The Space Between: The Pitt Season Two, Episode Two Fuels More Questions Than it Answers
- Marielle Bokor
- 36 minutes ago
- 8 min read
We’re back with another week of medical drama recap goodness. Just like this week’s episode of the Pitt, we’re gonna just dive in.
We lose almost no time between last week’s end credits and this week’s beginning, and our focus is back to that abandoned baby – but there’s no real answers. Ok, well, I guess we have to wait a little bit longer to figure out just exactly what’s eating the new ‘res about the situation - because she’s still being awfully weird about it.
Cut to our next biggest question mark - what happened to the little girl with all the bruises and (seemingly, at least) none of the trauma. We’re checking for internal hemorrhaging, we’re wringing our hands a lot about this, we’re thinking with our gut – which for Santos can prove a double-edged sword, as sometimes she’s all gut no brain. Meanwhile, we’re back to the tug of war between Dr. Robby’s encouragement of trusting the gut and Dr. Al’s dislike of being hooked on a feeling. It’s classic Mulder/Scully, Booth/Bones stuff.
Checking in on, we’re back to leaning on our gut, and still having none of it on Al-Hashimi’s part. Uh oh.
Just when we thought we were going to barrel through everything that happened last week, there’s a fresh new bit of terrible coming in. Open dislocation. It’s as gory as you’d suspect. This is also an active trauma in a learning hospital, so bring on the quiz. It’s a pretty supportive environment for the students, but as soon as New Girl suggests an ortho consult, she’s getting laughed at. And ok, it might not be practical or likely, but come on, we don’t need to be all tribalist, do we docs?
Louie, meanwhile, is, um, being drained. I don’t want to get into that so much, other than to say he’s a really decent dude in some bad circumstances and I’m appreciating his story in this mix. He knows what’s up, and he’s not really here to give anyone a hard time. He needs friends, and let’s face it, people whose workplace is the ER can use a jolly fellow to treat to take the edge off the… well, gestures wildly at everything
I’m going to take a moment for some random other character observations. As new chicks go, Joy is not impressing me. She seems awfully detached and disinterested, and in a place where you’ve gotta trust your team and your instincts, she seems like she’s lacking in charisma, desire and passion, and that’s not going to get you far with Robby. We haven’t seen her go all wunderkind, either, so it’s still unlikely she’s going to be a favorite of Hashimi either. We’ll see though, because Santos is a lot more interesting and complex than to just be a know-it-all bully, though she still has those aspects to her.
Speaking of Santos and work ethic, Santos is insane, and wants to do a double residency in the ER and surgery, with Trudy’s mom. Not the least bit jealous of course, or competitive, Trudy scoffs at this and tells her there’s literally no way. To be fair, though Santos IS sort of a wunderkind in ways, she’s also got some really bad habits and attitudes to work through, and it’s a hard job if you do have your emotions in check. This is also a fun little spike to the Crash/Santos relationship, which is a tenuous friendship held together with fierce competition.
Santos goes rogue when we get back to our nun with gonorrhea in her eye, telling way too many jokes and showing way too little restraint. It’s like I said, there’s some progress needed here.
Luckily, she’s not in the room for our reunion with Dirty Digby. Who is very much still at the hospital actually getting the care he needs. Recall with me, if you will, the extent of the filth. Then also recall the cast on his arm, which he needs removed. If you’re to put that level of dirt and decay with neglect and flesh, well, you get…a medical issue which everyone can predict, involves insects, and which I currently do not want to say because I am not feeling particularly sound of stomach currently. Yeah. I know the grossout is a sacred part of these here genre pieces, but sometimes I cannot even, and I really, really cannot even this time. I’m not the only one who’s about to hit the dirt over this though, and we’ve got a new nurse down.
If you’re all about that screen gore though, we’re now about to relocate that open dislocation. Yum.
Talk turns back to King and her deposition, and Robby checks in on her, as we’d expect. Meanwhile, Dr. Al tries to be helpful, but fails. I’m not saying I don’t like her, or won’t like her, but your girl should really read the room sometimes.
Trudy’s in with the nun, who is not the butt of any joke or commentary on sexual abuse in the church, and instead is just a helper who helps even when PPE is unavailable, making Santos’ jokes even less appropriate. Good thing that was behind the scenes.
Our 'crazy lady' has to re-hear over and over that her husband died (he was the DNR from the first episode) and there’s a brand new social worker on the scene, with our old standby gone for a bit. There’s not a lot of time for a first impression here though. We’re back to the baby, and the labs, and Dr. Al’s back to acting decidedly weirder than usual.
