‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Ending Explained – I’m Not Crying, You Are

Well, the second shift at The Pitt has finally ended, and it’s time to release that giant lungful of bated breath we’ve all been holding. Truthfully, I can’t say that things are much better by the end than they were when they started, but if nothing else, more cards are on the table. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Even by this show’s standards, Episode 15 is unusually somber, with nary a dry eye in the house, even if the reason behind the tears isn’t always obvious, not even to the person shedding them. “9:00 P.M.” isn’t really an ending to Season 2 so much as a small break between moments of profound and extended misery, but that doesn’t mean that several characters won’t have reached the end of their respective roads by the time Season 3 rolls around.

Anyone looking for closure need not apply, of course, but that makes sense given the real-time format of the show. Deeply-held personal issues aren’t resolved in a single shift, and you can’t really expect them to be just because that shift happens to be televised. Nobody really knows if Robby is going to kill himself — he’s certainly thinking about it — and other key outcomes are left similarly unresolved, including the sudden turn in Al-Hashimi’s storyline that cropped up last week. There are a lot of tears, though, which should give you a pretty concise approximation of where things stand.

Robby Gives Al-Hashimi An Ultimatum

So, as we learned last week, Al-Hashimi has a seizure disorder. And while this hasn’t affected her for years, thanks to treatment, she has had two minor seizures in her first shift at PTMC, which doesn’t bode well. And since she did the responsible thing and went to Robby about it, it’s he who has to figure out how to proceed.

His proposed solution isn’t quite what she was expecting. No quarter will be given. In the Pitt, a five-second blackout could mean a patient’s death, so until Al-Hashimi is medically cleared to work, she can’t work. And if she doesn’t report herself, Robby will report her. This is the right decision, I think, but it’s a bit rich coming from Robby. Even Al-Hashimi knows he’s right, though, since while she’s driving out of the parking lot, being well aware she shouldn’t be driving at all, she pulls the car over so she can sob in defeat. The Pitt will do that to you.

There’s only one downside here, which is that it came too late in the season for us to really dig into Al-Hashimi’s headspace here, especially given how unflappable she has been for the rest of Season 2. It feels more like a Season 3 story than anything else.

Special Delivery Service

There isn’t a great deal of medical stuff in this finale, which is understandable given most of the cast are finishing their charting and making their way out of the building, but there is one new patient whose predicament ends up being one of the most tense sequences in the show’s history, just for good measure.

The patient is a pregnant woman who has decided to have a “wild birth” with no medical intervention. She has preeclampsia, and she and the baby are both at considerable risk, which makes it all the more ridiculous when she keeps refusing treatment. Naturally, her situation rapidly worsens, and it becomes Abbot and Robby’s job to deliver the baby while keeping both it and the mother alive.

This is a harrowingly realistic-looking and brutally stressful sequence, but I’m pleased to report that both mother and baby end up being okay. Robby is moved to tears through the stress, trapped in the stifling middle-ground between utterly indispensable in a life-saving capacity and absolutely shot to bits emotionally. The very reason he can’t bring himself to leave the hospital is the very thing that’s destroying him.

Staff Round-Up

Before we get to the meat and potatoes of The Pitt Season 2’s ending, let’s just briefly check in on some of the ancillary storylines that are going on around the place. I’ll round it up in bullet point form for ease:

• Javadi is considering getting into emergency psychiatric care after worrying about her own state of mind.
• Samira and Robby kind of reconcile after their disagreements earlier in the season, but she’s still struggling with her future and her relationship with her mother.
• Mel, who is still worried about Becca staying over at her boyfriend’s house, is summoned back to the deposition. Santos invites her out for a drink and karaoke, though.
• Most of the staff gather on the roof to watch the fireworks. Almost all of them are crying for reasons they probably wouldn’t be able to articulate if asked.
• Digby has Whitaker’s ID badge. I suspect he’s never getting that back.

Robby’s Still With Us (For Now)

After his disagreements with Dana earlier, Robby’s suicidal ideation is becoming common knowledge, which leads to a series of encounters where other characters give him a stern talking-to about his conduct. The first is Abbot, who has a couple of great chats with Robby about how he needs to get help in order to fulfill his purpose in the hospital. And that he’d be better off going on a cruise to unwind rather than a helmetless motorcycle journey, which is a fair point.

Duke also chips in after fixing up Robby’s bike, telling him that he’ll only agree to come back for his follow-up treatments if Robby also agrees to return from his sabbatical safely. He doesn’t make any promises, but it’s the thought that counts.

But the most urgent advice comes from the unlikeliest place. Robby spends most of the finale trying to track Langdon down so he can breezily apologise for not having the chat with him earlier that Langdon wanted to have. But Langdon eviscerates Robby instead, telling him that he needs to get help and that the impossible standards he sets for himself make it impossible for any of the doctors under him to live up to his expectations and example. For once, Robby is lost for words. Maybe now that advice is coming from someone who is doing the work, it might just resonate.

Robby ends Season 2 of The Pitt with baby Jane Doe. As he cradles her, he tells her about his own abandonment at the age of eight, and tells her all the beautiful things she still has to see. He’s crying all the while.