The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The Pitt’ Episodes 12 and 13: Dr. Robby’s Personal PittFest Crisis

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Jo and Rob discuss how the old-school model of ‘The Pitt’ has paid off in drawing audiences in (2:16), the new faces called into work after PittFest (23:20), and Dr. Robby’s powerful scene with his son, Jake (51:07). Plus, Jo lays out some 'ER' Easter eggs (1:00:44). 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 Supervision: John Richter Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L. every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

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 broop 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, welcome back to the prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney. We're here today to talk to you about The Pit. We sure are, Joe. Episodes 12 and 13 is what we're covering today. So episode 12 was a big one. Episode 13. Also, wait, big one. So if you have not listened, if you don't watch those episodes of television,

I really recommend you do that before you listen to us talk about it. That would be my recommendation personally. And we have two more episodes to go after. after this, episode 13, and we will, if all goes according to plan, Rob and I will recording a podcast per pit. Look at that.

Two pits, two pods. Just an embarrassment of medical riches. We're also, of course, wrapping up White Lotus. We've done all we can possibly ever do on severance. Seriously. That's all I've got.

My head is a deflated balloon at this point. We squeeze the lumines. lemon dry. It's all over over there. And then what do we have on the horizon? Time will tell and we'll let you know. But right now let's dig into the pit. I want to start with a couple emails you got from folks.

Prestige TV at Spotify.com is where you can reach us because we don't have like a fun pithy welcome to pit fest sort of at gmail.com email for you guys. I feel good about that in retrospect. You know what?

Same same. that we didn't do anything too cute. I feel good about it. Yeah, okay. So Alexis wrote in to let us know that in addition to her delight over, you know, the Filipino nurses and a lot of other things on the show, I really like this line for her email. She said, watching the 17-year-old girl tried to get her abortion drew my 16-year-old daughter to the show. We're going to talk a bit about sort of the impact that the pit is having on the TV industry. Rob, but this multi-generational, like, let's all watch the pit together.

There's something for everyone kind of aspect, a four-quadron aspect of the show. Oh, yeah. How, like, when you think about the show as a whole, how intentional does all that feel? Or does it just feel like a natural byproduct of a kind of show that is giving us a broad slice of life kind of story? I think it is intentional, right? Like this is the product they're trying to create is a, as you say, very traditional four quadrant appealing piece of television history in a lot of ways. Like recreating so much of what has been so successful across network TV history. Yeah.

That includes a setting that is accessible to anybody. Real life situations that people can lock into and understand and explain and empathize with pretty easily. And also a cast that's kind of a little bit across the age spectrum in particular where it's not just the, you know, the teenagers who are coming in with. abortion storylines or overdose storylines or, you know, problems at school that may or may not have led to mass shooting storylines. But I think you also just have the med students themselves, right? You have younger people who are students who are actively learning that I would think as a teen would be very easy to identify with, even if you've never been to med school yourself. So you get the ages, we did get an email from listener Caitlin, who wanted to touch on the relationship

between Dr. Collins and Dr. Robbie. Dr. Collins turn off her phone is at home, has not come back to the ER yet. We don't know if she will before the end of the season. As instructed, we should say. She's doing what she was told. She's doing what she was told. But it was made canon in episode 11 that Dr. Collins and Dr. Robbie had a romantic relationship. Yes. And Caleb was pointing out the fact that like Collins as a resident and Robbie as her attending, she was like, I'm not sure. I feel great about, she was like, what if it were Santos and Robbie or something like that? And for me, there's the power differential, but there's also the age differential. And I will just say that the actress who plays Dr. Collins is 40 years old. And Noah Wiley is 53 years old. And so, like, in theory, a Dr. Collins and a Dr. Robbie got together 3750. Like the age gaps tend to, like, weird me out less the older we all get. Do you know what I mean?

And I think a 37-year-old person, I feel less concerned about her life choices than I would, anything that Dr. Santos decides to do at the time of her life currently. That is true. I mean, there's the age gap element of that. And then there's also sort of the power dynamic element of that. And I would say on that front, this is television. And this happens quite often on TV. In every medical. I mean, not just medical.

Any workplace situation. at all, comedy, drama, whatever. Bosses and supervisors and employees are constantly finding themselves in relationships. A lot of fraternization. A lot of fraternization as the carousel of characters turns. And it's just like, oh, I guess this is the season where these two people end up together. And this just happens to be where we're starting with the pit in a lot of ways. HR nightmares all around us.

Okay. Yeah. And something Caitlin said in her email, she's like, I wish we had gotten a backstory for Collins where medicine is her second career in their relationship. had existed outside the residence, you know, whatever. But like, it seems to me this has to have been a secondary career. She's only like three years. I don't know.

It's possible with someone like Collins. But also I don't want like a justification for their relationship to be need and tidy necessarily. I think, yeah. I think like it's totally fine for characters to be doing things that we don't approve of or being involved in professional or romantic circumstances that are like making you look at them a little bit sideways. even if they are otherwise interesting or redeemable characters. That's good storytelling as far as I'm concerned. That's drama, baby.

Okay. And then last not least, on the messy drama front, we've got two, I believe two doctors have weighed in on the Langdon situation. Okay, good. And Peter, who did not drop his credentials, but don't worry, the next doctor did, just said briefly in an email, for what is worth there. Many avenues were rehabilitating addicted docs that doesn't involve loss of license.

So that's something that I was saying is like, you know, Langdon's definitely going to lose his license, like, blah, blah, that is not the case. I didn't know that personally. I thought if you stole medication from the hospital, you don't work in hospitals anymore. Seems like a reasonable conclusion to draw, Joe. I will say as far as we're trying to figure out, like, the game planning of what would Langdon's path to recovery or back onto the show look like? one of them is just like Dr. Robbie kind of forgetting about it maybe after this it seems like

I feel like we are rounding the corner towards Langdon gets some kind of like moment in the sun by helping people during these traumatic circumstances we already have seen Robbie kind of wrestle with the idea of how much he should push for through official channels so quickly he has held the bag of pills in his hand

and I don't know what your read on that was Joe but my read was like he was thinking about flushing them Yeah. And did decided not to, maybe to report them, maybe to not, at least to table the decision for later. That bag of pills is still in his pocket. And he's had a lot going on, but I'm kind of wondering if by the end of this, he ends up just kind of like giving Langdon a second chance in a way that honestly may just bite him directly in the ass later. So this is the other piece of information. Dr. John Cranshaw MD wrote into us.

