The Pitt Acknowledges the Existence of Gen X

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You're looking light all over. You're looking good to me. You're looking Pepsi

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like and it's just one calorie with this one. Light.

Carolyn Cochrane 0:28

Welcome back to another PCPs, light our low prep, high vibes format, where the episodes are light on research, but heavy on real time reactions. So the three of us are watching and loving the amazing medical drama The pit on HBO, and the Gen Xer in me is thanking the gods that we can now call it HBO again, because all of that Max crap and all of that I didn't know what was going on. I'm so happy. My little Gen X heart was like, thank you. We don't need a zillion different rebrandings. It's started as HBO. It still needs to be HBO,

Kristin Nilsen 1:03

and we couldn't differentiate what, what's Max, what's HBO, what's HBO max? And tell us what the difference is. If you want, there is a

Carolyn Cochrane 1:10

difference Exactly. Well, now

Kristin Nilsen 1:12

what is, yes, we didn't know.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:13

Now you can call it HBO. And anyway, good. So today's PCPs light episode exists because I fell down. Imagine this. You all a threads rabbit hole, after seeing so many people posting about the connections between the pit and Gen X and the amazing medical show where we all fell in love with the drama of a hospital emergency department in ER, and the more comments I read the more I knew I just needed to talk through this with Kristin and Michelle. So here we are unpacking those Gen X vibes, the ER connections and the emotional hold that Noah Wiley has had and continues to have on our little hearts,

Kristin Nilsen 1:56

yeah, like we never let go of them. Did we?

Carolyn Cochrane 1:59

No, we did not

Michelle Newman 2:01

we, but I didn't know that.

Kristin Nilsen 2:02

I didn't. I didn't

Carolyn Cochrane 2:04

either, it's apparently we still have it. We just didn't know that we had it.

Michelle Newman 2:08

There was, yeah, there was a Wiley sized hole in my soul, and I didn't know was there. And I was like, oh, all is right in my world. Why? Oh, it's the Noah

Kristin Nilsen 2:22

Wiley hole. It's Noah Wiley hole. Yeah, it was filled.

Carolyn Cochrane 2:26

And I think the show is filling in some other holes in my heart that I didn't know I had until I started watching. So we're going to talk about those. But before we start, we do want to give our listeners a little heads up, because this episode will be filled with some spoilers. So if you are a fan of the pit and you haven't caught up to the end of season two, then you probably want to just pause and come back to us later. And if you're not watching it at all, what the hell is wrong with you? Shut us off and go binge it right now and then come back because you're missing out, I

Michelle Newman 3:00

think you'll forget what we said, because we all have, we all have 55 year old brain seven so you can

Kristin Nilsen 3:07

listen to the episode, and you'll be inspired to go watch it. And don't forget all the things that I said. It'll just inspire you to get to know these

Carolyn Cochrane 3:14

people that are in this shop. The most exciting thing in all of this, you guys, is that Thursday night has once again, become must see TV. Okay. Now I clear my calendar. Nobody's bothering me from on my time, nine o'clock Eastern, Standard Time on HBO, when each episode of The Pit would drop, much like er was also a Thursday night television show. So I can't believe, after doing a little more research, that this is a coincidence. They're just too many connections with our little our favorite Gen X medical drama of the 90s. I feel like the I

Kristin Nilsen 3:50

feel like the entire show, and maybe this is going to be your point, Carolyn, I feel like the entire show is giving a little nod and a wink to the original watchers of er, like we see you there. We see you there. And of course, it's gonna be on Thursday nights. Of course it is like you said, that's not an accident, because they understand that we have a Noah Wiley shaped hole.

Michelle Newman 4:12

What I think, though, is so interesting for people that think, and I'll admit, I was like this, I you guys can remember when season one started. You both were like, aren't you watching? And I was like, No, I don't need another medical show. It's just another like, there's too many and it's too traumatic and whatever. Yes, it is sort of like er is coming full circle, but it's it couldn't be more different also than er, because what a lot of people, I don't think, realize is one of the genius things about the pit is that 100% of it takes place in in the hospital. The entire season is one day. So each episode, listeners, if you haven't watched, it, is a different hour of the shift. So we don't see them in their homes or in their apartments. We don't. See them with their spouses, their children. We don't see them with their lovers, their they go out to dinner. Any type of exposition you get on these characters is through dialog. So we do know that some of them are married and have children, or that some of them have been on parole, or that some of them whatever, but it's all just through their dialog and their conversation. So it's so clever and it's so original and unique. Yeah, we're going to talk in a minute about how, then, how is it like? Er, we can get into that in a little bit. But I just don't want people to think, well, this is just another medical show. This is just like, another one of those. Oh, yeah. Like, it's so

Kristin Nilsen 5:36

clever, it's so close. Like you said, one one whole season equals one day, one shift, one shift, people, is this whole season. And you know how,

Michelle Newman 5:46

like, even, especially, I would say Grey's Anatomy, way more than, er, you get into almost like a little soap opera ish thing, where you've got people sleeping with other people, you see them wake up in someone else's bed, and then the morning after you see, you see none of their lives outside of when they're in scrubs in the hospital,

Kristin Nilsen 6:07

and even when you, like you said, You do learn about their their personal lives, but only in the way that it would come out in the course of their shift work. Right, right? The only way you learn about their backstories. And so Noah Wiley plays Dr Robbie. He is the, what is the he's the head honcho. What do they call?

