‘The Pitt’ Just Changed My Mind About the Show’s Most Hated Character in 5 Minutes

Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 Episode 13.

Unlike other medical shows such as ER and Grey’s Anatomy, The Pitt doesn’t travel outside the hospital and follow its characters home to their personal lives. With each episode covering one hour of a 15-hour shift in real time, what you see is what you get. The focus of the HBO Max series is the chaos of the job, where anything can happen, and what the viewer learns about a character is often through how they react to the day’s stress. With three hours remaining in Season 2, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) is veering toward a breakdown, and charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) isn’t far behind.

The Pitt has a wide array of memorable personality traits across its fictional doctors and nurses, but most of the characters are redeemable in their own way, except for one: James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson). No shade to the actor who plays him; Iverson does a superb job at being an insufferable jerk, but the fourth-year resident is cocky, overly competitive, and never shows much care for anyone, patients included. However, after The Pitt Season 2’s latest episode, I’ve changed my opinion on the guy, with one scene in particular making me want to see him succeed and even return for Season 3.

There’s Very Little to Like About Ogilvie on ‘The Pitt’ Season 2

Not everyone on The Pitt is someone you’d want to have a beer with after work, but the characters still feel like real people, flaws and all. Even Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), who initially enters Season 2 as an interim replacement for Robby who talks up the advantages of A.I., becomes someone worth caring about in every revealing scene. The same can’t really be said for Ogilvie, who has been infuriating from his very first appearance. A few other newbies have shown up during this Fourth of July shift as well, like new nurse Emma Nolan (Laëtitia Hollard) and super smart third-year med student Joy Kwon (Irene Choi). Next to them, Ogilvie seems to view his job as an opportunity for competition. Rather than being concerned with learning, he wants to one-up his colleagues. When given cases with the more experienced Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez), Ogilvie would rather deliver the right answer before she does than initiate any meaningful collaboration.

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Even worse is how Ogilvie treats the patients who have ended up in the Pitt this season. He judges first and treats second, questioning their actions to their face with the implication that it’s all their fault they’ve ended up in this predicament. When the gregarious Louie Cloverfield (Ernest Harden Jr.) dies, his years of alcoholism having caught up with him, it’s heartbreaking for both the audience and the characters, but Ogilvie’s response to learning the news of Louie’s passing is to make snarky comments about it. At one point, his behavior gets so bad that Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) has to tell him to cut it out.

An Important Conversation With Whitaker in ‘The Pitt’s Latest Episode Brings Out the Best in Ogilvie

Ogilvie could’ve remained more one-dimensional for the remainder of Season 2, but it felt like it was just a matter of time before his situation reached a breaking point. Perhaps someone would lash out physically, or a moody Robby would give him a stern talking-to. Instead, Ogilvie is blindsided by reality after he finally lets someone past his walls. When Ogilvie meets a patient named Austin Green (Johnny Sneed), his closed-off facade begins to crack. Austin, who is seemingly being seen for treatment of kidney stones, is an English teacher, same as Ogilvie’s own father. The fourth-year resident, who thought he’d be in for a slow day, pulls out a book from his pocket and gives it to Austin to read, a kind act for a man in pain who needs a distraction to pass the time.

However, the cause of Austin’s pain turns out to be much more serious, and the man is rushed into surgery, only to die on the operating table. When Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) discuss the outcome, Santos, never one to hold back, blames the hospital’s network being offline, the patient not disclosing his past serious issues, and even Ogilvie for not asking the right questions. Whitaker, the kindest of the bunch, goes looking for Ogilvie and finds him outside in the ambulance bay, still wearing his blood-stained gown from surgery, tears silently streaming from his eyes. The reveal is an unexpected jolt and hard to watch.

Ogilvie doesn’t know if he can take another day like this one, but Whitaker admits that he loves taking care of people on the worst day of their lives. For once, Ogilvie truly listens. He might be like a lot of young newbies, coming in cocky and not expecting to do much, using a bad attitude as a form of deflection before meeting the one patient who changes everything. For Ogilvie, it took losing a man who reminded him of his own father to reveal deeper layers to his character, and Episode 13’s pivotal scene between him and Whitaker makes it impossible for me to hate him now. If we ever see Ogilvie again, he won’t be the same person who first appeared on The Pitt Season 2.