That is how his email was signed. says in PA, Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh is, Dr. Ravi is mandated to report to the state medical board about Dr. Langdon or Dr. Robbie could face fines. The exception to this would be if Dr. Langdon enters an approved treatment center, the treating provider or center is not mandated to report. So is that a path forward if Langdon, does Dr. Robbie not to report him if Langdon agrees to go into some sort of rehab. Yes. This is obviously not going to be resolved in the 24 hours or rather 15 hours that is this

television show and that takes us sort of into this big picture impact of the pit or roll out of the pit that I want to talk about before we get into everything that happens in these two episodes, which is a lot. It's a lot. Joe, there's a lot of blood. Yeah. We are in the splash zone. I honestly would love to talk to whoever worked in like the costuming for this, the

wardrobe who had to splatter or smear blood all over these various pieces of clothing. It's really artfully done. I saw the, you know, Martin McDonough who does, you know, the very bloody Irish plays, among other things. I saw one of his plays. I think he was Lieutenant of Inishmore at Berkeley Rep years ago. And they had a gutter in the front of the stage for the blood. And the stage was like slightly canted. Yeah. So all the blood could like just roll down. the stage into the gutter that's in the front of it. And then all of the actors had like, I think, five different sets of their costumes so they could just like rotate in the laundry out the like blood soaked versions, etc., etc. I thought that was amazing.

Okay. But here in the pit, okay, so let's say, let's say, for example, Dr. Langdon's storyline doesn't get wrapped up with a neat and tidy bow at the end of the 15th hour of this shift. Yeah, which it can't. So those of us watching it at home and the new TV model are like, when are we going to figure this out? When is season two coming? The plan is for season two to debut, they've already picked it up for it to debut January of next year. So just like TV shows of old. Can we just say God bless. Thank you. Thank you. Max. Thank you Pitt gods. Thank you Noah Wiley. We need more regular TV in our lives. Exactly. So this is a lot. So this is. I've never been more glad to be back to an old school model. So that's eight months, which is not nothing between the end of the season and the new season. But if we're like, hey, every January we get to go back to the pit, that's kind of excited. So Joe Adelian, who's a writer I love who writes about sort of ratings in the business of television really well,

wrote this piece on Vulture that went up this morning called Max's Big Bet on the Pit paid off where he interviews Casey Blois, who's ahead of programming at HBO about what they hope to accomplish with the pit, basically why 15 episodes and Casey's like, I wanted something that felt like old school linear storytelling. Linear storytelling being at 10 o'clock every Thursday night, ER is on NBC. That's linear storytelling, linear television versus it's on demand. You watch it whenever, right? So the episodes drop Thursdays at 9 Eastern.

They don't drop at midnight. Like a lot of streaming shows do. You know, this is a Mac show. Every other Mac show has dropped at midnight. That's been the classic model. Only Disney Plus has really been deviating from that, making an appointment television. Yeah. What did you want to say?

And Apple, I guess. Do we know why other than like the changeover of the calendar date? It just seems so misguided to drop your episodes at midnight. Casey gave an answer to Joe Dalyan about that where he's like, I asked them why and they said something about yada, yada, yada, maximize the night, yada, yada, and he's like, and it all did not make sense to me. He's like, so that's why we're doing it this way. This is some Y2K bullshit. Like the numbers roll over and therefore we must publish them. I just don't buy it. But yeah, so he's like I wanted 15 episodes because it felt like too big of swing to do 22 episodes for our first attempt at this. But we wanted to make it definitely longer than. even your 12, you know, HBO used to do 12, then they shrunk it to 10. Now they do eight or six or whatever. He's like, let's bring it, beef it up to 15, drop it week to week, drop it at like in prime time. And the results have been smash all the success in terms of reviews. In terms of, you know,

Emmy consideration in terms of, you know, us hearing from our listeners about. it. And in terms of, I would say, the word of mouth build, build, build, which is what you want in a show. And then I'm going to talk about the storytelling impact in a second, but from like a business point of view, when we talk about the binge model being flawed, this is what we're talking about in terms of like word of mouth, word of mouth building, especially around episode 12, which we're here to talk about today. The mass casualty event comes to the pit. And so everyone's like, oh, episode 12, you've seen episode 12. You got to watch it. And then we have. 12, 13, 14, 15, several more episodes

if someone's like, okay, I got to binge and watch up to 12. I feel like what happened recently with Paradise, the show I didn't watch. But reportedly episode 7 of Paradise was like, wild and crazy and you had to watch it, right? But I don't think there was like enough time after that for people to then all like catch up with Paradise and then be watching it together week to week.

Yeah. That's what I think has happened with the pit is that like people have been catching on slowly, it's been building and building. And then the reputation of episode 12 last week's episode has pushed it even further in front of people's faces. And now even more people are going to be watching week to week for the last few episodes of the season. Rob Mahoney, what do you want to say about this? I'm just impressed with the confidence in the model and in the product that they knew not only what show they had and that this was something that was going to appeal to people in a very traditional

sense. But as you're saying, putting as something as heavy hitting as episode 12 in episode 12 and not in episode four or five or like a two-part premiere or something like that, like they are trusting the process of building up these characters, helping us identify with them. And then they get this great rug pull moment of, oh, this isn't an ER anymore. This is a complete mass unit situation. We are tossing blood bags like water balloons. Everyone who was now an underling or a student is now having to function on their own by instinct, by feel. It turns episode 12 into just an amazing episode of television, first of all. But I think structurally, as you're alluding to, putting it at that point in the season is so

smart and so calculated. And it's something that I feel like we're missing. So often we're talking about the pacing within seasons for respective shows and why things are happening at different times versus not. Yeah. It feels really good to feel the sure hand of a product that we're familiar with, admittedly. And thus that there's always going to be like a nostalgia baked into a medical drama like this. Yeah.

But also feel like they know what they're doing in terms of the arc of the season, that this is happening at a certain cadence for a reason. And it's delivering on everything that is trying to deliver on. Yeah. And it becomes to your point, like just kind of a different show entirely as we are sort of in this even more of an emergency emergency situation for the rest of the season, theoretically. And I think that a couple more things I want to mention is on the other. sort of like the business of television front not to step too much on the Watch's Corner because they're the best at this but

like this is a fairly cheap show to make. It's like five million dollars an episode that's not nothing but we're in one location logistically that makes it hard. I was thinking a lot about actually about our adolescence coverage when thinking about these episodes because we're not even in

individual like rooms in the yard. We're in the hallway and for much of the episode it's like three 60, you can kind of see all, you know, so you can see what Langdon is doing across the room while Robbie is doing this over here. You can see what Dr. Abbott is doing over here. You know, so like they have to constantly in the background be working on their own emergency. So it's like it's the heavy technical lift of that sort of oner situation where you just have to like,

it's theater. You just have to like be going and going and going constantly in order to give us this lived in 360 experience of this emergency event. It's probably also the reason why the cast is the way it is, which is a lot of greener actors or actors who have never had roles quite this big before. It's harder to get Patrick Dempsey in the background of every scene in the back of an ER, but it's like when you have a cast who's this game and is looking for their breakout and is looking for their moment, not only is that just on a technical level more affordable for a show like The Pit, you have all those people on set all the time in the backgrounds of these shots.

but I think it just makes the whole thing a little more logistically feasible. And so it's like it's huge life or death stakes, obviously. That's literally what we're talking about here. And this is what Casey was talking about in his interview with Joe on Vulture. But like, but you don't have to pay to render CGI dragons or, you know, fingers crossed for season two. We don't know who the killer is at Pithfest. It could have been a dragon. It could have been Maly's or something like that.

