I always intend to take my parents' recommendations, but I never seem to get around to them. They’ll tell me to watch a movie or some TV series, and I really do want to. They have good taste, and I like talking to them about this sort of thing. Even the bonnet dramas my mom watches tend to be pretty entertaining. They recommended Jury Duty, and that became one of our favorite shows in a long while.
But my wife and I have a 16-month-old child. After he goes to bed, we are usually so exhausted that we just put on some reality schlock, and discuss whether 8 p.m. is too early for two adults to go to bed. So I had not seen The Pitt, the buzzy medical drama set in a Pittsburgh emergency room. My parents recommended it to me before the buzz got loud. As I started to hear from others about the show, I even told my parents that we planned to watch it. And we really did: As a man in my 40s, I try not to lie to my parents too often. But then exhaustion set in, and we watched the Golden Girls episode from Season 6 where Sonny Bono and Lyle Waggoner, playing themselves, woo Bea Arthur.
But I happened to be at my parents' house when the new episode released last week, and so I finally watched The Pitt with them. I was dropped right into the season finale, but my parents said they’d explain anything I didn’t understand. Considering how often they play Dad Jeopardy!—a game where you’re correct if you respond with, say, “It’s the guy from that thing”—I wasn’t sure if I’d get much usable context.
As it turned out, it didn't matter. The show is broad enough that I was able to figure things out quickly. The guy from that thing is the Big Shot of the ER, Collins is his foil, Langdon has a drug problem, McKay is one who breaks the rules in service of the greater good, Mohan is the overeager resident who runs on adrenaline, Bryan Cranston’s daughter is neurodivergent, there’s a doctor who’s not of legal drinking age, etc. Also, the guy from that thing is Noah Wyle, who I know best from The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, but I know has been in other stuff. How’d I do?
Even if I didn’t know the characters—I did look up a few names for the preceding paragraph—I could deduce this: This show is fucking hilarious. I laughed out loud 10 times during the hour-long episode. Maybe more. The season finale is set just after a mass shooting, but it was still quite funny. Even scenes intending to be dramatic are amusing. Robby (that’s The Librarian) takes a father to the hospital’s makeshift morgue in order to convince him his son needed a spinal tap. I mean, come on. That’s funny. Not in an oafish or accidental way, either. Just in the way that big things tend to be.
This tracks with what Mark Asch wrote in Defector this month: The show is refreshingly normal. The Pitt reminds me of Golden Girls in that way; the characters are straightforward enough that I was able to watch the finale of this show and not just understand but enjoy it despite not having seen any previous episodes. The only thing I can remember my parents sharing is that one character, who grew up on a farm, caught a rat in the previous episode. The main difference is that The Pitt is intended to be watched straight through. Golden Girls never mentions the time Bea Arthur intentionally got Mario Lopez deported after the episode in which it happens; I assume The Pitt will build some sort of story angle on that farmer guy—we learn at the end of the episode he’s broke and was living in the hospital.
I shared my thoughts on the finale with a few fans afterward, and the response was the same each time: I was wrong. That’s not what the show is about, they said. It’s not a comedy, and that’s not what you were supposed to take out of it. To that, I say: Too bad! I thought it seemed good, but mostly I found it hilarious. I don’t know if I will ever watch a full season of The Pitt, but I do know that I will be tuning in for next year’s season finale. I don't imagine I'm going to have a hard time getting caught up.
And now, a recommendation for you: That Golden Girls episode with Bono and Waggoner? It’s great. Hilarious. Even touching. I’m guessing you’ll just take my word for it, though.
