‘The Pitt’ Episode 15: The Season Finale Recap

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I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney.
We're wearing the same clothes we were last time you saw us do a pit podcast. Don't worry about it.
We're here to talk to you about the pit finale. Rob Mahoney, just off the top.
Yeah. How are you feeling about the pit finale? Solid finale.
Great season. I just had a wonderful time with this show.
It just works. Fundamentally, it just works.
I didn't know how much I needed this kind of procedural in my life, but I did. How are you feeling about it, Joe? Really good.
I will say like as a whole, as a season, kind of 10 out of 10, maybe 9.8 out of 10, but basically a 10 out of 10. Actually like nine, let's say 9.8, 9.5, because like, I don't know that it ever, there's like a height.
It didn't quite hit for me, but your assessment at the beginning of the season in which we were not nearly as high as we are now on on the pit as like well-made furniture tv like that is absolutely what the pit is and as an as like an entirety in like in its entirety as an accomplishment extraordinary yes Are there moments of television or visuals in television or bits of monologues or dialogues in television that have hit a little bit higher for me? Yes. This isn't like hitting Shogun levels for me, but I'm so glad we covered it.
Thanks to Bill Simmons. he's the one who told us to do it he was right so he was on it the thing that has struck me most about it is i have not been historically a huge medical procedural person and i feel like i may have been missing out and maybe this is a reason for me to go back and watch watch er and really revisit some of this because one of my absolute favorite things to see on screen period in any format in any genre joe i love teamwork i just i love watching it i love a different kind of chemistry where there's shared focus where there's like the physical choreography of surgeons and nurses and doctors huddled around someone like they know their stuff they know each other well enough to sort of preempt what they're supposed to do i love i love watching it and so yeah like as far as delivering on what a procedural is aiming to be and supposed to be it's hard to ask much more of a of a medical procedural than this i really agree if we're measuring by the stick of medical medical procedural this is like it's really good this is incredible um okay so here's what we're going to do today we're going to obviously we're going to break down the finale we're going to talk about where we leave all of our characters and then we are going to conclude parts three and four of our very special prestige tv investigation into who played pit fest 2025 we've got two more categories to go can we get an intrepid graphic designer to mock up a Pit Fest lineup list? Is that something that's within our power to commission? Here are our remaining two categories.
One is we hear from the Yinzers. We hear from the locals in Pittsburgh who have some specific ideas about who might have been playing Pit Fest.
The other is I'm going to call Do You Even Festival Bro? And it's from all the people who were afraid that you and I had never heard of a music festival before in our life. But write some compelling emails in support of their local music festivals and the variety of acts that they've seen there.
So we're going to maybe run through those and maybe those will give people an idea. You know, it's April.
We're headed into summer. If you're a music festival kind of person, maybe this will inspire you to do some music festing this summer.
Or if you run a music festival and want to commission us to program your festival, I think we could do it. Or if you run a music festival and you're looking for a podcast stage.
I don't think that's the audience for us. I don't think a live podcast into a music festival is quite the right fit for us.
But I appreciate your ambition. Look, we'll do that.
You put us in a tent with the mildest soundproofing. And I think we can make it work.
Other than that, we might get drowned out. A producer's nightmare but let's give it a try why not okay here's something i want to say something we forgot to talk about in episode 14 is that it ends with this cliffhanger of like dun dun dun the cops are here for mckay right we didn't talk about that um resolved pretty instantly and the only thing that i can think of i mean it was a pretty silly cliffhanger and And the only thing I can think of in terms of how we balance this equation of like who these people are is it's one of those moments where we we bumped a bit on Robbie and McKay's dynamic.

Yes.

Around David.

This was like them at their most sort of locking horns all season.

And yet, of course, Robbie's like going to swoop in and protectckay because she's one of his so you know he's we bring the cops in to talk to the other cops and cops can only talk to other cops everyone knows that they don't they don't hear doctors when they talk to them but they heard the other cops when the other cops are talking to them uh and they left uh let mckay off with a warning anything everything about this yeah everything you're saying makes sense as far as like kind of giving us a follow-up on the robbie mckay dynamic i would say and we just lavish the show with praise this doesn't need to be a cliffhanger this could just be a scene correct in which you don't dangle it as if this is a real thing when it is so clearly and obviously not it was just it was such a bogus transition between the two episodes unless if you want to book dr mckay in episode one of the pit pd let's let's backdoor pilot this thing right now but you got to take her out of the hospital you can't be letting her out of the cuffs right now rob oh my god i'm just saying like are you are you secretly pitching Casey Bloys right now? I have the vision of a streamer.

When I dream at night, I'm seeing interfaces.

I'm seeing tiles. That's the rudest thing you've ever said about yourself on this podcast.

I'm just pulling it together, Joe. I'm just algorithmically trying to navigate your

life. Great.
Okay. So here are the cases that we're wrapping up mainly in this final episode we're wrapping up the measles case we're wrapping up uh santos and the and the blue kid case he was quite blue very blue um and hector and the crushed pelvis which I believe is headlining Pit Fest 2020.

For some reason, when you said Hector and the Crushed Pelvis,

I got more of like a Harold and the Purple Crayon

children's book kind of image in my head,

but I think yours is better.

Where do you want to start?

Choose your own adventure of those three cases.