Carolyn Cochrane 6:25

Yeah, he's the attending, attending. He is, I think, the he might be like the head of the emergency department, like administrative ish kind of

Kristin Nilsen 6:35

title that's even more micro. It's not even in the hospital, it is in the emergency department. One shift in the emergency department, you don't go to other parts of the hospital. You might have other doctors coming in from other parts of the hospital, but it is all so micro. There is a microscope on this one day, one shift at it, one hour at a time, and I can't remember what my point was. So, let's move I know what it was. It was so, Dr Robbie Noah Wiley plays Dr Robbie the attending. Now I know that's the word, and we he's an elusive character. We don't know much about his personal life, but we know a lot about his internal life. We don't know it takes us a long time to figure out that he's not married, that he doesn't have any children. All this comes out little by little, but he has some real flaws and some real internal issues, and so we learn about those issues as they come out in the course of his shift. But it's like you said, it's very it's it's different in that, no, we're not seeing them at home. We're not there are no love triangles. There's there are no personal relationships, except in how it would develop in the emergency department, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 7:50

It's such a great show on so many levels. The writing is beyond I mean, it is so good, and the dialog is Michelle, referred to before you learn so much through the dialog, and it's so fast paced. I mean, that did kind of remind me of the arts, and it's it's so amazing. And I want to get back to Noah Wiley, because I think he's kind of our Gen X connection on this show in more ways than one, because he is a Gen Xer to begin with. I mean, that is his character. Is a Gen Xer. I'm not sure his character in the show, but I know in in real life, he's maybe 5758 so he's right smack with us. So when he is communicating to these younger med students, he's coming from his Gen X self and trying to relate to these, you know, what are they? Gen Zers, I guess

Kristin Nilsen 8:43

a lot of them, yeah.

Carolyn Cochrane 8:45

And so you in their 20s.

Kristin Nilsen 8:47

They're all in their 20s, basically.

Carolyn Cochrane 8:49

And you see the writers do such a great job of differentiating the whether it's the work ethic, the pop culture references, any of those things by generation and so, so fun when Dr Robbie and Dana, Nurse Dana will will drop some kind of one liners where, all of a sudden I'm like, I feel seen, whether it's you know, referring to the fact that you know, these kids can't communicate without emojis and a text Like, you know, they don't even know how to have a conversation or explain things. So let's talk a little bit about that. Like those moments when we're watching the show and we're like, Yes, oh my gosh. You know, that's exactly what I would say. That is such a Gen X thing, because I feel like Robbie really portray or Dr Robbie just some of the characteristics of what we say the Generation X is in terms of how they walk through life, and maybe don't share a whole lot or a little bit more. Put your nose down, get your work done. At the top of all

Kristin Nilsen 9:55

of that, which is one of the biggest themes, is that Dr Robby won't go home. It. The end of his shift, and he won't go home because there's more work to be done. And everyone keeps saying, Robbie, you got to go. Robbie, go, go. And he's like, what? But I've got this to do, and I've got this to do, and I've got this to do. And then contrast that with the medical students who you have, like, a gunshot wound coming in the door, and they're like, clocking out and and Dana the same way. Dana, she's the head of nursing, she will not go home. She's like, No, I'll be fine. I'll just do this paperwork here. Oh, we got to take care of this. Dana, go home. No, I'm not going to go home. I feel that so strongly, and it's hard to say who is right and who is wrong, because what we're seeing is that these younger kids have real strong boundaries to take care of themselves. They're not uncaring about the things that are unfolding in front of them, but they know when they've had enough and it's time to go. Whereas the Gen Xers have they can't stop giving they can't stop checking the box.

Michelle Newman 10:55

And I think for in in season two, I think one of the things you come to find out, I probably about five or six episodes into the season, is Dr Robbie. He doesn't want to go because he's got a lot more going on internally, just like you said, Kristen, and that we're not going to get into necessarily, the plot of season two today. But, and I just wanted to say because I know there's people out there fact checking Carolyn right now?

Carolyn Cochrane 11:21

Oh, he's 55

Michelle Newman 11:23

he's not 58 Okay, okay, okay, but I got to say people are gonna be like he's Yeah, Catherine Lanessa is 59 fun fact. I interviewed her for Entertainment Weekly years ago when she was on a show called satisfaction, and I was doing recaps for Entertainment Weekly, and I got to do an interview and write the whole thing. The sad thing is, is I can't find it. So people probably think I'm lying. I'm not. The reason I think you can't find it. You can find a lot of my TV recaps, but I also wrote for a like, a blog of Entertainment Weekly, and that's when, that's what I was covering satisfaction for. It was under the ew.com banner, but it was almost like a sub little thing. Anyway, that's what. She was lovely. Her character was despicable in the show I was recapping, because I watched it all the time. But that was my very first encounter with, like, doing what I'm doing now, and I had no idea. And it was NASA, and here's what's interesting. And you guys, she could not have been lovelier to me. And I was sort of like, I remember thinking and telling my husband, because he was watching it along with me, and I forgot the character's name now, but I was sort of like, oh, that's the one I have to interview. I don't like her. I didn't like let's meet, let me be clear. I didn't like the character. I don't like her. And you guys, she couldn't have been more lovely and more kind and gracious to me as somebody who, you know, I didn't necessarily know what I was doing, but here's what else is funny. I did not know that's who that was for, like, the first 10 episodes, until I was reading something and I that name. I was like, why does that name sound familiar? And I was like, and I looked at her credits, and I was like, oh my god, I actually interviewed her and wrote up a whole interview for Daisy. Anyway, I'm going to jump into this Gen X connection. Carolyn, your question that you did ask, because I just want us to. There's so many, and I know you guys are going to come up with ones I didn't think of, but there was nothing more just delightful and delicious to me than the episode. So listeners, one of the big plot points is the computer system has been hacked, so they have to go analog and one whole episode. And it might be two, but I think I know for sure almost all of them aren't they? No, it was like there was one very specific one, but yes, they're under analog for several hours the day, which would be if it's several hours, that's several episodes? Yeah. I mean, it's every so you really now get to see, like, about four generations trying to understand. First of all, some of them don't know what analog means. And this would be younger ones. Some of them have zero idea what a fax machine is. It starts. They don't know. I would say none of the docs younger than about 35 know how either what a triple carbon sheet is or how to use it and that you have to use a ballpoint. Yeah, they don't understand a chart rack. They don't know about grabbing a clipboard and going in. If you go back and watch that the expressions of all the young doctors and interns and residents, their expressions the way they're like, shooting glances at each other, or the eye rolls when they tell them, like, it's so Gen Z, it's so like, ugh, what I have to do all this work by hand. I don't know even how to write in cursive, you know, because they don't, they don't, don't write anymore. And there's a thread through this whole thing, once the computers break down, what is her name? You guys? Issa. What's her name? The doctor Santos, Santos, Dr Santos.

