Who deserves Emmy nominations from The Pitt?

by Cláudio Alves

THE PITT | © Max

Have you been Pitt-pilled? I have fallen in love with the Max original series about a single extended shift at a Pittsburgh ER that spans fifteen hours of near-real-time storytelling. It's old-fashioned and not especially high-concept, a bit preachy but balanced with feeling, interspersed character studies within a professional setting that leans on bloody melodrama without ever toppling away from medical and labor realities. A critical and popular hit, the series is well poised to dominate the next Emmy Awards, prompting many questions about what honors it'll get and, perhaps more interestingly, what it deserves. When it comes to the cast, these matters are particularly tough since the show relies so heavily on its actors' ensemble dynamics, from The Pitt's main doctors to patients who only show up for a couple of episodes.

Following Nathaniel's example with The White Lotus, I propose a vote to see what the readership thinks. But, of course, I need to add some commentary of my own…

First up, let's talk about categorization. As Dr. Robby, the senior attending, Noah Wyle can be counted as one of the frontrunners for the Best Actor in a Drama Emmy. He's the clearest protagonist in sight, anchoring a season that starts and closes on him and often centers the character's trauma from the height of the pandemic. It's a remarkable performance that does much more than capitalize on the spectator's nostalgia for his days on ER. If there was any doubt Wyle was delivering the star turn of a lifetime, that evaporated when victims from a mass shooting start flooding into The Pitt for the season's closing chapters.

Sure, the complete breakdown Robby experiences at the end of episode 13 will be Wyle's Emmy moment, but there's more to it. The actor negotiates the burden of leadership, the responsibilities of keeping others together with the brokenness of someone who, at one point, feels like an active suicide risk. He's excellent at crying on cue, primarily because he highlights the struggle not to give in to emotion. It's a great approach that gels well with some of the character's more dubious shows of authority early on. Playing a good person trying to live up to that goodness isn't easy and it can often skew tedious, but Wyle does it with ease, illuminating the flawed humanity underpinning his one-day narrative arc.

Obviously, he'll go lead. But will anyone else follow suit? As senior resident Heather Collins, Tracy Ifeachor has almost as much presence as Wyle's Robby in the season's first two thirds. However, by episode eleven, she leaves and doesn't return, appearing in the next four episodes' credits but not on screen. It's a ballsy move, structurally speaking, keeping faithful to the character's reality in a way that almost seems to sabotage some of the drama. It doesn't, however, detract from the performance at hand. Could she go lead? Personally, I struggle to justify that hypothetical strategy. Indeed, if there's anyone who should go the Best Actress route, I believe that's Katherine LaNassa as the charge nurse, Dana Evans.

Truthfully, I'd single her out as the season's MVP, a stalwart figure from minute one that slowly crumbles across the fifteen hours we witness at the Pittsburgh hospital. Dramaturgically, she's almost the platonic ideal of a supporting player early on, mostly existing to suggest a history that extends far beyond the narrative frame. However, Dana is increasingly foregrounded, getting attacked by a disgruntled patient at the end of episode nine and then reckoning with an internal storm that culminates in her contemplating leaving The Pitt altogether. It's delicate work, growing in estimation when you consider the performance's totality. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if both LaNassa and Ifeachor campaigned as supporting instead of leads.

In that case, they'll be facing a whole lot of internal competition. According to current Emmy rules, you're a guest star if you appear in less than half of the season, so most of the actors playing the medical professionals will compete in supporting. As Dr. Langdon, the other senior resident, Patrick Ball is probably a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor. He surely has the most dramatic storyline, as his character is discovered to be an addict stealing from the hospital and going to the extreme of blaming a patient for it. Even so, I'd probably struggle to consider him one of the show's strongest performers.

I was much more impressed by the actresses playing the other residents. Starting with the nepo babies, Fiona Dourif and Taylor Dearden are fantastic as two exceedingly different characters, working almost as polar opposites in what they bring to the narrative. Dourif's McKay is an avalanche of personal and judicial drama spewing into the professional setting, which makes her choice to play up the stable, nurturing energy inherent to the part all the more interesting. Dearden's Mel King is a refreshingly non-cartoonish take on a neurodivergent individual, eschewing clichés to present a fleshed-out characterization that's charmed many viewers, me included. Her lovely work during an emergency room delivery deserves particular praise.

Supriya Ganesh also does some nifty work as Dr. Mohan, the final main cast resident on this shift from hell. She begins the season looking like the most well-adjusted of the staff, so patient and empathetic as to be comical when not enviable. Yet, there are early hints at something more happening beneath the surface. That warmth slowly shifts into mania as the bodies pile up, and, by the end, Ganesh surprises with a complete crash. I'd say hers is the most surprising performance of the season finale, striking an immense contrast between where we find Mohan at the end of the day and who we thought we knew at its morning start. In other words, the kind of actressing on the margins one loves around these parts.

And then, there are the youngsters experiencing their first shift at The Pitt. Isa Briones' Santos has caused the most amount of online discourse, with some hating the character's second-nature meanness while others saw beyond that surface-level abrasion. When reflecting upon the whole season, it's one of the hardest parts, a volatile balance between earning the audience's wrath while beckoning them closer so that Santos' more vulnerable and emotionally naked moments hit strong. I wish I had such nice things to say about Shabana Azeez's Javadi, but I confess the "deer in the headlights" routine got a bit tiring by the end of the 15 episodes even if it does provide some comedic relief at important junctions.