Let's start with,

I just think it's very ambitious for a show like The Pit

with two episodes left

to introduce the big bad of the entire season

And Let's start with, I just think it's very ambitious for a show like The Pit with two episodes left to introduce the big bad of the entire season, who is Measle Mom. Just an instantly hateable character thrown into the mix so that we all can gather around and point at her and say, what is wrong with this lady? Okay.
Measle Mom sucks. Just unequivocally sucks.
Just definitely sucks. Robbie takes measle dad, which I add.
These are their Christian names. Robbie takes measle dad into the morgue in this like kind of incredible sequence where he's like walking and talking him the whole way.
Tell me about your kid. Tell me about his games.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we know where he's walking him.
We're like him we're like jesus christ right as does every character who hears about this uh throughout the episode later they're like thank goodness what the fuck did you do exactly okay so walks him into the morgue yeah um measled dad says you're an asshole and then robbie gets another one of those like sort of i would have snipped it out of the episode yeah i'm an asshole who's trying to save your son's life. Like sort of muttered to himself.
And I was just sort of like, yeah, we know. I mean, we know what you're trying to do, Robbie.
Yeah, we get it. Also, this is not the move.
Don't take him to the morgue, please. Well, or did it work? Because it seems like it kind of worked.
I don't know. Joe, a real means to an end.
I wouldn't do it myself. Strictly utilitarian here's where i'm going to be a little bit of a of a wet blanket on our our pit praise okay it has to do with measles mom yes can you think of an instance this season where we had loved ones that were a man and a woman paired and the woman was not the problem in this scenario because question we do did we get it with the dnr early yep in terms of the brother and sister brother and sister yeah and with the kid and then with the kid who ods and yes they're asking about organ organ donation donation that one to me is a little different right that's that's not treatment that's but it's still she was like she was the holdout like hysterically

upset about it

right

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and

and That one to me is a little different, right? That's not treatment. That's...
But it's still she was like...

She was the holdout.

Like hysterically upset about it. Right.
And so I believe that plenty of women, let alone moms, are hysterically upset about things in ER. And I think that is like a fine thing to depict.
I'm not sure it was... I feel like every time Robbie needs to like talk people around, he's got to talk to the guy and then go ahead and convince the woman.
You know what I mean? And it just hit one last time. Measel Mom was just so bad.
She was very over the top. I was just like, Jesus.
I do think we got some dads in that equation. I mean, softball dad.
Softball dad is the one case in point, but there was no mom there to be the counterpoint to say the right thing. And yeah, that's where I hear you.
And I mean, we did get progesterone abuser dad. He was a patient and not a dad overseeing the care of his kids.
So slightly different scenario. But yeah, I hear you on that front.
And like, there is a certain, I would say the difference is this woman is not being played for emotional hysteria she's being played for like a certain sort of like internet know-it-all self-cultivated uh proficiency where she actually has none so it is a slightly different pitch of that same thing but you're right it is often the moms um and And but that being said, obviously, measles mom sucks. And obviously, I'm glad that Dr.
Mel King got to do the spinal tap and all of that resolved the way that it did. Joe, how much do you know about a spinal tap? The band, the mockumentary, Not the mockumentary nor the band, but the actual medical procedure.
Here's everything I, Joanna Robinson, a daughter of medical professionals, but have never expressed actual interest in knowing anything about what my parents do. you put something into the spine

and then

collect liquid

that comes out yeah this is i mean this is not that i'm an expert yeah i i know as much as you do which is you're collecting that spinal fluid yeah my question is the portrayal of it in this show is roughly a leaky faucet of spinal fluid into a vial that melking is catching with her hand yeah uh please email us at prestige tv at spotify.com is this really how a spinal tap works how do you like do you plug it back up like how do you keep the spinal like you gotta put a cork in it like what do you do i think you gotta put a cork in. I mean, this is basically the plot of the substance in a lot of ways.

But also, like, yes, spinal fluid is the source of, like, all kinds of terrible medical situations that people can find themselves in.

And so the idea that it's just sort of like leaking out of a needle with a spigot, I did not know this is how it was. And I kind of hope that it's not, but it has been accurate on so many other medical things.

I'm afraid to say that it probably is. You're like, please let this be on the slap bracelet end of accuracy on the pit.
Anything else you want to say about this measles case? No, I think it's pretty open and shut. Otherwise, I do wish the measles mom had been a little more fleshed out in a slightly more sympathetic fashion.
That she had some redeeming quality to her that would make it make sense. But otherwise, she's just a lady representing a cause in a way that is quite blunt.
And in a way that the rest of the season felt like it had so much leisurely time to not make people, because even with the DNR, that was such an incredible evolution of that woman in the DNR when we were like, why is she resisting this?

Robbie seems right.

Her brother seems so reasonable.

Why is she being so unreasonable?

And then we get that sort of deathbed reason that makes us really sort of invest in her.

Measle mom, unless she's back in season two, remains a caricature, alas, at the end of the day.

Okay.

