TV Shows In Theaters, Why Not
or how watching The Pitt finale at The Dolby Theatre radicalized me.
Season 2 of The Pitt came to an end last night after 15 episodes that have launched a million questionable tweets. Much has been written about the way fans have been receiving The Pitt in its sophomore season (in short: with a lot of criticism that range from ‘completely fair’ to ‘parasocial madness’). I was admittedly feeling a bit discouraged from engaging with the show these past few weeks, not because I didn’t enjoy the second half of the season, but because the shape of the online discourse exhausted me. Until I found myself watching the finale episode in The Dolby Theatre.
If you aren’t familiar with The Dolby, it’s one of the biggest theaters in Los Angeles that 1) hosts The Oscars and 2) is located inside a mall. It has a 3,300-seat capacity and three levels of steep balconies overlooking the massive orchestra. Watching The Pitt finale here with a sold-out crowd radicalized me. Movies aren’t enough, we need to put (good) TV episodes in theaters, too. There’s something about the design of the theatrical experience that lets your guard down and keeps the proverbial noise out. In those 45 minutes, we were locked in. We laughed, we cried, we crushed on Shawn Hatosy and Luke Tennie. And we did it together. Below are a selection of the most notable crowd reactions from the finale.
Biggest laughs:
Al-Hashimi: “No one’s ever noticed before, they just think I’m thoughtful”
Abbot’s night crawlers speech and every time he said “sounds like a dayshift problem”
Various shots of Santos falling asleep while charting
(probably the biggest laugh of the entire episode) Ellis and Shen carrying the dead body. “Is this dude dead?” “NOPE!”
Mohan’s “The way this day is going, she probably quit”
Every time we cut to a character and they look like they’ve been through a war
Dana trying to convince someone, anyone, to adopt Baby Jane Doe
Robby and Al-Hashimi having a shouting match where everyone could hear
“How can you not love this place?”
Biggest cheers:
Javadi reading every single character and the various ways they’re fucked up
Robby telling Javadi she can do anything she puts her mind to
When the gore really kicked up when Abbot was trying to save the pregnant patient
Dana shouting at the detectives who didn’t pick up the rape kits on time
Santos throwing the “task complete” bell in the trash
Mohan’s “We need you here… even if you can be a dick sometimes” to Robby
The incredible karaoke scene at the end
Loudest groan mixed with nervous laughter:
The entirety of the delivery scene.
Gasp followed by long period of silence:
Abbot: “Do you wanna know why i never killed myself? After what i saw, lived through? Losing my leg, losing my wife. Because it comes for all of us, man. You and I know it more than most. We see it every shift. But we can’t let ourselves or succumb to it. Yes, life can suck. It can be unbearable and brutal and ugly and heartbreaking, but it’s also beautiful. And hilarious. And that woman today, her baby, they’d both be in the morgue if you hadn’t been here.” Engrave my man’s second Emmy now.
All in all, I enjoyed the finale, but probably way more than I would have if I watched it by myself. It made me think of other iconic TV episodes that would have been even more memorable if given a theatrical experience—imagine Connor’s Wedding on an IMAX screen?
PS. A million thanks to Nat of No Context The Pitt for the gracious invite! I told her watching this sitting next to her was like watching Oppenheimer next to Christopher Nolan.
ICYMI this week:
Ok but those last 4 mins with Robby and Baby Jane Doe 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
In the independent theatrical circuit, it does happen. Paramount (I think) recently made theatrical licensing for Twin Peaks available for exhibitors and I’ve seen it on schedules nationwide in the art house circuit here in the States. We recently screened the S2 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at a local theater where I live and back in the day, The Walking Dead was screened at my local theater weekly and I watched the series finale of Breaking Bad in a cinema with a packed house. I know you’re proposing more of a wide-release event at scale from major studios with hit shows (a la the Pitt). And I agree, it’s something distributors should be experimenting with more—especially for series and season finales.