There is almost certainly nothing Robby would have done differently than Langdon. Very few doctors would see a simple foot rash and jump to the conclusion that, within hours, it will evolve into a condition so gnarly that a stunned surgical resident will take photos of it like he’s at a concert. Indeed Nurgle’s blessings rarely arrive when expected. Robby might have sent Langdon to scut purgatory but the Pitt itself might is the real purgatory – a liminal space where larger-than-life forces conscript mortals to confront the same problems over and over.
For his part, Langdon is clearly starting to feel the restricting weight of it all. (It’s probably not a coincidence that one of the patients introduced in this episode is literally handcuffed.) The most heartbreaking moment for him isn’t Robby’s disgust – that’s personal, it’s understandable, it’s even potentially fixable. What hurts worse is Whitaker (Gerran Howell) reflexively logging in to the hospital computer to order meds for a patient before Langdon can. Realizing the questionable optics, Whitaker swears he hastily put in the order because the patient was technically assigned to him, not because he was afraid of Langdon abusing the drugs. Still, it’s a sign that Langon’s “junkie” brand isn’t going away any time soon.
Elsewhere in the Pitt, the doctors start to come up against their respective brands for better or worse. Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson) continues to shed his early goldenboy status and gets a (literally) shitty lesson that medicine isn’t all the reciting of facts from med school. Sometimes it’s disimpacting an old woman’s stools…and then not getting out of the way of the ensuing poop-alanche. After coming off a particularly tough hour that saw her poked with broken glass, Joy (Irene Choi) comes through with a clutch suggestion to lower the uninsured Mr. Diaz’ untenable hospital bill.
“If the system doesn’t work for you, you’ve gotta work the system,” she tells Dr. Garcia after revealing her family did a similar trick when her grandmother fell ill.
Even Dr. Robby’s medicine ubermensch brand begins to take some hits this hour. While he has his usual “hell yeah” moments of heroism (his hopping on the phone with Ms. Cohen’s employer to report, in no uncertain terms, that she will not be coming to work that day and she will not be fired for that is awesome), his clear disdain for Langdon, Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), and anyone keeping him from his beloved motorcycle trip is an increasingly bad look. So much so that his current hospital lady friend Noelle Hastings (Meta Golding) playfully dubs him “Motorcycle Mike.”
Unshakeable as some of these labels may seem, the ER always provides many an opportunity to rise above them. This hour alone sees the arrival of new patients Gus Varney, a prisoner severely wounded in an assault; Alex, a dumbass kid burned with dry-ice by his brother; and Roxie Hamler, a home hospice patient with a history of lung cancer who just suffered a seizure. Alex, bless him, provides a rare moment of comedic relief for Langdon and the audience, revealing that he was trying to get branded with the family crest (literally just the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team logo). He also says “You goonin’ me?” to his brother, accidentally revealing that the show’s writers’ room has no contact with any members of Gen Z.
