The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 is an outstanding season finale that, officially, makes the series’ first season 15-for-15 with excellent episodes. That’s no small feat, yet it’s precisely because the people involved with making this series simply…kept doing what had been working all along that they stick the landing here. Same honest storytelling, same great performances, same detailed look at what it means to be a healthcare worker in this moment in time. To put it another way, the finale succeeds through not trying too hard to be some kind of “event.” No cliffhangers, no overly-ambitious attempt to outdo what’s already been done in the previous 14 hours — and especially the previous three — just…something as close to truth as fiction can give us at this time.
So, what story does The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 actually tell? “Here’s how a day in the life reluctantly comes to a close.” It presents to us a group of people whose shift should’ve already been over, who are all ready to get out of that ER but struggle to pull themselves away. So, as we spend our last hour with them (for now), we need to wrap up many big storylines, to give everyone some kind of closure. At the same time, to close the book too securely would be malpractice. After all, the hospital doesn’t suddenly stop running when our healthcare workers leave for the day. Not only that, but these rich characters still have lives. They have loved ones to care for and trauma to sort through — especially after this day, in particular.
And, well, it’s really that simple. That’s the story this season finale gives us, and it is brilliantly done.
MORE: Remember how it all began? See what we initially thought of The Pitt Season 1 Episode 1 and Episode 2.
“Better than great”
As we keep seeing over and over again, working in emergency medicine is a difficult job, and this shift at PTMC’s ER has been much worse than whatever counts as normal. One of the highlights of this The Pitt Season 1 finale is its very clear portrayal of how running on an adrenaline high to just get through it can affect a person. By this point in the aftermath of the mass casualty event, some folks are purely exhausted, like student doctor Javadi, who can barely even bring herself to stand up once she’s made the mistake of sitting down on a gurney in the elevator. But others, like Dr. Mohan, get stuck in that high and don’t even realize it until something sends them crashing back down in the worst way.
Supriya Ganesh’s performance in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 is a true highlight. When Dr. Mohan is still locked in that high energy state, she is really, really high energy. She’s so upbeat, in the most disturbing of ways. Honestly, that grin of hers is a little bit unhinged — deranged, perhaps. And the contrast with Javadi in that elevator could not be more stark. These are two sides of the same “harsh realities after a crisis” coin. Neither of these two people’s bodies is coping well; it’s just that one, Javadi’s, is showing the effects of the trauma in a way that outside observers expect and can instantly spot. Mohan, on the other hand, you kind of have to look for the more subtle, yet somehow glaring, signs.
At a time when the day shift is supposed to be wrapping up so Dr. Robby can debrief his staff and send them home, Dr. Mohan just wants more, and more, and more, and more to do. That, about as much as the odd perkiness Ganesh delivers so well in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15, alerts others to something being wrong. So, Dr. McKay warns her she’ll “crash soon.” And McKay’s next piece of advice winds up starting to bring her down toward that crash. “This job can’t be your life, Samira.”
That simple sentence brings us a Dr. Mohan who’s very quick to deny, passionately, that anything at all is wrong. “It’s not. What? Because I’m not in a relationship, and I don’t like socializing after work? All that other stuff can wait until I finish my residency and get to where I want to be in my career.” But the denial…rings hollow, as does Dr. McKay’s clearly unconvinced “yeah. For sure.” Because this is the type of denial that’s a rehearsed internal monologue to help herself keep pressing forward.
When said to someone else, it all comes out as more of a confession. Dr. Mohan has made this job her life and is sacrificing a lot for it, but she keeps telling herself it’s ok, necessary even. Through it all, we learn that she probably has nothing and no one to go home to — no one to help her deal with this day. So, instead of dealing, her mind has kept her just ready to go, go, go. Which…doesn’t work. You have to run out of steam, eventually. (See also: Crash.)
Because Dr. McKay’s words hit not just a nerve but what is obviously an open wound, that pain unfortunately wakes Samira back up. She can’t stay trapped, hyper-focused (and therefore, uh, kinda hyper) on the mission of saving lives after that shock to the system. And because tapping into that painful place cuts through all the adrenaline, Dr. Mohan’s crash isn’t only a matter of coming down and letting herself take in, and react to, the horrors of the day. She has to let all the deeper pain out, too.
So, we get the bathroom scene — another great one for Ganesh in this finale. There’s so much grief there, and she quite literally tries to wash a lot of the day, probably a lot of the buried stuff too, away. Frantically. More than once. But some things don’t ever leave you. They linger, there on the edges of your vision. (See also: OMG the blood? Everywhere? On the soap dispenser? On the floor? In the trash can???)
The question is what you see when you take a good, long look at yourself and how you move on from there. Since Dr. Mohan is actually honest with Donnie — and, more importantly, herself — after leaving that room, and she actually shows up to the little unwinding session in the park after work this time, we’re thinking maybe she saw a little bit of what we’ve been seeing all along. She’s a great doctor, who cares so much…and deserves all of that care to come back her way, too.