Let's talk about – I would like to talk about Santa's. mom, unless she's back in season two, remains a caricature, alas, at the end of the day.
Okay. Let's talk about – I would like to talk about Santos.
Yeah, please. So Santos, who all season we've been tracking her bedside manner, has this moment with this blue kid who is no longer blue.
Blue plus blue equals pink, as Langdon tells us. That's math.
And she talks about about uh you know she had already alluded to a history of abuse sexual abuse when she was younger she talks about a friend she had who killed herself um as a result of that shared experience that they had um in helping this kid saying you know she wants to make sure this she doesn't want to hand this kid off. She wants to make sure he doesn't slip through the cracks.
Yeah. She not only seems to like correctively correctively diagnose him and hopefully give him the kind of bedside chat that will help him going forward.
That's what it seems to have happened um but then also we follow this up with the with the Whitaker coda so it all feels like it bleeds together for me this sort of end of season moment of growth for Santos or end of a single day in a person's life a character arc for Santos uh are you feeling about this? I mean, you can grow a lot in 15 hours, it turns out. I think for her, the idea that she is not only learning how to approach patients differently and to hear them out, but she's also learning how to apply her own experience a little bit differently.
Like when she brought up her previous abuse, it was in way that was irresponsible and dangerous yes and outside of the realm of normal medical practice correct here she's bringing it up to not in a situation where as you said she's not only right about the merits of what's happening in the case but she's using it as a point of connection not as a point of threat or division or to drive a point home like she's trying to get max to open up by offering something of herself and we just haven't seen sandro's open up to basically anybody else this season on the staff or not like she has kept to herself she's kept to her ambition she's kept to trying to get into the red zone as quickly as possible to do the most adventurous medical things and if anything this is her embracing her inner like dr mohan a little Slowing down, connect with the patient. She's coming from the other side of the spectrum in terms of medical practice and is trying to fight her way into actually caring about these people.
And it's cool to see her get there with Max. On the flip side of that, I love that you invoked Mohan because on the flip side of that, we get this, you know, this high from Mohan who's just sort of like.
She deranged i will say adrenaline up and then crash and um two things i want to know one i really like the the actress who plays mohan um supriya ganesh is so beautiful it's hard to make her not beautiful and they don't succeed, but slightly frizzing out the tendrils around her face as she is like in this unhinged mode was, was pretty phenomenal. But also, you know, Dr.
McKay saying like, you're, you're about to crash. And then watching her in the bathroom cry.
And the, the detail to me in that moment is she's washing her hands uh in the sink and there's not just like blood in the in the trash can like bloody paper towels in the trash can but like under the soap dispenser oh yeah it's just like it's kind of everywhere blood and it's just like this is this is the aftermaths we're uh existing in shout to like the split and splat team that just went in there to blood that thing up. There's even little marks, like shoe marks.
Is that an industry term? The Split and Splat team? It's official. I mean, look for best splitting and splatting at the Emmys this year.
I think we just need to recognize our craftspeaker. It's Esme and her team, I think, on the splitting and splatting beat.
Wow, incredible. Anything else you want to say? What else do you want to say about mohan i mean yeah she is uh behaving like a lunatic for most of this episode in a very enjoyable way and one that i love to see her in and i think that performance is super fun she's also sort of juxtaposed we should say with javadi as well who is already well into the crash uh completely gassed ready for a nap and yeah i love i think one of the best

things about this finale to me which is a cool down episode right like we have we kind of climax

with 12 and 13 and then we're cooling down over these last two overall there are some cases coming

in the door there's still a bunch of plenty of emergency medicine uh to participate in but it's

characters getting off the clock trying to get out of their shifts and go home um someone like

javadi too like the the character beat of her just like in the elevator forgetting to get out

Thank you. But it's characters getting off the clock, trying to get out of their shifts and go home.
Someone like Javadi too, like the character beat of her just like in the elevator forgetting to get out as she sort of slouched against the gurney I thought was wonderful. That was an extremely real, I was like, I have been there.
I've not, you know, but yes. Just zonked out of her mind.
And so, yeah, they were seeing all these characters wind down in their different ways. I found to be a really enjoyable part of this finale and a way to kind of give us different points of connection from what we've seen.
Like Javadi's been so eager and precocious this whole season to see her at energy zero. I thought was really exciting to see Mohan revved up in a way she's never been before.
We love to see it. Like, I just love to see these characters in slightly different emotional places, if only because they've had this incredibly traumatic experience together and victoria being like uh you know i'm not sure everyone i'm like i this day might have put me off practicing medicine altogether like how do you guys deal with this how do you how do you you know experience all of this which is a similar question that uh you know was at with a question that was put to mel king in episode 14 And she just said i don't know and that was sort of right before her breakdown victoria is asking this question how do you how do you do all of this um and but then she also gets you know she had several medical wins but she also gets this social win with like mateo being like let's go get beers with people in the in the park across the street, it's an unquestionable win.
Yeah. I'm going to say on Mateo's part, a bit of a misleading invitation.
He might actually be interested in her. You don't know.
I don't doubt it. But for him to come up and be like, hey, do you want to get a drink? She says yes.
He's like, oh, eight of us are going to the park across the street. That's's not quite what you asked, you know? You're right.

And you're right.

And you should say it.

He did give her a juice box though earlier.

He did.

He already bought her one drink. This is just the second drink.

Yeah, exactly.

All right.

Let's go now to your favorite couple,

which is Abbott and Walsh.

Love them.

Basically, this is Hector

and the Crushed Pelvis.

This is hospital staff,

Crushed Pelvis on the loading dock.

Robbie and Jack are initially on this.

I did love this moment

when Shen and Ellis come in

and they're like,

two old white guys post to our patient. It was like a great moment from the night shift.
Shannon Ellis, an unbeatable duo. Later when they're doing rounds and the Nightcrawler guys like there were rats on their bed and Ellis is like, okay, sir we'll get into that for you.
You put this question to me in the last pod, Joe. I want your answer on it.
Do you want want the pit night shift the only reason i would want the pit night shift is that if we could get two pits a year i don't mean to be greedy and overstretch them like basically take your time take however long you need to make a great episode of the season of the pit but if we could be so lucky we used to live in a society with 22 episodes a season we did if we could be so lucky as to get 15 episode day shift 15 episode night shift in two different seasons of the year that is more hours than there are in the day i don't i don't know what to tell you the shifts are bleeding into each other at that point but that's what you like you like this handover we can get some of the day shift coming in at the end of the night shift season you know you're absolutely right um all right so initially it's it's robbie and it's jack but as you noted um in the previous episode robbie is not fine out of the beads room he is not doing well and he just starts to zone out in hector's room when they're trying to decide about sort of slightly experimental procedures pack his pelvis with some things that are going to stop the bleeding um and he can't even concur joe like he can't even agree with the basis of like medical recommendation do you concur so um it's it's walsh and it's abbott and they're just sort of like going back and forth and looking to robbie for this sort of final go ahead and robbie is incapable of interacting and they're and walsh just like okay i guess we're doing this then this is why i like walsh yeah like she's a bit of a ball buster at times but ultimately she's like fuck it let's do let's do it. I'm going to, I'm going to scrub up.
We're going to make this thing work here rather than in the OR. Like she, she is game to participate in the discourse.
And that's what I appreciate about Dr. Walsh.
I, I did like her in this episode. I thought that was great.
And I, you know, in general, I do like a ball buster. Okay.
So, um, what else do, let's talk about Dana. Okay.
We didn't talk about her. Let's talk about Robbie Langdon and Dana, right? So we get – Langdon is like – Langdon is like, oh, God, there's only one more hour left of this season of television.
I need some answers on what we're going to do with my situation here. And he approaches Robbie in the ambulance bay in a way that I would say it was not entirely productive.