She's outclassed by Welsh actor Gerran Howell who plays Whitaker, a Nebraska farmboy turned medical student whose sad eyes and perpetual dark circles make him look a bit like a cat left out in the rain. More than any other cast member, he's asked to play humor, turning the man's pathetic demeanor into comedy gold. The season's best recurring joke is Whitaker's constantly getting covered in fluids and needing to change his scrubs. However, this is not a monotonal performance. Early on, we get some harrowing moments as Whitaker loses a patient – the CPR pantomime isn't stellar, one must say – and then, much later, he gets to be the one to bring Robby out of his spiral.

Like many of these actors, Howell's biggest obstacle, awards-wise, is probably the lack of a stand-out showcase episode as the strength of his work is better appreciated by considering the whole season. The rest of the thespians playing staff that qualify for the Emmy supporting categories are even better examples. My favorite is probably Kristin Villanueva's Princess, a miniature comedic tour-de-force that manifests almost exclusively as a gossipy presence in the background of scenes or a funny reaction shot to vary the tonalities of a scene. Other performances worthy of praise are Krystel McNeil as the hospital's social worker and Micheal Hyatt as the medical officer more concerned with patient ratings, PR and monetary issues than the nitty gritty of saving lives that's the remaining personnel's priority.

So, here go all the actors eligible for the lead and supporting acting Emmy races for The Pitt. Vote for your five favorites, please.

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But what about the guest categories for those performers who appear in only seven episodes or less? There are many people to consider, but I'll try to mention those that stand out the most to me. Let's start with more medical professionals who might have a bigger role in season two – the night shift. As combat veteran Dr. Abbot, Shawn Hatosy leaves a strong impression, bookending these fifteen episodes in a way similar to Wyle's Robby. He's all about nerves of steel coupled with a pit of despair opened inside, out of sight but not wholly undetectable. His scenes with the show's de facto lead are some of The Pitt's best, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him promoted to series regular next year.

Ayesha Harris, who plays nightshift senior resident Dr. Ellis, is another performer who left a big impression with limited screen time. She arrives near the end of the season with a character so full-fledged you could swear she dropped off from another show where she's one of the leads. I also appreciated Ken Kirby's absurd nonchalance as Dr. Shen and the goofiness Kinner Shah brings to the show in his one-episode stint as Dr. Mehta. Finally, Deepti Gupta makes for an imposing figure as Dr. Shamsi, Javadi's mother whose imperiousness seems to come easy, effortless and all the more intimidating because of it. It's a tad one-note as these things go, but it's effective.

Brad Dourif also plays one of the doctor's parents, appearing for one episode to support his real-life daughter. Other family members include Rob Heaps as McKay's dirtbag of an ex-husband and Henry Samiri as their child. The young actor impresses compared to some of the other baby-faced cast members like Taj Speights as Jake, the son of Robby's ex-girlfriend on whom many of the later season's most harrowing moments hinge upon. Let's just say that Speights isn't up to the task at hand. Beyond those, most of what we have left are patients, and there is a whole lot of them. So many that, again, I'm going to mention only my favorites. 

Remember Are You There God? It's Me Margaret? Abby Ryder Forstson was brilliant as the titular character and she's back on our screens, now playing a pregnant teenager who wants to have an abortion against her mother's wishes. Much of the part is reactive, with some of the splashier moments happening off-screen, but the young thespian still delivers strong work. David Reivers is another patient character that leaves you reeling, playing a three-episode tragedy that begins as a routine, amiable introduction to the ER's workings before dropping us (and Whitaker) into the heartbreaking reality of what failure means in such a setting. His loss reverberates throughout the season, long after he's left.

Still, nobody comes close to the difficult duets on accepting death interpreted by Mackenzie Astin and Rebecca Tilney, and Brandon Keener and Samantha Sloyan. The former play two siblings struggling to let go of their elderly father, whose do-not-resuscitate orders they initially refuse to respect. The latter are the parents of a college student who suffered an OD, his brain death apparent to all the doctors who still try to give the family time to process what just happened. These are tricky roles that could fall flat or too overwhelmed by grief. Yet, the actors play the multidimensionality of these people, the ugly side of their pain, the stubbornness, the shock, the settling of dread into the pit of the stomach and the numbness that comes after, mayhap the absolution.

All that being said, I suspect that, if any of the lesser-known guest stars gets a nomination, it'll probably be Drew Powell as Dough Driscoll, the disgruntled racist who takes out his frustrations on Dana. Oh well, you can't always get what you want. In awards, you almost never do. I don't, for sure. But what about you? How do you feel about these characterizations and the actors that brought them to life? Please vote on the four performers you think deserve guest acting nominations from The Pitt's first season.

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But acting aside, what did you think of The Pitt? Please say your piece in the comments and advocate for your favorite performances in the season's buzziest medical drama.

Comments

[Peggy Sue]

As a person who saw the 15 seasons of ER all I can say is: very good show.

Not crazy to assume that is the frontrunner in drama and lead actor.

Very into LaNasa. She's been around forever but this is the first time I noticed her. Also very good the black lady playing the burocrat.

Hope Hatowsy gets in guest and also the grieving mom.