Image via HBO
Published Feb 13, 2026, 9:00 AM EST
Carly Lane is an Atlanta-based writer and critic who has been with Collider in some form or fashion since 2021. She considers herself a television nerd, diehard romance/sci-fi/fantasy reader, and nascent horror lover. Her fondness of books is only eclipsed by the towering TBR that her shelves can't possibly contain.
She is the author of A REGENCY GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE: 1800s ADVICE ON 21ST CENTURY LOVE, FRIENDS, FUN AND MORE, published through DK Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House) and currently available wherever books are sold.
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Editor's note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 Episode 6.
With HBO's The Pitt finally back for Season 2, it feels like the latest Fourth of July day shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center has been a little slow to get going — at least compared to 10 months ago. That's no longer the case as of the latest hour of R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells, and Noah Wyle's medical drama, "12:00 P.M." Between other hospitals diverting their patients to a mysterious "Code Black" and one of the ER's recurring "boarders," Louie (Ernest Harden Jr.), now flatlining, the staff is busier than ever. However, this week's episode, directed by Wyle, shines a long-deserved spotlight on the unsung heroes of the PTMC: the nurses.
Ahead of The Pitt's latest episode, Collider had the opportunity to sit down with Brandon Mendez Homer, who plays nurse practitioner Donnie, Amielynn Abellera, who plays nurse Perlah, and Laëtitia Hollard, who plays nursing school grad and newcomer to the ER, Emma, about their most pivotal moments in "12:00 P.M." Below, the co-stars break down the emotional highs and lows of their Wyle-directed spotlight hour, the importance of representing nurses onscreen, the backstories they created for their characters — including Perlah's history with Louie and Donnie's tattoos — and more.
COLLIDER: I did speak with John [Wells] and Scott [Gemmill] a few weeks ago about Episode 6 and the increased focus on the nurses, but I was curious about your reaction to knowing that Episode 6 was going to revolve a little more around that side of the E.D.
BRANDON MENDEZ HOMER: We didn't know that it was going to be focused on the nurses, and I thought it was a huge honor and opportunity — especially because Noah [Wyle] jumped at the opportunity to be a part of that and direct that episode, knowing that his mother was also a nurse. I felt that. I was like, “Oh, okay. This is like a full-circle moment.” I was excited about it.
AMIELYNN ABELLERA: I had heard previous little inklings of, “Oh, there’s going to be a nurse episode,” and I was excited, but also really nervous. I’m like, “What does that mean?” [Laughs] But I really loved it. Nurses play such an important role. Doctors are really, of course, important, and that tip of the iceberg, but there is an entire army of other healthcare professionals underneath the surface — nurses being, I think, first in line. To see their point of view is really exciting.
LAËTITIA HOLLARD: Same. I was talking to Val [Chu], and she's like, “Oh, I'm so excited for [Episode] 6.” She wrote the episode. She was like, “It's going to be like a nurses’ episode,” and of course, I was excited about it. A lot of nurses are seeking representation, and that's what's beautiful about The Pitt, already, in Season 1 — you get to have more interaction with nurses than any other medical TV show, I think. But people were like, “Still, we need more. We do so much in the E.R.”
"This is going down, it's going down now, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."
Image via HBOThe loss of Louie is so heartbreaking because we've been spending the last five hours with this man, and everybody has fallen in love with him. Amielynn, Perlah is in that scene, and it always seems hectic filming scenes where everybody's working on a patient, but does the energy change in scenes where someone's not going to make it, and for a character like Louie in particular? Did you have to approach that sequence with a different mentality, knowing what the outcome was going to be?
ABELLERA: Perlah's worked at PTMC for quite some time, probably over five years, at least through COVID or beyond that, and Louie has become family to her. I think he's become family to everyone at PTMC as a frequent flier. He's that cousin that comes in, and you know he's not taking care of himself, but we accept him with open arms, and we patch him up, and we hope he makes better choices. And in all of that regularity, we just love him more and more. I know that I did, as Perlah. Obviously, she didn't know today was her last time. You never know when someone's going to go, but he was minutes away from leaving, and we were all happy to see him minutes away from leaving, and then he crashes, and in two minutes, he's gone.
In that moment, Perlah is waiting for orders but also has such a knowledge already, through experience, that, “This is going down, it's going down now, and there's nothing any of us can do about it.” We're actually pushing a little bit more than we already know, and it's done. That, to me, was the most heartbreaking thing, watching Langdon and watching Robby think about, “This is our family member. We know that it's over, but can we push another epi just for the sake of doing that?” It was hard to prepare, but I love being an actor. I love exploring the humanity and the human condition of what a person is going through when they're quickly in shock of their nervous system losing someone. But yeah, it was challenging.
Laëtitia, you get so much one-on-one time with Katherine LaNasa, as Dana takes Emma under her wing and shines a spotlight on aspects of nursing that some people don't know about, including what happens in the aftermath. Louie's already gone, and they go in and really take care of his body. It's this very solemn experience, but I feel like there has to be a layer of surrealness to it as well, playing the moment opposite Ernest.
HOLLARD: It's so funny that you say that because I think we make believe so hard that it didn't really faze me that he was alive. The moment they’re like, “Okay, we're starting,” I'm like, “Oh yeah, no, this is a dead body.” Also, we were very sad to see Ernest [Harden Jr.] go. We loved him so much as an actor. Being in a room with Noah and Katherine, two actors I really respect, makes me really tune in and do my best to put myself in these conditions that aren't real. It is weird after you do a take, and they're like, “Okay, great.” You're really in it, and then Ernest was like, “What's up?” You're like, “Oh! Louie, you're alive!”
