THE PITT – Season 2 | ©2026 HBO MAX | Warrick Page

Created by R. Scott Gemmill, with Gemmill, director John Wells and star Noah Wyle among its executive producers, THE PITT is a drama following the moment-to-moment activities in an underfunded Pittsburgh emergency room. Events unfold in real time over a fifteen-hour shift.

THE PITT’s first season premiered on HBO MAX in 2025 to instant acclaim, embraced by audiences in general for its emotional depth and by the medical community for its well-researched accuracy.

The first season of THE PITT won five Emmys: Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Wyle as the ER’s supervising doctor, Michael “Robby” Robinavitch), Katherine LaNasa for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as ER head nurse Dana Evans, Shawn Hatosy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series as Dr. Jack Abbot, and Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series (Cathy Sandrich Gelfond and Erica Berger).

Already renewed for a third season, THE PITT is currently streaming new episodes of its second season on HBO Max. Season 2 takes place on the Fourth of July, ten months after Season 1 ended.

When HBO MAX has a press event for THE PITT at West Hollywood’s London Hotel, LaNasa and Hatosy are on a panel with colleagues Patrick Ball, who plays Dr. Frank Langdon, Sepideh Moafi, who plays Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, and Gerran Howell, who plays Dr. Dennis Whitaker.

While LaNasa’s longtime ER employee Dana seemed to have had enough of the Pitt by the Season 1 finale, Season 2 finds her back on the job, although she’s no longer full-time. Ball’s Dr. Langdon ended Season 1 under a cloud of shame for stealing patients’ medication to feed his own painkiller addiction; Season 2 is his first day back after rehab.

Howell’s Dr. Whitaker has grown in confidence since his first day in the ER in Season 1. We learn more about Dr. Abbot’s adrenaline-chasing pursuits (he has quite an entrance midway through Season 2). Moafi’s Dr. Al-Hashimi is a new character, co-head of the ER, who will be running the place while Wyle’s Dr. Robby takes off on his planned sabbatical.

Hatosy says that, prior to THE PITT, he wasn’t especially interested in medical dramas. “But I think we attack it from this place of, the medicine comes first. And you’re getting to see real heroes in a very challenging world and they’re inherently good. And you get pops of character, but it’s not just a character piece. There aren’t a lot of soapy qualities to it. It just feels real and that’s always been the DNA of this show.”

When did the actors realize that THE PITT was a hit? Howell replies first. His real-life Welsh accent startles some event attendees who have only heard him speak in Dennis’s Midwestern tones. “I’m in character for another show,” he jokes about his voice, then takes on the question.

“We knew it was going to be good, and being on set, we knew it was a great show. But I think it took all of us by surprise how quickly people responded to it. It was a word-of-mouth sort of thing, which is really fun to see gradually happen. I imagine between medical professionals, it was a lot of that.”

THE PITT – Season 2 | ©2026 HBO MAX | Warrick Page

Adds Hatosy, a veteran of many films and television series, including SOUTHLAND and ANIMAL KINGDOM, “It’s always fun to start a show, because you’re never sure – you’re looking at each other, going, ‘Is this going to get canceled after five episodes?’ With John Wells and Noah Wyle and Scott Gemmill and the script, it was very beautiful and had this immersive quality. And so, you’re looking at each other going, ‘This could be the one.’ But I’ve said that before and been canceled after five episodes, so you just ride the wave.”

Ball hasn’t had enough series experience to make comparisons; apart from an episode of LAW & ORDER, THE PITT is his first television show. “In Season 1, I was literally just flying by the seat of my pants and trying not to get fired. Season 1 took us eight months to film, I think, and for much of that, we didn’t know if what we were doing was going to work.

“Katherine and everybody who has more experience than I do would tell me, ‘It’s not normally like this,’ in that we shoot in a very atypical fashion. And then we got an early screening of Episode 1. I’ll never forget – Noah comes up to me and goes, ‘So, what do you think?’ I said, ‘Oh, man, I like it.’ But it felt niche. I was like, ‘Man, we’re taking a risk in putting the science as forward as we are.’”

But when it was evident early on, Ball continues, that real doctors and nurses were embracing THE PITT, “It felt really good. We knew that we were setting out to make a show about medical professionals for medical professionals. It felt like we had accomplished what we set out to do. And then, like Gerran said, later down the line, when everybody else got interested, that was something I don’t think any of us saw coming.”

LaNasa relates that she was unprepared for the enthusiasm for THE PITT coming from some of new castmates. “It was really weird for me when people came onto the set to play guest roles who had seen the show … just that they knew who you were. It was literally like becoming a public figure overnight.”

Coming into THE PITT in second season, Moafi says, ““It was really diving into the deep end headfirst. But we’re armed with our technical advisors. A lot of the nurses who are in the show [as background actors] are real-life nurses. When you’re in the hands of John and Noah and Scott and the rest of the producing and writing team, they have your back. They’re taking care of you.

“I did as much preparation as I could, read, listened, talked to my friends who are doctors, talked to as many doctors as I could, visited emergency rooms, interviewed attending physicians who are also educators. I tried to collect as much data as possible, and at the end of the day, I didn’t get hired for my medical experience, so I’m trusting that they’re going to take care of me, and they do.”

