing to give Langdon for, frankly, like, talking him up in a difficult moment. Like, Langdon gives Robbie in talking to Jake a lot of grace. How much grace is Robbie than willing to give Langdon for everything that has happened over the back half of this season? How much grace do you want him to give Langdon? I think that depends on what Langdon wants, you know?

If, like, I, I'm concerned based on just the bits and lines of death. dialogue, many of which are Langdon originated, right? Of like, oh, this is only a problem if you report me. This is only a problem if you make it a problem. I would like for Robbie to treat this with the seriousness it deserves. I would not like to see Langdon just showing up for work tomorrow as if nothing happened. That would be a, I think, a huge blemish on overall, like the kind of honor and respectability that we've seen in Robbie throughout this season.

I don't believe him to be that kind of character, but these are crazy moments and incredibly charged emotional times. I don't know what his takeaway from that is going to be. I think it's in order to help diagnose how we feel about that, it helps me to look at the Langdon-Santo's interactions. Langdon and Santos, though, they clocked each other, did not really have to directly interact because Santos was in the yellow zone and Langdon was in the red zone and, like, they were not interacting.

But you can't keep Santos down and she's bored with the yellow zone. She's born with the clouds. Where's the blood? And the blankets. She's like, I'm going to go find something more interesting. What can I stick a tube in? Yeah. So this cyanadic is a new term that I learned.

This positively blue kid shows up from Pit Fest. Was saved by the brother of the woman whose husband died in the previous episode. He's a Navy corpsman and he had been running around Pit Fest saving people for the last couple hours before. He collapsed himself and becomes his own case. I just want to point out we got an email from a listener, Nate, who also was a Navy Corman, who said, I appreciate them portraying how some medical people really shine under pressure in the situations. As someone with ADHD, it is how I'm wired.

I'm much calmer under pressure and feel anxious when things are slow and calm. So Nate was a former combat medic and is now a doctor, but was talking about that sort of personality. But it was just so funny because I had just read his email. And he was like, I was a Navy Corman. and then this guy is like, oh, Navy Corman. Next time on the pit. Here's a Navy Corman.

Exactly. Okay. So Langdon and Santos show up in the room at the same time from different entrances into the same room. I love, I rewatch this a couple times the way they choreographed this because you're following Langdon in. So Langdon's on the search for a case. So he walks in and just like from the other side of the room, we didn't see her coming necessarily. Santos walks in and you're like, uh-oh. And then in the middle of this.

dynamic. We have Dr. Parker Ellis, who we've just met, who's on the night shift with Dr. John Chen, Aisha Harris. I really, really like her. This is, like, we talked about the impression that Dr. John Chen made last week. I really, really like the Dr. Ellis ingredient in here because she's someone who clocks the problem. Right? and is, like, kind to Santos, an ear for Santos, but not in the toxic way that the surgical consultant was earlier this season for Santos.

Not in the what's your sign kind of way. Yeah. Gives her a Kit Kat, but also's like, get the fuck up. Yeah. You know, like, we got to figure this out. And him. him calling her bright spark in that way. It was just like, I don't, I was just like.

Just one of the most disrespectful things you can say to somebody as far as I'm concerned. Five minutes bright spark. I was just like, Jesus Christ, like, get it together. Do we think, here's a really important question I have for you. Do we think Dr. Santos, who is, how old is she? Can I guess where you're going? Yeah. That she would make a Wayne's world joke?

Does she know Party on Wayne? Does she know Party on Wayne? No chance. Not. That was 100%. a Gen X writer speaking through a Gen Z actor. That is 100% what happened there. Okay, great.

I do think overall, the Langdon part of this to me is a lot of, we are getting to the point of being post-mass casualty event, right? We're easing back into a sense of ER normal. Things are slowing down. You know, Dr. Ellis is not only working with Santos, but we're back into teaching mode a little bit. It's a little bit of like, what do you think here? Let's walk through this, like help diagnose this.

