In the first season of HBO Max‘s The Pitt, Episode 11 marked a devastating and intense shift for the series. It was the episode that ended wit news of the Pitt Fest shooting, the event that transformed the emergency department into essentially a MASH unit. The Pitt Season 2 Episode 11 “5 PM” not only ends in violence, but features one of the show’s most beloved characters getting arrested by masked ICE agents.
**Spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 Episode 11 “5 PM,” now streaming on HBO Max**
Nurse Jesse Van Horn (Ned Brower) is wrestled to the floor, handcuffed, and dragged away by ICE agents after he attempted to protect a patient who was brought in as a detainee. What’s worse is that after he’s taken away, the remaining characters note that it might be hours before he’ll be processed and they don’t even know where he’s going to be taken.
The threat of ICE has been referenced before on The Pitt this season. Two weeks ago, we learn that a little boy brought in for accidentally blowing off his fingers with a firework was left in the care of his older sister after their parents were ambushed at an immigration hearing and shipped back to their native Haiti. Because the kid was sipping alcohol, social services has to get involved. It’s likely that he will eventually be separated from his sister and sent to live with his parents in Haiti even though he was born and raised in the USA.
In The Pitt Season 2 Episode 11, ICE agents played by JuJu Alexander and Josell Mariano bring a roughed up detainee named Pranita (Ramona DuBarry) in the ED en route to the detention center. Robby (Noah Wyle) initially argues for the staff to keep calm and carry on, but the ICE agents’ presence alone ripples through the Pitt in negative ways. Patients and staff alike leave the hospital rather than risk arrest. Robby eventually erupts at the agents, listing the ways in which they’re putting people’s health at risk. However, it’s Nurse Jesse who physically attempts to intervene.
We don’t get to see exactly what Jesse does. We just hear an altercation on the other side of the ED. Robby rushes to the area, where Jesse is on the ground while McKay (Fiona Dourif) argues that the agents can’t do this. We’re told that the masked goons were hurting the already injured women and Jesse tried to stop it. For that, he’s brought down and dragged away by the thugs.
If The Pitt Season 1’s measles storyline felt eerily prescient last year, watching ICE agents attack a male nurse in Season 2 might feel even more so. Since The Pitt Season 2 premiered back in early January, we’ve endured countless stories of horrors inflicted by ICE agents, including the killing of male nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“I was thinking about that when I saw that,” Supriya Ganesh said, when DECIDER asked about how real life events have lined up with the second season’s storylines. “I was a little surprised at how close to life in some ways that it was.”
“I think the issue that we are trying to uncover goes so much deeper than in what we show on the show,” she continued. “I’m hoping it sparks conversation and people looking to the extent to which I think things are deteriorating in this country, because it goes further than what we have in show.”
While Robby attempts to figure out how to help Jesse as he’s dragged away, Javadi (Shabana Azeez) rushes out to the ambulance bay. It’s the only place anyone can get internet service during the hospital’s digital shutdown and Javadi caught the entire event on video. Chances are “Dr. J” is about to drop some new content on her followers.
Of course, Jesse isn’t the only nurse Robby needs to worry about at the end of this week’s The Pitt. The episode ends with poor Emma (Laëtitia Hollard) being attacked by a patient.
Will Jesse be released? Will Emma be okay? Keep watching The Pitt Thursdays on HBO Max.