“There’s a lot to uncover”: Shawn Hatosy teases what to expect from The Pitt Season 2

On January 9, 2025, The Pitt premiered on Max.

Now, The Pitt Season 2 is on the way. The show filmed 15-hour shifts in real time, showing raw emotion and the grit of the most difficult moments of medicine.

Season 1 ended with the audience gasping. A violent mass casualty event, simmering tensions amongst staff, and emotional cracks exposed in the end had people glued to their screens and desperate for more.

As The Pitt Season 2 production is moving ahead, with a January 2026 premiere date on the horizon, the series now has a taut narrative backbone: richer character arcs, new crises, and a keen focus on unwavering attention to what it truly means to be on the front lines of ER medicine.

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“There’s a lot to uncover”: Shawn Hatosy on what lies ahead in The Pitt Season 2

In an interview with TV Insider, Shawn Hatosy, who plays the role of a night-shift psychiatrist named Dr. Jack Abbot, revealed what he would like to see happen next season:

“I think one of the biggest hopes I have is that I get to have some scenes with some of the players that I haven’t gotten to collaborate with. And then for me, I think I like the show a lot. I was offered that big chunk, and watching it with everybody else, I became the biggest Pitt fan.”

He also addressed fan speculation around a “night shift” spinoff:

“And so I heard the fans talk about the possibility of a night shift [spinoff]. And that world does seem kind of exciting to me. I feel like there’s a lot to uncover. It takes a certain kind of person to decide to work at night because a lot of them get to choose their shifts. So I would like to get in -and as we know, Dr. Abbot’s therapist says that he finds comfort in the darkness. So if he’s one of the leaders of the night shift, I’d be curious to see what the relationships are and the other characters that are choosing to be there with him.”

It is not difficult to pick up on the enthusiasm Hatosy feels as he anticipates greater connections between and among the characters in The Pitt Season 2, as well as the internal conflict and stress that come with working at night when emotions are running high. There is both narrative potential and the psychological territory that attracts him to the role in that layer.

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What is The Pitt, and what makes Season 2 so anticipated

The Pitt is a real-time medical drama created and helmed by R. Scott Gemmill with John Wells and Noah Wyle among its executive producers. It is set in the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and features one high-stakes emergency shift per episode. Beginning in January 2025, each episode is approximately 41-61 minutes long and plays out in near real time.

Noah Wyle plays Dr. Michael Robinavitch, aka Robby, an attending physician leading the ER through trauma, bureaucratic pressure, and personal reckonings. He is surrounded by an ever-present cast, such as Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, and recurring guest Shawn Hatosy as Dr. Jack Abbot.

The Pitt Season 1: Grounding in realism, heart, and acclaim

Complimented as being a true-to-life experience, The Pitt was well received by the medical community due to its graphic violence, grit, and insight. The first season received at least 13 Emmy nominations in categories such as Outstanding Drama Series and in acting from Wyle, LaNasa, and Hatosy. It also won four Television Critics Association Awards, including Program of the Year and Individual Achievement in Drama for Wyle.

The Pitt Season 2: What we know so far

Max went into production quickly: filming started in June 2025 on both the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank and on-location exteriors in Pittsburgh. The show is set to resume in January 2026, with reports suggesting it may be around the beginning of the month.

The Pitt Season 2 begins ten months after the season 1 finale, in the middle of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, which also happens to be one of the most hectic times in any ER in the country. It maintains the one-episode-per-one-hour real-time technique.

The traumatic event that ended Season 1 has fallout that will reverberate in The Pitt Season 2, and the plot will feature both individual trauma and the structural pressures, particularly as a result of Medicaid funding cuts in the so-called “big, beautiful bill.” The writers also seek to give the drama a real-world context in terms of how healthcare crises are compounded by policy changes.

Meanwhile, Patrick Ball joins the cast once again as Dr. Frank Langdon, trying to muster back together as a paramedic in the aftermath of rehab. Also, we are bidding farewell to Tracy Ifeachor (Dr. Heather Collins), whose exit aligns with the story arc, but not as a result of backstage developments.

In the meantime, new characters appear in The Pitt season 2, such as Dr. Al-Hashimi (interpreted by Sepideh Moafi), with new dynamics and obstacles.

Much of the same criteria from season 1 will reportedly continue into The Pitt season 2, with a heavier trace of trauma, realism, and emotional impact within the 15 episodes.