MORE: Read our Supriya Ganesh interview to learn more about how Dr. Mohan works through the mass casualty event and “doesn’t really know how to process it.” You can also get some insight into Javadi’s experience from our Shabana Azeez interview.
“You in trouble, kid?”
The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 reassures us that, no, Dr. Langdon doesn’t get to just waltz back in here. Yes, he sort of did exactly that in Episode 12 — and did an excellent job of saving lives when it counted the most. However, as Patrick Ball displays very well when his character tries, unsuccessfully, to get Dana on his “side,” this is still a person who needs to seek help before he can even begin to ask for his job back. If you look closely at what’s really going on in that lounge, Langdon is behaving exactly like a person in active addiction. He’s in denial about his own situation, he’s completely overlooking Dana’s obvious desire not to engage because it doesn’t serve his purposes, and he’s trying to manipulate the story — manipulate her into helping him manipulate the story — so he can get what he wants.
And seriously, poor Dana. That’s really the main takeaway from all of that. Not only does Dr. Langdon ignore her comment about how all of the screaming is going to stick with her, but she’s being put in the middle of these two people she loves very much. We’ve seen that love all season long — with everyone on the shift, honestly, but these two men specifically. They’re her family, period. Worse yet, she has to come to the awful realization that her “kid,” Langdon, absolutely is the addict he claims not to be. When he tells her Robby thinks he’s an addict, and she very frankly asks “are you,” he breaks her heart with that immediate no. Like some part of her always knew.
The way Katherine LaNasa plays Dana’s discomfort and avoidance leading up to that point is brilliant, but the highlight most definitely comes when she hears that “no.” This isn’t Dana accepting the news, or even lashing out because she knows Langdon’s lying to her. It’s a moment of disappointment and sadness. Underneath of that, there’s very much an indication that Dana’s like “well, of course. There you go.”
For his part, Ball nails that sense of urgency, of someone who’s well and truly afraid of losing the job he loves so much. And it’s that cautious sense of sizing Dana up, seeing what she knows before he even starts to press her on trying to get ahead of the consequences that stands out. Or, at least, it’s the standout for him until Langdon and Robby have their final confrontation. We’re not even really sure what there is to say about the Noah Wyle/Patrick Ball pairing other than “wow, these two bring the best out of each other.” But let’s try.
In the first place, we’ll again point to how The Pitt doesn’t shy away from how being an addict can look different for everyone — a successful white man like Frank Langdon is not at all the stereotype — but the way that struggle can hurt the people around you is about as universal as it gets. When things don’t go Dr. Langdon’s way in that powerhouse of an argument, when Robby explodes on him and tells him he needs help, he explodes right back and throws Robby’s own pain back at him. That “what about you, man” section of the dialogue is one of Ball’s most brilliant deliveries. And, when Robby taps into what hurts Langdon the most — that he’s let everybody down, including his mentor and, most of all, himself — Langdon has to be the one to hit back and hit hardest.
It’s horrible of him to tell Robby that a night shift nurse saw him during his meltdown in peds. But that’s…that’s how this works. Hurt people hurt people, if you will. More specifically for Dr. Langdon, people who know they need help but refuse to admit it really love hurting the people who want to help them the most. But if he wants his job back — which we hope he does because he really is an excellent doctor and even has moments when we can see what a good person he likely is at his core — he has to take the help that’s offered. Or, as Dana puts it in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15, “you’re a smart kid. You’ll figure it out. Trust Robby, ok? He’ll do what’s best for you.”
MORE: We discussed the scene where Dr. Robby sent Dr. Langdon home in our The Pitt Season 1 Episode 10 review.
Dr. McKay’s “mess to fix”
Speaking of people who need to “take the help that’s offered,” Dr. McKay tries to talk to David one last time in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15. This time around, he doesn’t pound on the window, demanding to be let out. He doesn’t scream at anyone either. Instead, he just looks so small as he takes in everything Dr. McKay has to say. He looks so small and sad. He’s the poster child for what it means to be depressed and cover it up with anger to protect yourself. That darkness that everyone’s been so afraid of, so sure would turn into actual violence all season long, just gets directed inward now. It was always going to have to go one way or another, and for David, it goes in the direction of revealing how broken he is instead of him trying to make others just like him.
The potentially good news, though, is that he listens to Dr. McKay. Yes, he’s slumped against that wall with his knees up and in that protective posture. And yes, he almost never looks her in the eye on the rare occasion he lets her see his face at all. Even so, something about the vulnerability and pure exhaustion McKay shows this kid when she opens up about the reality of navigating this world as a woman gets through. It’s such a gut-wrenching scene. We know this kid is going to have a terrible time on that psych hold, being stuck in that place and hearing God knows what. And we know he’s already hurting so much, feeling so lost and alone. (My The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 notes may or may not just say “OMG HIS TEARS” for this part.)
