SPOILER ALERT: The following will reveal plot points from the Season 2 finale of HBO Max‘s The Pitt.
When Deadline asked The Pitt star Katherine LaNasa to look back on her character, charge nurse Dana Evans’ journey in Season 2, she said, “Wow, it’s so messy, right?” And it has been messy.
When the show premiered back in January, it had been nearly a year since the events of Season 1 that saw Dana brutally assaulted by a patient, and she was right back into the swing of things as the momma bear of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room in Season 2. This season brought with it its own challenges.
LaNasa continued, “That’s what I like about it. They don’t wrap everything up in a bow, and they let things be more lifelike. I don’t think that she’s very wrapped up. It was her getting in touch with her rage in a way that shows how she feels about the violence in the hospital. I think she’s just had it, and she’s furious. In one area, she doesn’t feel taken care of in terms of the violence that she’s having to try to protect herself and her nurses from in the hospital. She thinks that the hospital should be doing more to take care of her and care more.”
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LaNasa recalled how, in Episode 9, Dana was “dealing with this poor sexual assault victim,” and then law enforcement, charged with picking up the rape kits on a regular basis, had no decency to show up as expected. This is a storyline that comes back in the Season 2 finale, which aired last night, when Dana calls out detectives in the ER for not giving the delicate evidence the level of importance that it requires.
“There’s this sort of rage about the lack of care and protection against women. And I think these women nurses, and the sexual assault victims, are just projections of ourselves and the deep, sort of upset and sadness and anger about it. She’s becoming very in touch with that. It’s to the breaking point with her.”
Series creator R. Scott Gemmill shared why they chose to highlight the story of a rape survivor.
“That was a really important story that we wanted to tell, and we wanted to take the time it takes to really show what happens, to try and demystify it and make it more palatable. It shows Dana’s empathy as a SANE nurse, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. [Tina Ivlev], who played Ilana, the victim, was amazing,” he said.
Adding, “Every woman has gone through feeling victimized at some point. Whether [Dana] was a victim of rape herself, we haven’t said, but she’s empathetic. She knows that this is the worst day in this young woman’s life, and how much courage it took her to come in. She just feels so sorry for this individual and wishes she could make it all go away. She does the best she can do.”
One aspect LaNasa enjoyed exploring in Season 2 was how it highlighted the hard work that the nurses do.
“They really honored nurses quite a bit this season. And I think that journey with Nurse Emma [Laetitia Hollard], and how brave, smart, and competent she is, and how she’s willing to show up, helped restore [Dana’s] appreciation of her calling to be a nurse. Emma is kind of a projection of herself. She wants to protect Emma, just like she wants someone to protect her. Emma restores [Dana’s] faith in nursing,” said LaNasa
She continued, “I think that the moment that John [Wells] crafted with Perlah and me at the end [photo above] was really very touching. There’s a moment where Dana sees Perlah on the rooftop and knows what she has been through with Louie dying, and just understands what it means to care for these people over many years, and then they pass. The bond that [Dana and Perlah] have is because they go through this together. It was really cool to have that little physical moment together. It was really nice.”