Kristin Nilsen 14:59

Oh. It. There's

Michelle Newman 15:01

this thread that runs through, like, the last five episodes of the season. She has to do all her charts, and she she's like, just like falling asleep doing them, because at first she was having to her little mic. Well, yeah, but at first she had to write them all down. And can you imagine how long that took, like,

Kristin Nilsen 15:17

third grader doing their homework? That's what this was.

Michelle Newman 15:21

But imagine you had never done it like you get the Gen Xers and the boomers. You get all that those generations who are in there working going, Hey, we know how to do this. We used to have to do this all the time. We know how to write, and this is what we had to do. But you've got all these young just kind of petulant interns and residents going, what we have to write. They can't believe it. And so to me, that was just delightful.

Carolyn Cochrane 15:47

Yeah, and you know what? This is a testament to the fact that writing and knowing these analog or having these analog skills, it's not like old school, this whole shutting the computer system down because of getting ransom attacks. That's real stuff all the time, right? Computer System can easily go go down. I mean, not, maybe not easily, but in this world we live in, you need to know those you need to have those skills. So

Kristin Nilsen 16:17

guaranteed there. We don't where is the cloud and what happens when he goes

Carolyn Cochrane 16:23

away, bro decides they're just gonna flip some switch and we have nothing, you know? Well, Robbie will probably still have CDs, and so will Dana. They'll go home, and they'll have a life, and those Gen Zers will be like, What do I do?

Kristin Nilsen 16:34

I mean, thank God they had the Gen Xers on staff who say, Okay, everybody, this is what we're gonna do. This is a chart. It's a clipboard. Then you put the clipboard in this clipboard holder, and then you take this triplicate, you do it in triplicate, and they had a system ready to go. What if none of those people were there?

Carolyn Cochrane 16:51

Right? Yeah, they had to

Kristin Nilsen 16:52

shut the hospital, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 16:55

We are, we are a valuable. We are a valuable, I don't want to say commodity, because we are human beings, but Gen X of a certain age, you know, they're seen as maybe like, Oh, they're making too much money in their job. Now, let's get rid of them. Lay them off. Hire the younger kids who know all this stuff, but they don't realize what a valuable resource we

Kristin Nilsen 17:14

are in that we did it in reverse, right? We started out analog and became digital. So we have both competencies, yeah, those that only have one competency, and they can't do the learning we exactly. We came along and we learned all of these things. How come we don't get credit for that? And then you

Michelle Newman 17:34

got the boomer nurse who they bring back in for the day, and she just cannot. She just she has zero patients for the younger ones, but at least the Gen Xers Have some patience

Kristin Nilsen 17:45

with them. They do at least they're trying to bring them along. And they're like, put on your big girl pants. Let's go. Whereas the boomer nurse is just

Michelle Newman 17:51

being mean, and the millennials, because you definitely have some of the doctors that are, you know, probably born, you know, they're probably, let me be real, they're probably my daughter's age, so

Carolyn Cochrane 18:02

Well, I love to what you had just said, Kristen. I mean, there's a, this is an exact quote that Rob Dr Robbie says when somebody's complaining to him about, like, you know, Oh, that's right, I forgot you didn't, you know, grow up with phones or have phones. And he said, kind of as they walk away under his breath, we had phones, just not at the beginning. So that's the thing, and which is, to your point, like it takes even more of a special skill to go from not having to having to learn and now using versus that's like our kids, that's all they've known. Or, yeah, you know, a little bit younger, I guess. But anyway, let's

Michelle Newman 18:37

just pause. Let's just give Generation X a big hand right now.

Kristin Nilsen 18:46

It's not fair. We're the ones who speak two languages Exactly.

Carolyn Cochrane 18:51

They need us.

Kristin Nilsen 18:52

They need us. Yeah, they really do need us.

Carolyn Cochrane 18:55

So I think that the show shows us in and especially, like you said, Michelle, in these several episodes where everything was analog. Boy, those references, and, you know, examples are coming to us, left and right. Fax machine, yeah,

Michelle Newman 19:11

they pull it out. It's like, and they like, pulled it out of the garbage. They like, clunk it on the counter. And it's as if it weighs, like, 400 pounds. And they're all like, like, the like, the young ones are like, they

Carolyn Cochrane 19:23

have to get toner. Remember? They're like, toner, toner.