We also know that Dr. McKay is hurting here, having to relive her own pain and tap into her own trauma just enough to be able to level with him. She’s also the mother of her own son, seeing this kid unravel before her very eyes — partially by her own hand. There’s regret there, by the end of it. But better safe than sorry…right?
MORE: In The Pitt Season 1 Episode 14, we saw a very different side of David.
“To the Pitt crew”
We could probably gush on and on about this series forever, but all things must come to end. These characters have to be able to walk away from their workday, to go back to their “normal” lives after seeing everything they’ve seen here today. So, it seems fitting that our last in-depth discussion about The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 should be about how grateful we are that this finale gives us so many personal beats to close things out.
That roof scene featuring Noah Wyle and Shawn Hatosy is second to none, and it’s a beautiful nod back to the series premiere. Now, though, instead of the sun just starting to peek out from behind the clouds, it’s pitch dark out there. And instead of Dr. Robby talking Dr. Abbot off the ledge, the two men have switched places. Both literally and figuratively. (For what it’s worth, Abbot’s totally right: Robby “rocked that sh— down there today.”)
Then, they join the little group outside, and we see the “doctor” and “nurse” masks start to slip away. Robby’s not the attending anymore — not the boss — and he gets that delightfully light moment with everyone after coming to the sudden realization that this was Javadi’s first day. Despite everything, even all that pain we just saw from him mere minutes ago, he can still laugh. They all can, and they can crack jokes, reset their minds with the only people who understand what they’ve just been through. Each other.
However, some people don’t make the trip out to the park, and that tells its own story. Life does go on, so folks with outside responsibilities have to get right back to doing their other full-time jobs. Cassie McKay is a mom, and she’s got a kid to go lecture about watching scary movies with his grandpa. (Plus, you know, an ankle monitor to deal with first thing tomorrow.) Then, there’s Mel. She has to put on an act for her sister, of being fine and sticking to the routine, when it’s obvious that she just wants — no, needs — a rest. (Someone PROTECT HER.)
While all of this is happening, Dr. Santos stumbles upon Whitaker, who’s getting ready to turn in for the night. As it turns out, Whitaker’s reaction to Mr. Krakozhia in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 9 is far more meaningful than we initially thought because this student doctor knows a thing or two about being unhoused. Firsthand, even. For her part, Santos may struggle with the implications of opening her space up to someone who she’s only known for one day, but she does offer “Huckleberry” a place to stay once she comes to the conclusion that he has nowhere else to go. Talk about a beautiful, human moment for both characters — softened, of course, by the hilarity of Whitaker getting caught boogying down while he gets ready for bed.
Finally, in a clear full-circle moment, an ambulance rushing by is Robby’s cue that it’s time to leave. And, just like on his way to work, he turns on some music, shuts out all the outside noise, and takes a walk. The end.
MORE: Check out our interviews with Isa Briones and Gerran Howell!
More on The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15
- “We just came through the worst mass casualty incident in this city’s history, and you two are f—ing around with this? Are you serious? You don’t have anything better to do?” Robby said ACAB. And then, he was like, “hey, buddy whose partner we saved. Come scratch our backs.” Genius, actually. Like, if you can’t beat them, at least use the cops’ corruption for good.
- Meanwhile, I don’t know about anyone else, but I absolutely would’ve been inconsolable if they hadn’t cut Dr. McKay a break.
- 112 patients in three hours, and they only lost six. A miracle.
- “We do the best that we can. Some things are out of our control.” If only he could ever listen to his own wise words. See also how he deals with not being able to save Leah.
- “We couldn’t save them, but we could still save your son.” “You’re an a—hole”“…yeah. I’m an a—hole. Who’s trying to save your son’s life.” First off: I hate everything about that mother and people like her. Full stop. Second…kinda unethical? But I don’t even care. Because Robby’s right. That kid does not have to be another one who dies today. He shouldn’t even be suffering the way he is at this point. Good on the dad for coming to his senses in time.
- On that same trip to the peds morgue: Devon Gummersall is just…so great here as the dad who’s just stricken when he realizes what is in front of him. And the details. That one missing shoe…oof.
- “She wasn’t crazy. Just desperate.” Yep. Nice throwback to Episode 7.
- “Looks like two old white guys poached our patient.” Amazing. I’m old enough to remember when Dr. Carter was just Carter, a student.
- “Just some unhealthy food truck choices.” Relatable.
- Isa Briones is great in all of these scenes with Santos and her “blue man” patient. You can clock the exact second she confirms her suspicions about his suicide attempt, and when Santos opens up about her friend later, she is so beautifully vulnerable.