But we do get some nice exposition from Robbie about what it would take.

And this echoes an email we got from a listener two weeks ago about sort of if you get treatment, there is a road back from I guess the gentle term is diverting medication from the ER. That's quite gentle for stealing.
Diversion of medication. For just stealing very intense drugs.
The Dana Langdon scene, though. Yeah.
Which is an incredible television scene because we get Dana comes in. We know, Dana's already mentioned like this might be it for her, right? Yeah.
And at the end of this episode, we see her pack up her like personals and looks like maybe she's not coming back for season two of The Pit. Calamity.
She better come back. Okay.
But- Yeah, if we have any demands, Nurse Dana has to be back for season two. Let's throw the entirety of the pit calamity she better come back okay but yeah if we have any demands yeah nurse dana has to be back for season two let's throw the entirety of the pit night shift in the trash if it means i can get dana back for season two i'm willing to do it uh okay so in this scene they go into the break room and her entire purpose of being in there is to make a cup of coffee one single cup cup of coffee.
Just one cup of coffee for poor fucking Dana who has been on her feet all day. Except for that time when someone punched her into the ground.
Okay? So, like, get this woman a cup of coffee. Can't happen.
The moment that Dana had to wash her own mug. Heartbreaking.
Because no one had done their dishes and she just needed a mug for a cup of coffee. I was like, you fucking animals.
You absolute animals. Look, it's been busy.
I don't care. No.
There should be, when Dana needs a cup of coffee, there should be a clean mug for her. And I feel very strongly about that.
I agree with that. She walks out of the room not getting her cup of coffee.
She does not get cup of coffee she has this interaction with langdon she does give us the lethal weapon i'm too old for this shit uh moment and she has that moment where he's like he's he's sort of you know he's bartering and he's like robbie's wrong robbie has the wrong idea you know blah blah she's like trust robbie he will do what's best for you she keeps calling him kid even though he's like a 40 something year old man whatever and then and then he's like he thinks I'm an addict and she goes are you and in a way that like really reminded me of the John Carter scenes that you and I had looked at from his confrontation in a break room in the ER about his addiction. How did this Dana Langdon or the Robbie Langdon stuff work for you? I think the Dana Langdon stuff, especially as you highlight, just a great scene.
In particular, because I am very invested in Dana getting her copy and it is heartbreaking to watch her walk out of there. Just having to listen to Langdon grouse

and basically not even beg and ask,

but like, I need you to back me up.

I need, like.

Can I just tell you, Rob?

If I'm Langdon, if you and I are in this situation

and you are Dana and I am Langdon,

I am washing that mug for you.

You're making her the coffee.

I am making the coffee.

God damn it.

Okay, go ahead. A career saving favor.
And you can't even make the woman a cup of coffee. Jesus Christ.
I think Langdon's pitch overall with all of these pleas is just way off. And I think my question about his interaction with Robbie out in the ambulance bay is, did he burn this bridge or did he shake it a bit? Because when he turns it personal, pointing the finger at Robbie and saying well what about you guy having a breakdown in the peds room yeah aren't aren't you broken by this in the same way that i'm broken about this or or more by this line of work than i am and once he does that i'm curious to see if they try to come back from that or not like robbie is the kind of guy who having slept on something might come back with a more compassionate response or even just kind of the same offer.
Like, look, the deal is still the same. You go away for your 30 day treatment program.
You can come back and we'll help you with whatever the next steps are. But I mean, Langdon comes in really aggressive with him.
And like just so accusatory. I just I just as as Langdon's attorney, I would like to suggest that these are not the moves whatsoever, anything that he's doing here.
And do I want Langdon back in the pit? Yeah, because that's good drama. It is good drama.
So I would like him to do a better job that he's doing of arguing himself back. What do you make of the fact that Dr.
Collins doesn't show up at all for the rest, you know, this back stretch of the season?

She's on your own.

That was pretty surprising.

Yeah.

But canonically, that woman's got her phone off and is trying to get some sleep. She slept right through a mass casualty event.
She looked better for it. It seemed like a pretty tough experience for everybody involved.
I'm surprised by it, just from like a TV standpoint. It seemed like she would come in in the 11th hour and like kind of jump in in the way that Langdon did and kind of give a helping hand.
But the fact that it was Langdon who came back and not Collins is, it's a fascinating kind of twist of the knife as far as the drama goes. And clearly like he was, he was really valuable in treating all these patients in a moment of crisis.
And as soon as the, like the temperature got turned down, everyone starts looking around who knows about what happened is like uh so what's this guy doing here now he's just back santos is alarmed robbie is constantly telling him to go home the nurses are chattering dana as we're told in this episode or reminded in this episode knows that langdon was sent home but was very specifically not told the extent of what now she knows well yeah i mean he came out with it yeah or he came out with a version of it that is just not very convincing like what he tells robbie that i was taking these drugs to treat my withdrawal symptoms and not as an addict i was never high on the job is just about the least convincing line in this entire show season one of andor had critics calling it the best Star Wars series yet.

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Where riverside sunrises glow and monuments shine in moonlight where there's something new for everyone to discover there's only one dc visit washington.org to plan your trip all right so given that we're just talking about the legend that is Dana, who seems to me and to our listeners to be the most Pittsburghian of Pittsburgh characters.

Quite.

Let's go to part three of our investigation into Pit Fest.

Okay.

And let's hear from the Yenzers.

Okay.

Are you going to do the accent or no?

No.

Not even if I could.

Just want to make sure.

Here's some local information that I found very illuminating. Okay.
Dana suggests that the one thing always brings Pittsburghers of all ages and ilk together, and it's fireworks. And she said maybe Pit Fest features a Zambelli fireworks display at concert end.

