‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: “1:00PM”

This Fourth of July, Pittsburgh’s hottest club is the ED at PTMC. This place has everything: new patients chopped up by recreational boat propellers, more Westbridge diverts becoming gurneyed wall hangers, and everyone from high school football players to driveway car washers hitting the Pitt with symptoms of heat exhaustion. A packed Chairs features waiting patients fanning themselves with Dr. Al-Hashimi’s patient passports. And Season 2 Episode 7 of The Pitt (“1:00PM”) also features the return of a certain charismatic nightshift attending, who may or may not have some of the staff hot and bothered. But let’s start with a little bit of Langdon Watch™, because it’s still heated between the resident and Robby, and their newest confrontation has him pretty flustered. 

On the rooftop helipad, as the boating accident victim arrives, the chopper’s rotor wash nearly drowns out Langdon’s direct attempt at candor. He tells Robby he’s sorry for betraying his trust, and that of their patients. And Robby is civil in a way that feels worrisome for Frank Langdon fans, because it’s like he’s already moved on from his former mentee. “I’m really glad you got the help that you need,” he says. “But I don’t know if I want you working in my ER.” Downstairs, during the resulting Above Patient Scrum, Langdon is shaken. The rapid-fire medical terms suddenly aren’t medical terming. And while Dr. King is there with an assist for her favorite colleague, Robby’s words have clearly knocked Frank back a peg.

We believe in Langdon’s contrition, and his recommitment to the work. But Robby’s stubbornness is entrenched. It’s personal between them, but professional, too, as we see elsewhere, when the senior attending takes time to encourage Mel that she did nothing wrong, that her deposition will go fine. She is emboldened when he calls her one of the very best residents he’s ever trained. Which suggests his rift with Langdon emanates from where he thinks he himself must have failed. Like he should’ve seen the signs, instead of writing fellowship letters.

Crashing through the trauma doors and back onto our televisions is Dr. Jack Abbot (Shawn Hatosy), decked out in full camo. The nighttime attending moonlights (daylights?) as a field medic for Pittsburgh SWAT, because of course he does, and one of his teammates got shot in a July 4th warehouse robbery. He intubated the wounded officer under active fire – Santos: “Are you serious? That’s badass” – and Abbot’s confidently teaming with Robby on a difficult tracheal transection when he has time to notice Dr. Al-Hashimi noticing him. Once the guy’s stable, the new attending and the veteran army doctor trade war stories. (Dr. Al served with Médecins Sans Frontières in Kabul.) “She seems cool,” Abbot says to Robby; his friend says nothing.

This packed episode of The Pitt also features a few illuminating moments with Trinity Santos. While a lack of effective ASL accompaniment frustrates her ability to treat hearing impaired patient Harlow Graham (Jessica “Limer” Flores), she does prove to be a “baby whisperer,” calming the ED’s mystery infant with a lullaby in Tagalog. And Santos is also the Whitaker whisperer – she gives Robby an update on her roommate’s busy “farm benefits” personal life, and while it’s shot through with her trademark cynicism, she also conveys real friendship. Trinity doesn’t want Whitaker, her “little Huckleberry,” taken advantage of. Robby smiles at this. “Yeah, he’s our fuckin’ Huckleberry.” One more illuminating Santos moment: in a restroom stall, we see scar lines on her legs, evidence of what could be self-harm.     

A sexual assault victim has also arrived in the ED, Ilana Miller (Tina Ivlev), and the sequence of her examination, which runs throughout this busy episode, is shot with as much as care and respect as Dana Evans shows Ilana. The charge nurse is a trained Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), and assisted again by Nurse Emma, she conscientiously catalogs their new patient’s clothing for forensic investigation. But only if Ilana wants that. “You are in control now.” When the young woman becomes too emotional to continue, it hits Dana and Emma just as hard.

As if we couldn’t have more going on around the Pitt on this hottest of overcrowded Fourth of July days. But we do. With the Westbridge patients piling up so quickly Princess has worked out a “battleplan” to place them along the hallway walls, Robby is startled to see PTMC CEO Trent Norris (Victor Rivas Rivers) appear in the ED. “Gather your staff, please,” Norris orders, and with Al-Hashimi beside him, the big boss makes an announcement. The “internal disaster” at Westbridge is due to cyberattack, other Pittsburgh-area hospitals have already been hit, and the decision has been made – without consulting Robby – to preemptively shut down all of the Pitt’s computer and medical technology systems. A sharp look passes between the two-headed attendings, but there is no time for protest. While Whitaker grabs a screen shot of the patient board before it all goes black, Robby pivots to managing this newest crisis. Everybody get ready, he says; “We’re going analog.” The ED at PTMC has everything. Except for modern technology.

Nurse’s Desk for Season 2 Episode 7 of The Pitt (“1:00PM”):

• It’s loud, hot, and crazy in the ED, and going analog will make it louder, hotter, and crazier. But Roxie Hamler wants to stay. “I don’t want you living with my ghost,” she tells Paul, and if that wasn’t sad enough, he brought their two young sons from home, who tuck in next to Mom on her hospital bed.

• Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi’s “freeze” moments have returned, with additional concerning context. When she gets that dazed look again, and becomes short of breath, Dr. Al places an urgent call for an appointment with her neurosurgeon. 

• Evidently Victoria Javadi’s medical professional parents are in competition over her future. We know Dr. Shamsi wants her brilliant daughter to go into surgery. But Ep 7 introduces Usman Ally as Victoria’s internist dad from upstairs, who visits the ED with a dermatologist colleague. “I’m just trying to present you with options for your residency…”

• Dr. Abbot really made an entrance, with his SWAT guys and sidearm and emergency medicine swagger. Then he had that professionally flirty chat with Dr. Al-Hashimi. And THEN he’s shirtless in a trauma bay, self-treating a bullet graze, when Samira Mohan conducts her own close-quarters examination of the charming attending. Welcome back to The Pitt, Shawn Hatosy!  

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.