Let Me Show You My Reverse Tracheotomy: “The Pitt” on Max or HBO or whatevef

“The Pitt” on Max starring Noah Wyle: this medical drama fucking RULES and we should talk about it

https://picen.tvmao.com/images/8f/5d/a0724e31d5cdc68d96cb07f051ad507380155d8f.jpg

i’m caught up and cannot wait for ep 6. notes so far

- pvmic but grizzled Noah Wyle is hot af
- i love the 1 hour= i episode structure
- no music! maximum intensity
- i understand like 5% of the jargon but i am fucking RIVETED to my seat
- the plate spinning of all the building storylines is fantastic
- love the chemistry btw Wyle & Dr Collins
- love Dana the head nurse
- i need Princess to crack soon bc i haaaaaate her character so much (but i know at least 2 versions of her irl)

i never was obsessed w ER or House & dont usually care abour medical shows but i am full heart-eyes emojis for this show

episode 4 really proves how good the show is imo

We've watched the whole thing so far as a family (well, most of us), including my daughter, a near-future medical professional. We love it, and while there are a few TV moments here and there, it seems pretty level-headed and relatively realistic. Ironically, the person that reminds me the most of a legit young doctor (in training) is Brian Cranston's daughter, who nails the right level of nerdy competence.

1) I didn't even notice there is no music!
2) I wonder if the doctors that wrote/consulted kept notebooks of all the random or mundane cases they had, because some of the stuff the show depicts is so very specific without coming across Very TV Doctor Show.

I used to watch ER, back-when, but not House or Grey's Anatomy or whatever, so can't compare to those. But as good as ER was in its prime, this seems different and in many ways better.

My good friend’s wife was an ER nurse in NYC was telling us they really captured the vibe and feel of a busy urban emergency room.

yeah the specifics feel very true to irl experiences on the writing staff or consultants or something — my BiL was a paramedic & i have ER nurse friends

like even the way Wyle ducks into the bathroom to kinda cry for like a nanosecond (about something genuinely devastating) but then looks at himself in the mirror & laughs felt so truthful

love Cranston’s daughter, she’s so competent and handles her shit so well in those intense procedures!

I am not usually a fan of doctor shows — I watched a few episodes of ER back when Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra were on it, because... well, Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra. And I have seen a few episodes of House, but never Grey's Anatomy. The hospital show I've probably seen the most is Chicago Med, which is... OK. But yeah, The Pitt is pretty compelling. Some of the kid doctors are annoying (the one who's a huge bitch who thinks she knows everything, and the one who keeps getting splattered with blood), but some of the others are just dumb kids and entertaining about it. They're setting up some interesting plotlines that I hope resolve well and not as horror.

the one who keeps getting splattered is kinda fun imo. waiting for him to run out of scrubs of ~any~ kind lol

oh and i said i hate Princess -i meant Trinity! I hate Trinity!

princess boned a dave navarro dude under the stars -she’s cool as hell lol

I might have said this in the other tv thread, but I started this show with a fair amount of ambivalence and maybe even skepticism. I was especially wary of the 15 eps = 15 hours of one shift; it just sounded like it was going to get really tedious. And the whole plot of the woman with the moody son who may or may not become a school shooter just felt very forced.

But lo and behold by the third or fourth episode all my reservations went away and I think this show has only gotten richer with each passing episode. I’m impressed with the depth it’s developing - a long simmer of a show.

And now for better or worse I’m expecting the school shooter plot to come back in a more unexpected way - like maybe an attempted suicide rather than a bunch of injured kids… something less predictable. Hoping for something less on the nose, at least.

the way this show handles death so matter of factly but with so much empathy is like nothing i have seen on tv in a long while

like maybe Leftovers was the last show i can think of

Only thru ep3 so not reading the board yet. Love Noah Wyle in this. Hopefully he gets to pee in ep4 :) Also appreciate casting and acting from the patients and family members. Adds to the verisimilitude

i still have not gotten over them uh, popping out the dent, in that dude’s FACE in episode 1

like

i didn’t know faces could do that. that was hardcore

my fiancé and I are both physicians and we both thought this was the most realistic medical show we’ve ever seen — or at least that I’ve ever seen, since I don’t usually gravitate toward them. it’s really tightly scripted and well acted, super enjoyable. the medical student who’s the daughter of one of the surgeons is a bit of a caricature but having known a lot of similar people it is fun to root against her.

Is this too-much intense like the Bear? or heartbreakerly so like This Is going to Hurt? Or a more general ER meets 24 kinda idea?

