Medical dramas have always been a reality of television, but in 2005, Grey’s Anatomy changed the game. Shonda Rhimes introduced a series that not only explored hospital mishaps from week to week but also dovetailed them with the personal lives of the doctors who worked there. While the show was a hyper-realized version of attractive doctors at a Seattle teaching hospital, it resulted in incredible television that went on for two decades.
Once viewers thirsted for more than just hookups in the on-call room, Grey’s Anatomy delivered more and more intense dramas like live bombs in the hospital and ferry boat crashes. These disaster episodes became commonplace, with the Season 6 season finale being one of its most famous. Even topical at the time, the plot line discussed an active shooter in the hospital, making it must-see television. These intense hours of television remained one of the best until a new medical drama decided to take a crack at it. Debuting its first season in 2025, The Pitt also featured a mass-casualty incident that varied from the example that Grey’s Anatomy left.
The Pitt Took a More Realistic Look at a Tragedy
Like most storylines in Grey’s Anatomy, the Season 6 two-part finale “Sanctuary” and “Death and All His Friends” took a personal and heightened look at the epidemic of mass shootings. The traumatic events started when Gary Clark took issue with several doctors in the hospital. Bereft because of his wife’s death, he took his rage out on those who operated on her when she died.
He re-entered the hospital and targeted surgeons who experienced something that no one should. Alex, Owen, and Derek were some of many injured by what happened that day. Grey’s Anatomy has the talent of using real-life events to heighten the drama between the characters, which the last episodes of Season 6 did admirably. But at its heart, Grey’s Anatomy was always a relationship drama first and a medical show second.
The new medical show on the block, The Pitt, values depicting the lives of medical professionals realistically. Grey’s Anatomy is good television because the drama is so heightened, but The Pitt uses its different strengths to its benefit. Like the Shonda Rhimes show, the series depicted a mass casualty event, impressing upon its viewers what a situation like that would really look like.
The Shooter Is Not Sensationalized on The Pitt
Dr. Robinavitch has to contend with another emergency during a grueling shift in The Pitt
The biggest strength of Grey’s Anatomy is the relationships between the characters. Everything the doctors do in the hospital is informed by what is going on in their private lives. This is compelling television to watch, which differs from how The Pitt appeals to its audiences.
The HBO Max series is a spiritual successor to shows such as ER that explore what really goes on in emergency medicine. Every episode of The Pitt takes place in real-time during one hour of a day in the life of Dr. Michael Robinavitch AKA Dr. Robby played by Noah Wyle. The utmost care is taken to depict these events seriously, including the mass casualty event.
Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, where one tragedy caused a butterfly effect or terror, The Pitt showed that sometimes tragedies just happen. When Robby got the news that the hospital would be triage for a mass casualty event, all hands were on deck.
Doctors had no time to dwell on the specifics of the tragedy. They had a job to do and quickly jumped into gear. In fact, the shooter responsible for terrorizing a music festival was never shown on screen. For a time, the doctors theorized that the shooter was someone who had been in the hospital episodes prior. However, this was proven to be a red herring. Doctors got the news that the shooter had been found and died by suicide secondhand. This turn of events is how real doctors would likely operate in such a situation.
The shooter was not someone with a personal grudge stalking the halls of the hospital. The frequent occurrence of mass shootings was something that the team had been prepped for, and they acted accordingly. By doing so, The Pitt showed just how realistically and straight-to-business these professionals would operate.
The Pitt also conveyed the logistics of when such an event would happen. In preparing the ER for the influx of patients, professionals had to empty the space of existing patients. From there, the hospital turned into a battle zone as doctors categorized incoming patients on the severity of their injuries.
Robby and his team could not rely on technology to keep things organized. Patients were given miniature charts that were attached to their wrists to keep everything straight. Dr. Abbott, the night resident who returned to lend a helping hand, referred to the experience as similar to a MASH unit, also known as Mobile Army Surgical Hospital.
It was everything the ER could do to not get overwhelmed by the needs of the patients, especially on the interns’ first day at the teaching hospital. Things were so chaotic that doctors were donating their own blood while working on the patients during their shifts. These high stakes were just as interesting as Grey’s Anatomy’s romantic trials, if not more so.
The Pitt took an inside look at what these doctors’ lives were really like, for better or for worse. From discussions of getting enough medical supplies and blood, to the mental toll it could take, the episodes revolving around the tragedy at PittFest was one of its best. The fast-paced trauma room didn’t occur just for drama’s sake but as the natural culmination of an ER that had been firing on all cylinders for most of the day.
Robby’s Breakdown Was Inevitable
Dr. Robby wearing bloody paper scrubs, looking down with a cop standing beside him in The PittImage via Max
If The Pitt was a series that remained married to the most realistic situations, it would become boring. The show found a gracious balance between real-life scenarios and the characters at the center of the series. While personal drama isn’t implemented all the time, it makes it that much more powerful when it does arrive.
The pressure of attempting to save everyone in the ER hit Robby most of all. At the start of the season, The Pitt established that Robby’s mentor had died in a similar triage scenario during the COVID pandemic. Robby never really recovered, and during the mass casualty, he continued to be plagued by anxiety-inducing memories.
This became particularly brutal when Robby’s quasi-stepson Jake was at the center of the shooting. Robby had initially been scheduled to go to PittFest with Jake, but at the last moment, the teenager decided to take his girlfriend. This would prove to be a decision that potentially saved Robby’s life but had great consequences.
While Jake survived the attack, his girlfriend, Leah was shot and brought into the ER. Robby did everything he could, pushing blood far after the girl had expired in the desperate hope that he could save someone else who was close to him. In the end, the damage to Leah’s heart was too great, and she died in the ER hallway.
Jake naturally had harsh feelings on the subject, and it didn’t make it any easier on Robby. The weight of losing his mentor, paired with the stress of one of the worst days of his life resorted the attending into an almost catatonic state in the makeshift morgue. Jake’s blame directed at Robby paired with every person he lost that day, was the culmination of an entire season.
When a series takes place hour by hour consecutively, audiences get first-hand experience of what the characters are going through. The first episode of the show followed Robby coming in for his shift at the hospital and never let up, including the shooting. Robby had to deal with some of the worst experiences, including an 18-year-old with a fentanyl overdose, a child accidentally dosed with marijuana, and anti-vaxxers who discovered their son had measles.
On a normal day, perhaps Robby could have handled this. But this was the anniversary of his mentor’s death, and the hits never stopped coming, right up until he found out that he would lose yet another person on the table. His panic attack warranted a natural resolution of everything he had experienced that day.
The Pitt event tied together Robby’s emotional conflict in a series that never relied too heavily on such mechanics. Fans experienced the heartwrenching realities of the job through Robby’s eyes while understanding how important it was to just keep going. There is no doubt that The Pitt differs from Grey’s Anatomy in many ways, but the two have always been dedicated to supporting the emotional journey of the characters. The Pitt had compelling characters in spades, which allowed these episodes to breathe on their own and find a footing in medical drama history.
