In the current state of endless options on streaming services, we all scroll aimlessly until something catches our eye, even shows we never thought would spark any interest.
The first season of “The Pitt” debuted on Jan. 9, 2025, and I managed to binge watch all 15 episodes within a week. I couldn’t stop watching late at night and it ruined my sleep schedule. Streaming on HBO Max, it is a realistic medical drama filled with engaging patient storylines, realistic characters and engaging, but unique medical scenarios. By formatting each episode by an hour of a shift, I was overwrought with “What will happen next?” cycling through my mind. I needed to know!
When “The Pitt” was announced for a season two renewal by the summer, I was overjoyed about the short wait. A lot of streaming services will take years to renew a new season, or even cancel a show if it wasn’t popular enough with viewers. It got renewed for another season before my mind eventually forgot about it. Luckily for fans like me, The Pitt season two released this year on Jan. 8 with the first hour, “7:00 A.M.”
The premise of this season is that it lands on one of the busiest days for ER workers — the Fourth of July. Before arriving at his shift, the main character, Micheal Robinavitch (he is referred as Robby, or Dr. Robby), arrives on his motorcycle without a helmet. A dangerous thing for anyone, nonetheless a seasoned doctor that is familiar with trauma incidents in the emergency department. Dr. Robby’s disregard for his own safety is just one of the hints of his mental state continuing from last season. Set 10 months later, he is more than eager to leave for his sabbatical.
“The Pitt” prides itself on being a realistic medical drama and this season stands by that. Topics like health insurance issues with a patient’s medical treatments, hospital system cyberattacks, sexual assault and many more. Coming from the first season where the characters experienced a mass-casualty incident, I would say the show does well to keep viewers interested by bringing in new, harrowing plotlines with patients, continuing the main character’s stories within the 10 month gap, while not recycling what had already been done.
New characters being thrown into an already wide cast may seem like a bad choice, but they become a fascinating addition to balance out the cast regulars. Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) is one of my personal favorites of the new season and two other medical students join her side, Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) and James Oglivie (Lucas Iverson).
As a big fan of how the dynamics played out in the first season, I became initially doubtful of the new additions in the cast. Dr. Al-Hashimi appears to be the stricter, calmer attending doctor compared to Dr. Robby, who plays it more unorthodox and shows the viewer that he’s struggling this time.
While I don’t want to give away the moment where she became one of my favorites, Al-Hashimi is almost presented as the antagonist, introducing AI (artificial intelligence) to the other resident doctors, much to their displeasure, and appearing more stern. Her ways working around the emergency department are newer — different to how Dr. Robby navigated the mass-causality incident last season.
What this show does well is that all of the characters, new or not, are human beings in the end. They aren’t perfect, nor are they painted as supervillains to throw your hatred on as you watch. Their flaws make them relatable, realistic and even charming.
At the time this is being written, the second season of “The Pitt” has finished with the release of the finale. Each episode was released weekly on Thursdays, much to my annoyance, but it managed to leave each episode on a dreadful cliffhanger and had me itching for more. Season 2 of most shows either go down in quality or don’t make much of an impression, but the writers tie in the questions we had for all of the well-known characters and some new ones.
Out of all the streaming shows to get attached to, this might be the strangest one for me, as I know very little about medicine and healthcare. I’m not even planning to study medicine, but it makes me happy to know the show will continue to show realistic depictions of the American healthcare system, actual ER surgeries and imperfect but likeable characters.
If a medical show usually doesn’t catch your interest, whether that is due to the highly dramatized relationships (looking at you, “Grey’s Anatomy!”) or the genius doctor characters that are too unbelievable, I’d highly recommend giving “The Pitt” a try! It is a realistic medical show filled with character drama that had me wanting more by the end of the fifteenth episode.