I have a feeling my other half will inevitably want to watch this lol. Though he's just started on 6 feet under of all things so it might be a while.

More general ER, I'd say. It's got its sad spots (so far) but nothing terribly melodramatic and intense yet. It's pretty grounded.

yeah cosign that

Yeah, it's a very grounded show. Blood, tension, anxiety, but they haven't resorted to a single "no one's ever seen this disease before" or "if we don't get this contained, the whole city will be at risk" plotline yet.

Tonight's episode was good. Very glad to see the student doctor I dislike the most fuck up badly (without harming a patient) and get slapped down for it. Frankly, I was beginning to wonder whether sexual tension was building between her and the surgeon, or if it was just the beginning of a mentor/mentee relationship, but neither of those things is happening now, ha ha.

haven't seen this but is is v. curious to me that two shows set in pittsburgh debuted in january: this and the latest sherlock holmes spinoff (watson, 'a medical drama with detective elements' on cbs)

that watson show is a goddamn lie: thinly veiled sherlock notions but it’s basically just “Morris Chestnut IS House” zzz

tbf i just want artistic shots of the mighty allegheny and monongehela confluencing into the ohio river. and decent scripts i guess

who had primanti bros on their bingo card

I read a few interviews about the show, mostly with Wyle, and I think the pivot from making a new ER to the episode-per-hour format has been very clever. ER was a melodrama partially by necessity because it was really focused on the medical staff with the majority of the cases being one and done.

The individual patients have so much more room to breathe (until they're intubated?) in the script and they feel just as important as the staff.

I really like this

can't wait for Data's daughter to get slapped down some more as the day winds on

I really love the rhythm of this show, how there's no traditional rising or falling action structure, how each episode doesn't really conclude so much as pause the story.

yeah same, makes it very enjoyable and sort of cliffhangery, more like old fashioned serialised plays and stuff

"Sort of" cliffhangery is pretty much right, because rarely does an episode end on or even aim for an "oh shit!" moment, at least not so far. I forget how each episode of "24" ended, with, like, snapshots of whatever four conflicts/cliffhangers are going on at once?

But with this, so far there's been no "tune in next week to find out what happened!" sort of suspense, because there is a lot going on at once.

Could do with the show cooling it on the med students embodying clichesarchetypes bit.

We're still learning about them, though. Who was the person Cranston's daughter was talking to on the phone, for example? And arrogant student has a back story we haven't gotten yet, too. And Huckleberry, I feel we have a lot to learn about him as well. And of course surgeon's daughter is being set up for ... something.

mainly i just need propofol and ketamine stat

rarely does an episode end on or even aim for an "oh shit!" moment, at least not so far

The biggest one was "that's not the pregnant girl's mom, that's her aunt — the screaming angry lady is her mom".

The character I'm keeping a close eye on is the angry guy who keeps getting sent back to the waiting room; a violent outburst would not be a total surprise.

cranston’s daughter i guessed was talking to her sister, so maybe she was not only caring for a mom (who passed) but a sibling still as well idk

The angry man is also a racist MAGA dude. I forget why he's (still) there. Chest pains?

have you guys missed the entire plot point where she has a sister that has special needs and has assisted living arrangements during the day? it's why she was trying so hard to relate to the lady with the schizophrenia-having mom

Yes. Though eventually I sort of pieced that together.

have you guys missed the entire plot point where she has a sister that has special needs and has assisted living arrangements during the day? it's why she was trying so hard to relate to the lady with the schizophrenia-having mom

Yeah, I caught that; my question is, how special needs is she supposed to be? She seems at least somewhat autistic, but it's not clear yet whether we're supposed to care about that or if it's just a minor character trait.

angry guy is there for chest pains

I'm surprised angry guy hasn't just fucked off in frustration yet. Also, of course, potential school shooter guy, will that come back in the form of victims or *his* return to the ER? A lot of stuff hanging out there.

it was floated on The Watch podcast that maybe the possible shooter story intersects w the music festival story?

Hmm. That would also rope back in Noah's son. I kind of hope it doesn't go supernova dark and tragic, though tis the world we live in, I guess.

honestly that storyline with the shooter kid & the mom irked me the most, like jeez lady why are you making this kid the ER’s problem? i understand not knowing where to go for help but this really should not be the move.

honestly that storyline with the shooter kid & the mom irked me the most, like jeez lady why are you making this kid the ER’s problem? i understand not knowing where to go for help but this really should not be the move.

