Noah Wyle on how Dr. Robby meets his match in season 2

The Pitt‘s debut run took place on one of the most stressful days of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch’s life. So much so that towards the end of his 15-hour shift at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room, while covered in the blood of his stepson’s dead girlfriend, he broke down in tears and had a panic attack after treating gun violence victims. So how can season two of HBO Max’s hit medical drama intensify his circumstances? By taking place on the Fourth Of July, of course. Robby (Noah Wyle) now seems shockingly ready to take a break from his hectic workplace. Or perhaps his attitude is just a front, considering he’s still reluctantly dealing with a lot of problems, like the return of prodigal son Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball).

This season’s premiere reveals that Robby’s last day before going on sabbatical coincides with his mentee’s first day back after a rehab stint. Frank tries his hardest to have a meaningful conversation with Robby and apologize for stealing the pills, but his mentor is simply not having it. He’s got other problems to deal with, primarily in the form of the attending doctor taking over his leadership role for three months. Sepideh Moafi joins the ensemble as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, who strides into the ER with a plan on how to improve the way Robby ran things and a distinctly different teaching style.

Robby and Al-Hashimi’s back-and-forth in “7:00 A.M.” is merely the tip of the iceberg for the duo. The rest of season two will continue to explore their fraught yet fascinating dynamic. Moafi tells The A.V. Club that while “initially there’s judgment from Robby because he doesn’t want to change the system, Dr. Al brings something new to the table, so they come to respect each other.” She also notes that joining The Pitt was intimidating because the show turned into “a cultural-zeitgeist piece,” but it “felt calm and chill once [she] met and began working with [her] co-star.” As for Wyle, the actor spoke to us about stepping back into Robby’s shoes as well as his roles as a writer and director this season. 

The A.V. Club: What was your approach to depicting Robby’s evolution after Pittfest and what he’s been up to the last 10 months ? 

Noah Wyle: It’s one of those things we wanted to start planting early on for both the audience and the characters around Robby, the sense that something might be up with him and that he’s not being forthright about it. The quickest way to do that was to show that he’s been working on this old motorcycle and he’s going to go on a sabbatical tour with it. But he’s riding to work without a helmet and telling everybody he does wear a helmet and is staying safe. So if he’s lying about that, then what else is he lying about? What he is masking becomes an interesting question that we keep checking in on as the season progresses. You begin to question the motivations of this trip and what it really represents for him.

Full Interview:

https://www.avclub.com/the-pitt-noah-wyle-season-2-interview