But I think that like, yeah, you're just, you have your one set essentially. more or less. You've got these scrubs. That's your costume for the most part. And you go from there. And so you just got to pay for gallons of fake blood. And we go from there. So all of that's to say, all of that logistically,

because that makes it a lower and easier investment for HBO for Max. To be like, this show costs us so much less than, you know, Dune Prophecy or the Penguin or all these other big IP shows. that we're trying to do. And it's giving us that long-term investment of viewers and that long-term investment is what is paying off so beautifully in story. We've been talking about this all season, but like this is what long-form storytelling does best.

This is what a 20, when you watch, again, I know I sound like so elderly when I'm like, this is how we used to watch television. But when from September to May, there are. thereabouts. You spent almost every week with your favorite cast of characters, week in, week out, and then you only take a couple months off and then you're back with them all year. You have a different level of investment than you do in characters that you spend eight weeks with or one binge drop weekend with. And then you got to wait three years for the Stranger Things kids to become 30 year old. You know, like it's just a different level of emotional investment. And so if we

come back to the pit in January of next year, having not forgotten, for the most part, I'm sure we're going to need some previously on, but you're not going to only need like 90 lore videos. You're not going to just need House of R to have done all the reading for you and stuff like that. You don't have a heavy lift on more. Not for the pit. For everything else, yes. Mal and Joe go to medical school is a series I would follow up on. I just want you to know that.

I mean, I think we reached a tipping point a while ago in the streaming era where where it was, the marketplace was so flooded. There was a like, discretion is the better part of valor element where it was like, we can't dominate a monocultural discussion anymore. So let's pick a date,

try to steer clear of the Game of Thrones or whatever, like the big things on the calendar are. Find our pocket and binge drop it and hope that it finds its audience. Yeah. I think it tipped into that maybe a little too quickly in some respects.

And there were too few products and too few networks and streamers willing to fight for a corner and fight for a month and say, you know what? Like, we think this can be a hit and we're going to roll it out week by week and prove it. And it takes honestly probably something a little closer to HBO or Max to pull that off. Like not every network can stake its claim in quite that way. But when you have a track record, both in terms of the production side and the network side and also in terms of the talent, both in front of and behind the camera, all of a sudden the pieces

start coming together for you to say, like it or not, like it or not, not in terms of like how like in vogue a medical drama pitch would be in 2024 and 2025. We think this can work. And I mean, fuck if it doesn't work, Joe. Like this is a super watchable show. Basically no matter what the cases of the week are or who's kind of featured in that episode. Because you care about the people who are there. And so last one at least, I will say that I had lunch with a friend of mine who's a TV writer.

And he was, he's talking about like how much the pit has impacted the way in which people are pitching shows or looking for shows right now. And HBO Max specifically are looking for, and Casey talks about people have talked about this, they're looking for, and we joked about this earlier, but they are looking for their legal drama and their family drama.

And they're just like, they're like, we're going to bring linear storytelling, high prestige, high level linear storytelling to Max, not to HBO, not to HBO Sunday night is its own thing, but like Max Thursday nights might become a thing.

because what Casey said is he's like, we're going to start dropping hacks at 9 p.m. Easter on Thursday instead of midnight. We're going to start, you know, like the various max shows that they have, the Sex and the City reboot, which I will never, you could not pay me to watch, will also be doing. You know what I mean? It's like that's something that they're embracing and it's something that I'm quite excited about. I can't believe I'm saying this. This is the most, this is the closest I've ever come to someone clearly articulating to me what the difference between HBO. and Max are. That is a coherent vision for how Max could not quite be HBO, but be its own distinct enterprise. Casey said literally that. He's like, honestly, up until now I could not tell you what a

Mac show is. And he's like, now I feel like I can point to the pit and say, this is a Mac show. You know, so, okay. So when Dana quits as charge nurse, does she become a paralegal? Does she go work in the public school system? Let's go home with Dana. I want Dana's whole, like, the whole clan. I'm sure it's a massive man. Domestic drama of the Evanses. Yeah. I mean, sign me up. Exactly.

Parenthood, but make it the Evanses. Okay. That's a pitch. 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, Borishead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it.

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predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Let's talk about the new cast members that we got as the night shift comes in to help with the mass casualty here.

Just when I learned everyone's name, we have new people. people to meet. Let's start with, we get the return of Sean Hadessee as Dr. Jack Abbott. Yes. A couple things to note. When he walks in, he walks in and Robbie has this huge sense of relief of I don't have to be the only one in charge anymore, right? Like he turns around, gives him a hug. He's like, I'm so glad you're here, brother. Like, thank you so much, like that you're here. Two things we got to know about Dr. Jack Abbott right from the jump here. He's got an army combat backpack on his back.

and he said, I heard about the pit-fest shooting on the police scanner. So Dr. Jack Abbott is the guy who goes home from a shift at the ER that sent him to the edge of the roof of the hospital to a quiet, peaceful time listening to the police scanner. We all need white noise to sleep, Joe. You know, you need something to just drown out the anxieties of our existence. And what better way coming off of a night shift in the ER than listening to the police scanner? Throughout, you know, you already cited his great line where he's like, this is now a mash unit. MASH for the infants out there was another very great movie and a very popular medical TV show about Army doctors. But like the moments that we get with Dr. Abbott of him saying like, this is this is combat field medicine.

Let me show you how to do this procedure. This is what we did in the field. I could do this at night. I could do this with bombs raining down overhead. This is something I can do is an interesting element to added to our already sort of, you know, emergency ready doctors. I would say it's also like, I mean, Robbie is put in these positions too, but Abbott in particular so clearly knows his medicine inside and out that he can attack it laterally.

And he's starting to really do like the creative problem solving of a group that's so short on supplies, so short on time, does not have the ability to go through the traditional checks and balances that go through any kind of medicine, any kind of treatment. And so it's like, yeah, we have to use this tube as this other tube. We have to just, like, cut a hole in the side of this guy's neck. And all of a sudden, that's what we're operating out of. He's such a great avatar for that sort of idea, the like MacGyvering that's happening all throughout 12 and 13.

Let's take a, before we go to your favorite character in mind, Dr. John Shen, let's go to this sort of like mass unit rundown. Do you have a favorite, like, mass unit problem? solving, MacGyvering, as you put it. And was it the use of the I-O-Drill to relieve cranial pressure? Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna shoehorn in another recurring bit that we have here on these pit pods, Joe, which is I'm on constant gnarly watch. Every one of these episodes, what is the gnarliest shit that's happening? There is a whole subcategory of drill, I-O-drill-based gnarliness.