Kristin Nilsen 19:29

Yeah, I remember you would have, like, the toner guy would come to your office. I knew people,

Carolyn Cochrane 19:37

yeah, any other, like, references, Gen X ones that you guys picked up on, or

Kristin Nilsen 19:43

actually, because I just watched, I watched the last two episodes in quick succession, and I was alerted at this point that Gen X references were something that they were they were obviously doing. It had to be on purpose. There's no way that it wasn't. So I started listening, and I started writing, and then down, this is. Just in the last two episodes of the show, they start out with somebody saying something. And Dr laden, is that his name? Layden, Layton Langdon. Thank you so cute. Doctor. He's very, very cute. And Dr Langdon looks and says, is that a Rumble Fish quote? I was like Rumble Fish. I can't and I should have looked up to see what the quote was. And then the next one is from Dr Santos. And this was impressive, because she's a Gen Z er, and she's getting quippy about something, and she's what somebody wants to know where something is, who has it and where is it? And she says, I thought it was Colonel Mustard in the library. Yeah. And one of the younger kids looks at her like, what are you this is Whittaker. Yeah, Whitaker looks at her like, What are you talking about? She goes, clue. So every time there's a Gen X reference dropped, somebody is confused, and somebody goes, what you don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's and that's one of those giving Gen Xers a nod kind of thing. Like they're acknowledging that we have this knowledge, and other people are not getting us at this moment in time. Not everybody's picking up on our references. You can't just drop a reference.

Michelle Newman 21:07

Well, there was a whole episode where there was a whole conversation about sticks, about the band sticks, and it goes back and forth. It's almost like a who's on first type

Kristin Nilsen 21:17

of all the songs, and then it's going back

Michelle Newman 21:20

and then it's going back and forth. And it's just very comical when you're in on the joke, when you are someone who knows who sticks are. Because many of these people watching are millennials, Gen z's, Gen Z ers, or whatever. So if you're if the you know they're talking about sticks, there's people watching it who are right with the ones going, what? Who? What are you talking about?

Kristin Nilsen 21:40

And it kind of is acknowledging that this is happening in the workplace, that we have references that other people aren't going to understand. And we're kind of in a moment too, where generations are fighting. It's kind of, it's weird. I think it's an internet thing. I think it's something that social media does for clicks and likes. But what they do is they pit the generations against one another. And right yeah, and right now, Gen X is the punching bag, and a lot of it is because people lump Gen X in with boomers. And that is not accurate. We are fully and completely and utterly I feel like right now from boomers, but

Michelle Newman 22:17

I feel like the part in living on a prairie I want to be like when she's like, Little House on the Prairie is not the wall, not the wall. I want to be like Gen X, not boomers.

Kristin Nilsen 22:27

Yeah. And that's kind of what they're doing right now. And so I think that is sort of an what they're doing in the show is acknowledging that that is what is happening out in the world, is that generations are being pitted against each other. I don't know what they did. I mean, medical students have always been a couple of generations behind attending so I don't know if this didn't happen before. I'm not sure, but it's, it's, they're definitely addressing generational agita. Wow, not that they don't love each other. Yeah, they really do. They're not. They're not combatants by any means. They're just showing where we're irritated with each other and where we're not on the same page, and how we how we're they're trying to bring everybody onto the same page.

Michelle Newman 23:11

And it's a good ensemble, because it's the show is a good representation of that. It's a good representation of this ensemble is made up of probably three generations. And not all ensemble shows are like that. You see a show where the whole ensemble are age mates, basically generation mates. So that's one thing that's really fun about watching this too, is I recognize traits that my daughters have in some of these young doctors. You know for sure.

Kristin Nilsen 23:40

So the the other, the the other, the other reference that, I think this is the biggest Gen X reference drop, I think, out of the out of both seasons, not only the whole show, but of both seasons. And that is a conflict between Huckleberry, aka Whitaker, and Dr Langdon. They're of two different generations. Dr Whitaker is one of the interns. And is that what he is now? Is he an intern?

Carolyn Cochrane 24:05

He's a Is he not a resident

Kristin Nilsen 24:12

here? Oh yeah, he's our two he's

Michelle Newman 24:15

and my daughter's girlfriend is in medical school, and I've asked her to explain this whole thing to me so many times, like she's about to start rotations, and I'm like, now, what does that mean in this? And I still don't know. I still don't

Kristin Nilsen 24:26

retain it. No, I don't retain it even after watching 11 years of er, so I know how to work a fabric machine. They are of two different strata, and Dr Langdon is probably a millennial, and Dr Whitaker is a Gen Z, er, and they are two different one is our two. One is a resident. And Dr Whitaker turns he's this mild mannered, lovely kind, kind of doting doctor. And he turns on Dr Langdon in a very un in a very way that we don't know about, who we've never seen him be this way before. And he's like, quit it. Quit treating me like a subordinate. I don't like it. You keep treating me like like you're the skipper and I'm Gilligan. And I was like, whoa, okay. And then Dr Langdon just so quickly, he says, I'm not the skipper. Dr Robbie is the skipper. And then Whitaker comes back and says, No. Dr Robbie is the professor. Dana is the is the skipper. And it was so good. So it diffused the moment so well, and it was speaking exactly to us, and it humanized these two characters. And it was a great moment, because we had never seen Whittaker be so fierce. He's so mild mannered. And here he was sticking up for himself, and we have this funny little Gilligan interchange.

