Noah Wyle and Shawn Hatosy of ‘The Pitt’ Filmed a Thrilling Nighttime Roof Scene Without Prior Knowledge: “I Only Read the First Episode”

Episode 15 of The Pitt titled “9 PM” concludes Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch’s grueling fifteen-hour shift with a powerful moment that harks back to a scene from the very first episode of the MAX series.

**Spoilers for The Pitt Episode 15 “9 PM,” now streaming on MAX**

Dr. Jack Abbot discovers Dr. Robby perched on the rooftop, deep in thought in his usual spot, pondering the heavy themes of life and death. Just as Dr. Robby once talked Dr. Abbot out of a dangerous situation, this time, it is Abbot who provides support for Robby. The night sky, enveloped in darkness, symbolizes Robby’s current state, possibly even darker than Abbot’s earlier struggles.

According to The Pitt creator and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, “The rooftop scene mirrors how Robby encountered Abbot in the beginning, showcasing Robby in a similar vulnerable position,” as shared with DECIDER recently.

“He’s not in a good place when Abbot finds him, but I think the best thing that could happen to Robby was him having his meltdown and having it in a public setting because it forces him [to confront it],” Gemmill continued. “If no one had found him, I don’t know if he would be getting better.”

“I think Robby goes home at the end of this shift and can no longer lie to himself that there isn’t a problem. You know, this whole first season was about recognizing that he is about to hit his rock bottom,” Noah Wyle told DECIDER. “So Season 2, if I’m prioritizing and trying to stay in keeping with the grounded, realistic way we’ve been laying this out, is more about him finding that road to mental health.”

Luckily for Robby, Abbot brings up his own therapist after this scene. He explains to Robby that he still prefers working nights and that his therapist specifically thinks he finds comfort in the dark.

“I love that line. And I feel like when he says it, I can literally hear the therapist,” Hatosy said, starting to laugh. “Like the way it was, at least I felt it was delivered, was like the therapist just keeps repeating it and repeating it and making him say it until he also accepts it.”

Through these poignant, emotional scenes, you can see Abbot holding out a lifeline for Robby just when he needs it most.

In an ironic twist, however, filming both rooftop scenes made for something of a tense day for actors Noah Wyle and Shawn Hatosy. Both scenes were shot on location in Pittsburgh on the same day.

“It’s my second day and we’re up there shooting very first scene of me on the roof, and then the last scene,” Hatosy said. “I haven’t read anything, I have no [scripts], all I read is the first episode.”

“It sort of sounds like a joke, but it isn’t a joke,” Wyle said.”Those scenes didn’t exist in any way in a script yet. Those scripts hadn’t been written.”

While R. Scott Gemmill confirmed that the final rooftop scene was written, not improvised, neither Wyle nor Hatosy had any context for how they would get to this point.

“We didn’t know quite how we were going to get there. We knew there was going to be a mass casualty event. We knew that Robby was going to have a breakdown. We knew that this was going to be trying for all of our characters and we wanted to bookend the scene on the rooftop in the beginning with another scene between the two of them at the end,” Wyle said. “But when Abbot says, “Nice speech. I wish I had given it,” there was no speech.”

“Noah would say, ‘I can’t wait to read that speech I give,’” Gemmill said. “but there was no speech written!”

While Wyle explained that this created an interesting challenge for him and the other writers, forcing them to “sort of paint by numbers to fill in the blanks on how to earn that ending,” Hatosy had the challenge of being totally clueless about what was coming up for his character.

“I’m told there’s a mass casualty event, but I just didn’t know,” Hatosy said with a chuckle. “I had no real understanding of of Abbot’s importance there.”

“Thankfully, Noah and I have known each other for a while,” he continued. “Of course, we’ve been through things like this where we don’t have all of the information. (Noah has a lot more than I do.) His performance was just so incredible. It was John [Wells] directing us up there on a roof. I think we shot it in like four hours. We took our time with it. And we just found it.”

They found it and now, it seems, Dr. Robby is going to have to find a way to address his mental health.

“Because [the breakdown] was so dramatic and Whitaker saw it and then Langdon mentioned it, it forces Robby to come to terms with his own issues,” Gemmill said. “Which is sort of a big part of what the Season 2 journey is for him.”