That sounds so specific.

I don't know who the Zambelli fireworks people are, but apparently all of Pittsburgh likes their work. I bet they're doing great work.

We got multiple suggestions from locals for Rusted Root.

Okay.

They're from Pittsburgh, and some members are or have been local music teachers.

So they would have a more diverse audience in their hometown than they would in other cities. So rusted root.
Brenna writes in about Wiz Khalifa. Brenna writes Wiz Khalifa, probably Pittsburgh's biggest musical export right now.
There's a chance he could have gotten Snoop there who likes to rep PGH sports gear and has collaborated on songs. I think the kids could be into Wiz.
Though I don't know, they are young and I'm 35 and he was just getting big when I was their age. So, oh God.
And our old stoner buddy could vibe with him and Snoop on the marijuana of it all maybe. So don't put it past an old stoner in Pittsburgh to like literally any music.
any music we're not terribly judgmental people we like to have a good time so do you think do you think the hippie has seen furious seven i think he loves the entire fast and furious franchise i would hope so okay um joshua points out that there is a musical festival in pennsylvania the four Chord Music Festival. Okay.
And this year's lineup is Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, Jawbreaker, and Bowling for Soup. This is, I mean, we're hitting a little close to home yet again, Joe.
Does that sound right? Do you feel like Pit Fest is for you, Rob Mahoney? I mean, it depends on who's in the lineup like this version see some of these acts i've seen before some of them i would not see in their current nostalgia slash reunion phases bowling for soup uh plano legends if i'm not mistaken plano texas legends my hometown shout out to bowling for soup uh i would i would see bowling for soup if i happened to be at a festival where they were playing would i go out of my way to see bowling for soup in concert i cannot say that in 2025 i would last but not least and this will wrap up this section of our investigation multiple people from pittsburgh wrote in to tell us about what they call locally famous dad rock band the clarks had you heard of the clarks had not heard of the clarks i tuned in i checked them out i also checked out some youtube clips i watched a clip of them on um on pittsburgh today uh some live clips very like dad band inoffensive soft alt Americana. They are what they sound like.

And have been going like since like their front man is this like tall drink of water.

You can watch him from like the early 90s with like a big like dark poof of hair.

And then here he is on Pittsburgh today still now with like a gray poof of hair.

And he's just like still doing it.

Also, did you know that Pittsburgh has a very famous rib fest this is part of the whole clark's uh information that we got from people okay you have my attention now joe yeah uh it's like a you know three-day festival dedicated to the the deliciousness that is ribs um and one of our listeners rachel wrote i assume Pit Fest is an amalgamation of our various summer festivals. Art Fest, Rib Fest, Picklesburg.
Picklesburg? Rib Fest and Picklesburg, two delights you can enjoy in Pittsburgh. I hope they're adjacent.
I hope they're connecting festivals. A chaser, a Picklesburg chaser.
You want the acid with the barbecue for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what? As we ponder season two of The Pit, which is imminent, we should say. Well, close to imminent.
It's on the books. There is a plan.
This show will be back in January, Joe, and I'm thrilled about it. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know how much I want to be going home with the staff because I love being on the floor. I suspect we will be.
But you kind of want to go to Picklesburg? This thing like if if the pitches were going to picklesburg that's a different enterprise than am i gonna see uh santos whitaker roommate hijinks right she knows krav maga though so i just want you to consider that look if santos wants to do krav maga on the show that's again different if she wants to do krav maga at picklesburg all the better the better. Okay.
Here's another full circle moment. And I want to get into this.
Another incredible email. That has nothing to do with music.
Take a breather from Pit Fest. Okay.
We wind up back on the roof. As we did at the beginning of the season.
Robbie is up there. Dr.
Abbott goes up to find Robbie there. Has some very important information.
About whether or not DoorDash will come up to the roof or not. And is sort of talking Robbie down from the roof to a certain degree.
And we've got these two sort of leader of men. We talked two weeks ago about Jack Abbott and what adding him into the show did.
Sean Haddesey gave a great interview as part of that big Vanity Fair package about episode 12. He was talking about how hard it was for him to come in like 12 episodes later.
These people have all been working together for like 12 episodes. He's just sort of like, hi, I'm here.
And he was like very stressed out about, you know, integrating back into the cast. But we learned in this episode uh as we already clocked dr abbott it was a you know a combat medic like had had worked in combat and then we get this reveal at the end of the episode um that he has this prosthetic on his leg um which we should say means he had a prosthetic leg and was donating blood out of the other leg off the leg yeah exactly or was it the same leg no i think it was the it was the other leg yeah i mean hardcore either way this guy um so that's what we know about dr abbott based on his backpack and other things yes here's what we now know about dr robbie based on his backpack thanks to an email we got from christina that is one of my favorite emails we've ever gotten.
Christina wrote, here to report on the niche sub-interest trenches on a costume prop choice for Dr. Robbie in the pit.
In the 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.
episodes we get peaks of the backpack Robbie carries. It's made by a very if-you-know-you-know company, Tombin.
If you're not familiar with Tombin, it's a supremely ethical company that makes backpacks, travel bags, etc. They call their company, quote, human scale capitalism.
All their bags are designed and sewn in their Seattle factory. They're not cheap, and they're quite dorky looking.
Basically, you only end up with that backpack, capital O on capital P purpose. Robbie also has a Doctors Without Borders patch on it which can be seen in this freeze frame that she sent over

