The Pitt’s Noah Wyle & Co. Talk Taking Robby to the Very Edge in Finale and ‘Getting Mentally Healthy’ in Season 2

Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch thought he’d already survived the single worst day of his life when he took his longtime friend and mentor Dr. Adamson off ECMO in an effort to save a young COVID patient, who also ultimately died. Little did he know that four years later, to the day, he’d walk into a shift as soul-crushing as this one.

Viewers assumed that Robby had already reached his low point when he curled up in the fetal position at the end of Episode 13, but Robby’s final hour in The Pitt was somehow even worse. First, a grieving Jake disregarded their father-son-like relationship and told Robby to “f—k off.” That was followed by the arrival of Leah’s parents, and it was up to Robby to deliver the news that their daughter could not be revived.

That one-two punch sent our wounded hero to the roof where, just like Dr. Abbot in Episode 1, he found himself standing at the very edge, seriously considering whether this was a life worth living. Abbot arrived in time to talk his fellow practitioner down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Robby is OK, or that we shouldn’t worry about him as we eagerly await new episodes of the Max medical drama.

In separate interviews, TVLine spoke with series star/executive producer Noah Wyle, series creator R. Scott Gemmill, and fellow EP John Wells about Robby’s Season 1 struggles, and “getting himself mentally healthy again” in Season 2, which will premiere in January.

TVLINE | Scott, I’ve gotta start with you. When Noah was here in New York last month, I asked him about “Baby,” the song Robby listens to on his walk to and from work. Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise formed in 1994 (the year ER premiered) and disbanded in 2009 (the year ER ended). Coincidence… or Easter Egg?
GEMMILL | No, that’s a coincidence. I would love to say [it’s an Easter egg], but that would be a huge and outright lie. [Laughs] No, I just love those guys. You know, music in a show is tricky, and we were very much opposed to having any real music, but you want something off the top, and everyone has their opinion. We wanted something that had propulsion but wasn’t too hard-assed, and was contrast to what goes on once he hits reception, and I think that was just a really good pick. I know Noah would listen to it every day, and I would listen to it on my drive in. I still am listening to it, even though I’m working on Season 2, just to remind me of how that felt good and got us into the right groove. It has become a bit of a talisman for me.

TVLINE | I was thinking about the contrast between two scenes — debriefs that Robby delivers in Episodes 9 (after the ED loses drowning victim Amber, and Robby is forced to bury his emotions and get back to work) and 15 (when Robby cannot fight back his tears). Regarding the latter, was all that emotion baked into the script, or was part of that Noah getting emotional, looking out at this cast, feeling proud of what you all had accomplished at the end of these 15 episodes?
WYLE | It wasn’t scripted that Robby gets emotional and breaks down at [that] particular point in the speech…. It was hard for me, at various points in the season, to suppress the emotion that was inappropriate to come out when I would look at these young people — these young actors, young doctors — and impart something, and in doing so, I realized that I was running the risk of revealing something both about myself or about my character to them. In Episode 9, that starts to come up and then it’s, like, maybe that’s not such a good idea… don’t overshare… that’s probably not healthy. And then we see [in Episode 13] what happens from not sharing it. It needs to come out. It comes out in the most violent of ways. And then on the other side of the breakdown, there is no filter. There is no self-consciousness any longer. There’s just the need to have everybody understand that this is human, and that this is healthy to get it off your chest — to allow yourself to release this grief… this feeling… to process this. In doing so, I think he’s modeling it intentionally, but also unintentionally. He’s just no longer able to put the mask on.

TVLINE | We start Season 1 with Robby talking Abbot off a ledge, and now we come full circle — Abbot is talking Robby off a ledge. You obviously knew this is where things were headed, but what did it feel like to have Robby on the opposite side of that guardrail?
WYLE | Well, in the way that movie business sometimes plays itself out, we shot the show completely in sequence… except for those scenes in Pittsburgh, which we shot in September — the park scene, the helicopter stuff, and the roof scenes. Both the first scene and the last scene were shot on the same day, in Pittsburgh, in September, so Shawn [Hatosy] and I woke up really early, we went up there for sunrise, and then we went back at nightfall, and we shot the other half of it. And in between were 15 episodes that mostly hadn’t been shot, and certainly hadn’t been written, and we were guessing — we were guessing about what was going to happen to get him up on that roof. We make references to Robby having given a speech that had not been written — and so, to answer your question honestly, it was more excitement that the puzzle pieces all fit, and when we put that [scene] in, it actually felt earned, and in continuity with everything we’ve done. That felt really gratifying.