I would say starting off with, like, drilling directly into a bone to do a marrow transfusion, which did not look or feel or sound great to me. Also, Whitaker straight up drilling into a clown's arm while he was awake, not quite getting the brief that this is something you should only do to unconscious people. But yeah, drilling straight into a skull to relieve pressure, while good thinking, quick on your feet, probably saved that person's life, did not love it.

In case anyone is like, wondering, at home wondering. Because you get the gist of what the IOD drill is. We see it use. The IOD drill is the star of episodes 12 and 13. We're dismantling ankle monitors. What can't the Io drill do, right? I think I need one.

But I was just curious when I, like what, so IA refers to intra-Oseus access, a method of establishing vascular access by injecting fluids and medications directly into bone marrow bypassing the veins when intravenous access is difficult or impossible. So in this case it's not necessarily difficult or impossible. It's just faster to jam the nutrients straight into the bone marrow rather than try to start an IV. Incredible shit from the I.O. drill.

It's real fast. Wait, before we move past the drilling, let me get your take on the gnarliest thing that we saw in these episodes. We have all of those candidates. Also, cutting the side of a dude's peck open, with scissors to insert a tube. Blood catheter inserted directly into a guy's dick. Honestly, this one got me more than I thought I would,

which is Dana just wiping down equipment because there's not enough of it for reinsertion and reuse with whatever sanitary wipes are available. And also two words that you simply never want to hear together, eviscerated bowel. What would you say is the gnarliest of any of these moments in 12 and 13? Honestly, it should not be the answer, but it was. Dana wiping down the equipment. There's something about it. There was just something.

Yeah. Gannar watch. The other thing I want to say under the sort of like mashing an umbrella is like, shout out Victoria's time to shine in front of her mom and in front of Matteo. Mateo was like really enjoying how good, how creative Victoria was with her magevering here. No, this is genius is what he says about Victoria. And you love to see it. And this is like such a great little like whatever happens with Mateo.

on Victoria. Like, I love that Mateo, Victoria, and her mom, that those storylines are all, like, the, the need to shine in front of two important people at once. And not just, like, to shine in front of Mateo, you have a little crush on. Oh, a big crush on. A big crush on. Asking out on day one crush on. She's down so bad. So to shine in front of Mateo, and then to have Mateo, like, reflect your shine back at you in front of your mom. Yeah. Everything's coming up, Victoria. I love that for her. I guess I too, her mom not up for snuff here. She's not ER ready at all.

Everyone else is rolling with the punches. She's out here trying to do like hands-on teaching moments in the middle of a mass trauma event. And then just like. So fussed. So fussed by all the unconventional methods that are happening in front of her. On the mash unit front. So Victoria is shining because of her creativity, her innovations. Santos because of her brass.

She does this move in episode 13 that Abbott is like, don't ever do. She's never done that on your own, but that was pretty badass. But also that was sick. Yeah. I love that. And I love that deliver. Like his whispered delivery of that was like really, really good. But I love. So Santos and her sort of even even in the midst of all this, Santos, uh, saying that sounds boring. I want to do it like I'm going to look for a different case. Um, and then also her best. side manner, which is spotty at best being extremely tested inside of a situation like this. Any Santos highlights that you want to point out here? I think just that she does, she's so clearly good at her job and she has good intuition. It's just a matter of like getting a little bit too much over her skis at certain points. And as you say, her bedside manner is just not on the level of like Mel, for example. Like her treatment in particular of this woman who's clearly in shock. And Santo's just like, I don't know what to do with you.

I'm going to move on to the next person who's, I can stick a tube into. Look, I'm not saying it's not effective under these circumstances. There's lots of people who need tubing. But you would hope that that's kind of like part of her journey ultimately, right? Like Whitaker has really been working on his over the course this season, like communication with patients, trying to reassure them, trying to kind of get level with them in an emotional way.

These circumstances are not quite built for that. They're built for efficiency of communication, of ease, of like trying to get the right people to the right place so they don't die. And I think Santos is okay at that up until the point where she has to do like emotional triage. What she is well suited for is chasing down a quote unquote reporter. We'll talk about that more in a second. Come on. Come on.

This is just. That's not a reporter. That's not a. No. Okay. That's like a Jake Gyllenhaal and nightcrawler reporter. I literally wrote night crawler in my notes. 100% I wrote night crawler.

Okay. Last but at least on the mass unit front and then we'll go back to our favorite, Dr. John And how Mohan is handling slow-mo Mohan Samira, how Samira is handling this new normal. It feels like she's just like enervated and ready for it. She's going. Definitely. She's not like held up.

And, you know, something we've been observing in her all season is not just this like is her, I mean, her bedside man are top notch. But to your point, we don't have time for the long convo's certainly right now. Her instincts pretty, pretty solid. as well, her thinking outside the box pretty solid. But being able to execute that under this amount of pressure and how little time they have to diagnose to triage to move on, I thought this was like a really interesting. It was really like on my third watch through these episodes, I was like really trying to track her and her journey through this moment. I thought it was really interesting.

She gets a big call up. Like she's on the red team with Robbie and Abbott for the most critical patient. So it's like a great sign of affirmation in terms of Robbie's. belief in her. I would say if you're looking at who's kind of getting the nod in the moment of emergency, Mohan being on the red team is a huge one. I thought Javadi being basically like on the short-handed team with Dr. Bangs was kind of a sign of like confidence in her abilities and knowledge. And then of course, Mel, without Langdon, without Collins being on the floor at that point in time, having to lead a team all by herself. Really, really getting her moment in the pros. When Whitaker drills the cloud and she's like, okay, team meeting.

Okay, I want to rewind when you ask me the best Santos moments, her saying you're allowed to do that to a mime because they can't scream. A plus. A plus for Sandra. Look, we got to keep ourselves sane out on the floor, even in these trying times. Yeah. All right. Let's go back to the long promise Dr. John Chen, because of all the scenes that I will long remember from these two episodes,

Robbie trying to give Dr. John Chen the night shift attending doctor, the debrief on how to handle triage in the ambulance bay, while John continues to sip on an iced coffee, will stay with me for a long time. The fact that Robbie didn't slap the iced coffee out of his hand,

there's like one great shot where the camera's just moving away from them And you just see, like, Robbie just, like, looking at the coffee. Having a moment. Fuck you. But in the way that John's like, oh, yeah, I wasn't in that faculty. I mean, I was a resident three months ago, you know, just sort of like, whatever. And then asking for Christmas off and stuff like that.