And we'll kind of correct. as we go and that's such a key part of it. But overall, as we're doing that, the fact that we're also seamlessly incorporating all of these night shift doctors in a way that is very ER to me, right? You can just sort of gradually turn over the cast and here's four doctors I just really like spending time with right off the bat. And if that's not just proof of how successful a formula this is, I don't know what is, you can plug and play all kinds of people in these scenarios. And as long as they are interesting characters relative to each other, you're going to going to get fireworks every time. So you say four doctors. So you're talking about Dr. John Chen,

yes, Dr. Parker Ellis, Dr. Jack Abbott, yes. And are you including Dr. Emery Walsh in your four people I really like a summation? You know what? I am. And I say that, I'm detecting some skepticism from you, Joe. Are you not up on Dr. Walsh? It's a tough beat for Dr. Walsh, I think. Is it? I don't know. I think, well, we got an email. Okay, I will say this. So let's go to this.

Dr. Jack Abbott is teaching Mohan is like, we should do this wildly experimental procedure. Here's a straw. Here's a pencil. Here's a couple of paper clips. Drain all the blood from this guy's heart. You probably don't know a Wayneswell reference or a Magiver reference. But if you do know a Maguire reference, this is what you should do.

Maybe I'm a gruber. We could only hope. Or maybe the McGuber. I have a reboot. Who's to say? But Dr. Walsh is here and her job as a surgical consult is to be the wet blanket to Jack's sort of like a maverick attitude here. I don't mind that. I don't mind her as like a voice of reason. She's just being like a real dick about it as she's doing it. She is being a dick about it. But he's also not not being a dick about it. I know. I know. He's a real cowboy for sure. I don't know if this is like internalized misogyny or whatever.

But I was just like, Dr. Walls, Jesus Christ. We did get the, okay, we got an email from Dr. Sophie Chung. Yes. About how the emergency department is seen by the rest of the hospital. She has not gotten, she, like, wrote this email to us when she was like on episode six. So she's not here where we are at the end of the season. But Sophie, if you are here now, hello. Thank you for the email.

Welcome. But this is what she wrote. She said the emergency department, the EDAs department gets shit on by every other department in the hospital. they're experts in the first 15 minutes of taking care of everything, which means that they get a reputation for being a jack of all trades master of none in the medical world. This is where Sophie like was, she says, if you ever go to a doctor party,

you will gain instant rapport by going up to basically anyone and saying, the fucking ED, am I right? Unless, of course, the person you're talking to is ED trained. Sophie does have other caveats on her email where she's like, they do a lot of things that I couldn't do as, But she was also basically her point was this show allows the ER doctors to do a lot more than ER doctors would ordinarily be allowed to do.

And she says the pit does not to pick nearly enough consult calling for an academic center. The ED is way too cocky about making their own decisions about patients. At my hospital, the ED would never take care of even a small burn without calling burn surgery first to come and evaluate. And the ED would never have the balls to discharge someone that surgery wants to admit. They would be begging for a lawsuit as well as burning bridges forever. So Dr. Sophie Chung sort of giving us this sort of pecking order at the hospital helped illuminate the Jack, the Dr. Abbott, Dr. Walsh dynamic for me. And I hope that like this is something it feels like they've introduced here at the end of things. Because we had surgical consults throughout.

this season. But not quite like this. Not like this. This is a different dynamic and, you know, it seems very personality dependent here inside of this situation as do a lot of, you know, workplace conflicts. I liked the scene. I liked Dr. Walsh as, hold on one fucking second here. I might come to love her dickishness. I really like it. I got to say. I, you know. I think what did it for me, is as we're saying, we're kind of getting out of the mass casualty ER and into a more normal workflow. And one of the things we're starting to notice is that, oh, Dr. Abbott wasn't just improvising to meet the moment. This is just kind of who he is. This is how he operates. He is a

cowboy. And because of that, they are naturally going to get into it on more dedicated surgical consults versus, hey, let me just whip something together here in the ER in a way that frankly no other Dr. Robbie included would probably do. I really like them together. I love the philosophical divide. I think they have pretty fun banter, even when they are kind of both being dicks about it. It's a new dynamic in the room that I am already really coming to appreciate. So you, Rob, I think, feel like you're one of those people out there who's like, give us night shift. Give us the pit night shift.

