The Pitt Season 2 - Ripped From the Headlines: New Stories for 'The Pitt'

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Pittsburgh Magazine link: https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/ripped-from-the-headlines-new-stories-for-the-pitt/

Season 2 of the Pittsburgh-based medical drama is likely to show the
impact in the ER of Medicaid cuts, trauma experienced by immigrants.

All those headlines you’ve been reading lately: Medicaid cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill, ICE detentions, treatment of documented and undocumented immigrants — you’re likely to see them as storylines in Season 2 of “The Pitt.”

The HBO Max series set in Pittsburgh, which has been praised by health care workers and patients as being the most realistic medical drama on television, returns in January. During the first season, which wrapped in April, viewers saw a fatal fentanyl overdose, the fatal drowning of a child, the handling of mass shooting victims, long waits in the emergency room, frustrated health care workers and more.

“The Medicaid changes are going to have a significant impact, and you don’t have to take a political position to discuss what the impact is actually going to be,” John Wells, a Carnegie Mellon University grad and one of the executive directors on the show, told Variety in a recent interview.

“I don’t want to have an argument about whether or not they’re appropriate, what Congress did or didn’t do. But they’re going to have on-the-ground, immediate consequences in emergency rooms, and nobody’s arguing with that. That’s a bipartisan agreement. You’ve got very Republican senators from Missouri like Josh Hawley agreeing that this is going to be a problem,” he added.

Wells worked with series star Noah Wyle and R. Scott Gemmell — both also executive producers — on the long-running NBC series, “ER,” and they teamed up together on “The Pitt,” a 15-episode show, in which each episode covers one hour of a 15-hour shift. The fictional hospital is set at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side, where film crews are expected to return in September to get new footage. Wells, in a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published Aug. 7, said that ‘The Pitt’ would return on Jan. 8: “We’re essentially returning the exact same day that we premiered. It will be the eighth of January — 365 days later.”

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I love this show, and I was a big fan of "ER" too. (And yes I'll admit that I get slightly queasy during the bloody, messy surgery scenes, but still, it's a great show overall.) Can't wait for Season 2.