Michelle Newman 25:41

And then he's gonna only be like, 27 Yeah, for him to know specifically, like, the ranking order of the, you know, the stranded

Kristin Nilsen 25:50

of the Gilligan Islanders. Yeah, like, you're the skipper and I'm Gilligan quit. So funny. And then we have to talk about the last last scene. I'm not giving anything away here. It was a very unusual move in that usually the the show ends and the credits roll. So in this last finale episode, the it goes to black, the credits roll. Oops. But wait, as the credits roll, we get a little, a little square that has Dr King, aka Brian Cranston's daughter and Santos. These two are oil and water. Brian Cranston's daughter, again, a very mild mannered, sort of naive doctor. Dr Santos is sort of a, well, what is she? She's salty, she's

Carolyn Cochrane 26:40

she's gonna around the block, yeah, and

Michelle Newman 26:43

she tells it how it is. She has zero filter, basically no zero filter.

Kristin Nilsen 26:47

And she invites Bryan Cranston's daughter. I'm so sorry to do that, too, Brian Cranston's daughter, but you got to understand that we love that you are Brian Cranston's daughter. That makes us happy. So yeah. Dr, Mel, so she invites her out for karaoke after this hellacious shift. Remember, the whole season is one shift, and it was horrible, including the fact that they're Yeah, that their digital systems went down. And we see them during while the credits roll, they are doing karaoke to, you ought to know, by Alanis Morissette, and they are head banging, and they are screaming. They're screaming out all of their angst, and it seemed to just wrap up the show so perfectly, while also giving a nod to their Gen Xers at the same time, yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 27:35

and threads exploded when that happened. They were like, Oh my gosh. And then Alanis Morris said she tweeted, I tweeted threaded, I don't really know where, yeah, I don't know what platform she was on, but she said, paging, Dr Santos, paging, Doc, wait, what's, what's? Dr Yeah. Dr King, yeah, paging, Dr King, Dr Santos. And then the actress who plays Dr Santos was like, flipping out. So she's like, re tweeting, whatever, writing, whatever she's doing. So it was really, a really sweet moment. And you know what? We're not all that. Maybe there are these moments of connection we can find between generations. You know, it doesn't have to be like, oh, you know all this. We know all that. And I do think that the show, in a way, shows us some of that in different examples. For instance, there is a storyline where Dr Javadi, and I don't know what are, she is 123, or whatever, she's actually has this Tiktok following where she's kind of offering maybe some medical advice and stuff, and she's kind of famous on Tiktok, and there's a scene where she's, like, on her phone, and Dr Robbie sees her, and kind of just goes off, and it's like, get off that thing. And you shouldn't be on that Tiktok, whatever. He makes kind of a big scene about it, and then somebody talks to him a little bit about it. And then later on in the episode, without necessarily apologizing to her, in his own way, he was like, but he did say something like, that's kind of cool. I watched some of your videos and keep it up, that kind of thing. And so I also find within this TV show that we find these moments of it's not all or nothing, kind of like you bring strengths as your generation, and we bring strengths as our generation, and let's lean into those strengths. And so I felt like that was another example of that was the whole Tiktok, and he was like, get off

Kristin Nilsen 29:33

that, because he's he's trying to paint it with a broad brush, as if she is using company time to do frivolous tasks, when in actuality, what she's doing is she's trying to offer self care tips for young doctors. How do you survive out here? Because this is an issue that our healthcare workers are drowning in burnout, and she's trying to help them. And so he finally understands that that's what she's doing. She's not just, you know, doing makeup tips for doctors, but. There's also there's, I think it was a patient, like an old woman who's like she's on the tic tac.

Carolyn Cochrane 30:07

Would be our silent generation. People that come in, they're often the patient, but

Michelle Newman 30:13

they also do a very good job. Not it's not just the doctors and the residents who have different very obvious examples of living their generation, like Like Dr Javadi, you know, having a very famous Tiktok account. The writers do a really good job of all the patients and understand again, listeners, this is one day. So we often see patients, and then they come into the emergency department for something and they get discharged. So you might only see them for two episodes. You might see someone who's there for the whole 15 hours. You know, the whole 15 hours, some of them go upstairs, they get a bed, whatever. But they do a really, the writers do a great job of bringing in patients, also with different, almost like generational problems, like we've had this season. We it's the fourth of July this day, so we've had the one she's bitten through her tongue, and it's so nasty. But the way she bit through her tongue is they were trying to do a selfie, and so when they took, you know, they're probably 2021, well, maybe they're, I don't know they're, she's drunk out of her just off her ass and the tongue, it's so gross. But the her friend was below her and put her head up really fast when they jerked her head up when they were doing a selfie. That's just one example, but there are other examples of if you look at the age of the patient, and it could just be because, oh, he's in because he's been refusing to take his medication or something, and he's an older person. So this is very typical of a lot of people. As they get older, they're kind of in denial. They don't want so and I know this is real life, I know that the people listening right now might be going, Yeah, Michelle, that actually happens. But what I'm saying is I understand that people but this is a television show, and the writers are doing such a good and very intentional job of showing us the reflecting what's actually happening that is