Is that what you want? I'm torn. I'm really liking these doctors, but I think it's the mix that makes it go. And so maybe it's, you know, it's not night shift. It's holiday shift where half the people have it off, but it's mixing and matching a little bit. Can I just say, oh yeah, Christmas, Christmas time at the pit? Dr. Shen's already off. He's already locked it down.

Dr. Shen won't be there. Okay. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borershead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it. Presenting the friar's turkey breast only from Borershead.

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I now present to you part one of our four-part investigation into Pit Fest. Okay. Titled, what is that hippie doing there? Yes. Okay. We got so many emails about this. Mike wrote in to say, my assumption for the moment I saw him, he is a deadhead who's been to 300 fish or dead concerts in 42 different states. And he is at Pit Fest, slinging tie-d-eyes and merch. deadhead or no deadhead

Jam ban or no jam ban The merch pros Who got there starting the shake down street Gotta eat So he's merch slinging Is what Mike says I respect it Obviously respect that

That whole line of work And the people who are traveling Trying to make a living off merch I think this guy though Is just there for the vibes He's either there for specific acts Or the vibes I don't think he's work in it

That is okay That brings us to Sarah's email Sarah says So my dad is basically that guy Yeah Loves all kinds of music festivals and specifically requests tie-dye shirts from me for Christmas. His favorite kind of music to see is blues rock influence as well as bluegrass. He and my mom go to two to three

festivals each year and are living their best lives. He also lives in Pittsburgh and has his medical card. So that's what Sarah said. Dave thinks the old hippie is working crew. He's a little old. This is what, so this is what Jamer just, but like, that's heavy physical labor. This is what Jamara said. To your point, this is what Jamer said, is similar thing. I guess on the old hippies that he's friends with one of the festival staffers and literally just goes to any festival happening has been for decades. He's probably been working a bit for years, maybe a former roadie who everyone loves and grew up with. I feel like they lovingly slide him a general access pass and he helps set up water stations or something early in the day. A vocational

festival goer since early Newport Days who just loves to celebrate peaceful gatherings of humanity, bless him. So that's that concludes part one of our four part investigation. What is that hippie doing there? So yeah, vibes only. Possible. It doesn't have to be a jammy band or a Grateful Dead cover, Dead and Co, or like anything like that. It can just be like, I love watching people watch music, enjoy music. I love new music, all of that sort of stuff.

It's also not challenging to find a band the hippie would be into. I think the difficulty of the needle we were trying to thread is who would Jake and Leah also be listening to? Well, please return for part two of this investigation. I now bring you to something I'm going to call Neppo Daddy Corner. And that is... Fuck yes, Joe. Yes. The introduction of legendary actor Brad Durif as McKay's father.

And if you have not been following this, Dr. Cassie McKay, a.k.a. Dr. Bangs is played by Fiona Durif, who is the real life daughter of legendary actor Brad Durif, who shows up very briefly, too briefly, I would argue. I would too. To play her father and get off this impeccable line. Chadwick Harrison Ashcroft, the third, douchebag name for a douchebag guy. Facts. Rob, Brad Durf, what do you want to say?

Just one of my all-time favorite character actors. Who else could play Dr. Bangs' father? It was right there the whole time. I can't believe we never even talked about the possibility when we flagged Fiona Durf so early in this season and the fact that, oh, I would love to see what the daughter of Brad Duref can bring to this particular show. I really liked her performance. I love seeing the two of them together. I love seeing Brad Durf and literally anything. And boy, can that guy play anything all over the place in terms of the performances he can potentially deliver.

You may know him from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. You may know him from Lord of the Rings. I know him from fucking Deadwood first and foremost where he is incredible on that show. Obviously, blue velvet, like, he's, he's everywhere. And every time he pops up, like, very memorable, like, a three or four episode guest star in the middle of a random giant TV show. Just can steal scenes. He can be creepy. He can be unsettling.