- “You don’t want to go home and sleep?!” Javadi is so real for this.
- “What have you been hearing?” “A lot of screaming and crying. Got a feeling that’s going to stick with me for a while.” “I mean about me.” “Doctors. Always with the me, me, me.” She can’t even bring herself to try for a joking tone there because she’s too tired. Also: The screaming and crying line hits hard.
- “He said I didn’t want to know. So. I didn’t ask.” Queen.
- McKay’s little fond smile when she hears about Whitaker being the department bloodhound, though.
- “Today was horrific. But we got through it! We did some amazing things.” True.
- “Do you know what it’s like to be afraid? I mean, really, truly frightened for your own physical safety?” “I’m pretty sure I got a taste of that tonight.” “Right. So, imagine if you felt that way every day from half the people that you meet. Because that’s every woman’s life.” Thank you, The Pitt, for saying the part way too many people need to hear…and won’t. And thank you, Fiona Dourif, for delivering it that way. So many layers of honesty, and vunerability, and digging for a last-resort truth to tell this kid that McKay’s desperate to help.
- “If this was a failed suicide attempt, it makes sense that he’s too frightened or embarrassed to admit to what he did and too afraid to go home because of what he might still do.” Yep.
- Sidebar: Have I mentioned I love Ellis? Because I LOVE Ellis.
- J/K I love them all. And I’m going to miss them all.
- “I figured it was the one time throwing my career away was for a greater good.”
- No but the way Wyle delivered the “HERE’S YOUR SECOND CHANCE” had me convinced Robby was about to punch that guy.
- “This job will f—k you up if you let it. You let it.” “Yeah. I wasn’t the one talking to cartoon animals in peds.” “F—CK! YOOOOOOU!!!”
- “Trust me, Gloria. Youuuuuu don’t want me speaking to the press right now.” Noah Wyle’s physical performance here screams “guy who is not holding it together.” Look at that tension, that fidgeting.
- “What you and your department did here tonight was nothing short of miraculous. People need to know that. Take the win.” Is “the win” in the room with us? Does it include actually SUPPORTING THEM WITH RESOURCES???
- No, seriously. Just Santos taking this patient’s hand had me wrecked?
- “I’m sorry. She really is a good mom.” Narrator: She was not, in fact, a good mom…and all those little looks between the cast members say these healthcare workers agree.
- Anyone else notice how Robby and Langdon really are way too much alike? They both kind of…feel Dana out for potentially-damaging information about themselves in The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15. In almost exactly the same roundabout, hesitant way, even.
- Utensils specialist.
- “How are you two still going?” “I’m not.” “I…don’t require much sleep, and I have a fast metabolism.” And off she goes! Taylor Dearden continues to be so good with all the details.
- AND AS ALWAYS, PROTECT MEL.
- “Today should never have happened. It’s impossible to imagine what would possess somebody to commit such a…horrific act. It’s the worst of humanity, but it brought out the best in the rest of us. We saw our better angels come to the aid of our patients. Each of you rose to the occasion. And I — I can’t tell you how proud I am of all of you. This place will break your heart. But it is also full of miracles, and that is a testament to all of you coming together and doing what we do best. Thank you. For everything you did here today.” If watching The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15 didn’t take you about three times as long as it should have because you had to stop to keep getting every single gorgeous bit of dialogue straight, were you really even watching?
- So, go home, let yourselves cry. You’ll feel better. It’s just…grief. Leaving the body.” I would die for this man.
- …my grief is leaving my body while I watch.
- “What did I tell you about scary movies?” I want to make a Scream reference, but I’ll behave.
- That lost, hangdog look from Robby to Dana by that wall o’ heroes after she told him his mentor would’ve been proud. Just…Noah Wyle, y’all. Dear Lord.
- “See you Monday.” Our girl’s not quitting, huh.
- Whitaker doesn’t even know “who” krav maga is. What a precious baby.
- The way we don’t hear anything but the crying from behind that closed door. Like, Leah’s parents are the hardest notification he’s had to do in this nightmare of a day, and he’s not even able to be present enough for it for us to witness through his eyes…oof. And Robby on the outside looking in afterwards. Ouch.
- “It’s Friday, isn’t it?” Poor Mel. PROTECT HER.
- “…that is what happens when you’re in a war and nothing makes sense.” 100% would die for this friendship.
- (Would do a lot of dying, apparently.)
- MYRNA!!!!!!!!!
- “My therapist thinks I find comfort in the darkness. I’ll give you his number if you ever feel like talking to him.” “Does it help?” “I haven’t jumped off the roof, have I?” “Not yet.”
- The rats!
- “Nahhh that kid’s tough. He’ll be back. Just like the rest of us.” Exactly.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of The Pitt Season 1 Episode 15? Leave us a comment!
All episodes of The Pitt Season 1 are now streaming on Max.
