The Pitt Season 2's Returning Characters Teased By Showrunner

This article contains a discussion of addiction.

Don't clock into your night shift if you haven't watched the season 1 finale of "The Pitt," titled "9:00 P.M." Spoilers incoming!

The first season of the Max original "The Pitt" — which is not a spin-off of "ER" despite the involvement of star Noah Wyle, creator R. Scott Gemmill, and executive producer John Wells, all of whom worked on the landmark NBC drama — came to an end on April 10, 2025. At that point, the day shift employees trudged home after a grueling 15 hours working in a Pittsburgh emergency room. So, which of those employees will return for the already confirmed "The Pitt" season 2, which will take place 10 months after season 1's real-time "shift" (specifically on the Fourth of July weekend)?

We know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Wyle — who stars as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, helped create the series with Gemmill and Wells, and serves as an executive producer — will return. Still, there are personnel changes in real hospitals all the time, and some of the characters we saw on the first season of "The Pitt," including Victoria Javadi and Dennis Whitaker (played by Shabana Azeez and Gerran Howell), are medical students, meaning it's possible their ER rotations would be done and dusted by the time season 2 picks up. The cast of "The Pitt" is, and I cannot stress this enough, so good; even characters introduced late in season 1 like Shawn Hatosy's Dr. Jack Abbot, who typically serves as the night shift trauma attending, feel completely lived-in and fully realized after just a few episodes, so losing any of them would, frankly, suck. (Especially Taylor Dearden's Mel King. Protect her at all costs!) 

Thankfully, Gemmill and Wyle both spoke to TVLine after "9:00 P.M." aired and said that, for the most part, we'll see the same on-screen doctors working on the Fourth of July. "We're never going to go to other departments," Gemmill told interviewer Ryan Schwartz when asked if the show would move throughout the hospital after the 10-month time jump. "Because it will be July, everyone has been promoted or graduated to the next level. So, for instance, Whitaker will be an intern next year — so, finally, his character will finally be getting paid. Javadi is going to be doing a sub-internship, and we find out that maybe that's just her stalling because she doesn't want to make up her mind about where she wants to go. So we'll see everybody, for the most part, and some people might be working different hours and different shifts, but it's pretty much the same crew.

During "9:00 P.M.," we witness an intense conversation between Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball, an absolutely incredible industry newcomer), a senior resident who was caught stealing drugs from the hospital for his own use (by his mentor Robby), and Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa), an experienced charge nurse at the end of her rope. While Langdon frantically tries to convince Dana that he's not struggling with addiction despite the fact that he was stealing Librium (a drug that actively eases withdrawal symptoms), Dana largely brushes him off, and at the end of the episode, both of their fates seem up in the air. Robby tells Langdon in no uncertain terms that he must complete a full rehabilitation treatment to keep his job and medical license, while Dana seems totally ready to quit her job and never look back.

In that same TVLine interview, R. Scott Gemmill confirmed that Langdon will come back, and based on their time jump and shooting schedule, he may be finished with at least part of his program. "Exactly. I think we will pick up on Langdon's first day back at work, but it'll be more than a month ... The biggest driver of [the Season 2 time jump is] Langdon," Gemmill clarified. "30 days is probably the minimum he would have to do. You can do 60, 90 ... and part of [the time jump] is driven by when we can shoot in Pittsburgh. We're going to shoot in September again."

As for Dana, Noah Wyle said that she will come back ... and basically just needs some time to cool off. After noting that, as I also said, hospitals do have a natural turnover as internships, residencies, and rotations ends, Wyle continued, "Obviously, Dana is an important part [of this show]. But Dana choosing to come back — if she chooses to come back, and how she comes back, and what Dana is like having made the decision to come back, and what she's going to allow this place to either do or not do to her going forward, becomes the stuff that, you know, is the grist for the mill." Gemmill added that the time jump is helpful for her character: 

"In terms of Katherine, I think if next season were to take place the next day or the next week, you wouldn't see Dana. I think she needs to take some time off to really talk to her husband, talk about what she wants out of life ... I think when she comes back, she's going to have a bit of an attitude adjustment, though. She'll be even less tolerant of bulls**t. She's going to be much more protective of her flock."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

The particularly great thing about the season 1 finale of "The Pitt" is that it sets up a lot of storylines for the characters, with whom audiences have obviously connected. I already talked about a few of them, but there's a particularly touching moment when intern Dr. Trinity Santos, played by Isa Briones, follows Dennis Whitaker into an abandoned wing of the hospital only to discover that he's squatting there as he's "between apartments." (Moments later, he also admits that he's, as Santos puts it, "between cars.") Santos, who has a spare bedroom in her apartment, insists that Whitaker come and live with her, so, presumably, we'll see the result of this in season 2 if they both return (and frankly, if we do get some information about their shared living situation, it's probably going to be pretty funny).

R. Scott Gemmill also spoke to Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture after "9:00 P.M." aired and explained that, again, because of how hospitals work, it's tough, but Gemmill said that's a "later problem," so to speak. "We've been grappling with that," Gemmill admitted when VanArendonk pointed out that she also considered hospital turnover and started to worry about her favorite characters. "Some of them are still med students, so they'll be here for a little while, and some can make decisions. But some people will have to move on, and that's counterintuitive to a successful TV show where people start to really like characters. Hopefully that's a problem we have to deal with two or three seasons from now. For the moment, we're just dealing with it season by season."

For now, we can rest easy; it looks like most, if not all, of the characters we loved in season 1 of "The Pitt" will return. The first season is now streaming on Max, with season 2 set to arrive in January 2026.