Carolyn Cochrane 32:03

so true, like those different kind of cases, Andy said, That is such a great portrayal of what actually happens in an emergency room, and where you go from saving someone's life in one room to helping the girl who super glued her eyelashes, her eyelashes together, putting them on like that's another and you have to flip on a dime. And that's so realistic as to what those Ed doctors face. So, yeah, sometimes it's a generational selfie, bite through the tongue. Another, it's they're not taking their medicine and need to be, you know, maybe go on to extended living. Is that

Kristin Nilsen 32:40

what it's called, oh yeah. There is yeah, there is stuff. This is, again, a nod to the Gen Xers, people whose parents will not leave their home. They can't. It's time for them to move into a place where they can get more help, and their parents are not listening to them. And they're like, did you tell your parents you need they need help? Like, believe me, I cried. They're gonna fall down the stairs and die, but they listen, yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 33:05

which again, to the writers. I don't have any words anymore, people, to their credit, to the writers credit, I feel seen so many watching this show, like this realistic scenario that I'm facing as well, whether it's a medical one and in those rooms, or just an everyday life one where you're like, Yes, I'm not. People aren't forgetting about me. You know, we keep saying like, you know, when everyone ignores us, or at all, everyone ignores us now, but I want,

Kristin Nilsen 33:39

I want to know who these writers are and how old they are, and if they come directly from the staff of er, because I do feel like they're speaking directly to us. And here is a convergence of the two things that you just talked about, where they're taking modern day generational issues and where it's overlapping with something that comes directly from er, everybody I'm talking about pre eclampsia. So buckle up. Here we go. I got it now. It comes into the ER and she is, would be of this is a, this is a trend that is happening. It's, it's among the tradwives. It's among the RFK followers, where they're refusing prenatal care. She wants to have what's called, was it a wild birth? Wild birth? She says, women have been doing this for millennia by themselves. We don't need doctors. We don't need medicine. Well, guess what? She's got preeclampsia, and they're like, the hell you don't? Yeah. So come with me. Everybody. Back to 1995 oh, I can't episode of er that taught us all the word pre eclampsia. It was the saddest and most harrowing and most heartbreaking episode of television I think anyone of our generation had ever seen up to that point, and that was an episode where Dr green Anthony Edwards, Edwards, thank you, goose. From Top Gun, married Tamara Winningham. That's right, married Tamara Winningham, that's where a woman comes into the ER with pre eclampsia with her husband. And now the episode becomes about saving the mother and the baby. If you recall, the mother did not make it, and the last scene of that show is the father rocking his new baby? I can't and exactly

Carolyn Cochrane 35:25

the father, Bradley Whitford.

Kristin Nilsen 35:27

Oh, my God, you might be right.

Michelle Newman 35:30

Yes, here's what I remember about that I didn't, did not remember that it was pre eclampsia that she had. But I have very specific memories of getting up out of my where I was sitting on the sofa crying, walking out of the room, and saying to Brian, I'm done with this show. I can't watch this show anymore. I have not. And then I proceeded to watch it for another like, 10 years. But right that I had totally I didn't connect the two Kristin. I didn't connect that nod to the

Kristin Nilsen 35:58

whole Oh my god. When she came in and she was pregnant, I said to Mike, preeclampsia, and then he pokes on her, on her ankle, and it's popping like, What did I tell you? Preeclampsia? Dr green. It's exactly the same as Dr green. It's gonna be preeclampsia, and I'm just waiting for her to die, and I'm not gonna tell anybody what happens. But That episode was historic, and you guys, I actually that's the episode that got me to watch. Er, because I just heard about it from everybody, they're like, oh my god, did you see the pre eclampsia episode? And I hadn't. So I started watching. Er, after that point, I eventually did see it in reruns and did the same thing as you. Michelle, I don't think I can ever watch TV ever again.

Carolyn Cochrane 36:39

That's so common. So of course, that was a big thread on the social media platforms when this past, I guess it was, was it this all these together? Yeah, okay, so in the season finale, there is a very similar storyline, and people are like, do not go there. Do not do this to us. Again. You cannot do this?

Michelle Newman 37:02

Yes, I just thought of something what? But the episode does end with a man rocking a baby.

Kristin Nilsen 37:09

Oh my god. You guys, I tell you, nipple lightning,

Carolyn Cochrane 37:17

yes, yes. Oh my gosh.

Kristin Nilsen 37:18

They're doing it on purpose. They're doing, they have

Carolyn Cochrane 37:21

to be, well, yes, my gosh, how genius, because it keeps us talking about it. And then we're going to kind of wrap this, this episode, well, the season finale episode up of the pit, because there's a scene on the rooftop, so it's kind of the end of the people shifts, and it's Fourth of July, oh, which, by the way, someone pointed out they're rewatching, er, as they're watching the pit. And it was season, I think, season three, episode one of er, Dr Carter Noah Wiley's character is officially a doctor. Then on. Er, and the date flashes up on the screen. And it was July 4, 6:55am, oh, yes, which is the day that we are spending with in the ER, with them, there's also that the sunburn character, you know, there's the sunburn patient. There was a sunburn patient on. Er, just like it.

Kristin Nilsen 38:17

Go right ahead. I'm happy with it. Wait, you recycle it all. You guys do

Michelle Newman 38:20

know that the patient in this season, she was only on for one episode, but she had been taking too much, and that's really Noah Wiley's wife? You guys, yeah, I didn't know that she's so cute. And the

Carolyn Cochrane 38:34

eyelash Super Glue girl, that's Dr Langdon Patrick ball's significant other.