I did actually think this was ER: The Next Generation for a good while and chalked up any wincy tropes to being an unavoidable inheritance before vaguely remembering the lawsuit by the Crichton estate. The main actors do a really good job physically inhabiting their characters versus the patients who seem like they're making the most out of their guest spot (though does that apply here when it's essentially one long episode?), which I also associate with ER!

Between the schizophrenic woman whose daughter abandoned her and the lady who's handcuffed for some reason, this show is slightly overpopulated with sassy senior citizens.

don’t worry, there are still some very tired and boring looking senior citizens in the waiting area

that demographic is probably the largest at the ER, right? that and parents with their injured/suddenly ill children

Making yourself sick to go to the ER to tell the ER doc your kid might be a school shooter was such a strange choice it seemed like a real life event one of the writers read about or something.

I enjoy hearing about asystole again, I haven't heard that word since ER

this show is slightly overpopulated with sassy senior citizens.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Wednesday, February 12, 2025 1:52 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I invite you to spend 14 hours in an actual emergency room

Honestly, I found the Rumble Fish discussion earlier in the episode way more jarring. It was like something out of a mid 90s imitation-Tarantino movie where every crook was a pop culture trivia champ.

I wasn't surprised when I saw the episode was written by Wyle. Seemed like he couldn't help himself from inserting some cultural references from his youth into the script.

this doesn’t seem like a didactic show outside of the medical procedures and the declarative dialogue. you get details of a character and others opining on what that means, but it you aren’t bringing your own recognization of cultural signifiers, fandom extrapolation aside, to that, idk

I am kind of annoyed I didn’t spot the seizure thing because I have several friends who used to have absence seizures but they did do a “she’s just freezing!” bit but it’s both well telegraphed and also a good plot point. Not a twist, just an explanation

Stopping to yell at the EMTs with statistical explanation of women and heart attacks, the lesson about the Pittsburgh ambulance service, “don’t be such a boomer, actually her Tik Tok influencer side gig is cool because…” etc.. The Pitt loves an explainer even more than the West Wing.

The issue wasn’t that it relied on Boomer cultural references, it was that there was no lead up with Gilligan (I think Opie or Gomer would be more suitable tbh) chafing or showing frustration at Langdon.

I think he lashed out at Langdon because he's pissed off at Santos being pissed off at him (and calling him Huckleberry all the time and getting in his business, and refusing to admit that she actually appreciates him), and he's pissed off at Robbie interfering in his personal business, and then he lost his ID badge, and he was probably worried that people were going to start slagging him over that as well.

That fandom is lol article was mind boggling. "how dare you not cater to the FANDOM, we OWN you" is a bizarre take that says more about brainrot than it does anything else. Honestly I wish the internet would just blow up sometimes.

A little heads up, via a Bluesky exchange between TV writers Judy Berman and Sean T. Collins (I count both as friends so I'd say they're not fucking with people here):

Berman: "PSA for tonight's Pitt finale: If you switch it off right when the credits hit, you're going to miss the best episode tag of the streaming era"

Collins: "I stopped watching when the credits started and wrote my whole review in my mind. Then I had to open the screener back up to check something, and let's just say do NOT stop watching when the credits start."

Berman: "I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say it changes the whole meaning of the episode"

Collins: "i don't even think you're exaggerating at all! it felt like a different episode afterwards."

Berman: "OK, I won't hedge. It really does change everything."

Thanks for the heads up, Ned.

they're introducing the newest member of the emergency room staff: doctor doom

Baby's a bomb.

Shot of Robbie’s dead body with 13 scalpels sticking out of it, pan over to Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez stepping out of an elevator.

YOU YOU YOU OUGHTA KNOW

‪Corey Atad‬
✧@coreya✧✧✧.c✧✧‬
· 42m
this is fucking unreal stuff from Noah Wyle on the magic of The Pitt.

https://www.gq.com/story/noah-wyle-gq-hype

a lot of good details about the finale in this piece:

https://www.vulture.com/article/the-pitt-season-2-finale-birth-robby-behind-the-scenes-noah-wyle.html

OK just to check: was the referred to postcredits bit the karaoke? cos thats all we saw and its not really what I'd expected?

I thought this was a good ep and a meh finale. Clearly they wrote the first three seasons as one big arc, and this was about as satisfying an ending as Luke Skywalker recovering in the hospital with a prosthetic hand. But I respect the writers' choice to let so much stay unresolved (or get resolved off screen), makes sense for what we've seen of Robby's character.

