Editor’s Note: This review of Thursday night’s episode of “The Pitt” includes spoilers.
Imagine the worst time you’ve ever had at Sandcastle. That’s nothing compared to what awaits doctors on “The Pitt” after disaster strikes a local waterslide.
While troubles with parents — including Dr. Javadi’s and Dr. Mohan’s mothers — play a central role in “4:00 P.M.,” the episode’s injuries are also some of the gravest and goriest of Season 2 so far. If you’ve never heard the term degloving, you’ll learn what it means in this episode.
This is also the first moment viewers encounter a severed limb in a plastic bag.
“We have to create emotional boundaries,” Dr. McKay says at one point.
The hospital staff’s ability to do this, or lack thereof, is on full display on this late afternoon in July.
Dr. King must finally face mounting anxiety around her deposition. Patient Roxy Hamler faces her own mortality. Dr. Santos faces the limits of her stubbornness. And Dr. Robby must begin to face up to some of the nihilism and impatience he’s shown throughout this season.
There’s always a point in a series when the bit characters take their turn in the limelight or show us some nuance. Dr. Joi Kwon has been doing so for several episodes, but, in a welcome twist, “4:00 P.M.” sees the ever-clinical Dr. Ogilvie finally show his human side, which includes a cameo from essays of the late, great James Baldwin as well as the aforementioned severed limb.
The episode also zooms in on the ways medicine and severe illness can make you grow up fast. The episode also devotes emotional attention to cancer patient Roxy’s children and the patients from the waterpark. (Note: Sandcastle is never mentioned by name in the episode.)
But for the doctors themselves, and Dr. Javadi especially, it’s clear there’s such a thing as growing up too fast. She’s human, after all, and so is Dr. Mohan, whose steely exterior finally cracks a little.
Someone could write a great undergraduate paper (if anyone still does that) about how that’s “The Pitt”’s ultimate point — our humanity. “3:00 P.M.” showed that in some more benevolent ways despite its darker moments, with ample references to community and culture, including the way furry culture does this each summer at Anthrocon.
But if “3:00 P.M.” was about throwing the audience a bone here and there, “4:00 P.M.” is about snatching those back, setting pieces in play for some explosive final confrontations.
That’s as true for the conflicts among the characters at PTMC as it is for the conflicts within them.