Kristin Nilsen 38:41

Can I be on the show?

Michelle Newman 38:43

Yeah, we could all go on, like, our like, our headphones got stuck to our ear, or we got each other, and Kristen has a mic, like, stuck in her throat because we shoved it down.

Kristin Nilsen 38:57

It's sticking out right here.

Carolyn Cochrane 38:59

It's going to be the episode where they say something to like Noah Wiley, you'll say something one of these Gen Zers, like, just go listen to the pop culture Preservation Society, and you'll understand, like, what all these references are

Kristin Nilsen 39:12

Gilligan is. That's right. That's all

Michelle Newman 39:15

we need. We just need a shout out. Y'all, just somebody who's listening right now, if you have any connection, any connections.

Carolyn Cochrane 39:21

That's right, we are the through the through thread, yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 39:25

three line, whatever. It's very clear that they're that they are lovingly acknowledging that we, the people who watched er, are here for it, and they are giving us what we want. And I want to say thank you to them, because it's working, it's working. And it's kind of like you asked earlier Carolyn, like, does this does this show feel nostalgic, or does it feel old, or does it feel new? And the truth is, it doesn't feel nostalgic at all. There's nothing old about it, but it is taking something from the past and inserting it into TV that's been. Missing for a long time that I didn't know. Yes, exactly. This is character driven, workplace drama, like Hill Street Blues, like LA law, like saying elsewhere, and it's not nowadays. TV is very plot driven. It's about what happens and not what happens to whom Gen Xers were about the people, not the plot line, like when we showed up for TV. We were about the people. We were about Sam and Diane. It wasn't necessarily about the plot we loved the people. We loved Dr Carter and Dr green. Now we love Dr Robbie and Dana. So we're showing up for the people, not necessarily for the plot lines. There's great stuff that happens, that's great writing, but a lot of the especially limited series and things like that that aren't necessarily continuing, but they hope that it will continue. But why would it continue? Because you wrapped up the story that's all about what happens, and we don't care who the who is. I think also a lot of there's a lot of hospital dramas. There's, you know, Chicago Fire and Chicago Med, and this that, and there are lots of things like that on TV where this show differs and is more like things from the past. Is that this show is full of very distinct characters. It's not just beautiful people falling in love or getting divorced. It's not the sometimes those beautiful people, they all run together, and I can't distinguish them from another, from one another. These characters are so distinct. You have, you know, we've talked about, so diverse from all the different generational people. But you also have, you know, the woman who is like, super far right? And then you have the other people who are more progressive. You have a woman in a hijab. You have the two women who speak Tagalog. You have there's somebody else who speaks, I don't know what language it is, but it's a Middle

Michelle Newman 41:48

Eastern language, Armenian, wasn't it? It was, it was when the night shift comes on, and that girl at the bangs, yeah, gosh, she got put on the spot a lot with that. Uh, Dr Al asheen and Dr al asheen that she could talk to her. She was very excited about that.

Kristin Nilsen 42:07

Yeah, yeah. And the and some of these people are are just doing it by the seat of their pants. There are no heroes. They're all human beings. They all have flaws. Every single one of them. There's nobody who is the character that that is going to save the day. Sometimes they're really lucky, and they do save the day, but the next day, they could turn around and one of their patients dies because of something that they did. It's so varied, and that's kind of what we saw on La law and Hill Street Blues and saying elsewhere, these were all real

Carolyn Cochrane 42:35

people to your point, I think that's what feels maybe nostalgic isn't the right word, but something that I was missing in my TV shows, and watching on TV, and you feel like that feels like a comfort or a warmth, like I do remember this in my cells somewhere, and what it brought me, and I love experiencing it again, and I love that a new generation and new people can see This, yeah, and it's

Michelle Newman 43:01

interesting, because I agree with you, and I bet, I bet, every episode, I spend 20 minutes of it with my hands over my eyes, because I'm not. I can't watch like them cut into someone. I don't even like to watch them give someone a shot. So I but I still love it. It's like, I yeah, they love the people. Because, yeah, and it's the people. But, like I said way back at the beginning, I loved, er a lot, because I loved the relationships between them, even off, even not at the hospital. Like, I loved, you know, I loved, you know, Carolyn, Dr Ross, like that. You know, falling in love with their love story and blah, blah, blah, this. You don't get any of that. So what is it for me that I love? And I think it's just the very realness of it that I love, and I love the no Wiley quick. So is Langdon actually, there's, there's a lot of the doctors that are pretty cute, but it's the, it's the really fast paced dialog, and like we've been saying, it's the very clever dialog. You're always gonna You're always gonna get something like the Gilligan little exchange or whatever. So and I, actually, I kind of get invested in the patience a lot.

Carolyn Cochrane 44:15

Oh, absolutely, yeah. Which, again, what a testament to the writing. Because sometimes these people are only on your screen for one episode, but you are so invested in their storyline, or maybe it's a couple of episodes over a few hours, because there were some

Kristin Nilsen 44:33

kid in the car, no no

Michelle Newman 44:38

with cancer, and then she had the doula, who? What you guys? Did you guys ever watch the show Ed? We were like, because she's a nurse in the hospital too, who was her death doula? And we are like, Who is that she was on? Ed, way, way, way back in the day. But, yeah, that one was so heartbreaking, right?

