HBO Max medical drama series The Pitt is taking aim at President Donald Trump’s immigration policies with an episode portraying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as inhumane, uncaring thugs.
A pair of ICE agents appear early in this week’s episode when they bring a detainee into the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center for treatment after the woman sustained a shoulder injury while being taken into custody. Naturally, all the doctors and staffers at The Pitt immediately turn their hatred toward the law enforcement officers.
The series, with its drive to push plots ripped from today’s news headlines, has won praise from many as one of the most dramatic shows of the day, and has even earned the praise from doctors and medical professionals for how it portrays real-life medicine.And now it is tackling immigration policies.
The entrance of the ICE agents immediately turns the staff into snarling leftists as they instantly begin disrespecting the officers and attempt to violate the agents’ orders on how to comport themselves as they treat restaurant worker Pranita (Ramona DuBarry), who was injured during her immigration violation arrest.
They bristle when the ICE agents keep their faces covered, they rebel against the rules the ICE agents set for what they can and cannot do for the migrant, and they constantly disrespect the officers with every interaction.
The episode is set on July Fourth, and the ER is dealing with fireworks injuries. One injury presages the immigration theme of the episode by introducing a young brother and sister whose parents had been deported as illegals. But the theme kicks into high gear when the ICE agents enter the ER.
Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) sets the tone of hate for the officers and tells the staff to get Pranita patched up as quickly as possible, saying, “I do not want these guys here any longer than they need to be.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) asks Pranita if she needs to call anyone despite orders from the ICE officers that such contact is prohibited. The order from the ICE officer spurs the doctor to mumble a disgusted “unbelievable” under her breath.
Next up is charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) who asks, “Can’t we just tell the agents to fuck off?”
The episode further devolves into anti-ICE hysteria as hospital employees begin dropping everything and going home because the “don’t feel safe” with the ICE officers in the ER.
Ultimately, Dr. Robby gets upset when he sees one of the officers leaning on a counter, and he then erupts in a self-righteous tirade at them.
“You can see how busy this department is, right?” he screeches. “You’ve been nothing but a distraction and a disruption since you’ve been here. I’m already short-staffed, and I just lost five nurses and half my environmental services team because you walked in.”
“You know, patients come in here for help because they’re either sick or they’re injured, and documented or undocumented, they have the right to emergency care,” the arrogant doctor continues. “TB, measles, fractures, none of it is getting treated because everybody’s too scared to come in. But then they end up here anyway, but then it is too fucking late. So, please, for the love of God, can you just go wait over there in the room with your detainee so I don’t lose any more patients or staff!”
The attacks on the officers get more explicit in the next scenes when male nurse Jesse Van Horn (Ned Bower) attempts to physically intervene when the ICE officer make ready to take Pranita out of the hospital. And they physically restrain him and throw him to the floor, cuffing him for his attempt.
The rabidly anti-ICE episode does not seem to represent the promise that the show’s creator, R. Scott Gemmill, made when he claimed he wanted to show a “balanced” view of the ICE issue.
Recently, Gemmill told the media that he intended to do an episode of the show dealing with ICE and intended to “portray it without sensationalizing” the issues. He added, “at the time, we didn’t know how bad it was going to get in terms of the real ICE issues, so we were trying to walk a very fine line between our concerns, frustrations, confusion and anger and being respectful of what they’re trying to do and … of law enforcement.”
Gemmill insisted that the episode is “balanced,” and said, “I think we did a very balanced approach to it … maybe it would have been exactly what we’ve done, because I don’t want to feed into the other aspect of it … the worst versions of it.”
In the end, though, it appears that ICE was shown in a strictly negative light in the episode and there was no “balance” in portraying the issue from the perspective of the ICE agents.
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