He can be comforting. In this case, he can just be a perfect grandpa. I love Brad Durf. I love that, like, it was funny. Obviously, yeah, Robin are a huge Lord of the Rings fan. So obviously, Grima Worm Tongue always, always delight to see him. Yeah. But the fact that he's like,

between Doc Holiday and Billy Babit and one flew over the cuckoo's nest, I'm like, this is just a medical family. This is just like we love a hospital. We love to practice medicine. We love to do our best, right? Also Harrison, we should say. We learn one more pertinent detail about Harrison, which is loves a Carbinar.

So this is a kid who just loves watching movies and eating pasta, and I have never found a more relatable character on television as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely. salute goals. Okay. So that's the good of the McKay. Yes. Here we get to the part that I feel like is so far to me less good, which is we are circling back on David. And this is Robbie, Dr. Robbie in a, and I told you so beat that I don't really love. What was that about? It doesn't seem right to me. Like what's your, yeah, what's your read on this? Okay, so well, actually, before I get there, I should say, in the mix with all the who's playing pit fest emails we got.

Yep. Oh, we got a lot of who's the shooter. Yes. throw your conspiracy theories in the toilet. A, the shooter is someone you've never met. B, we even in a line where it's like, do we know why he did it? Does it matter? No. End of sentence. That's it. It's not David. It's not. Doug Driscoll. We should say David has been exonerated. He is not the shooter. Definitely not the shooter. Shout out to David for just being a creep making a hit list and not a mass shooter. He still wrote a hit list of girls. And Robbie,

being like giving McKay this this hardline told you attitude is bizarre to me. I can't really, I can't really square it other than to say it's part of him just dissolving here at the end of this impossible shift that he's had, you know? I do think his patience has run thin basically across the board and he is not being his best self. I would say ultimately like these conversations are both he and McKay not being their best selves in terms of how they approach it in the room, not deftly handled. But Robbie, to me, is worse

because of this preliminary conversation where he is doing the I Told You So. And he's saying specifically, I suggested another way. Sir, what is that other way other than don't call the police about the guy who made a hit list? Like, do nothing was his plan.

That's not a better way. And for him to turn in, like, this idea of like, oh, now this is your problem to fix on McKay, I think is completely uncalled for. I take is hopefully what's meant to be a character beat for Robbie, who's just over everything and handing things off left and right, not able to deal, like, especially empathetically in the way he did earlier in the season.

Because, yeah, he is not on it here. One thing I want to say before we sort of circle in on, what I think is sort of like the last major storyline, is to zoom back to the previous episodes, there's a couple great breakdown articles out there about episode 12 and 13, in the heart of the emergency and on Vanity Fair, David Canfield, and Parade.com, Mike Bloom,

both great breakdowns of how they made that episode. Based on the placement in VF, this is clearly an Emmy's push from HBO and who can blame them. But this is a, we want the Emmy for this episode sort of kind of article where they're talking to the director, the stars, you know, the showrunner, blah, blah, like, that's, that's what they're trying to be like, look at the

totality of the effort of, of this episode. And when you, when you go to, so like, best director, best, best writing and, and best series, like you put one episode forward. So they're like, take a look at this thing that we accomplished. But something I thought was incredible that I didn't realize in reading those, those two breakdowns was Joe Sachs, who's the, who's the, who's a top medical advisor on the show and the co-writer, credited co-writer of episodes 12 and 13, did a lot of investigation into mass casualties, speaking to people around, you know, Columbine or the Las Vegas shooting or, you know, etc., etc. And ask them a question of like, what would you wish you had done differently or what do you wish had been available to you or all these sorts of. of things. And so some of the systems that they put in place, including the slap bracelets

and the waterproof charts that they put on people's wrists were things that Joe Sachs innovated for the show that hospitals don't use. And perhaps they could and should use. He was talking about how, you know, in like the Vegas shooting specifically that they were like writing on people's foreheads, writing on bed sheets, you know, how little tech is used. inside of a mass casualty triage situation like that. And I thought that was incredible. I'm like, what if the pit innovates, you know, ER medicine? Like, that would be astonishing.

