Last week's episode of The Pitt ended on a shocker, as charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) was sucker punched by a belligerent patient. But fans of the Max medical drama experienced their own punch to the face in Robert Langdon's (Patrick Ball) quick and sudden exit from the ER.
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When the main characters of The Pitt started their shift ten hours ago, Langdon was initially introduced to us as the wisecracking, handsome cocksure senior resident, the right hand of senior attending Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle). But as the day has progressed, that proverbial mask has begun to slip. His relationship with intern Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) has been rocky at best, with contentiousness brewing between the two. It all boiled over in Episode 9, as Santos is able to save the life of a patient overdosing on MDMA, but takes the fall for not communicating with Langdon. As a result, he launches into an aggressive diatribe against her, admonishing her for showing she's not a team player on her very first day.
Little does Langdon know, however, that Santos will prove to be a much larger thorn in his side than he realized. Throughout the past few episodes, she had noticed some suspect medications that he had prescribed did not line up with the diagnosis. In one instance, a patient returned after being prescribed Librium, only for the doctors to find half the pills gone, but the patient claiming he never took any. Despite advice from the other staff to drop the matter, Santos makes her suspicion known to Robby. It culminates in an incredibly tense scene between the two, as Robby forced Langdon to open his locker and reveal the stash of Librium that he had stolen. Once he gets caught, Langdon begins to spiral, leaning on the clearly close relationship between the two men. But Robby is simultaneously irate and disappointed, curtly telling one of his closest confidantes, "You are done."
"You've seen what I do," Langdon says in a moment of panic. "Could a drug addict do what I do?"
"Apparently," Robby responds simply. "I just f–king let him."
Actor Patrick Ball spoke with Parade about how this new revelation about Langdon informed his performance, his differing relationships with Santos and Mel, and the mentor role that Wyle has played both on and off-screen.
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So when were you made aware of Langdon's drug problem? And how much did that influence your performance leading into the events of Episode 10?This is something I knew from the beginning. That scene that you see in 10 with me and Robby was part of the package that they gave me for the screen test. So I knew that that was coming, and I knew that it was going to happen in 10. I didn't really know what was going to happen between Episodes 1 and 10. So that was a bit flying blind. But I knew that was coming. I knew that Langdon was harboring this inner battle the whole time. And it was really important to me, and I think important to the show runners, to sort of not, not tip it off too soon. And to not do the thing that's most important to me. You never know who it is. You never know what the person across from you is going through. And we can become accustomed to, like certain depictions of addiction in media. And, from my personal experience, it's never the person you would guess. And so R. Scott Gimbell and John Wells and I, I think we're really committed to showing this journey, this disease of addiction, as authentically and with as much integrity as we could.My hope is that people will watch this the first time through and be like, "Oh, Langdon, what a wacky guy. This guy, he's moving a little too fast. He's charming, but he's moving a little too fast." And then you can go back and watch it a second time around and see, "Oh, wait, actually, the signs were there, and we just didn't clock it." So that's my dream. The first time we see a different side to Langdon is in the diatribe he delivers to Santos. That serves as a culmination of a very fraught relationship between you two, as well as her putting the pieces together that Langdon had been stealing prescription drugs from patients. Talk to me about that dynamic, and what fueled Langdon to go off on Santos in that moment.Obviously, the emotions get away from Langdon in that moment, for sure. We just watched a little girl die. We watched a little girl drown in a pool, and we watched a mother sort of keening over the loss of her child. And I think that's really a really difficult thing to watch. And I think as a young father, I start the episode on the phone with my kid because it's so tough. think you talk about being triggered. I think Langdon is quite triggered from the start. And so whenever we get to that moment. It's sort of yet another case of Santos not respecting his personal authority, and also the chain of command in general, in this workspace. I think he pops off in a way that probably is inappropriate to the situation. But I think the logic of it is, "You've almost killed a patient earlier today because you did not want to listen. I'm responsible for this patient. And you, yet again, did not call me into the room, because you think that you have nothing else to learn." And I think that respect for expertise is something that I hold very closely. I know that Robby has institutional knowledge that he has gained over the last 20 years of his time in the hospital, that I hope to gain over my next 20 years. And I think that that respect for experience. I think that's a very relevant conversation to have in the world at large right now with what's going on with the White House and the World Health Organization and all that. And I think that respect for experience is something that Langdon takes very seriously, and Santos may not be easily convinced of. But I also think there's a lot of emotions there that have nothing to do with Santos in that moment that she unfortunately ends up on the receiving end of.It really is a tale of two interns. Because we also get to see Langdon's relationship with Mel in this first batch of episodes, and it couldn't be more different than Santos. And we even see a different side of Langdon where Mel teaches him, specifically in the story around the autistic patient. What are your thoughts on their dynamic?I love Mel, and I think Taylor Dearden is just incredible. And she's created an incredible character in Mel that that really is, in large part, her creation. She's done an incredible thing. And I think Langdon sees Mel like a caretaker. He's a primary caretaker for her sister, who's on the spectrum. And I think Langdon knows the responsibility of what it means to be a caretaker as a young father who is struggling to figure out what that means. How does one be a father and a husband and a doctor that is responsible for lives all day long? And how do you meet all of these responsibilities for all of these people that you're accountable to? It's a large yoke to bear. And I think he sees that in Mel, and he wants to support her. And I think he also sees somebody that is in this job for the right reason. And I think she's an essentially generous and compassionate person. And I think people like that are hugely necessary to health care. And I think Langdon has become, in many ways, jaded by this workspace, and he wants to do everything that he can to protect Mel from that jadedness. And she also teaches him a lot. Like with the autistic patient, she teaches him that care may look different for different people and from different people. I think Mel has a different set of skills. It has a different approach to patient care. She has a different personal style than Langdon does. And I think over the course of this season, Langdon learns that not everybody has to do it the same way I do it, and people can succeed in different ways. And I think that's something that Mel teaches him.Speaking of this mentor/mentee relationship, it's clear that Langdon has that with Robby. Which it makes it all the more painful for both parties when Robby finds out about what's going on with the pills, and is forced to dismiss him in that moment. Interestingly, The Pitt is your first major on-screen role. So talk to me about the part Noah Wyle has played as a mentor both in and out of the ER.I mean, Noah Wyle is amazing. He's been such an incredible leader to not just to me, but to everyone. He really came in from day one and set the tone for the set, and set the tone for this ensemble in a way that I think is wasted on me, because I have no point of reference. But everybody tells me this is very atypical of the culture that has been established on the show. It's like being in a repertory theater company. It's all hands on deck all the time. There's really no ego about it. Noah, who is the star and executive producer, he's doing background duty too. Because it's all one day, you know, every, every series regular is a is a background artist, and every background artist is a series regular. And there's no on stage and backstage, because everybody is on set together. There's no lighting setups, there's no dolly tracks. So we're all just a mass, sort of rumbling around in this hospital all day, every day. And that's a serious sense of tribe and family was created. And Noah set the tone for that. And he's also become an incredible mentor to me. Like you said, this my first TV job. And he's really taken me under his wing. He's become an incredible friend.
Related: 'The Pitt' Creators Reveal Season 2 Would Come with a Sizable Time Jump (Exclusive)
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