Has The Pitt's Dr. Robby Reached His Breaking Point? Noah Wyle Unpacks Devastating Last Scene In Episode 13
It has all been building to this moment.
Despite his best efforts, Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch is unable to resuscitate Jake's girlfriend Leah. He wheels Jake into The Pitt's makeshift morgue to see her one last time, and all it takes is one question to unravel our grizzly hero, who has barely been holding it together.
"Why couldn't you save her?"
It's there, standing in the very same room where he took Dr. Adamson off ECMO four years ago, that Robby is reduced to a puddle of tears as he recounts a truly dispiriting day at work.
"There was a man named Mr. Spencer who died in front of his children," he recalls, "and an 18-year-old who was brain dead from a fentanyl overdose... and a guy with a heart condition... and a little girl who drowned trying to save her sister... and I am going to remember Leah long after you have forgotten her!"
Robby apologizes to Jake, but he needs him to go. Now. He hurries him out of the morgue, then curls up into a ball. He holds his head in his hands, his face and neck turn bright red, and he's unable to catch his breath as another harrowing hour comes to an end.
After hosting Wyle at our New York City studio in February, I caught up with him over Zoom earlier this week to break down the final three episodes of Season 1. Above, you'll find Part 1 of our latest conversation, in which the star and executive producer reflects on Robby's meltdown in Episode 13 ("I could channel my own pent-up grief, disappointment, anger, frustration, fear....") and whether his character will be able to push through to the end of his shift. A full transcript of our Q&A, edited for clarity, is also provided below.
TVLINE | Do you think there's any one thing here — whether it be Jake asking Robby why he couldn't save Leah, or the fact that Robby is back in the room where he took Adamson off ECMO — that ultimately leads Robby to snap?
I think we've been watching this come all day. If the stars had aligned slightly differently, maybe this could have been averted, but it's all of it. It's all of it coming at once in that room. And to whatever degree Jake holds Robby responsible, Robby holds himself 10 times more responsible, even if there is nothing he could have done. Just the fact that he couldn't perform the miracle is enough to put him into a shame spiral, and having that potentially sever the one familial tie — the one anchoring relationship that he feels good about — is this proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.
TVLINE | A scene like this requires you to go to a very dark place. Every actor's process differs. How do you get there?
Well, I'm a little funny. I look at days of work like that like Christmas morning. [Laughs] I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to that day. I've been waiting for that day for five years — a day where I could go in there and channel my own pent-up grief, disappointment, anger, frustration [and] fear that I carry — that I've been carrying. It was harder to keep it in over the course of the season, where it was inappropriate to have it come out, than it was to shoot that. I just remember thinking, you know, in the way that actors can be masochists, like, "Oh boy! Today, I get to f—k some s—t up!"
TVLINE | Did knowing that it was all building to this — and all this anticipation you had leading to this moment — make it easier to tap into all that when it finally came time to wheel Jake out of the room and just—
Oh yeah.... The whole thing has been a gift, to be able to to have this sort of singular piece of music that exists in this larger tapestry of Robby's emotional rise and fall, and hopeful rise again. It has just been an absolute dream come true. It is exactly the kind of work that turns me on. It's such fine brush work. It's really detailed. You have to bring the last episode into the next, and the last two into the next, and the last three into the next... and I love the challenge, I love the focus, I love the sense of camaraderie it fostered among everybody working in there together.
TVLINE | When viewers get to the end of this episode, I'm sure the question on their minds is going to be, how does Robbie pick himself up, go back out there, and be the leader that everyone needs him to be? How does he even begin to get himself up off that floor?
At this moment, I don't know that he can. I think that this is the thing that he's been most fearing — that this tidal wave would no longer be able to be held back. Compartments overflowing, systems failure, damage control, inoperable, you know, "Danger, Will Robinson! Mayday! Mayday! Going down!" And in that moment, he has no idea how to get the s–t back up.
What did you think of The Pitt Season 1, Episode 13? Drop your thoughts in a comment below.