On the Katherine point, acting with her makes you really drop in really quickly. She wasn't intimidating, which is really nice. Right away, she was like, “We're going to be a team. We have a lot of scenes together. Let me do my best to make you feel like you're going to be able to do your best.” So, it was really a joy to work with both of them.
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Brandon, I was really delighted to see Donnie getting to show off some of his suturing skills. How much practice did that involve for you?
HOMER: Oh my goodness, so many blisters. At home, I was suturing through chicken, I was suturing through steak. Dr. Joe [Sachs] said do steak, and Noah said do chicken, and then the props department gave me silicone. I'm just at the table, my daughter's running around — well, not right around at that point, but I'm at home practicing. Then, what unlocked it for me, I actually realized that there's a line in there that says, “He's the master of the wound,” and I thought that was a great metaphor for Donnie being more interested in what's underneath the pain, that everybody who navigates the hospital, they're all navigating from this place of a core wound or whatever's driving them, and he's interested in that. It's not about how perfect the sutures are, how to lay them down; he's just interested in getting to what's underneath. And he doesn't label. He just quietly shows up and goes after it.
So, when Ogilvie comes into the picture, and he's gung-ho, and Joy’s kind of laid back, Donnie just gets to be there and say, “Hey, this is how you do this,” and watch them take a crack at it. That was fun, to see him transition into stepping up more for the team and be fully present for the newbies in that moment.
Brandon Mendez Homer Created His Own Backstory for Donnie's Tattoos on 'The Pitt'
"He steps up for his partner, for his relationship, and he steps up for his chosen family, his work family, his blood family in his mind."
Image via HBOWhen you mentioned your daughter just now, it made me think of that moment where someone asks about Donnie's tattoos. Did you have any input into the backstory of those? He mentions he got one after Pittfest and one for his daughter.
HOMER: I might cry a little bit, but yeah, that was kind of on me. I reached out to Scott and said, “Hey, I had this idea. Shut it down if you think it's absolutely stupid.” But I felt like, at the end of the day, Donnie's journey is about showing up more fully for the team. At the end of Season 1, he left the mass casualty feeling more shame than accomplishment, because, similar to Perlah, I feel like he's been there for a while, and he's been taken under the wing of Dana and Robby. Many people have this story, but you're amongst the team, and you feel like you could be doing more, but you're kind of just coasting. Then here comes Whitaker, here comes Santos, and they’re on fire for that mass casualty. Everybody's there giving it their all, and they're excited by the end of the day. Definitely trauma-bonded in the experience, but feeling like they've done something important. I think sometimes it takes that in life for people to shine a light back on what you do and how you could be doing more.
I just imagined that Donnie goes home to his partner, and she's at the kitchen table, and he lets the day go, and shares that he feels this sort of shame. She's a tattoo artist in my imagination, but she just tattoos these simple initials on his wrist and says, “Look, there’s death, there’s chaos, which is what you experience today, but there's also miracles, and there's blessings — and I'm pregnant.” And then, boom, nine months later, here we go. He steps up in that moment as a father. He steps up for his partner, for his relationship, and he steps up for his chosen family, his work family, his blood family in his mind.
That's what inspired me to send that note out to Scott, and say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” Then, when the makeup department came back, and they were like, “Well, what do you think about this, if it looks like that?” It just all came full circle about this quiet, emotional thing that is driving him. For them to actually share it in that moment, I was rocked by that. That felt really good, because it's like a coin flip to my own experience in a way.
Since we’re already talking about the theme of work and family, I have to bring up the scene where everyone comes together to memorialize Louie at the very end of the episode. With this show, there are rarely opportunities to bring everyone together, and it is a sad circumstance, but it's also a really nice, poignant moment. What was the experience like, getting the chance to bounce off everyone like that?
HOMER: I love group scenes!
ABELLERA: I do love group scenes.
HOLLARD: I think Emma’s had a very unexpected day. She's had to look at an erect penis, had to see maggots. It's just craziness. I think people don't think about that scene as being crazy, but for Emma, it really affected her. It really does feel like a family, and what workplace has such a strong family like that? It feels like we lost a member together, and it felt like an honor for Emma to be in that space with everyone.
I was looking a lot at Perlah and Princess and seeing how much this was weighing on them, and it helped Emma, as well, because Dana doesn't seem like… You can tell something's up with her, but she's not letting herself process what's going on. So, to be able to look at two other people who are taking this loss, I’m like, “Oh, okay, these are like my cousins or my aunties, and they have tools that I can also take from them. Now I can see that there's a family dynamic in this hospital,” which is special.
ABELLERA: Why is it that in life, even in my family right now, a lot of times I only see my extended family when there's a wedding or when there's a death? We come together, and we share, and we break bread again, and we share memories. There's something so heartbreaking about it, but also something so beautiful and healing, and I think we all did that in that room. Even a lot of the background, who is part of our family, too, on The Pitt, was in there, too, who play clerks and technicians and paramedics and things like that.
So, being all in such a small space and hearing this heartbreaking story from Noah, and letting that drop in, because I think a lot of us didn't know that — I don't think Robby shared it — was very moving for me to also feel everybody's energy react to it, and made it even more awful for for me as Perlah, but also joyful in celebration.
HOMER: I think what's important about that scene is it reminds people to take a second look, you know? Not just healthcare workers, but just in life, to look past the label. Because sometimes we do that a lot when people pass, but I think when Robby drops a lot of those details, they were always there. It was always in front of us in Louie, and every character makes their own decision about that, but many of us either leaned into and knew that knowledge or were just now discovering it. It's just a reminder that when you have the people you love here, take a second look, go underneath the layer, and excavate what the true story is, rather than relying on the prejudice.
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