That's good negotiation, by the way. Dr. John Shen, absolute, like, scene stealer rock star and perfectly paired with senior resident Parker Ellis, who comes in to man the. the ambulance. I loved this team. I loved coming back to them. And I love how well they explained to us the rundown of the slap bracelets and the way. I mean, like, this is how it works, but also it was an easy way for us to understand and track what was going on. John Shen, I just a wonderful addition to the show. I love that we're getting kind of the fresh blood and some new characters this late that re-contextualize a lot of different things. But Dr. Shen in particular, as you say,

ice coffee enthusiast Duncan by my eye clearly a Duncan man 100% Duncan moment yes maybe a dissociative lunatic at the end of the day or healthy work life balance one of the two

you be the judge well I think more than anything he's like he's a character on an arc he's like never experienced this before so we're going to see him you know we've we've heard him say a couple times like like it has surely there has to be an end to this

or like you know Robbie being like yeah we're about halfway done And he's like, what are you talking about? So, you know, like, he's someone who's going to be a different kind of guy, I think, on the other side of this. Great stuff. And then Dr. Emery Walsh, who is their sort of, like, a surgical floor liaison who comes in. And she's the one who, like, calls it on Leah, essentially and stuff like that. So, like, that's a new member of the team.

Different colored scrubs always helpful. Bright orange vests, always helpful to understand who's in charge. where one of my favorite moments actually was, and obviously we'll get to Jake and Leah, but one of my favorite moments is when Dana gives her vest to Princess so that she can be with Robbie while he's helping Leah. She's like, well, I can't do this job and be here for Robbie at the same time. So, you know, Princess take the wheel.

She's like, I don't want to. I've often thought that throughout this season. Just give Princess control of literally everything on this floor. and we might be doing all right. You've already mentioned a few things, but I want to talk for a moment about Langdon's return. Sure. What did you observe about that? What did you most want to say about that?

I mean, to borrow from his probably worst line of the entire season, the man has skills, and I say that with a Z, he's undeniable in terms of his impact out there. And I think his ability to work on the fly in the same context that Abbott and Robbie are, right? to improvise, to do things that clearly the med students and some of the other residents just are not quite ready to do, maybe because he's willing to take risks that others aren't. But I think he has a sense of the moment that Robbie zeroes in on, which is like, you reach a certain point where there's the risk of like these people will not survive by the time we can get them to the OR unless we start doing dramatic things, whether that's donating blood as we

operate on them, whether that's, you know, try some more like experimental methods of treatment in these cases. and I think his presence is very welcome in that way, just in terms of treating the people who are coming in. But also you can see the relief in Mel when she sees him, which I admit, like I am charmed by that, even if Santos herself isn't so glad to see him. And so I really do feel like we are building towards some kind of reinstatement.

I don't know if it's post-treatment or not. I really hope it is for the sake of everyone who's in this ER, but it feels like Langdon is not about to leave this show. It was an interesting combination because you've got, like, when Robbie first spots him and I like gas I was like oh my God Langdon's back oh no Langdon jump scare

yeah exactly Langdon jump scare when Santos has to first register that he's there and and their first interaction too where he comes in like maybe I would say neutral

to slash intense and noticeably sort of like backs off and compliments her and gets the hell out understandably but yeah to your point like Mel being so you're back right like so excited

to see him. And then when he helps them and he's like, could catch you too. Yeah, he's like a good teacher, supportive. And that's why he's such an interesting character. He's like all these things. He's something, he's one thing to Mel. He's another thing to Santos. He's, you know, and to your, like, to what you said earlier about you don't need the Collins and Robbie romance to be clean. You don't need, we don't need these characters to be one thing or the other. Isn't it so much more interesting when they're all different kinds of things for different people? Because that's what humans are, you know. And in particular to set it up in this way, where as we've alluded to many times, if something makes Mel happy, it generally makes us happy. And we like seeing that character,

you know, succeed and rewarded and put him good positions. And the fact that she likes this person who we all know as viewers of the show what he's done and the risk that he's put, like, he's put people's lives at risk for who knows how long by manner of like operating in this way and living his life in that way. And then Santos, as we discussed in the last pod, who we have personal issues with and can be a grading personality, not just because of her bedside manner, but like she's even calling Javadi crash in this episode. She's even kind of... But supportively. She's like hanging their crash. I don't know. Hang in their crash counts as supportively, but... I think she also gets a huckleberry off too. Like she's rolling out the

nicknames, you know. She is who she is. And that's a flawed person too, who wants something, who is striving, who is clearly very smart, who also can come off as being a little bit much sometimes. I love your point of like if Mel cares about something we care about something. A pal pointed out to me that he thinks Mel sounds a lot like Willow on Buffy. Does I say this is the Willow rule, right? Yeah, when Willow cries we cry, like that's, yeah, that's the Willow rule and I would apply it to Mel King.

I did like that Langdon got at least two rebukes other than like Robbie being like the fuck out of here. these are healing hands too bad they're so tiny this is good great and also you know Victoria's mom being like don't like why are you spreading gossip

essentially right when he's like that it could be the shooter she's like what the what are you the shooter could be coming this way she's like why are you spreading gossip and panic when we don't need that right now all of that too all of the like the shooter might be coming this way gossip that's kind of channeling through the ER makes me feel even more confident that we have not seen the shooter yet and we have not met the shooter yet and that everything that's kind of culminating in David coming back at the

end of 13 is not it. So let's talk about the press and the cops and David. That's the next thing I want to talk about perfectly. The press and scare quotes. We do have one actual reporter at the ambulance bay and they're like, you can't go elsewhere. But this dude who comes in and they're like, it's probably the press, this dude who put on this bloody sweatshirt and is pretending and is filming things on his cell phone. I just want to say, I'm indignant at someone who was, I wouldn't say currently a reputable

journalist, but was once a journalist. You are a reporter still. You've reported things in this podcast based on source conversations you had. Rob is a reputable NBA journalist. We don't do this shit. This is not what the media does. If you want to say like, I don't know, paparazzi to a certain degree, but like, yeah, there's nightcrawler shit. So, but I'm glad he slipped in that puddle of blood.

That was great. And he's going to be here for a while. Soft restrained six hours of observation. He's making it to the finale, strapped to that bed. Good job. Okay. Then we've got the cop, Officer Stefano, who gets shot. Yeah.

And the SWAT team comes in essentially because they want to like watch to make sure he's okay. Right. I would suggest they have more important things to do, but okay. As would I. Also, you're actively crowding an area of high traffic. And a lot of people flying around trying to get supplies and treatment to everyone in the room. Maybe go step outside. That cop gets saved with Abbott's field kit.

And then we've got David, who shows up to pick his mom and is tackled and put in a room. And you're standing strong on it wasn't David Corner. It feels like a head fake to me. It feels like we're being told the shooter will return. we see David, Dr. Banks is flagging real early. Do we know where David is as soon as the shooting goes down? Told you. Like she's just ready for her victory lap.

