(Half) A Commute From Hell

Since I don't have anyone in my real life to vent to, you, the handful of people who read this dopey blog, get to hear my tale of woe. 

I had to go to Newark yesterday for two meetings that could have unquestionably been handled remotely, but the powers that be demanded my presence. Fine. Not ideal, and I had no say in the matter, so I shoved my laptop into a bag, along with a book, a bottle of water, and a piss poor attitude and headed to the NJT station for a day I had already mentally prepared myself was going to be miserable. I should also mention the weather. It was already close to 80 when I left a little before 8 with humidity at "Florida" levels making it feel even worse and I was of course in a suit and tie (although I carried the jacket for obvious reasons).

In fairness, the trip up could not have gone smoother I got a spot in the parking garage and the train was literally on the platform waiting for me, the express that would get me to Newark Penn in 45 minutes. Upon arrival in Newark, I shuffled down to the Light Rail, which was ALSO waiting for me on the tracks. Two stops and a four block walk later, I was at the office. Door to door in a little over an hour. 

In the afternoon, I had my eye on the 4:33 train. The problems started as soon as I left the office. What had been uncomfortable but tolerable heat in the morning had turned into sidewalk-melting discomfort that made even the couple of block walk unpleasant and of course I had not refilled my water bottle before I left. This time, I had to sit in the Light Rail for like 10 minutes, a dank, humid wait but nothing compared to the sauna that hit me when I got to Penn Station. To add insult to injury, what should have been a roughly 10 minute wait for the NJT train stretched to close to 30 minutes due to delays, and I just was sitting there, slowly melting, dabbing my forehead to clear off the sweat and really struggling since there is no air conditioning in Penn Station, nowhere to really sit and be comfortable (the benches are literally designed to discourage you to sit on them too long to discourage homeless people to use them), and of course the mass of humanity simply added to the heat and humidity. 

When the train finally arrived, there was little relief. The car was of course packed and the air conditioning was not doing much. I tried to stay calm but just felt my energy sapping away, wondering if I was suffering from heat stroke (and of course stressed that poor P and G were waiting patiently at home, no doubt starving even though I'd left a little food for them). After about 20 minutes, I could not read anymore and just basically shut down, the trip interminable. Once I got to my stop, me and what felt like half of Mercer County got out and I had to hump it up 4 levels to get to my car, where I practically collapsed before sitting in full blast A/C for five minutes just to get my energy up a little. A commute that took about an hour and twenty minutes in the morning took twice as long in the afternoon (and with weather about 10x worse). 

It took a good 10 minutes just to get out of the lot because so many people were leaving and I got home like 5 minutes before a massive thunderstorm broke out. I guzzled some water and about half a bottle of Liquid IV which helped and I also jumped in the shower, but of course, like two minutes later, yes, reader, the power went out. Thankfully, it was brief, but still, just an awful cap to the day and that isn't even getting into how out of sorts P and G were, how hot the house was because I set the A/C at 76 when I'm not there but when it's 95 degrees out with a "feels like" of 100 plus, it does not do much, so it was several hours before I unwound properly and the house also cooled enough to get to sleep. What a M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E day. 

The Pitt

Since I'm an old, I still consume most of my TV on, you know, A TV, and not on a phone or an iPad or any other screen, I'm not much of a streamer. So it was a happy coincidence that HBO decided to run a marathon of The Pitt about a week ago. What a great show. The elevator pitch would be 24 meets ER as we follow a group of emergency room doctors (ER) in real time (24) through a 12-hour shift (that extends out to 15 hours due to a mass shooting event). It is propulsive viewing and its binge-ability (for lack of a better term) is both a blessing and a curse. 

The show pretty much draws you in from the get go when we meet Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle, another ER connection), the attending doctor of the emergency room at a Pittsburgh hospital, as he arrives for his shift, talks down Dr. Abbott, his opposite number (literally) off a ledge before digging into the day with his merry band of doctors and nurses. His senior residents Drs. Collins and Langdon, and more junior staff, including Drs. Mohan (aka Slo-Mo for her pace of treatment), McKay (a single mom embroiled in a custody dispute with her ex husband), King (an empathetic, but socially awkward (possibly on the spectrum?)) second year resident, Santos (a mouthy go getter who gets on everyone's nerves), Javadi (a 20-year-old prodigy whose mother is also a doctor in the hospital), and Whitaker (a wet behind the ears medical student from Nebraska). There is also the charge nurse, a no-nonsense but has a heart-of-gold type named Dana and the rest of the staff. 

