RECAP: ‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Episode 10 – “4:00 P.M.”

The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10 showcases strong character dynamics that have been bubbling beneath the surface all season. It’s all still cooking together in hour ten; however, a pressure cooker of tension is about to spill over completely.

One in particular between Santos (Isa Briones) and Langdon (Patrick Ball) almost reaches that boiling point in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10. Thrown together during a waterslide accident case, Santos reluctantly follows Langdon’s instruction, but they’re both also under the guidance of Al-Hashimi and Garcia (Alexandra Metz). Garcia’s presence adds an extra layer of drama to the scene as well.

Garcia and Langdon may have a frenemy-type relationship, but their history together seems to trump their relationship. When Santos first started noticing the discrepancy in the drugs during The Pitt Season 1, she went to Garcia first, but Garcia dismissed her concerns and seemed more concerned that Santos was questioning her seniors.

As the hours tick by in the ER, tensions become higher than ever, and so does Robby’s indifference.

That same kind of loyalty Garcia has for Langdon appears again in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10. While it’s admirable on her part not to demonize Langdon for his addiction, her dismissal of Santos’ feelings on the matter is unfair. From Santos’ perspective, Langdon as her superior in Season 1 yelled at her instead of guiding her, put their patients and fellow doctors and nurses at risk, and essentially got to waltz back into the emergency department.

Langdon’s time in rehab certainly wasn’t a waltz, but that’s Langdon’s to own. For Santos, it sounds like she’s gotten flak from some people about turning Langdon in, which isn’t fair to her. Because of that, it might seem like Langdon’s time away and return barely yielded any negative consequences for him. Compounding that with Garcia’s personal and professional brush-offs, the stress from her R2 year, Al-Hashimi’s vague threat about repeating R2, and Robby (Noah Wyle) leaving for the foreseeable future, Santos understandably is not having a great day, especially in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10.

The water slide incident brought in multiple patients via helicopter, including a woman whose leg completely came off below the knee. Robby, Whitaker, Olgevy (Lucas Iverson), and Garcia work together to keep that knowledge from the patient as they try to preserve the detached part of the leg and stop the bleeding from the knee. Because of the nature of the detachment, they believe they can try to reattach the whole leg, but they have to bring in an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Park (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) – a new addition in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10.

Santos is not having a great time in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10.

Ferrigno Jr.’s presence is short-lived, but he manages to add some flair to his character, helped along by Whitaker and Ogilvie’s obvious presence. The Pitt is great at bringing in other medical professionals for a quick scene, giving them stand-out characteristics, and then sending them off back upstairs, and Dr. Park is no different.

Ogilvie admits to Robby that he doesn’t think the chaos of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is normal, citing his experiences in other emergency departments. His awkwardness holding the woman’s detached leg speaks to his growing fish-out-of-water vibe this season. By the end of The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, he hands the English teacher the James Baldwin book he brought with him, explaining that he thought he wasn’t going to be busy today.

Ogilvie’s clearly book smart, and spent the majority of the first half of this season trying to outsmart everyone, including his superiors. But as the hours drag on, he gets increasingly wary of what it really takes to work in an emergency department. Joy (Irene Choi) is a great foil to this.

Ogilvie continues to flounder this season and even acknowledges that this chaos is not normal.

As his medical student peer, Joy spent the first part of the season quiet and seemingly flippant, much of it due to Ogilvie’s constant interruptions and one-upmanship. And while she still doesn’t love the ER, she’s contributing more to what’s going on around her in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, easily fitting into the chaos with quick thinking and out-of-the-box solutions even her superiors are surprised by.

In The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, Mohan’s (Supriya Ganesh) stress about her future, the constant phone calls from her mom, the ever-increasing patient load, and the hot waiting room converge on Mohan at once. Joy follows her around to make sure she’s okay, but Mohan brushes her off. They take in a patient with a swollen leg, but Mohan’s unable to finish the examination because she’s struggling to breathe. She stumbles out into the waiting room, where exhausted, overheated patients swarm her, but Joy follows again and gets her into a wheelchair.

