Summary
The AI conversation wriggles to the forefront in “8:00 A.M.”, but it’s fighting for space with many more pressing calamities (and a distressingly real-looking prosthesis).
If there’s anything The Pitt consistently makes me think about – and, to be clear, it generally makes me think about a lot of different things, not least “is that a prosthesis?!” – it’s how hospitals are even able to run at all. The intake is never-ending. There’s always some kind of box-checking bureaucracy to consider. Everyone’s exhausted. Nobody ever truly agrees. Season 1 was very much like this, but Season 2 is taking it to another level, which is really evident in Episode 2, “8:00 A.M.”.
You can blame Al-Hashimi. Not that she’s necessarily in the wrong – I don’t even work in a hospital, and I still like the sound of those productivity percentage increases – just that she’s clearly present to consistently question Robby’s way of doing things, to resist any maverick impulses, to whip PTMC into modernity in the flashy ways that everyone is rightly mistrustful of. She’s the changing of the guard made flesh, an Orwellian surveilling eye on everything that’s happening.
This adds something. It’s a bit like how in The Office, you know everyone’s acting slightly off-kilter because they think they’re in a documentary. Here, everyone knows that when Robby goes on sabbatical, Al-Hashimi’s going to be running the place. The show-offy bickering between Ogilvie and Javadi has that look-at-me feeling to it. Whenever anybody goes even slightly off-script, you feel an extra knot of tension that they’re being observed doing it. As if this show needed any more tension.
But I was considering this when Robby’s new fling, Noelle Hastings, is introduced. For one thing, she handles bed control, so it’s her job to insist that McKay’s potential head trauma patient is moved somewhere else, so she already seems to be getting in the way of the patient’s best interests. But the vibe between her and Robby is obvious, and they haven’t been public about their relationship. With this much scrutiny? It’s a recipe for disaster.
The Pitt Season 2 isn’t short of disaster already, and Episode 2 just adds more to the pile. Mel is still fretting about her upcoming deposition – anxiety made infinitely worse when Al-Hashimi points out that she has never been sued; not that commonplace after all then! – and to make matters worse, she takes a nasty bump to the head when the patient she was flirting with flees from the police. Apparently, he robbed a liquor store and was hiding out. When he’s caught, Mel might have to testify in court. That’s all she needs.
Langdon briefly treats Mel, adding her to his list of people he has been forthright and apologetic to, and gives her a nice moment in the dark to help with the headache. Langdon’s still floating around the ER like a ghost, supposed to be exiled to triage but constantly being called upon back and forth. I reckon he’s got some big moments coming up this season.
If you were wondering about the baby cliffhanger from the premiere, well, we’re still wondering. The implication is that the baby’s mostly fine, but I refuse to believe that. I know what this show is like. It’s always trying to tug on the heartstrings one way or another, and a suffering baby is a good way to do it. Similarly, Huckleberry is tasked with telling the wife of the man who passed away last week that her husband is dead. However, she has Alzheimer’s, so he keeps having to do it again and again. See? Awful.
Some stuff is, admittedly, a bit lighter. Santos and Mel are tasked with treating an eight-hour hard-on that is revealed in all its glory. I’m sure it’s a prosthesis – there’s that thought again! – but it looks real enough that the sight of a needle going into it made me physically recoil. The maggots weren’t pleasant either, and I’m pretty sure those were real.
It’s only 8:00 A.M., and it’s already clear that Robby’s mistrust of AI and Al-Hashimi’s insistence on its value is going to be one of the primary arcs of The Pitt Season 2. The latter is a real truther and is determined to implement it into the ER by any means necessary, doing demos in front of patients and interns so that everyone can see its benefit. And she might well be right, but in the context of medicine, it’s easy to land on the side of “almost intelligent”. The 98% accuracy of generative AI means that two times out of a hundred, someone dies unnecessarily, through an avoidable administrative error. Nobody says that out loud, but it’s implied. And is that cost worth it?
It might be, which is why the debate is compelling, to say nothing of the friction it causes between Robby and Al-Hashimi, something that I assume is only going to get worse as we go. But that’s the point. Maybe if the hospital slows down enough, these two can have a productive conversation on the subject. But I wouldn’t count on that happening any time soon.