Along with Wyle’s Dr. Robby and Hatosy’s Dr. Abbot, Moafi’s Dr. Al-Hashimi is, she notes, one of the few senior attending physicians we see on a regular basis. “So, even that I don’t necessarily get my hands dirty, I have to know what’s coming, I have to know the ins and outs of every procedure. So, they give us a lot [of information]. I read a lot of books, but there’s also this online resource called EM:RAP, which is like Google for emergency medicine. You can type in any procedure, any situation, and you’re given a plethora from procedural videos.”

While Howell has been on THE PITT longer than Moafi, his character Dr. Whitaker still has far less experience than Dr. Al-Hashimi. In Season 2, Howell observes, “I knew I had to come in a lot more competent. The bar was low in Season 1. I think he was competent, but there was a lot of fear and things getting in the way, so that was one of the biggest pressures.”

Howell’s Dr. Whitaker was unfortunately on the receiving end of a variety of bodily fluids on his first shift and had to change his scrubs frequently. LaNasa contributes, “Liquids were getting in the way in Season 1.”

“They really were,” Howell agrees. “But I had to come into it now with a new sense of confidence, so it was like, [the production team] are supportive, and if it doesn’t look like you’re doing it well, they will tell you. They’re watching everything that goes on. So, for me, it was just doing the dance again, but with more confidence this time.”

Ball feels that his Dr. Langdon likewise returns somewhat different in Season 2. “In Season 1, you meet a Longdon who is, for better or worse, very sure of himself, very confident, very competent, and very unafraid of being on his front foot and being the first one to dive on the grenade.

“For the last ten months, he’s come to realize that needing to be the best and the fastest may be a mask for a wound he wasn’t necessarily ready to deal with. And I think he’s had to sit there with that wound for the last ten months. Coming back in Season 2, having a Longdon who walks through the door without that charm and without that confidence that he had before is a very scary feeling for Langdon, stepping into this hospital. And it’s a very scary feeling as an actor coming back into the show and being like, ‘If I’m not the fastest, am I enough?’ And so, that’s the journey that I think he’s on and I’m on, and I hope it’s enough.”

Hatosy notes that while the actors are getting better at both performing procedures and pronouncing the jargon that surrounds them, “The magic of the show is, not everything is perfect and that manifests itself in the style of the shooting.

“I directed the ninth [Season 2] episode and you’re trying to catch these magical moments of spontaneity. It is a unique style of shooting, to be in the point of view of these doctors and to not have it seem like it’s perfect. It’s a perfect storm, so that becomes the big challenge when you’re doing the medicine and then it gets easy. Camera operators are perfect, and you’re like, ‘No, be a little messy.’”

Given the intensity of some of the scenes, are there outlets available to the actors for their mental and emotional health?

For Ball, “I pretty much just talk to Katherine LaNasa. I think doing this show has clarified for me the importance of community. I feel like we do a really good job of lifting each other up. I know this has been a lot of life all at once for me and for many of us, and I think having people like Shawn and Katherine and Noah and everybody around who have been through the wars a bit more, holding my hand through this moment has been a real gift for me.”

LaNasa elaborates, “I think sometimes you don’t realize the show is so deeply emotional – it’s like its secret sauce is just all hidden in there. You think you’re doing one thing, and then you have a whole bunch of feelings. I can remember doing some of the flashback scenes with Noah last year when he was having a really hard time around Adamson, who had died, [Robby’s] mentor. I have a son who was a young adult when his own father died, and I just burst into tears when we were doing with the scene, and then Noah just gave me a big hug.

“There was a scene the other week that was about another character and what that character was struggling with, but I know what it’s like to have a friend there that I can’t reach. And so, again, the director came to say something to me, and I will sometimes in this job have so much feeling come up when I’m just talking about, ‘I’m not trying to get that emotional in the scene.’ But it’s so emotional, I have so much emotion invested in the character, so I think we really lean on each other.  I think particularly for all of us who were there last season, we built this thing together and there’s just a lot of bonding there, a lot of safety and trust with each other. We just feel really held up by each other and there for each other.”

In terms of THE PITT’s overall impact, Moafi opines,” Like Shawn, I’ve never really been swept away by medical procedurals in the past. But I think THE PITT struck a chord culturally that was unexpected to all of us, because it lives in this convergence point. The hospital is this convergence point of all parts of society, and we deal with these social issues. Last season, there was the mass shooting, bodily autonomy, there are so many different issues that are at the forefront of society right now, and this season is no different.

“So, I knew that it was something morally, ethically aligned with the work that I want to do, that I believe in, and so getting to join this cast was incredibly intimidating. Everything is so well-established and it’s a well-oiled machine that’s moving at a pace that you better hold on and go for the ride. But it’s been such a warm, supportive environment and such an artistically nourishing, fulfilling experience.”

There are also unanticipated reactions from individuals. Hatosy reports, “I did a fan expo in San Francisco, and I was meeting these young [medical] students who were just shaking and saying things like, ‘I wasn’t sure I was meant to be in medicine. But after watching THE PITT and your portrayal, I know this is my purpose. It really makes it so worthwhile. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t ask for it, but to be a part of something that is landing in this way that is giving medical professionals a voice, it means a lot to me.”

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Article: Article: Actors Katherine LaNasa, Shawn Hatosy, Patrick Ball, Gerran Howell and Sepideh Moafi on Season 2 of THE PITT

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