Seeing a doctor go down is scary, and the other doctors and nurses react accordingly. Langdon quickly gets Mohan into a room as Joy runs to get Robby. Mohan believes she’s having a heart attack, but her EKG is normal. She starts going off about everything that’s stressing her out, and here in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, Robby does the single rudest thing he’s done on this show, which is diminishing what Mohan’s going through right now.

Javadi’s guilt about what she wants and doesn’t want from her mom rears its head.

Sure, this is an emergency department. Mohan said it in Season 1 to Santos that you leave personal baggage at home. But medical professionals are humans too, and a panic attack is nothing to dismiss. Robby’s increasing lack of empathy for his patients and the people who work for him is concerning, coupled with talk of not returning from his motorcycle sabbatical, telling Whitaker to stay at his house, and joking that he can move in if Robby doesn’t come back.

It’s definitely concerning, and it’s unfortunate that his staff and his patients are affected by his general indifference and detached demeanor at this point in The Pitt Season 2. Thankfully, in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, Al-Hashimi and Dana both call him out for how he handled the situation with Mohan, and he eventually apologizes to Mohan.

Robby’s friend, who he’s been waiting on, finally arrives in the form of Jeff Kober, one of the long-running character actors who’s always good to see pop up. Robby explains that they met because his motorcycle needed tuning, and in repayment, Robby offered him a medical checkup. They run some tests on the guy, but the test results will come in the next hour.

Robby’s ongoing attitude issues make the once-likable character hard to watch.

Mel (Taylor Dearden) returns from her deposition still feeling like things didn’t go well. The deposition was quite the buildup just so we wouldn’t actually see it, but, well, to our eyes, the other floors of the hospital don’t exist. What matters most is how Mel reacts before and after the deposition. She’s spent the majority of the season worried and spaced out a bit, but when she gets distracted enough by her work, she’s able to provide quality care.

Now, with the deposition over in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10, it’s time for her to fully lock in to how her sister Becca is doing. Langdon reminds her that he can’t disclose Becca’s status to Mel under HIPAA, but Becca can tell Mel directly. Becca has a UTI, which can be caused by numerous things, but Becca’s was caused by having sex with her boyfriend.

The news that her sister is having sex and also has a boyfriend shocks Mel, which could be a great moment of clarity for Mel herself in how she doesn’t need to be attached to Becca’s side all the time. Becca can be independent while still needing care, but Mel doesn’t need to put her life on hold for her sister, and also maybe should give her sister more credit.

With the deposition out of the way, maybe Mel can fully focus on her work.

McKay (Fiona Dourif) has been caring for Roxie, the hospice patient, through multiple episodes at this point. It’s an incredibly sad storyline, obviously, but it finally brings some quality scenes to the table in The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10. As Roxie decides to stay in the ER so she can die there and not at home, where happy memories persist, her kids face the reality that they’re about to lose their mom.

The oldest, Tucker, waits outside his mother’s room, refusing to go in. McKay reminds him that even though he’s scared, he needs to go in and say goodbye to his mom, because he will regret it for the rest of his life.

This affects Javadi (Shabana Azeez) as well, whose relationship with her own mom is complicated, as evidenced by Dr. Shamsi’s frequent trips to the ER. Overwhelmed by Roxie’s calm acceptance of her death, Javadi runs out of the room. McKay follows and reminds her that they can’t fall apart in front of their patients.

Javadi understands, but feels guilty that Roxie’s sons just want more time with their mom while Javadi wants less time with hers. This is emphasized when Dr. Shamsi comes back down to once again demean Javadi’s choice to work in the ER, and reprimand her for her mistake in the last episode that almost killed a patient.

The Pitt Season 2 Episode 10 is another great episode in a string of consistent ones, but it also allows some of the tension between characters to spill over, laying the groundwork for an even bigger fallout for everyone in the final hours of the season.

The Pitt Season 2 airs new episodes at 8 p.m. Central every Thursday on HBO Max.

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