that Robbie chose his backpack and place that patch on. It says a lot that he makes choices with ethics in mind that he takes things pretty seriously.
And maybe his backstory includes a deployment or two with doctors without borders. I wonder whether no a wily or a costume designer is the nerd who chose that backpack for that character.
Yours truly, bag nerd Tina. So, love this.
First of all, Tina, incredible work. The level of expertise, as you have said, Joe, that we're getting from our emailers.
We have ER doctors and nurses left and right emailing us in. We had, like, venue bartenders trying to indulge us on who might be playing at Pit Fest.
Yeah. And now we have bag nerds just i'm blown away by the level of expertise it's true we're together we're we're putting something really special together i think here on the prestige tv feed i did not clock the doctors without borders uh patch i love that she highlighted that so when we get to the the beer debrief in the park at the end and we're talking about this day that we went through as this sort of battle we've survived together how we are battle bonded by this experience they have a laugh over the fact that this is Victoria's first day all this sort of stuff like that we get I would say slightly heavy handed cut to Dr.
Abbott when we're talking about have you ever seen something as intense as this? And it's like this unspoken thing is, yes, I, you know, lost part of my leg in pursuit of this. As he takes off his prosthetic and wipes blood off the shoe.
Blood off the shoe. Yeah.
Thanks for the wet wipe, princess. So, but then we have, yeah, we've got Robbie who's done Doctors Without Borders.
He's done he's done not the same thing, but like something else where he has gone into. This is something Dr.
John Carter did do on ER. came back this is not er legally speaking the pit is not er came back in a relationship with

tenduay newton who who among us uh would not want that as a result of doctors without borders but

um i just thought that was interesting positioning him as having there's also a moment when he puts his hoodie back on uh it's in episode 14 but he puts his hoodie back on a very like mr rogers like move but it's just a very like dad's back yeah like dad's here again everything's gonna be okay uh it won't but no but we'll try to make it feel okay and dad's problems in many ways are only beginning at that point like rob robbie has a very tough emotional episode but i do love this kind of subtle doctors without borders wink for robbie and maybe we'll get that explored or maybe we won't and as far as dr abb. Abbott goes, I've really enjoyed having this sort of, like we knew that him being a veteran gave him a different skill set.
He's talked about that a bunch of times in combat situations, in combat hospitals. This is what we did.
We did these all the time, et cetera, et cetera. But in this talking down scene on the roof, it also just gives him such a different perspective on loss and such a different perspective on being in intense situations, in particular, where everything is so hectic and so harried and so violent that none of it can possibly make sense.
And then you're left to make sense of it afterwards. And so to have the person who's talking Robbie down come from such a radically different frame of reference from a downtown Pittsburgh hospital.
I love what that brings to the show and ultimately what that's bringing to the staff. I love his, you know, can we stop talking for a second with Jack? Jack being like almost physically unable to do that.
I'm gonna need some beers if we're gonna do this. Like it all like worked really, really well for me.
Very much so. In terms of going home,

I think the closest we get to going home

is Mel picking up her sister.

Yeah.

This sort of Mel King coda

where we meet her sister

who we've seen a bit during the season.

I loved this so much.

I mean, as I love everything

with Dr. Mel King, obviously,

but we can get pasta and pizza.

And a movie.

The King of the Rings. love everything with dr melking obviously but um the like we can get pasta and pizza like and a movie the king sisters can do that no the way she's like let's watch she just says elf and mel's like or maybe something we haven't seen reminded me so much of when i was a i was a babysitter i used to babysit this like one kid who like every single time he was like the lion king i was like or literally anything else and he's like the lion king and that was like he picked a banger he did but i was like what about aladdin have you considered and he's like no the lion king so um yeah uh this was a beautiful little character moment for it really was dr mal king and and yeah is a good counterpoint to the idea of whether we want to go home with these doctors or not.
I think overall, I mean, we've sung Taylor Dearden's praises all season long. I would encourage you if you've just been watching The Pit and not been consuming any extracurricular material, go watch a Taylor Dearden interview and get a sense of how different presentationally, voice, literally everything about this person.
And you get a sense of kind of the overall scope of that performance to become Mel is really remarkable. And specifically in terms of making Mel then feel so lived in and lovable and like a real tangible person who has all this stuff to carry with her is really a remarkable thing.
On the like, let's wrap things up with everyone. We already mentioned that Dina packs up her personal belongings.
What do you make of this? I really love this final exchange, I will say, with her and Robbie when they're looking at Dr. Adamson's photo.
You know, she's trying to give him the grace and asking him to give him the grace that he would afford other people and all of that. But what I really love most of all, I think the tossed away see you monday right where he's not even like looking at her when he says it she pauses slightly but not in a deeply dramatic way and just sort of walks out the door and i as much as i want her back like it would not that they would never see each other again obviously like she would come visit or whatever but But like I like that resolution or lack thereof for them.
And I like that there's no resolution with Jake either. We don't end the day with Jake being like fine with everything.
It's it's not. It's an open wound right now for Robbie.
Very much so. Yeah.
Quite the opposite in the Jake case in a way that is is so devastating to watch. And I think that we were primed many ways to think okay maybe by now Langdon's talked to him Dana's talked to him his mom has been there like there's been enough time passing he's been scrolling through pictures of Leah on his phone obviously he's not going to absorb this kind of trauma in a matter of hours yeah but could he bring himself to just like look Robbie in the eye and accept that maybe it wasn't his fault?

Right.

Like the shooter has been apprehended.

Like movement has been made as far as who did this.

Yeah.

But it's man, that scene with Jake is so tough.

And it's so tough in the context. Like Robbie then has to turn around and go talk to Leah's parents immediately afterwards.

What do you make of the fact that we didn't go in the room with him?

