Just when things couldn’t get more hectic on The Pitt, the show introduced a mass shooting that will affect the rest of the season.
The Pitt built up to the reveal after Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) gave his son, Jake (Taj Nico Speights), tickets to a music festival. Meanwhile earlier in the season, one of Dr. Robby’s patients made herself sick so her son could take her to the hospital because she wanted to alert professionals that he was worried he could harm someone else.
During the Thursday, March 13, episode of Max’s hit medical series, the doctors and nurses working in the emergency department at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital got an alert about a shooter at the festival, which resulted in multiple casualties headed their way.
Taylor Dearden exclusively told Us Weekly how the twist affects her character, Dr. Mel King, adding, “Something happens and as the day goes on, I think Mel gets more and more confident — or at least just there is more ease and less anxiety.”
What Noah Wyle Said About How ‘The Pitt’ Medical Drama Differs From ‘ER’
Despite not feeling confident on her first day at the hospital, the second-year resident will rise to the occasion amid the crisis.
“ADHD is overrepresented in emergency services. Most ER doctors, nurses and everyone there has ADHD. It is this thing that we have as a superpower and when there’s an emergency, we can shut off all anxiety and just deal with whatever’s in front of us,” Dearden, 32, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, explained. “I’m the one that runs towards the accident, which is a terrible idea. I’ll show up and go, ‘I don’t know what to do, but I’m here.’”
She continued: “But Mel gets to have that superpower click in at a point, which I’m really excited for everyone to see. Just kind of like the moment where you go, ‘Oh, this is what she needs under her ass. Like a fire. I’m not saying Mel’s a hero but …’”
Dearden also surprised Us when asked how Mel would react to her new coworker friend Dr. Frank Langdon’s (Patrick Ball) addiction. (Robby told Frank to go home in a prior episode after he found out that the senior resident was stealing medication.)
“Mel doesn’t know at all — the whole time,” Dearden revealed. “Poor Mel. I’m just like, ‘Where’d he go? Where’d my friend go?’”
Ball previously broke down what Frank’s addiction means for him going forward.
ER’s Noah Wyle Returns to Medical Dramas With ‘The Pitt’: Everything to Know
“He refers to having hurt his back while helping his parents move and that is frequently the case. He goes to a doctor who gives him pain meds and then those are habit-forming pain meds. This happens all the time. This happens with people that I know that are very, very high functioning,” Ball explained. “You see this opioid problem that is just riddling itself all across this country. It’s really sad because it’s not people that ever set out to become addicts. It’s people that trust and that get caught in a trap. That’s part of what happened with Langdon.”
Ball praised The Pitt for being an iconic first TV role, saying, “We are all in all the time. All the crew is on set with us and it creates just this mass. You’re just part of the world. Once you’re in it, you’re just in it and everybody’s in it with you. There’s no time to get in your head. We will rehearse, then we’ll shoot, then we’ll go straight into rehearsal, then we’ll shoot again and there’s no break.”
Meanwhile, Dearden was thankful to Wyle, who used his knowledge playing a doctor on ER to help guide his costars. “It was definitely us kind of in awe going, ‘Why can’t we make it look that easy?’” She quipped. “But I think that’s just a learning thing because by the end, we were hopefully much better.”
New episodes of The Pitt premiere on Max every Thursday.