I think what might happen if I had to guess, we've seen Whitaker start to ask patients if they saw who shot them. And he does it a couple of different times with a couple of different patients. I wonder if he's going to start hearing from them a very different description from David or something that might be able to clarify that it was not him. Yeah. I'm thinking that's how things might be. might kind of unfold from here, but ultimately, us being shown exactly one suspect all season

as to who could do this and people questioning it all season, whether he's capable of violence, makes me think that it will not be him. I think it's interesting to think about, because I was talking to, I was talking to a friend of mine who, who, a different person who, like, writes for television, he was like. Oh, another reporting source. I knew, I knew as soon as, like, Robbie let him go, essentially. that David was going to wind up doing something terrible. Really?

I don't know the answer, but I'm just sort of like, am I more interested if Dr. Robbie's wrong? Or am I more interested in if Dr. McKay's wrong? Yeah. A.K. Dr. Bangs. Or some combination of the two, I mean, just because David didn't do this doesn't mean he's not capable of doing something.

So Dr. McKay doesn't have to be like totally wrong. I don't think she's wrong regardless. This was a flagable, concernable course of events that needed to be addressed. We've seen adolescence. We have indeed seen adolescence. We have seen adolescents.

I would say on the Robbie front, just from a character standpoint, do we think that that character can handle after everything we see in 13, also being implicitly responsible for a mass shooting event that led to his adopted kind of stepson kind of girlfriend's death,

among many, many other deaths and wounds? I just don't think they're going to put Robbie through that much, but I don't think I could handle the pitch that the ringing in his ears would have to get to in order to convey that kind of drama. Yeah. All right, let's talk about, well, before we get into sort of like the last couple of segments I want to talk about, I did want to shout out, um, Kiara and Lupe, who are running in the cafeteria, running the identification aspect, dealing with the grieving loved ones. I thought that was like, again, everything we've heard from people who work in the medical field say that the pit has gotten everything right. So I don't think that they are, you know, making up the idea that you can like scan a QR code and submit photos of your loved one in a mass casualty event. I am sure this is actually how it runs. But what it gives us in terms of like Kiara who we've been, Kiara and Lupe who we've been watching all season. And Lupe especially who's had to be like such a hardliner, her empathy face.

as they walk into the cafeteria in the first place to make and then like as they are taking photos of a body for identification you know to show the woman whose husband and brother were at pit fest and stuff like that like that angle is I just think it's so well done and it doesn't overwhelm the story the adrenaline of it's a different it's a different tempo yeah and it doesn't but it's like perfectly imbalanced in harmony with the sort of relentless frenetic energy of the ER, you know? I think especially in sort of the way that part of the story is parceled out, which I would say is more heavy. It's heavier in 13 than it is in 12. 12 is very much adrenaline rush to the point

where even the doctors and nurses are joking around sometimes, like they're kind of eager and into it and are kind of jolted by the experience of being involved in something important and urgent and are just like flying around the ER. 13 is where everyone starts breaking down. And it's where the hospital is basically overrun with patients more than they could ever conceivably treat. It's where Kiar has to start identifying these victims and telling their families. And overall, I think it's kind of a nice parallel to the sort of medicine and practicing we see on the ER floor, which is so much so technical, right? It's like, how do you stop this bleeding? How do you get this person conscious? How do you get this person stable? It's all kind of like, by the book,

medicine applied in new and inventive ways. so much of Kiara's work, even on a normal day, is emotional labor, right? Like, that is her job. And she's having to ratchet that up to where she is in the same way that the doctors are dealing with the most intense and traumatic situations and patients constantly for hours on end. She's having to do her version of that same thing. And I think using that as sort of a counterpoint and also showing us the way this is wearing down not just the doctors, but the people who are sitting there waiting for hours to find out like, did my husband, did my brother, did my child make it through this alive? It's an excruciating thing to happen. to do. On the like sort of family connection front, we've been talking all season about sort of how do you bring the personal life of these doctors into the story when we're in the workplace and in a one shift, a shift plus them overtime. And you know, we've been getting it here and there. And so like chief among the people, I mean, and counting, not counting Lengden's old deal, but the two people who have their personal lives sort of interacting most with their work here are Dr. Banks herself, McKay and Robbie, of course. So the Harrison and Chad piece, the fact that Harrison's in

the doctor's lounge. Yeah. And Chad just like crutches his way onto the floor. Just the fucking worst. Just Chadden up. Every time he's on the screen. This guy. One thing I loved, I mean, we already knew that he still carried a torch for her because of his whole like mumbled Matteo moment or whatever. But when he like stops to watch her. Yeah. And his like competency kink like comes through and he's just like, man, she's a really good at her job. That's so hot. I thought was, I thought was really good. And then yeah, like, Chad's the worst. But. But you know, I think like him being in there with Harrison. He's like, let's watch a movie together. Like, you know, I'll stay here with you. You don't want to, I mean, he's not forcing him to go home with him. He's like,

no, that's true. You really want to go home with your mom. Okay. Like, then I'm going to stay here with you. I'm not going to take you out to the bathroom in the middle of all that, though. And let us all listen together as mom's ankle monitor distracts the entire ER. Why not? I think that's very, that's very gracious of you, Joe. A very generous read of Chad. I'm always looking out for the Chads of the world. You really are. You know that about me. I do know this about you. I would describe his presence in this episode as Dr. Banks' second child, who she has to chide to get off the hospital floor to send into the room with Harrison because that's basically where his emotional ages is, please go wait in the staff room and watch the movie. Harrison, on the other hand, just a young budding cinephile right in front of us.

All he wants to do is watch movies. And, you know, I would say under these circumstances, fuck it. Let him watch whatever he wants. Whatever he's going to watch is not scarier than whatever is happening out here. Rob, what are you watching in the lounge with Harrison while everything happens outside in the ER? I'm trying to think of what Harrison. My concern is that what Harrison wants to watch is like five nights at Freddy's, which I don't particularly want to watch. Not because it's scary, but because I would rather not.

A child's idea of a scary movie, I hope is better than that. I'm hoping Harrison is evolved. I'm hoping he's tapped into something truly dark and is ready to embrace something more horrible. than that on screen at least. Sounds like Nospheratu in the lounge to me. That sounds wonderful. Great time. Great time.

I hope Chad. Although on a small screen, maybe not. Eggers would never, you know? Cast it on the wall. Okay. Then we get Jake and Leah, of course. And this is, of course, I mean, we've been like, we knew it was headed towards this, the moment that Jake goes to pit fest, you know, blah, blah.

I guess I always assumed that it would be Jake who was injured and not Leah, that it would be Jake that he would have to try to save. This is somehow worse. It's his ticket. One thing that I, on rewatch that I thought was really brilliant was, you know, as we watch, Robbie take too long, go above and beyond. Again, we've got everyone glancing over and looking at him and knowing that he's taking too long. We've got Abbott coming over and saying, like, hey, buddy, like come on and again it's it matters that abbott who is of equal status like ravi's the king of the er right in these last hours and it's important that abbot who's on equal standing with him and who knows him is there it's important that dana's there but one thing i wanted to note this

is just like a little thing but like on rewatch the fact that we have the whole plot line where Mel needs to get some blood. Yeah. And she's like, I'll donate. And then we see Abbott donating. I will say when Mel donates, I know we've been calling some of these pods pit stops. I would describe Mel's blood donation as a straight up pit stop.