In another room, King’s getting hit on and hasn’t quite had it hit her yet, but this is a shortlived ruse before the cops come knocking on her patient’s door, he darts out like a bat out of hell and takes her with him, knocking her clean out on the floor. Poor King. As if a deposition wasn’t bad enough.
Al Hashimi and Robby are busy with the baby, and Robby’s got another trick up his sleeve, coming up with a "catch the pee trick" with the infant to get the goods he needs for more labs. You can see how his natural charisma, talent and guts would irk someone new, rational and very meticulous like Al Hashimi, but, we’ve got no time for that, as Langdon arrives to meet her.
While there’s no good time for King to get brained and become a patient in the ER she was just working in, having Langdon back to check on her first thing certainly isn’t a bad reintroduction to the quick and strange bond these two have. I like that they’re so close, but it seems almost too close, and I’ve felt that way since day one. We’ll keep tabs on that as the season progresses.
Cut to an insurance transfer for McKay’s patient, and that’s not the only thing rotten in Denmark she’s sniffing out. She’s also insinuating (apparently, correctly) that Noelle and Robby are dating, which seems to be correct, though we’re still trying to deny it a little. Nurses know all.
Langdon and King get a little more quality time, which he’s been seeking out, to have a heart to heart. He really, really wants to own up to what happened, but King idolizing him the way she seems to doesn’t really want to hear it. He’s working a program and at least seems sincere about amends, so he tells her anyway. Which isn’t to say he didn’t make excuses about it affecting his work- he did, though he admitted it later, but she reassures him that he never let her down. It’s nice to have someone in your corner, though sometimes I wonder if he’s going to live up to it. It’s at this point the cops come in to talk King through the accidental assault and inform her that she may need to go to court for it again. Cue the panic attack, because at this point she’s been panicking about the deposition, gotten brained, reunited with a mentor, and is facing more court. Langdon takes great care of her, dimming the lights, and forcing her into some quiet time to breathe and recoup before she’s back out on the floor.
Back out on the floor, we’ve got our new lady with chest pain, and Al Hashimi’s taking the students through the use of her AI charting app. All’s going decently well, students are thinking of the time they’ll save, when one of them notices it’s transcribed one medicine as a totally different one. Normally by the book Hashimi’s answer is “just proofread” and I’m back to not trusting her.
I’m also a little annoyed at the “on the nose social commentary” thing, but that’s just me. I like my medical dramas timeless, I guess? Whatever. I just don’t like it.
Time’s ticking down. Our new curly haired friends apparently speaks Farsi, and we see the glimmer of a bond between him and Al Hashimi over it. We check in with sudden onset dementia. Still sad. Still no idea where this thread’s leading. Back to our abuse case, and the kid just never makes any noise like she’s done anything but be a boss at extreme sports, which makes her case seem even more baffling, because the kid simply doesn’t show a single sign of trauma. Santos and several others still suspect, but it’s Santos who’s gonna bulldog this through to the end no matter what, and perhaps the girls’ better served by it. I hope.
I completely glossed over the priapism incident in this episode, and that’s because, frankly, i think it doesn’t really add much. It’s an HBO show, they can show penises, this is the reality of ER work sometimes, sure. But we knew that, and this doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere.
One last look at Louie and he’s not so jolly, with some tooth pain. He’s still doing fine on the drainage front, so we’re back to the priapism, where we finally get a little bit of warmth from Al Hashimi, and a little bit of actual help reassuring King about her deposition and her work in general. Ok, Dr. Al - I’m seeing where we could fit in, finally.
It’s groundhog’s day for us with our poor wife of the deceased and Whitaker, and there’s no words. I really wish we weren’t repeating such a gutpunch scene, but that does serve to reinforce the reality of what dementia is and how crushing it can be for patients and caretakers alike.
Robby goes outside to take a breather, and he’s immediately confronted by Al Hashimi, who’s directly seeking his feedback despite their seeming headbutting. He still ducks her, but she’s giving “desperate for your approval” vibes out of nowhere, and I feel a little mad at Robby for giving stock answers and waving it off. An ambulance arrives just in time to give him a little justification to not go back to the topic, and we’ve got a combative college kid, and an end credits card.
I guess, given that the shift just started and we’re only through two hours of it, having more questions than answers is normal, but I wish we had some idea of at least one person’s fate. Oh well - we’ll leave that to next time.