And then also Amanda Marcellus, who is the director on the episode, was talking about, we clocked this, but in terms of having to have a 360 of everything that's happening in the hospital and having to have, you know, know, to be able to see Santos or Langdon or Whitaker or Mel or whoever else in the background, she said, she said like any error in the corner of the frame, a prop mishap, a miss shot, a flubbed line required a full reset of everyone. And just the sheer undertaking of something like that where it's just sort of like, if you mess a line,

you can't take again or whatever in an easy setup, you just have to get like everyone back to the top and go again. And that's just, so I guess I'm doing some award season PR for them, but I just thought that was just incredible. Is it PR if it's just true? You know, I think it's well identified that 12 in particular is just made for award season, right? It's great individual TV making in terms of the self-standing episode. It pays off so many things we saw all season long, our season-long relationships to these characters. But it's just a marvel in terms of the way that it's made and the pacing of it is so unrelenting. even within a show that's already so unrelenting.

I just can't express how impressive it is to have a show that already is at such a high gear. Yeah. And then you can just find another one, right? You can just find that in a moment with an event like this, and it feels even more dramatic. The stakes are just amped of that much more. I don't know what that means in terms of what you do in a season two

and how you continue to sort of play with these ideas and like crescendo the drama of a season two after something like this. But boy, would I love to see what they come up with. The last case that I want to talk about is the measles case. You already alluded to it. We've got Mel, like our favorite, okay, I'll say this. My favorite daytime doctor, Dr. Mel King, my favorite night shift doctor, Dr. John Shen.

John Shen's great. And then Robbie's here. The team up of the century. Yeah. This is just, what else could you want? I mean, the number of times, too, that John's like, seems like it's over. and then something comes careening into the ambulance bay. Great, great stuff from Dr. John Shen.

But Mel doing this sort of like button hook second take, seeing Georgia, the younger sister of Flynn, the guy, the kid with the measles, in the ambulance and looking down and seeing on the blood all over her and goes like, oh, yeah, that's scary, right? That's scary. But we, we, because we've had this long-term investment in Dr. Mel King and her story over this shift or have to be thinking about Mel earlier in this shift and how she had to interact with another young girl worried about a sibling and stuff like that.

So we have to be thinking about that when we see her interact with Georgia. The little girl who's playing Georgia is incredibly good. A lot of great kid actors on this show. She's really, really good. And this is, you know, we already had like an anti-masker earlier in this season. But here we come with like. anti-vaxxers with a side of like Dr. Googling. And what do you think of this as one of the, I mean, we only have one more episode after

this, like one of the final cases for the season. What do you think of this? I'm not sure yet. I think at this point it is, I mean, it grabs your attention very quickly, right? Another child in peril being rolled into the ER after everything does seem to be whether Dr. Shen is a right or not, like slowing down, right? Like you're getting at least back to normal and all of a sudden here is a case that is not only incredibly dire for a young person, but also quite treatable if you move quickly

and you follow the advice of your doctors. And this one is tough because, yeah, it does have some very heavy messaging overtones as far as doc, not just measles specifically, but doctor-patient interactions. You're right. Like the Googling thing is almost its separate issue that's been shoehorned into this one on top of it. Obviously, they're related and they like do your own research kind of sense. I hesitate to say it's heavy-handed, though, when this feels incredibly timely, unfortunately, there is a massive measles outbreak happening in my home state in Texas right now. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases. I think it's already doubled the national total from last year in Texas alone. It's getting really scary out there because people don't want

to vaccinate their kids against measles. And so, yeah, this performance, this character, it's a little directly on the nose, but sometimes life is a little directly on the nose. And unfortunately, that's the timeline that we're living in right now. They want medical treatment, but they don't want medical advice. Is both one of those lines in this show that I'm like, okay, you just said the thing? But also, I think it was like pretty succinct like a point well and succinctly made. The last thing I will say in all of this, again, you know, we have to wrap up a few things before the day shift gets to clock out. We've got one more one more episode to go.

