It’s been a couple weeks since The Pitt’s second season ended, but we’re still talking about New York Magazine writer and Vulture critic Kathryn VanArendonk’s piece “‘Robby Has Never Been Your Daddy.’” She’s joining Erin and Elizabeth for a post-mortem in our latest ep.
The title of VanArendonk’s article is a direct, somewhat bristling, quote from the show’s star and co-creator, Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinovitch. Viewers have known Robby for two days — on The Pitt, that’s two ER work shifts totaling 30 hours. Here's what we know about him: he’s capable, full of empathy, a consummate tough lover and leader, confident and sure, heroic, strong, brave, single and really not great boyfriend material. His mentor died five years ago during the height of the pandemic, the PTSD from which is triggered by a menacing cartoon fox in Peds that has witnessed more than its fair share of Robby’s breakdowns.
He doesn't have a significant other or biological children, but Robby feels responsible to his ex's young adult son, Jake. Robby punishes himself for not being able to save Jake's girlfriend the day we meet him after the mass shooting at Pitt-Fest in season one.
This season, Robby comes to work on a motorcycle - wearing no helmet - on July 4, and tells us that after this shift he's embarking on a three-month sabbatical to a place called "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump" because he wants to see the Canadian badlands. But also because “Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo Jump” is the kind of place where manly men go to confront their suicidal ideation because it sounds cooler than say, ”behavioral health inpatient services.”
How could we not fall in love?
This is really a show about a shifting masculinity in America as we come to grips with the reality that no one is coming to save our healthcare system, and no one gets out alive. Which brings us to the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance of it all. According to Wyle, Robby’s tattoos were inspired by the quintessential Dad novel about parenting through the meaning of life, and a man haunted by “Phaedrus,” the former self he loses after electroshock therapy. While Robby is very warm and paternal in a (usually) good way at work, he carries the weight of the world that says that men should be able to power through adversity, alone, even as he lectures his staff on the importance of keeping one’s “mommy issues” to themselves. But you can’t ‘bootstraps’ a head injury. Or a heart injury. Chew on that, physician Phaedrus - it’s time to take one for the team.
So who better to join us for a closer read of this show than Kathryn VanArendonk, whose NY mag byline has been a go-to for us over the past decade for her smart writing about about television and comedy. Kathryn was on set for the filming of The Pitt’s season two finale, where she witnessed the shooting of the emergency resuscitative hysterotomy scene of the “wild pregnancy” mom with preeclampsia. (Three words: whipped cream cheese.)
She tells us how Wyle wants to be perceived as Robby, deconstructs his writing of a few episodes this season, and gives her take on why people seem to not understand how to watch TV shows anymore. Especially this one!
The Pitt, though, seems at odds with itself about how to negotiate all the sides of Robby. Is he primarily a mentor figure for these younger doctors, a fatherly guide? Or is he the other kind of daddy, the kind you want to sleep with and secretly think you could fix? - Kathryn VanArendonk, critic, “‘Robby Has Never Been Your Daddy.’”
And, as a podcast about fathers, we had to get Kathryn’s take on the internet’s wish that Robby will adopt baby Jane Doe, as well as the dystopian fan fiction/pregnancy erotica that abounds on social media for doctors Robby and Whittaker (#HuckleRobby) and Abbot and Robby (#Rabbot).
In the words of our esteemed guest, “Men will literally write fanfic about Robby adopting a baby rather than go to therapy.”
Hit play!
Erin & Elizabeth
