Noah Wyle teases ‘The Pitt’ Season 2 in these 12 words
The Pitt gave a shot of adrenaline to FYC season on Wednesday with a special set visit for Emmy voters, followed by a screening of the Season 1 finale and a panel with Noah Wyle (Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch and an executive producer), Shabana Azeez (Victoria Javadi), Fiona Dourif (Dr. Cassie McKay), Katherine LaNasa (Nurse Dana Evans), Tracy Ifeachor (Dr. Heather Collins), Isa Briones (Dr. Trinity Santos), Gerran Howell (Dennis Whitaker), R. Scott Gemmill (creator, showrunner, and executive producer), and John Wells (executive producer).
During the group Q&A, it was confirmed that Season 2 begins filming "next month" on the Warner Bros. lot. While the cast and producers couldn't speak much about the new episodes, Wyle did tease the plot with 12 words: "Fourth of July. 250th anniversary of America. Big holiday weekend. Busy shift." Hmm, let the fan theories commence!
Gemmill joked that, for Season 2, he pitched an "evil twin" reveal at a "furry convention" in Pittsburgh during Independence Day. "The idea was that at the very end, one of the furries comes in and when they take their hood off, it's Noah, but without a beard. It's his brother, and that's the end of the show," he declared as the audience laughed. "It didn't go over in the room as well as I thought it would.
An evil… furry… version of Noah Wyle on Season 2 of #ThePitt? We’re intrigued. pic.twitter.com/EFtr9OsA3q
— Gold Derby (@GoldDerby) May 29, 2025
"You don't want the sophomore curse," Gemmill noted when speaking about Season 2. "We were unusual in our first season in the sense that we were almost finished shooting before the show aired. We were having fun in our little bubble over on the stage, and we had no idea that anyone was even going to watch the show."
Wyle was "mindful" of the pressures of creating a second season, however, "It's really something you have to shut out completely. You have to almost have it be a non-factor, and create the same sense of privacy, and same sense of hermetic, sealed-off, insulated company that we built the first year. I think if we're successful in that regard, then the storytelling will just roll out."
The five-time Emmy nominee said that now was the "right time" for The Pitt, because "we all went through something pretty significant in 2020 and it's almost like that's the line of demarcation. There's before COVID and after COVID." Referencing the three producers' first medical show, ER (1999-2007), Wyle added, "We told a really great story about health care in America before COVID, but there was no story about America post-COVID, and that was why we got back together."
LaNasa had the "challenge" in Season 1 of playing a character who was punched by a disgruntled patient. "They wrote her so beautifully," the actress stated. "I really appreciated getting to show what these nurses go through. I had some denial about the punch, thinking a stunt person would come in, and then I'll lay on the ground. But when Doug Driscoll [Drew Powell] comes up and we start, and I realize, 'Oh, I have to go through this now.' It really just all sort of kicked in." LaNasa now believes her character is "incredibly broken inside," because "he took her out of her place where she feels in charge ... it was very degrading."
Gemmill explained how violence against health care workers is a real "crisis," revealing, "A number of nurses, doctors, techs, and people working the hospital are exposed to violence at unprecedented levels. It's only getting worse. And so, it behooves us to tell that story, and it's part of the reason why we are also losing nurses. I think it's maybe a federal crime to assault a bus driver, but it's not a federal crime to assault a health care worker. What does that tell you?"
Wells added, "There's extensive research that Scott and the writers do, so you hear the stories. Basically, you gather stories for months by talking to people in the field. Those stories make it into the writers' room. So, this was prevalent in all the conversations with everyone we spoke to."
Dourif described a "boot camp" that the cast went through in order to get ready for their roles as medical experts. "It was run by three ER doctors, and they took the time for two weeks with mannequins and with actual people to come in to teach us how to suture, to do CPR, and to incubate," she divulged. "It really was useful when we were performing these surgery scenes, because it felt very fast paced, like a dance choreography."
Ifeachor confessed that playing a doctor on TV made her want to try to intubate a patient in real life, but the show's medical consultant told her she wasn't ready. "I was devastated," she laughed. "So, I said, if there was no one else on the planet, only me, could I do it? And he said, 'Only then.'" The actress then shouted, "Yes!"
Even though she works on a hospital drama, Azeez remained hilariously grounded when it came to believing she could actually perform medicine. "I'm an actor," she deadpanned. "That's crazy that any of you think you could intubate! The more I learn about this, the more I need to be kept away from all of you. I know enough to have an ego, and don't know enough that I would do damage."
Howell responded to his character being seen as the show's "comic relief" by saying, "I thought this was going to be a very serious dramatic role, and then it was just bodily fluid after bodily fluid. But no, he is a fantastic character to play, and it's important to have a character that isn't necessarily instantly competent, and someone that is a little bit more relatable to the audience. I think maybe he served that purpose. And also, you know, body fluids!"
Briones said "the response" to her character has been "very funny," recalling all of the people who've come up to her on the street and said, "I hate you. Have a good day!" She added, "As an actor, any character you play, even if it's so vastly different from you, you're always able to find something that you relate to. We're all human, and the same stuff makes up all of us, and I think we're able to tap into a lot of things, because we're empathetic creatures."
TV Academy members came into contact with fake blood splotches and dismembered body parts as they walked through the realistic hospital set. The Pitt's artisans and producers introduced the hundreds of visitors to patients' rooms, crash carts, nurses' desks, character costumes, and the staff kitchen. And, of course, everyone got to step inside the pediatric room with forest animals on the wall where Wyle's character had his mental breakdown.
The Pitt Season 1 is streaming now on Max. It will be eligible at the 2025 Emmys in the drama categories.
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