But this moment with Mel, who has been dealing with this one with PTSD, whose husband died and gets to reunite her with her daughter. Yes. Is dealing with Georgia and thinking about, you know, other cases that she's had today, all this stuff. And she and Mel, who has been, you know, in a slightly neurodivergent seeming sort of way, like, you know, somewhat detached from the way that some of the. other doctors have expressed themselves this season. And then she has this breakdown. I mean, she's had incredible compassion and all this other stuff, but she has this little mini breakdown. And she apologizes. And Robbie, and I think this is what's important. I really dislike Robbie's interaction with McKay in this episode. Yes. And it can go right next door to

this moment with Mel, where he says that she's awesome and he's so glad that she's with them. And so that's what this show can offer us with any given characters. Like, Robbie being a tremendous leader in this moment, no, being a tremendous leader in this moment, yes. And he has both of those things in any given day. I also think for a viewer, I would like to think I am better than this, but Joe, I am not. There's something so genuinely affirming about watching characters that we have spent so much time with all season work hard and be told that they did a good job.

Yeah. And so it's like having this Robbie and Mel exchange, you get Mateo and Victoria, like him calling her a rock star. You get Abbott having this moment with Mohan, too, of like, that was your save. You did that, like, big uping her too. Because it was too risky for Jack to do it. Maybe so. I was genuinely caught off guard by how meaningful those scenes felt.

Yeah. And I don't know what that says about me or what I'm watching on TV, but like, it feels part of the allure of the pit is seeing people who care about what they do and are trying. earnestly to be very good at it and occasionally get it right and do well and save lives. And in this case, be told, hey, you did it right today. Press T.Sheeshee at Spotify.com. If you want to tell Ron Mahoney that he did a great job podcasting. Or diagnose me, however you would like, you know, whatever you hear there. All right, before we leave today, it is part two of our Pit Fest investigation time in which

I run a few bands past Rob Mahoney. Okay. And you tell me what you think of these suggestions. in response to what act gathers this broad an audience at

a music festival suggests the Alabama Shakes what do you think of the Alabama Shakes as an option here it is broad is it hippie broad

though I think again it's they feel more Leah Jake coded than they do hippie coded if that makes

sense fair she says they're rock their soul and Brittany Howard singing live

can make anyone have a religious experience that sounds true to me okay Joe and

quite a few others suggest Tame Impala. Yeah. This one kind of makes sense.

Okay. I think a band that has had a long enough lifespan and kind of of shifted genres and styles a little bit where the hippie

could have been in early and also Jake and Leah late, that makes, that tracks for me. Joe writes, the first couple of Tame and Pallums

have a garaghy roughness that could appeal to Robbie if he's a Gen Xer. Oh, definitely. Perhaps stopped into some pavement shows.

The most recent albums. First of all, that's, look, you don't need to bring pavement into this. We're getting into direct hit territory and I don't appreciate it.

Rob, are you looking forward to a pavement movie? I'm looking forward to everything pavement all the time, Joe. That's where I'm living. Sounds right. The most recent albums, currents in particular, have been major touch notes for young millennials and Gen Z. Tracks on these albums are some of the most used and remixed audio on TikTok, IG, and YouTube ever. Yeah. Omar suggests, and I'm including this selfishly because I just really love this band. morning jacket. Yep. Personalized recommendation for me, Joanna Robinson, is the track Megita, which is like, if I play Magita once, I will play it 20 times in a row. That's how I feel about that song.

Okay, Glenn suggests Willie Nelson and says, I've been to a couple of his shows and they're the most diverse concerts I've been to, and unlike Fish and Dead and Company, he does play festivals. Okay. Willie Nelson? Very possible. I mean, clearly on the hippie end. I think maybe one, maybe Jake more than Leah, if I had to guess.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Kit, who has worked a concert venue in a mid-sized city, says the most diverse audience they've ever seen, Hosier. This is a great call. Is Hosier playing Pit Fest? I think, I think he is playing Pit Fest. Is he the exact act we're looking for?

Maybe. He does hit something that is valuable here, which is a broad, like, American Idol-esque demographic appeal. Right? Like you're hitting enough of the, not just the quadrants, but like the sub-genres and sub-audiences that are going to bring a festival crowd together.

I could honestly see it. I'm not saying it's the hippie's first choice of act, but he sees Hozier on the headliners or like maybe the second headliners late in the day. Yeah. I think he'd wander over and see what it's about. And it's the hippie, Jake and Leah, and all the lesbians.