Over the course of the day, the drama comes fast and furious and all manner of societal ill slaps you in the face. Human sex trafficking victim? Check. Dad molesting his daughter? Check. Little girl drowns in backyard pool? Check. And that says nothing of the more routine gun shot wounds, heart attacks, and mentally ill patients the doctors treat. It is A LOT to absorb and watching it in binge mode can feel like sitting on a train watching the countryside go past. It's all a blur. You simply don't have time to really sit and think about the 19-year-old who dies from an accidental fentanyl overdose because your attention is immediately grabbed to the possibility Dr. Langdon is a drug addict who tampered with medication to hide his problem. Dr. Collins literally miscarries during the middle of her shift, splashes some water on her face, and heads right back out without missing a beat. Each episode covers roughly an hour of the shift but it is so packed with story telling it can be hard to keep up with all of it but the show is so absorbing, you want to immediately start the next episode. 

The binge gives the show a kinetic feel that puts you in the doctors' shoes and a sense of how quickly they must move on because the rigors of the job demand it. Ironically, it is not until the late in the season episodes covering how victims of a mass shooting are treated that the show slows down. There is less time for the personal or dramatic because the sole job is saving lives. And it is to the show writers' credit that during that arc several new doctors (night shift) are introduced with a fully lived in feel that makes you want to get to know them even more.

The acting across the board is top notch. Wyle's Dr. Robby is at turns compassionate, hard assed, and sympathetic. He goes above and beyond to continue doing tests on the teenage overdose victim to placate his parents even though he knows the kid is brain dead but cuts to the chase when two adult children attempt to override their elderly father's living will requests. He is also dealing with trauma of his own - the show occurs on the fourth anniversary of his mentor's death during COVID, and Robby feels responsible for the man's death even though he was not to blame. When Dr. Robby briefly breaks down while the bodies start filling up the ER in the wake of the mass shooting, he feels like he has let down his team. It is to Dr. Abbott, who Robby had talked down at the beginning of the day and who came in to help treat patients to explain that losing it for a minute or two is natural and ok. 

The supporting cast is also outstanding. Each character is so well drawn but also so well acted, it is like they have been playing these characters forever. The show traffics in BIG emotions, be it the waiting room fight between patients arguing over whether a child coughing for an hour should wear a mask to the aunt who brings her niece to the hospital for a medication abortion only to have the mother show up to stop it, the crushing experience (which happens more than once) of parents having to say goodbye to a child, or the fear of a new mother who fears her baby has been stillborn (this was a particularly graphic scene not for the faint of heart) and on and on. I literally gasped at the end of the ninth episode when Dana, taking a smoke break outside, is cold cocked out of nowhere by a disgruntled patient. But to me, it was the smaller moments that felt the most earned. Dr. King relating to an autistic patient with a sprained ankle by turning down the lights in the room and turning off devices that make noise in order to make him feel more comfortable. Whitaker, bouncing back from a couple of very tough experiences early on to show empathy toward Robby when he sees his boss crumpled in a corner reciting a Jewish prayer. Abbott, unwinding with his colleagues after the mass shooting event and taking off his prosthetic leg, saying so much without saying anything at all.

While there are a few nits one could pick like the overbearing administrator who shows up every few hours to complain to Robby about wait times and patient satisfaction, or the not-so-subtle riffs about how doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid or the patient who was part of a civilian squad of people in the 1960s who helped create the modern 911 system, these are minor critiques in a 15 hour season that is some of the best TV I have seen in a long time. Honestly, my fear is that the show's success will lead the creators to try and top it in season 2. I hope instead they realize the show's strength is in its inter-personal relationships, its examination of how decision making is reached under pressure, and that these are people who are doing the best they can under impossible circumstances.