“Just like chaos”: The Pitt star reveals the challenges of filming the mass casualty episode

HBO's ongoing medical drama The Pitt, Episode 12, featured a mass casualty event, a first for the show.

In an interview with The Direct, actress Shabana Azeez, who plays Dr. Javadi Azeez on the show, opened up on the challenges while shooting for this unusual episode:

''...it was just like chaos. It felt like, I mean, it wasn't like the real situation, obviously, but it was, going to work was a different beast.''

Since the episode dealt with the aftermath of a mass shooting, many new extras were hired for the episodes as patients who were wheeled into the ER. Talking about the new crew and the setup, Azeez added:

''And then 100 new people came, and they were all half naked, with tubes in them. And we didn't know these people. And we've gotten so comfortable. We have extra cameras, so new crew, like, it was just a completely different place. And also, it was just covered in blood. I'm like, not slipping over the blood, it was fake blood. It was real liquid on the ground.''

The Pitt has proven its caliber as a modern medical drama each week, not only through the cases it shows but also because of the unconventional structure. The show follows a one-day shift of doctors and nurses working at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.

Each episode follows one hour of their shift, and Episode 12 featured the twelfth hour, i.e., 6-7 pm.

More on The Pitt's mass casualty episode in our story.

The Pitt Episode 12 handled a mass casualty

The twelfth hour of the ER shift in The Pitt was the most challenging for Dr. Robby and his team of skilled doctors. Episode 12 picked up right after the events of the previous episode, where the team received an emergency alert about a mass shooting nearby.

Soon, mass casualty incident protocol was activated in the ER, and Dr. Robby briefed his team to prepare for the worst, and hundreds of injured patients started pouring into the hospital all at once.

While the situation was chaotic on-screen, Azeez's comments reveal that the behind-the-scenes were just as chaotic and difficult to film.

Talking about this unusual episode, she added (via The Direct):

"It's a completely different show... Because, you know, every day is the same day. So all of our background, the 100 background we had every day, were the exact same. And then on one Thursday, they were just wheeled out one by one, and we never saw them again.''

The Pitt releases new episodes on HBO every Thursday.

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