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

I like it. I like the restraint on that.
I will say one thing about the pit. If you were to just go back and think about the beats we've been talking about, almost every character has had a breakdown moment.
And not once have I thought, oh, this feels repetitive. Yeah, yeah.
You know, like they're all breaking down in their own ways with their own pressure points, right? Like something very specific to them happens that kind of pulls them apart. And so despite the fact that Robbie has had all of these very emotional conversations with so many different people, what I found most affecting about that one is almost how worn down and removed he is in that moment in going in the room and coming out where it's not the, I'm going to take a second and gear up and put on my empatheticetic face and I'm going to come in.
I'm going to spend time and say the thing like he is. He's kind of in and out of that room really quickly.
And all we hear is them crying. And I would think that like I think that's probably the worst version of that conversation that Robbie has given all day.
Maybe in his entire career. Yeah.
And he comes out. He's in the quiet stairwell.
He looks to the doors and he sees the er is bustling and he just can't go in and that's when he goes up to the roof yeah just like that breakdown for him um i mean it's just been hit after hit for him yeah i think throughout throughout this entire season but in this episode you know there's the ongoing nervous breakdown that he's already having there's the frustrations with measles mom that are really picking at him yeah uh there's langdon's whole deal there's just the worst and most painful version of the conversation he's having with jake it's all really getting to him it's all it's all causing him to come apart and despite that i do think he gets to have his moment and it's to finally give the big speech that he wasn't allowed to give earlier in the season right like he he does give? Like he does get to give the debrief to the day staff going home.

And I found this to be a really magical piece of TV, Joe.

Tell me.

Tell me why you thought it was magical.

I think some of it for me is the delay on it and the delayed satisfaction of giving him that emotional moment.

I think it's really well written.

And maybe this is me bringing my own trauma to the table, Joe. Maybe this is me bringing my own experience because- Trauma welcome, Rob.
Certainly so. As Rob is giving this speech, which is part of his speech, we saw our better angels come to the aid of our patients.
Each of you rose to the occasion, and I can't tell you how proud I am of all of you. This place will break your heart, but it's also full of miracles.
And that is a testament to all of you coming together and doing what we do best. I think it's a good speech.
I think it's well delivered. I think we pointed out the Mel element of like, if Mel cries, we cry.
I identified a new one for myself, which is if princess cries, I also start tearing up. Love princess.
If I'm going to make subsequent demands for season two, I would love a princess and perla focused episode of some kind that would be delightful uh but this speech reminded me a lot of another banger from another john wells produced show very jed bartlett in 20 hours of america there's like a big explosion in the west wing on a college campus and a bunch of uh a bunch of like people at the school go in as de facto first responders. And Jed Bartlett gives this big, the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight bit that's incredible TV, much more like written speech than this, what Robbie gives, but hits so many of the same notes, which is we're reminded of the incredible things that we can do, despite the fact that we're facing these incredible challenges and traumas and like what we can overcome collectively it's like it's hitting the same emotional beat for me but in a way that is very raw and is very unrehearsed and Robbie's like breaking down as he's giving it and I found that combination to be really effective I find stories about leaders of men which again I mean that sort of like in a non-gendered term but like i i do think of it in a very sort of the positive version of a paternalistic way and when you look to a jeb bartlett or when you look to a coach taylor or when you look to a dr robbie this is something that noah Wiley said in Vanity Fair about Robbie.
He says he seems smart, he seems capable, he seems fatherly, he seems competent, he seems compassionate, and then you see him fall down. Yeah.
This is a look at the toll that it takes on the people who take care of us. Patients are getting sicker, patients are getting angrier, but these doctors are making less money.
It doesn't compute. So there's no clean answers here and no implication that tomorrow will necessarily be better than any of these problems are solved.
No. So we're not here to solve problem or give pat answers.
We're just here to try and forgive ourselves when we fall short and try again. And that's a great message to receive.
I think as we're finding the forgiving yourself is the hard part. Yeah.
There was something so striking about Robbie running through the exact toll of what the hospital had been through. You know, in terms of like these are all the people that were in the red zone.
This is how many people went through pink. These are all the people that are stabilized.
The actual hard numbers. And what we end up with is 112 patients overall, 106 of them survived.
And so then when you think about Leah as one of the six people who came into this ER and died, who wasn't DOA, but actually died on the floor. Yeah.

It's not shocking that Robbie's having an overwhelmingly difficult time

coming back from that.

We also, I mean,

because we had seen the morgue

and there are only just a few bodies

in the morgue.

They did a lot of good,

an incredible amount of good.

But to hear the raw data like that

as he runs it down, I agree. I thought was really powerful anything else you want to say about the pit before we end uh with a tour of summer music festivals um one question for you joe please in light of our friend harrison who is finally allowed to exit the hospital to watch planet of the apes is planet of the apes a scary movie it depends which one I think that's true well where would you rank them in terms of scariness I mean I would say like not like not like all the bodies not all the entries in the saga because there are many but in terms of like titled Planet of the Apes I would say the most like I would say there is some ape on ape violence in the most recent you know mocap anti-circus era yeah that is i mean i might show it to a harrison but i might want to be there with him when he watches it charlton heston fine that's fine you can watch that anytime what about tim burton fine fine, but watchable for a child.
Unpleasant makeup choices, but like fine. Yeah.
But I think mocap era, there is some stuff. It depends how sensitive Harrison is, you know? Depends on the kid entirely.
I remember we showed my nephew on like a sick day that he had and we were like, got really excited to show him the Disney animated Robin Hood. Oh, yeah like two minutes in he was just like no and we were like what he was like that snake is too scary we're like sir hiss he's like yeah too scary my sister and i were so crushed because we were like so excited just no just a simple no and i was like this is kid this is disney's robin hood come on uh kids today are too soft joe they're not ready for robin hood little john hopping through the forest like they're they're not they're not on it like we were okay uh but it's it look it's a banger of a movie anything else you want to say planet of the apes or otherwise uh one last final gnarly watch of the season oh thank you rob go for it we get that fork straight up through the nose to the point that it has to be photographed to be believed.