Kristin Nilsen 44:55

I should say too that quickly. I don't speak Tagalog, and I don't actually know that those. When we're speaking Tagalog, but I think it's Tagalog, because I think they're Filipino, but I don't know any of that. Okay, sorry,

Carolyn Cochrane 45:05

I think you're right. I think I maybe even read that somewhere. But I was going to say how, Michelle, you were just talking about how you were looking at a character or an actor and like, how do I know that person, or what are they from? Well, I spend half of the time thinking that, like Andy, what do we know them from? Like they look familiar. There's so much of that. And what's particularly interesting is there are so many crossovers from people that had been on, er, that are are like guest stars or no, I'm going to tell you some of them right now. There was a great article in TV Line, and I'll link to it in the show notes, but that goes through and tells you what each of these actors their character in, er, and then their character in in the pit. So I'm going to start from the very beginning and say that Katherine lanasa, our nurse, Dana, was a guest star on Oh my gosh. Er, so was Sean had to see who plays Dr Abbott, Michael Hyatt, or, well, hold on, I guess it's how you pronounce. It's her name. But anyway, Michael Hyatt, she plays that chief medical officer who comes down and always wants to know about patient satisfaction. So my husband's in hospital administration. And, yeah, it's so anyway, yeah, so that's that actress's name, yeah. Michael Hyatt, she plays Gloria Underwood, but she was also a guest star on Er So was a woman named Tracy Villar. She plays the ward clerk. You would remember her if you saw her face. Ernest Harden, who was in season. He played Louie. Louie, who we lose in

Kristin Nilsen 46:39

the season. He was very familiar.

Carolyn Cochrane 46:41

He looks very familiar. He was on. Er, there are a few other guests that you might remember. Guest stars. There was the guy who punched Dane in the face, Drew Powell. That was in season one. He's also was on. Er, Jenny O'Hara she, she's actually, you would recognize her from a lot of things, but she was the, this was a funny Gen generational storyline. She was the older woman who had started taking or taking marijuana for some of her medical issues, and so she overdosed basically on marijuana. Chocolate chip cookies that were had marijuana in them because she didn't realize and so she was having excessive vomiting because she didn't realize that that was the effect of all eating all that marijuana, the bitchy retired hospital clerk that we talked about, Rusty Schwimmer is her name. She was also on ER Jeff Kober, who played Duke. Duke was, is the one who was like the motorcycle mentor of Robbie's Yes.

Kristin Nilsen 47:37

So familiar,

Carolyn Cochrane 47:39

yes, well, and he's also, this was another Gen X thread that people said, did you not die when we saw I don't know the character's name, but he was a regular on China beach. Did you guys watch China beach?

Unknown Speaker 47:50

Didn't and Dana Delaney, remember that?

Kristin Nilsen 47:54

Yeah. He was one of those faces where I was like, I know him. It's like, he lives in my head, but I couldn't identify it.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:00

Yeah. So he, he was also on ER Mary McCormack, who plays this season in the pit, the neurosurgeon, Dr Conley, who comes down and, like, what do they do? Drill something in someone's brain right there in the emergency room, yeah, probably right after they came out of the super glue eyelashes.

Michelle Newman 48:16

Crazy. She's already signed on for to be a regular next season. Oh, has she

Carolyn Cochrane 48:21

Well, thank you. Well, she was on several seasons of, er, but it was interesting. It was when I don't really remember the storyline that much, but they are in Africa or something. I think Dr Carter is on a mission trip or something. Anyway, she was a nurse or a doctor or something there. So there are these, yeah, these lines of these actors that were on, er, well,

Michelle Newman 48:43

I say we need to see next season. Just coming in, I don't know, yeah, or I was Clooney is just like coming in, like, complaining of excessive diarrhea or

Kristin Nilsen 48:53

something like, he's got a spoon up his nose.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:55

Yeah. Thank you guys so much for letting me have this conversation with someone, and he doesn't get as excited about this stuff as I do. And why Carolyn just watch it for the for the storyline,

Michelle Newman 49:10

that meme of that little cat on the computer every time when new comes

Carolyn Cochrane 49:15

on screen. I try not to do that, because then you miss half of these. I know this camp. This is one of those shows that you really can't be on your phone. I mean, really, let's face it, people, you shouldn't be on your phone. You should just watch the show forgiveness, right? And absorb whether it's this show or paradise. But I have noticed paradise being another one that there is so many, there are so many little easter eggs in some of these things that I think they're purposely doing these shows in that way, so that we can't be on our phones, that we have to be 100% focused. And I appreciate that, because the things

Kristin Nilsen 49:48

might be ruining their industry, they're realizing that people can't pay attention to us because they're interrupting themselves. So everybody puts your phone on the charger when it's time to watch your story.

Carolyn Cochrane 49:57

Get on it afterwards when you want to ask everybody, let's do. You see Anthony Edwards from 1997 on the final scene? Yes. So anyway, thank you, ladies, because my husband won't do this, and I'm so glad that

Michelle Newman 50:09

you guys, we got you, all you have to do is be like. You guys want to talk about a show we all love? Yeah, sure. How can we, how can we make it be like Gen X is very easy. This one was very easy, especially

Kristin Nilsen 50:25

the last two episodes I know really seriously. It's so hard, so hard. Give me a break. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thanks for being here with us. We will see you again next week. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Three's Company, two good times,

Unknown Speaker 50:45

two Happy Days to

Carolyn Cochrane 50:46

Little House on the Prairie.

Kristin Nilsen 50:49

Cheers. Cheers. The information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs is written, produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards, Nanu. Nanu, keep on truckin, and May the Force Be With You. You.