‘The Pitt’: Noah Wyle Teases Upcoming Reveal About Robby & Collins’ Relationship

Taj Nico Speights as Jake, Noah Wyle as Robby — 'The Pitt' Season 1 Episode 5
Spoiler Alert
Warrick Page/Max

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Pitt Season 1 Episode 5, “11.00 A.M.”]

We’re a third of the way through The Pitt‘s first season, and the Max medical drama continues to deliver consistently engaging episodes. The real-time aspect continues to work so well, allowing the show to slowly peel back layers of these characters and their relationships to one another.

Take, for instance, Robby (Noah Wyle) and Collins (Tracy Ifeachor). We had a feeling from the start that the two had history, but it’s in Episode 5 that we start getting hints about what exactly that was. Collins turns to Robby after Abbott (Shawn Hatosy), whom the attending found on the roof then who went off-shift at the start of Episode 1, lied about fetal measurements due to the cut-off for abortions for his teen patient. While she risks getting booted from the residency program, Robby doesn’t have the same concerns since he has tenure, so he takes over to falsify the records and take “new measurements” to match Abbott’s.

After, Collins tells him she appreciates him stepping up, and he tells her he got her. Dana (Katherine Lanasa) comments on it, and Collins says they dated briefly a million years ago — and never again.

“The fact that they have [a history] is significant because there aren’t a lot of people that can say they’ve gotten close to Robby,” Wyle notes to TV Insider. “I think the fact that they had a relationship that was ill-fated speaks to his inability to sustain anything really positive and his inability to compartmentalize his work with his life and find any kind of balance. You will find out in Episode 11, but there’s an aspect to their relationship that we’ve been keeping a secret that informs a lot of the behavior between them.”

As he points out, what’s important is the lack of any kind of relationships in his life. “It’s just he’s got this relationship with a girl that he dated for a while and he kind of ends up liking the kid more than he likes the mom. And so he is got this sort of stepson [Jake, played by Taj Nico Speights], but he doesn’t really have any friends and he doesn’t really want any and he’s really good at what he does,” says Wyle.

However, he may be a good teacher, but “he’s very close to burnout. And this is a guy who probably should have hung it up and left a couple years ago and opted for something happier and healthier but didn’t and now he’s going to pay the price for it,” Wyle warns. “He serves as a wonderful metaphor for how fragile our healthcare system and how much we ask of the people being asked to treat us time and time again through our stupidity and our accidents and our cruelty to each other. The system is as strong as the people that are in those positions, and we’ve been asking a lot of them and they’re not as strong as they’d like to be. And so we wanted to show that sometimes the white knight falls down, sometimes his horse comes in without the rider, and sometimes it takes a village to patch itself up and not a superhero.”

This shift of Robby’s takes place on the anniversary of his mentor’s death during COVID, and it’s usually a day he takes off work. As Wyle previously told us, he’s only at work this year because his stepson Jake bailed on him. They were supposed to go to a music festival together, but instead, he’s taking a girl he’s been dating. Jake stops by during this hour of the shift, and Robby makes sure he knows now to take anything from anyone; he’s already seen a teen patient left braindead due to drugs.

For Robby, there is a “pretty present” concern that his steps could come in as a patient, but Wyle adds that as a father, “that is a fear that’s everpresent, regardless of whether your kid’s going to a music festival or just driving away from your house or going to college or preschool or whatever. It’s a very volatile world at the moment and it’s tough to send our kids out into it.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Santos (Isa Briones) and Langdon (Patrick Ball) continue to butt heads, this time over-treating a patient who’s seizing. Langdon is right (he says she’ll learn with time), but Santos also has concerns after struggling with a cap on a vial, worried that it could be defective. She wonders about going over residents to an attending about patient care; she’s told if it’s minor, it’s best to leave it, but yes if it endangers a patient.

Isa Briones as Santos — 'The Pitt' Season 1 Episode 5

Warrick Page/Max

“She’s got a lot of gall, a lot of gumption to be first day there, [wanting to] go over a resident’s head,” Briones admits. “But I think in her mind, and I would kind of agree to an extent, when you’re naturally clashing with someone, you’re like, ‘I’m not going to get anywhere with this person.’ And there’s right and wrong to both sides in my opinion. Obviously she needs to check herself and be like, ‘It’s your first day, calm down.’ But he’s also kind of naturally starting to shut her down just immediately and not even trying to teach at a certain point.”

She also points out, “Even though she doesn’t know Robby as well, he’s actually trying to teach. No matter what is going on, any trauma they’re in, he’s always asking her questions and making sure to continue the education. She knows, ‘I’m not getting anywhere with Langdon. That ship has sailed.’ She’s just trying to get ahead, continue to do the job that she wants to do, and get the coolest, most gruesome cases. And she knows that Langdon’s not the person to get that from anymore.”

Turning to the issue of the cap, how much does Santos think she’s right and something’s defective? Or does part of her wonder if she just had trouble in that moment?

“Santos is someone who doesn’t often think that they’re wrong and somethings has the stuff to back it up,” says Briones. “I think she’s very smart, but just up to that point, there’s been so much clashing with Langdon that it’s in the heat of the moment.”

What do you think the secret is that will come out in Episode 11 about Robby and Collins’ past? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Pitt, Thursdays, 9/8c, Max

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