Like she rolls in there. Dana's like the mechanic crew. Needle her up, get the blood out, change the tires. All right, get back out there. When Mel's like, I donate all the time, I'm like, of course you do, you perfect angel. of course you do um but we so you know in in 12 we watch we see the blood donation happened because blood is so scarce they do get another shipment in but the fact that Robbie blows through four

bags yeah on Leah like we know the stakes of the blood bags because of that previous storyline and we're just like oh my god does the fourth bag of One egg that he's pumping in her like we don't we don't have those resources which is like you know Abbott says that explicitly but it's still like It's sort of, you know, we're all med students watching the show learning, learning what an IEO does and like learning that bags of O'Donag are not a limitless resource inside of this situation and stuff like that. I thought that was really interesting. I thought so too. I mean, I'm of two minds about, I would say, overall, the Robbie Jake Leah stuff. Because on the one hand, it's very TV drama to bring his personal baggage into the hospital for Jake and Leah to be a pit fest to begin with.

very TV drama thing to do. Counterpoint, this is a TV drama. This is what we're doing. This is the enterprise we have laid out for ourselves. And frankly, I would say Robbie as a character is such a smart, compassionate doctor that just putting him through the paces of a mass casualty event is probably not going to be enough to really strip him down in the way that they want to strip him down. They want him to have this Dr. Adamson recall breakdown moment.

And in order to reach that, which in itself was a personal and professional collision, you're going to have to kind of recreate that fundamental tension in some way. And so whether it's going to be Jake or it's going to be Leah, I agree. Like, I could have seen them go either way with that. And this does feel terrible. And ultimately, him having to tell Jake is one of the most excruciating scenes of the show.

Like Robbie, who we've seen, be so caring with patience all season. Exactly. Can't even bring himself to tell Jake that she's dead. Like, all he can do is, like, I'm going to list out the things that I try to. to do almost as clinically as if you were a med student yourself because this is the only way I can reconcile and wrap my head around what just happened. The way that Noah Wiley's voice, like all season, especially for people who like knew him on ER, all season, the raspyness of Robbie's voice was just like a little bit of like

grizzling age on Noah Wiley from the fresh face, you know, ingenue that he was on ER. but there's this like he can like barely squeeze out he's like his throat is like closing in and he could barely squeeze out the words to talk to Jake about what happened with Leah. I completely agree with you in that like we have seen him have a version of this conversation so many times and he's so good at it. So obviously this would be harder but like to have that comparison is so informative to us. for Robbie to recap the day. Yeah.

For Robbie to recap the day and say, talk about the people he didn't save the teen with a fentanyl overdose, Mr. Spencer, who died in front of his kids, guy with a heart condition, little girl who drowned trying to save her sister, and he's like, barely talk at that point. What that does to us,

not only is it like an interesting thing for Robbie to do to just sort of like run through the day, but then it reminds us that like, which we already knew because of the premise of the show, but this has been a day. It's been a day. This has been one day. Yep.

this guy's life. He's supposed to be home by now. He's supposed to be off shift. Right. And he's got so many of those days in his career. Yeah. And then we get the, the ringing in the ears. Yep. He's in Peds, which is where, you know, Dr. Adamson was. Sure is. And then we get, and this is something we have, we've like neglected to talk about in all of our pit coverage, unless we did, and I don't remember it, but that's possible. But the lack of music on the show. We've talked about it briefly. I think specifically with things like the honor walk and stuff like that.

Yes, you're right, you're right. I remember now. Okay. But for it to come in here at the end of this episode, there's like a little bit of score underneath this breakdown. And then it feeds into this song, which is, I don't know if you shazammed it. I did not. It is an original song composed by,

the show's composer, Gavin Breivik, and an artist called Taji, and it's called Fail Forward. And they've been playing bits of instrumental versions of it over the credits in previous episodes. Yeah. But this is like the first time they dropped it as like a song. And he says they were going to release the full song at the end of the season.

But that's interesting to me because I have found that music over the closing credits. It's, it hasn't happened every episode, but I have found it so evocative of like old school TV themes. Yeah. And so now to hear lyrics over it and for it to be like a song that I can now forever identify with a season of television or, you know, I mean, that's what theme songs are. But like, but the way it's been, it's not an opening credits jingle. It's like a thing that's been building on this show. And in this moment of absolute crisis for Robbie and. 13. This is when we get like the full version of it over the closing credits. I thought that was

pretty effective. They just know how to pick their spots on this show. And that's that's something that's hard to fake and hard to kind of find your way into if you haven't made TV before. I think that's one area in which the experience of everyone involved is paying off. I'm trying to understand like, okay, so where do we go from here with Robbie? Robbie's having his breakdown. He's on the floor. He's got to get up off the mat in some way. I think there's a couple of ways that it could go to. Joe. I'm curious if you have any takes or feelings on this. I think Collins coming back and talking to him is Avenue 1. Dana having a conversation with him is probably Avenue 2. And Abbott having a conversation with him is probably Avenue 3. Everyone else, it's like if you're two junior,

like on the one hand, maybe the emotional payoff of one of the students offering him a return consolation, I think could be a powerful thing. I just think if you are a grizzled experienced doctor in the middle of a nervous breakdown, like hearing from one of the kids is maybe not the thing you would be most receptive to. But I leave it, I leave myself open to being surprised on that. Yeah. I guess the question is, my question is, how long is he down? Yeah. Like, is he back up in the first few minutes? I'm going to say under two episodes. But like, is he just like, is he missing for an episode? Yeah, I could be. Like, where's, where's Robbie? Like, we don't know. Is it a whole episode? Is it just a couple minutes? I mean, which will feel. It's funny on rewatch of 13.

My memory was, my memory which we just established as Shottie, but like my memory was that Leah and Jake come in at the top of the episode. But they don't come in until like 16 minutes into the episode. Yeah. So that is, you know, but it just feels like it goes on forever. And that's, you know, effective storytelling. But yeah, I'll be curious to know how long Robbie stays down. Is it going to be an Abbott or a Dana coming in a time? coming in and talking to him

or does he get up on his own and not tell anyone and only we know? Yeah. And I guess the cop guarding the door knows and Jake certainly knows, like, what happened there. Actually, I want to throw a dark horse into the ring. Please. Where's Mirna?

What's she up to? Where is Mirna? She broke out of the handcuffs somehow. Who knows what's going on with her at this moment? Maybe what he needs at this exact moment in time is for a random woman, sometimes around the hospital to inappropriately hit on him. Maybe that's what he needs.

That's what he needs. Yeah. All right. The last couple things I have are ER flashbacks. I just want to save to the very end so that anyone who hasn't seen ER doesn't get spoiled by anything. But anything else you want to mention, Rob, before we go? Just that I am one such person, but I'm walking straight into the spoiler. I think you have opened yourself up to this.

