‘The Pitt’ Aftershow: Gerran Howell Explains Why Whitaker’s ‘Awkward’ Around Langdon (VIDEO)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 Episode 5 “11:00 A.M.”]

Uh-oh, is The Pitt about to say goodbye to a recurring patient?! The Thursday, February 5, episode certainly ended in such a way that has us worried.

Robby (Noah Wyle) and Langdon (Patrick Ball) put their differences aside — the former has wanted nothing to do with the latter upon his return to work for his first shift after rehab — to try to save Louie’s (Ernest Harden Jr.) life. But it was looking bleak at the end of the episode when he didn’t have a pulse. Uh-oh.

Speaking of Langdon, Whitaker (Gerran Howell) worries that he oversteps with him when it comes to prescribing benzos. And he is rooming with Santos (Isa Briones), the person who brought Langdon’s drug addiction to light and is bearing the brunt of the fallout since not everyone knows why the senior resident was gone for these 10 months. So, how does he feel about Langdon being back?

“I think he’s heard so much about Langdon living with Santos. I imagine Santos has just been chewing his ear off and kind of venting quite a lot about Langdon. So when he comes in, I think that’s instantly, ‘Oh, I’ve heard so much gossip and bad things about you. It’s kind of weird you being here right now,'” Howell tells TV Insider as part of this episode’s Post-Op: The Pitt Aftershow. (Watch the video above.) “And I know how much it affects Santos, his presence, because it really caused some friction on Santos’ first shift. So I know that him coming in is going to really throw a lot of people, but Santos in particular off her kind of equilibrium. I can see that straight away.”

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He continues, “I don’t think he necessarily has too much beef with Langdon, but he knows instantly, ‘I’m going to kind of be in the middle of a sticky situation here. Who do I …’ I think his allegiance is with Santos for now, but he wants to remain as professional as he can, so, it’s making things awkward this shift.”

Elsewhere in the episode, the day shift learns that night shift charge nurse Lena (Lesley Boone) is a death doula when she comes in after one of her clients, Roxie (Brittany Allen), who has lung cancer that has spread to her bones, has a seizure and hits her leg. Taylor Handley plays her husband, Paul.

Boone knew that she’d be coming back for some episodes of Season 2, but when she heard that the first was the fifth, she thought she figured out how. “I was convinced that I was coming back as a patient, that I go home and that clearly something happened to me while I was home during the Fourth of July and that I was coming back as a patient. And I was just crossing my fingers that God forbid I didn’t die,” she tells us with a laugh.

The writers then told her about Lena being a death doula so she had time to talk to one. “Though tragic … there’s something beautiful” about it, says Boone. “I think that Lena gleans such a sense of humanity and love and that kind of shared love, being able to help these people transition into death.”

Then there’s the matter of what’s going on at Westbridge, with PTMC taking in their diversions. No one’s getting any answers about what’s going on at the other hospital — because they’re “loath to reveal what’s going on right off the bat,” says executive producer R. Scott Gemmill.

Watch the full video aftershow above with Gerran Howell, Lesley Boone, and executive producer R. Scott Gemmill for more about Season 2 Episode 5.

The Pitt, Thursdays, 9/8c, HBO Max