Structurally, it worked really nicely to have Abbot be a guy who likes to flirt with the idea of danger because he has come so close to it. It makes him feel alive to flirt with death, and that’s actually what sends him back home — looking into the abyss. Robby is the opposite of that. Robby is now thinking that the abyss looks a lot better than home, and that’s what he gets from the Abbot character — of course you [feel that way] because of what you’ve just been through, and what you’ve just been through is abnormal, and the brain only knows how to deal with abnormal one way, and that is to deconstruct, desensitize and check out, and you just proved that you were human, not that you were fallible.

TVLINE | That final “f—k you” from Jake…. I think, even if that hadn’t been followed by Robby having to confront Leah’s parents, he would have wound up on the roof after that. Is this the end of Robby and Jake’s relationship?
WYLE | I think Robby senses that there’s no coming back from this one — not in the same way that we once had it. What we had is really going to be tainted forever.… I don’t know that, in that moment, Robby wants it any more than Jake does, if that’s the way it’s going to be, and then having to go tell Leah’s family that she’s gone, and then the idea of going back to work and it’s chaos… it’s just like, what’s the point? What am I doing any of this for? You can’t ever save them all, you can’t even save the ones you love the most, and at the end of the day, you’re going to go home alone, now with one less person in your life. I think that’s what drives him up to the roof and out a little farther than Abbot had stood that morning, and a little bit more into the existential void than he’s ever been in before. It would have been interesting to see where the scene would have gone if Abbot hadn’t come out.

TVLINE | So, are we saying that relationship is beyond repair?
GEMMILL | I would hope that any relationship that ever had any meaning is repairable in the right circumstances. I think part of what we saw was that Jake is a very young man, and feeling extremely, extremely raw emotions — in some ways, experiencing the same level of PTSD that Robby went through over months of COVID. So I think Robby sees and understands what that is, and takes it for what it is. It’s why he doesn’t pursue it [any further]. He’s going to let Jake rage — let him get rid of and purge some of that sadness and frustration — and I think, over time, that Robby will certainly make efforts to mend that relationship, and I think it will [resolve]. It’s one of time and maturity that has to come into account, and Robby probably opening up to Jake about his own trauma.

TVLINE | Robby’s ex Janey is still in his life, in large part because of Robby’s bond with her son. Is that a relationship you intend to explore further in Season 2, having only introduced her at the tail end of Season 1?
GEMMILL | We haven’t gone there yet, but it’s still early in the [writing] process. We’ve only been in the room about three weeks and we’re really just laying down the groundwork of, essentially, where we ended up and what we have to resolve moving forward.

TVLINE | Robby’s PTSD was a through line in Season 1, and then the day just kept piling on. What are your plans for Robby in Season 2? Does there need to be some sort of trauma engine, or might you explore what it’s like when he doesn’t have something that it was weighing him down?
GEMMILL | I think it’s a little bit of both. I will say that Robby has taken steps in the interim to get better. Whether those go as well as one could hope is another thing. I think Season 2 will be about him and a journey, but I think he has moved to a good place with the Adamson of it all. I think he has come to terms with it. Ultimately, I think his meltdown at the end of Episode 13 was probably the best thing, in some ways, that has ever happened to him, because now it’s out there, you know? He’s been stuffing it down for so long, and it was eating him away from the inside, and finally, he couldn’t control that monster anymore, and now he has to face it. In doing so, we’ll move past it.

TVLINE | Abbot offers to refer Robby to his therapist. Is that something Robby is seriously going to consider as a means to start facing his trauma?
GEMMILL | Absolutely, though he might not be the most therapeutic of the two of them. [Laughs]

TVLINE | Is Robby in therapy something we will see in Season 2? Will it be a storytelling device?
GEMMILL | We want to learn what Robby has been doing to heal himself—
WELLS | But I don’t think you’ll see it as a device would be my guess. You’re not going to see him with the therapist.
GEMMILL | Getting himself mentally healthy again is part of his journey.

TVLINE | Got it. It’s not suddenly going to be like on The Sopranos.
WELLS | Exactly. Or In Treatment, for that matter. [Laughs]

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