Again, that was like a perfect note of levity where it's just sort of like Dr. Abbott being like, we got to get Dr.
Shen, our utensil expert. and Dr.
Ellis being like,

I need a photo of this for the medical record

and definitely not my own personal wall

of disgusting things that I've seen at work. But look, if you're going to drown children, then you also have to give us some, I can't believe this shit so much.
I need to go grab another doctor. Like there has to be a little yin and yang.
We end with Robbie walking off, listening, putting the earbuds in listening to music um baby by robert bradley's black water surprise is the track that closes out the season not one that was on my radar or pit fest um but does seem very like yeah i i understand why it's a Robbie song? It both it both sounds with all due respect like a robbie song and also an affordable max song you know like we're not we're not really gonna spring for like the bob seeger yeah but in this case we'll play this maybe pit season two we can we can throw down some money on the closing track okay if you are listening to this podcast and you're like, hey, this summer I might want to explore a music festival. Our listeners have you covered.
Here are some things. When they were like, hey, have you heard of a music festival where multiple artists of different stripes play? Here are some suggestions we got.
Okay. I'm going to start with local to me, Bay Area.
Local to you, Bay Area, Outside Lands suggested by John. I mean, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in October is a great also Bay Area festival.
But yeah, Outside Lands, of course, is the biggie. Bombershoot in Seattle from Liz, who's a nurse.
That's like art and wine and music and the whole thing. So Bumbershoot.
Minnesota hosted the first Yacht Club Festival and it was a mix of nostalgia 90s bands. Two today, Alanis, Soul Asylum, Gwen Stefani, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joan Jett, The Offspring.
Great stuff. Okay.
That's in Minnesota, the Yacht Club Festival. Riot Fest in Chicago, Illinois.
Has hosted bands from Gogol Bordello to Nine Inch Nails to the Wu-Tang Clan to Jerry Lee Lewis and the B-52s. So Riot Fest, Chicago.
Firefly Fest in Dover, Delaware. I looked up this festival.
Actually, pretty sick lineups historically from the Firefly Festival. Do you have a sampling of those? What's been going on? 2022 lineup was Billie Eilish, Rage Against the Machine, Diplo, and Maggie Rogers.
It's pretty good as far as festivals go. Right? That's pretty good.
It's not bad. DJ Khaled.
Okay. Music Fest in Massachusetts.
300 stages playing. Black Keys, Darius Rucker, Nelly.
And then a bunch of free stages. You can go in for a bunch of free stages and then you can pay to go see the Black Keys or whatever else you prefer.
I just want to say not for undue slander on this podcast. No, Nelly doesn't have it anymore.
Okay. But here's my question.
I regret to tell everyone who's interested in seeing Nelly. He's not showing up for you in the way that you think he will.
When we're naming festivals. Yeah.
I will just point out that this music fest is spelled with a K. Music fest with a K.
I still think we could have gone back to the drawing board on that one. I think so, too.
And done a few more passes. Courtney says she's equating Pit Fest to Boston Calling, Forecastle in Louisville, and Shaky Knees in Atlanta.
These are multiple day festivals where attendees are mostly local. Shaky Knees in Atlanta is a great name for Shaky Knees Fest.
Last but not least, by far the most popular, by far the most popular, Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Have you heard of Summerfest? Do you have any thoughts or feelings on Summerfest, Rob Mahoney? I do because we got many emails about it, which I'm going to say is a very Milwaukee thing to do.
To be like, let me tell you about our local music festival. Okay.
Free ad for Summerfest. Headlining acts include Cake, Offset, The Fray, Megan Thee Stallion, Young The Giant, and Riley Green.
Honestly, these all sound like a blast. I hope you guys all enjoy your festivals this spring and summer into fall.
Again, if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area. else you want to say yeah i still think pit fest too there's just a real missed opportunity to do the double meaning of pittsburgh and the pit like it should be a metal festival oh the mosh pit fest absolutely not you don't need it's just the pit joe come on you don't you don't need to mosh it cool um thanks for calling me i'm just i'm just saying they call it the pit um one of our listeners who was a yinzer did point out that they don't call pittsburgh the pit they really only call the university that okay so whatever pit fest was it was probably in close proximity to the university which is where the hospital would be anyway the hospital the university you know they don't they don't call the whole, they wouldn't call something else Pit Fest.
So, if that helps nail down the proximity. Last but not least, we're not going to read this email.
I just want to shout out Eric who sent us the longest email possible about this and just triangulated the when, the where, the why, the how, who would be playing Coachella so that this would not be competing with Coachella and the budget that they would have and stuff like that. It was just like a piece of art from Eric.
So thank you so much for that email. Not even a tour manager's mind, but one who is seeing the whole board of all the tour manager's minds.
It was truly an impressive piece of work. It was art.
It was art. Okay.
The Pit. We did it.
That's it. Season one anyway.
Again, we're going to be back here sooner than later joe that's it for the pit uh again oh one last note about season two that i read uh you know from our scott jamil who's the showrunner of the pit mentioned in an interview with parade that there will probably be a slight time jump into season two we're not coming back tomorrow the day after the mass casualty event he ballparked it at like two three months so just enough time for a certain 30-day rehab program perhaps and then some you know just enough time for people to kind of clean the deck scrub the bathroom we're kind of back to normal in the er santos and whitaker to have figured out uh who does and does not do the dishes one last thing i'm if you go back and watch this season there were hints all season that whitaker was living in the hospital like that's just it was the track was laid but i want to i want to say i was re-watching one of an episode just like two episodes ago i think it was 13 where he was like you know there are a bunch of empty rooms the fourth floor is completely empty um uh before we, I would be remiss to not say on the Grey's Anatomy beat, shout out Dr. Callie Torres, the original doctor who lived in the hospital.
Of course, that felt like a Grey's reference to me. And I don't know if any doctors lived in the hospital in the ER.
I don't remember if they did, but this is not an ER sequel as you and I and Michael Crank's widow knows. No, it's definitely not.
But also, what if they went to the fifth floor and Alan Alda's just been sleeping up there for weeks? I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't at all.
I would love to see it. All right.
So we'll be back for season two of The Pit where Bryan Cranston will show up as Dr. Mel King's dad.
We can only hope. And thank you to Donnie Beecham,

to John Richter,

and to Justin Sales for his work on this feed.

Rob and I will still be here covering all the shows.

So stay tuned to the Prestige Feeds

and we'll see you soon.

Bye.