The credits scene was just straight-up fanservice imo, I mean it's really great stuff but idk about "changing the whole meaning of the episode"; then again I didn't a/b test it.

can we get a "Nightcrawlers" spin off though?

otm

i think they were being tongue in cheek about the credits scene

loved seeing Mel headbanging. Thought it was interesting that lots of people literally let their hair down at the end

i think they were being tongue in cheek about the credits scene

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Friday, 17 April 2026 16:07 (forty-three minutes ago)

Remember on ER when a bunch of the women went out to a club after work and Orbital were playing? That was mad.
Anyway, this stupid episode made me cry with all its vulnerable babies who don’t know anything about what’s going on around them. Stupid programme.

the pitt video game actually looks pretty cool pic.twitter.com/THBvicHeEW

— Michael Kandel (@K_A_N_D_E_L) April 17, 2026

A+

Man, the show is so so good, but what a heavy season.

if you're wondering about medical accuracy, that emergency c-section was it except for most of us who've gone through it, we're conscious throughout the whole process. including the part where they pull out a blue baby who's totally silent for several minutes. so, yeah... that was fun to relive.

(there is no hospital on earth where the ED is dealing with a patient with pre-eclampsia though, they would have been sent up to obstetrics immediately)

lol we were talking during the scene about how our (perfectly healthy) daughter had a lower apgar than that baby after c-section

I wasn't expecting this whole season to be about burnout, grief, atonement and redemption. Those are exactly what city ER doctors everywhere are dealing with all of the time though. I thought it was pretty great. The ending was muted but gratifying.

Noah Wyle described the show as "competency porn" and he thought that what makes it popular is that it is what people long for in our current state of chaos. It makes sense to me

It’s a throwback to good network drama - a bit soapy, constantly moving but 99% text/1% subtext.

Some of the fan struggles seem to me to be a case of people trying to read it like a streaming age show instead of NBC 1997.

https://img.pastemagazine.com/wp-content/avuploads/2026/05/04145414/0897B9C6-42D4-4CE0-AB97-047190EE5E0F_1_201_a.jpeg

get 'em

wtf is wrong with people

Yeah, some Pitt fans are the fucking worst.

I do feel like any show with a sufficiently large fandom are all like this though and i can’t tell if it’s always been that way or if social media has just made it easier to make people feel like they’re entitled to the actors or creators. It’s like people don’t know how to behave in public anymore…. Like I assume you bought tickets for that broadway show, why would you ruin it for the performers like that?

There's no excuse, but I imagine it's also an awkward parasocial needle to thread, as far as promotion and fans/actors go. Their fame from a show or movie is what often lands them the prominent stage roles to begin with, it's one reason people are there, so it's this odd balance of "look at me!" and "... but not that much!"

No one should be shouting anything at the stage ever, though. I even hate it at concerts, too. Like, shut the fuck up, we know you're a fan, you're here, stop yelling "I love you!"

Like I assume you bought tickets for that broadway show, why would you ruin it for the performers like that?

Yeah do ppl just not understand the conventions of this kind of staged performance? Like do they think she is going to break character and turn and wink at the audience and say "Good one"?

When I saw a lame Idina Menzel show on Broadway, the one where she lives in a tree, she made a reference to Disney princesses or something, then broke the fourth wall for some cheap "woos!" Supposedly she did this every night.

The show that she's in is Just In Time, which has an "intimate nightclub setting" rather than the usual rows of seats, and has its own weird fandom from when Jonathan Groff was in it. So I'd say that doesn't help.

huh, why did I think that was a one-man show?

Christ what is it with middle aged women and creepy obsessive fandom?

I think I’ve seen three different assumptions on the internet about what demographic is yelling at Isa Briones and I’m going to assume The Pitt has a diverse and varied fanbase

Oh I was referring to the women in trishyb's article. Didn't at all assume thats who was shouting at Isa!

correction on previous post: three assumptions but trayce is out of the contributor pool

nice little piece on Patrick Ball in the new New Yorker

Is it called "Having a Ball"?

is it January yet?

“We’re about to start production on Season 3,” Wyle shared. “It’s set in early November, just before the holidays, ushering in a whole new set of emergencies and confrontations and complications.”

https://deadline.com/2026/05/noah-wyle-the-pitt-season-3-when-will-take-place-1236901366/

Early November, huh? Might we see some election violence?

Maybe they'll treat the president, who is shot while in town for a rally.

politician with a panic attack

John Fetterman plays himself as a stroke victim