(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
First days at work can be challenging. No one knows this better than the med students and interns on The Pitt. Take Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell), who lost a patient early in the day, was splattered with blood multiple times, peed on, and now finds his boss, Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabanovich (Noah Wyle) in tears mid-breakdown in the middle of a mass-casualty event.
In this week’s episode, the overworked ER staff is treating dozens of gunshot victims after a mass shooting at a local music festival. Thankfully, Whitaker doesn’t run from this unexpected and awkward encounter. He even puts some of Robby’s wisdom from earlier in the season into practice. The Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is a teaching hospital after all.
Set over one shift, The Pitt has become “must-see TV” in a streaming era when that phrase has become a relic. The first season takes place on the anniversary of the death of Robby’s mentor, Dr. Adamson, who died in the hospital during the initial COVID surge in 2020. Thinking about that moment has Robby on the edge of a breakdown all day—and all season of the series thus far.
The young man who Robby considers his “sort of stepson,” Jake, and Jake’s girlfriend are among the hospital’s many patients with gunshot injuries from the mass shooting. Being unable to save the girlfriend pushes Robby over the edge, and he finally does melt down in the ER’s makeshift morgue, which happens to be the same room where Adamson died of COVID.
The person who comes to Robby’s aid isn’t who fans would expect. It’s not one of his closest colleagues, like charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) or Dr. Abbott (Shawn Hatosy), but someone Robby met for the first time that morning. It’s Whitaker, the jittery intern who, until that moment, was most known for his series of first-day mishaps.
The Daily Beast’s Obsessed talked with stars Noah Wyle and Gerran Howell to discuss the moment, which, as you’ll know if you just watched, requires an entire box of Kleenex to get through.
“It was an interesting conversation. Who’s gonna find Robby? It became so clear that it needed to be Whitaker,” Wyle says. “Because you’re framing this experience between the youthful naivety of somebody coming into this environment for the first time and a very world-weary and battle-worn veteran who’s having the aggregate collapse of his entire career coming on his shoulders.”
If you cast your mind back to the third episode, Robby gave Whitaker a pep talk to alleviate some of Whitaker’s guilt about his patient dying. “It seemed perfectly appropriate to have these two characters meet up again this late in the season, after having had this lovely exchange early on, where I talk about needing to find balance,” says Wyle.
The synchronicity was one creative reason for the scene. Another was Wyle’s desire to work more closely with Howell. Even being on Zoom with each other seems to be a treat for the co-stars. “Thanks for arranging this opportunity for me to see Gerran’s face,” Wyle tells me. Earlier in our conversation, he mentioned that he had been primarily doing press by himself for The Pitt, where he was “talking about how much I love these people, and now I get to say it to your [Howell’s] face.” Howell’s reactions to this go from bashful to a beaming smile, and it is like watching a Robby-Whitaker scene come to life—with far less blood and peril.
The co-stars haven’t seen each other since the Season 1 wrap party because Howell has been in the UK for the last few months. Yep, viewers might be shocked to learn that Howell is not from a small town in Nebraska, like his character on The Pitt, but from Barry, Wales. You can currently watch Howell in Season 1 of the BritBox murder mystery Ludwig. I was curious what it is like going from shooting six episodes of that series to the arduous demands of The Pitt’s 15-episode season. First, Howell talks about how tired he looks on screen (“those eye bags are all me,” he jokes), but adds that the realistic set of The Pitt helped energize him: “Every day we step onto this set, it is like walking into a hospital. You just persevere and you’re in it.”
During Howell’s response, Wyle can’t stop smiling. “I’m grinning because Gerran didn’t have a car or a license, so he literally walked to work every day,” says Wyle. “When he says it’s like walking into a hospital, every day he literally walked into the hospital and then had to walk himself home.” Howell says that, at one point during production, he tried using a scooter for his commute, but switched back to walking to work. “I was just exhausted,” he says. “Since we finished [shooting], I’ve just been sleeping.”
On The Pitt, there is no time for taking a break, let alone sleeping. So when Whitaker finds Robby crying on the floor in the makeshift morgue, it is a shock both to the character and Howell himself: “To find out, it was me who was going to walk in on him and ultimately help him in that moment, it was mind-blowing,” he says.
Wyle reflects on how Howell “finds these lovely little moments” beyond dialogue written on the page—like the way he moves between people and equipment. “I think half of my character is just dodging other people. I think my spatial awareness is terrible,” Howell says, laughing. “I do tend to weave and dip and dive. It’s either a person or a gurney most of the time.”
When Whitaker finds Robby in the throes of that breakdown in the morgue, he tells him the team will be “f---ed” if their leader doesn’t return to work. Robby accepts Whitaker’s hand to get off the floor but lightly shoves him away after he stands. “That was like one of those little moments that I got up and it just happened,” says Wyle. “Everybody seemed to think it said everything that we needed to say with that one gesture, which is, ‘I’ll accept your hand, but this doesn’t fundamentally make us close, and I don’t need you closer than you’re standing right now.”
Wyle notes this is “the perfect physicalization of an interior feeling,” as Robby is also pushing the world away.
Later, Robby grabs a moment with Whitaker to ensure that he hasn’t gossiped about the interaction. Whitaker assures him that he hasn’t told anyone about what he says is Robby’s “moment of silent reflection.” When Whitaker repeats Robby’s words of wisdom from Episode 3 about finding balance, Robby’s wry smile speaks volumes. “Little s--t, using my words against me,” is how Wyle interprets that moment; Howell laughs at that assessment.
After the scene, some things are going back to normal for the characters. For starters, Robby removes the disposable gown he had been wearing to treat the shooting victims and puts his hoodie back on. Wyle looks legitimately thrilled when I mention this garment: “That became such a security blanket for me. When I had to take it off, I felt very revealed, and I loved putting it back on.”
There is still one episode to air this season, but fans will be pleased to hear Wyle is already thinking about Season 2. Though there is no confirmation of who will be back, Wyle says summer is the anticipated production start date, with a two-week rehearsal period. (“Both to refamiliarize ourselves and talk about what we did on our summer vacation,” he says). But he doesn’t expect the show to feel much different than it has in Season 1.
“We’re trying to resist the temptation to go bigger. What has been gratifying is that people have responded to those tiny character beats, those small moments of drama that feel very human,” Wyle says. “As long as we stay in that arena and don’t try to jump a shark or blow anything up and just try to say, ‘Where would these people be realistically now?’ I think we’ll be in good shape.”
While Whitaker and Robby are unlikely to become BFFs (that is not how Robby rolls), Whitaker has been upgraded. “Well, after Langdon’s betrayal, he’s my new favorite,” Wyle smiles (“Pressure is on,” says Howell). Either way, hopefully, if Whitaker returns for Season 2, both he and Robby can find that balance they are striving for—or at least not get covered in bodily fluids again.