And they're having a great time with Hosier. Okay. Elizabeth likes to point out, that we've had a lot of collabs recently between emerging pop artists and classics. Your Sabrina Carpenter plus Paul Simon, your Chapel Rome plus Elton John, your Lady Gaga plus Tony Bennett, etc., etc. She says, plus modern weed culture brings together icons like Willie Nelson and modern pop faves like Miley Cyrus. Yeah, fair. Not to mention the neo-folk movement where artists like Noah K and are vaguely reminiscent of vintage Dylan.

Point being, I could see an old hippie going for the vibes in the Puff Puff Pass, even if his personal playlist differs from Jake and his girlfriend. So we've been focusing on the band and not the strain. That's what I'm hearing. Our eye has not been on the right ball. Okay. All right. Last two. Jennifer just points out that her kids, like, love the music of the 70s and 80s.

She says her son's favorite band is Queen. Sick. Okay. And she said, but they've also had a more recent renaissance. She said, I'd like to take credit for that. But they're exposed to a lot of that music on Instagram from Reels being set to songs from that era. she votes for the Eagles, Aerosmith, or Death Leopard.

They're all touring, and I can totally see hippie dude and blonde overdose guy jamming out to any of them. Okay. Last but not least, Karen suggests Wilco. See, that's too Robbie

and not enough hippie or Jake and Leah. I disagree. I think hippies really like Wilco. I mean, it is dead center Robbie. I mean, just straight up. I think hippies like Wilco. California stars

Look, if you're a hippie, please email us at prestige TV at Spotify.com and let us know what you think of Wilco. I feel like they are a little bit more GenX late millennial. Okay.

Or old millennial, I should say. All these options, you're going Tame and Paula. Is that your sense? Can I proffer a couple more that we were emailed about? Oh, please. Christopher emailed us

with a full Venn diagram of Jake and Leah I was going to save this one next week, but I love it. Do it here. Yes. Well, maybe we should tease it. I don't want to get ahead of your field. No, no, no. The physical Venn diagram that we got is just incredible. So hit us with it. Well, one of them I want to bring up because our producer Donnie Beecham also brought this act up last time after our recording, which is Thundercat. Yeah. And I can see us really finding the midpoint here with Thundercat. Donnie also brought up Doobie Brothers as a hippie-inclined or hippie-interested band. I think that's a good one. But yeah, I think overall the issue is like these sorts of festival acts are so much one or the other.

And I am very compelled by Thundercat ultimately. The only other one that someone brought up in the emails that I had to think about was the flaming lips. Do the kids know about the flaming lips? Do they care about the flaming lips? Do they realize is what I'm asking you, Joe? Do they even know about Yoshimi? Like what are you like? I don't certainly not the pink robots.

Okay. Maybe one of the two. Okay. But yeah, I'm not sure the kids are into the flaming lifts, but vibe-wise, I could see the hippie being along for that ride. All right. Well, that has been part two of our Pit Fest investigation. Stay tuned next week for parts three and four, the conclusion of who played Pitfest 2025. Anything else you want to say before we wrap up Brad Duriff starring in the Pitt episode 14, Rob Mahoney?

I have one more query to the listeners out there. which is we get the information in this episode that Whitaker was a theology undergrad into med school pipeline. Yeah. I've never heard of that one before. Like, obviously, you don't need to be explicitly pre-med. You don't need to be explicitly hard science. Theology is a new one for me.

I would love to know if this is a prevalent or semi-prevalent or a thing that people have encountered out in the world if you're in medicine. It caught my ear. That's for sure. Press each TV at Spotify.com. Reminder, we will not be reading those emails. Well, I will be. I'll be reading them.

I'm so sorry. I'm saying we will not be reading those emails allowed, but we will be reading them. We read all your emails. Thanks so much for sending them. Thanks to the full crew on this, the day shift and the night shift on this podcast, Donnie Beecham, for his excellent taste in music, Justin Sales, and John Richter. We'll be back for the pit finale and the White Loose finale next week on the Preston TV podcast feed. See you soon. Bye.