You've already explored Dr. John Carter's addiction plot line. But I did not catch. I have no idea what you're about to say. I did not detect or catch any like serious ER specific plotline vibe. And so I am curious to hear from people who are watching this and to our ER fans if what we're about to talk about is something that was so obvious to them. Or if it was something that maybe flew under the radar a little bit. There's two. One is minor.

One is minor. You can say for that one. The other one's kind of major. You can leave for that one if you want to. The first one, the minor one is it was an iconic image. in ER to have a nurse doing CPR on top of a person on top of a gurney riding into the room. And I'm not saying we haven't necessarily seen it this season, but we have not seen it the way we saw Nurse Jessie doing CPR on top of the gurney going through the ER. That was like just such a classic ER visual to me.

And they don't do it like they don't do it on grays. Like it's not a it's an ER specific sort of image to me. that could be anything though I'm not saying that that necessarily is the more pertinent one and again you can leave if you don't want really really dusty old ER spoilers

is the helicopter the duo that go up to get the helicopter and Robbie's like stay back from the blades and they go up there and she's like I think we're supposed to stay back from the line there's a very famous moment in ER where Dr. Romano going

to get some like organs or whatever out of like gets his arm taken off by a helicopter boy. Joe, what? They have to like fix him. So yeah, I like I will never forget where I was when I saw Dr. Marano get his arm taken off by the helicopter. Maybe this is just expressing my naivety. I've seen many movies where people have been cut in half dearmed every variation of

injury as a result of a helicopter blade. As a doctor in this moment, where your job is like walking up and grabbing a cooler, where is the upward motion that's leading you to get an arm chopped off by the blades? There's like things happening. Okay, okay. It's not just like a standard walk out and reach a little too high for the cooler and oops you lost an arm. You know what? I say this, but as a man of a certain height, the number of times in which I have stuck my arms

in a ceiling fan is frankly embarrassing. Like, it happens with a truly disturbing. frequency. So who am I? Who am I to judge? After I saw that, I have forever now when I watch any scene in a movie where someone gets into a helicopter. And they usually do this. Like on succession they would do this. You duck down. You got a duck. That's rule number one is you duck. You got a duck down. So, yeah. I will also say in Javadi and Whitaker's defense, I believe they're the two horse sent up to get the blood cooler. And they were given instructions about like, okay, you got to stay between 10 and two.

Is that, and they're confused by those instructions? I'm similarly confused. Is that an arm orientation instruction? Yeah, probably. Now that I think about it, I had no idea when I was watching this episode. But now it's starting to make some sense. Dr. Romano, you were an asshole, but you're not deserved to lose your arm like that. And, you know, shout out to the ER fans for a living that traumatic moment with me.

We'll be back for more pit. I have one final question for you, Joe, before we fly off. Please do. One of my favorite patients as we're coursing through. Before we fly off like Dr. Romato's armed in season nine of ER? God, I hope not. Of the hundreds of patients who are going through the ER in these episodes, we get this old hippie who has been grazed by a bullet.

And I think this is one of kind of, I think the test for Mel's yellow team as much as anything. Are these cases that come in that are seemingly quite simple, a broken leg, a grazing wound, and all of a sudden these people are unconscious or dying or gushing blood, and they have to figure out what all these other complications are. What is the musical act

that is bringing both Jake and Leah, the wide assortment of people and our friend, the old hippie, who at his core is mostly just hurt by the darkness who is seen in humanity today? Like, who is playing at Pitfest? Yeah, we've got the guy with the Bleachman Hare who Odeed, who is,

who is just like taking some perkinset so for his knees so he could dance. To dance. So there's, and like, look, it's not unusual for a music festival at a certain hour. The EDMX come on over on these stages. Maybe it's like more rap oriented or rock oriented or whatever. Like,

this guy is seeing like fish or dead in company. Yeah. And those are not, as far as I know, like music, like that kind of like noodling guitar is not very squeezable into a tight 45 minute at music festival time slot. It's a jam fest.

God, it can't be a jam band. Not at Pittfest. Jake and Leah aren't going to go see a jam band. There's no way. Do you think anyone under 20 is going to see a jam band? They don't have time. They've got TikTok brains, Joe.

Come on. Someone did. One of our listeners did ask like, why, you know, this young man who is deaf and his mom are at pit fest. why bring your deaf son to Pitfest? But, like, my understanding is that, like, for a variety of people, music is, you know, it doesn't matter. Like, the music sort of transcends the experience of being the rhythms that you can feel,

like all sorts of stuff is that there's something for everyone at Pitfest. But the question is, what is that something? Maybe we'll find out by episode 15. I'm going to go on a limb. Here's, I'm going to go on a limb. What do you have? I'm going to say it's Goggle Burdello

I think the hippie likes Goghberdala I mean Gogh Bordello does rip And like a great live show You know Oh I would I would 100% see Google Bordello live Yeah I have seen

But they seem much more like a rowdy A rowdy bar show than a music festival show That's true I've only ever seen them in rowdy bars No but I know but I saw them at at the bluegrass festival in San Francisco. I'm very tempted to bust out the accent right now, but that just seems disrespectful,

and I'm not going to do it. So that has been our coverage of the pit. You can start wearing purple if you want to. And we'll be back for, please email us, PrestiGV at Spotify.com. If you think you know who played Pit Fest, we would like to know.

In fact, if you can draw us a Venn diagram of Jake and Leah side circle, hippie circle, and what is the act that is bringing them together, that's the kind of alchemy that we need the prestige TV listeners to help us with. But I feel like Jake, Jake is going to pit, like, Jake is going to pit fest with Robbie. So like, it doesn't have to. Robbie's there to see Pearl Jam. Like, we know his demo. But I'm saying it doesn't have to. It could be a pearl, like, it could be like, oh, Jake was going to go with Robbie. And then, you know what I mean?

So it doesn't have to be like a TikTok brain sort of band. Oh, definitely not. I'm just wondering what could possibly be the midpoint that would bring these people together. And I'm saying that in the hope that they could be. You know, that it's not all about Jake and Lear at stage one. An old hippie is at stage three all day. I want the, we're here to create four quadrant entertainment, Joe. And where is the clown?

You know what this is reminding me of is a, oh, fuck, what was it called? Parks and Recreation Harvest Festival vibes to me? I don't know. Like, it's a clown doing balloon animals there. Like, you know, we're having delicious coconut-based desserts sold at a food table. Sounds wonderful to me. It sounds like a whole carnival, a cornucopia of delights at Pitfest. Once again, press each TV at Spotify.com.

If you have any Pit Fest insights, we would love to hear them. Thanks, as always, to our four-quadrant team. Always. It's John Richter. it's Justin Sales and it's Donnie Beecham. Thank you guys so much for help on this episode. We'll be back with White Lotus and more pit. And see you soon.

Bye.