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The Pitt season 2 is scheduled to premiere on Max in January 2026. The Pitt is a medical drama that airs on Max in real time. It was produced by R. Scott Gemmill and executive produced by Noah Wyle and John Wells. The show portrays a 15-hour shift at a Pittsburgh trauma center, and each of its 15 episodes equates to one hour of actual time. It first aired in January 2025.
Taylor Dearden portrays second-year resident Dr. Melissa "Mel" King. The character was created with neurodivergent characteristics, and Dearden has shared that she drew upon personal experience with ADHD when taking the role.
Dearden has confirmed in an interview published by Vanity Fair on April 10, 2025, that the medical boot camp in The Pitt season 2 was shortened to one week from two weeks in season 1. This change impacts preparation time before performing medical procedures.
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"I heard season two bootcamp is only one week. We all were like, 'Can we please have two weeks?'" she said.
Decreased preparation time with The Pitt season 2
The Pitt season 1 involved a two-week medical boot camp to prepare the cast in emergency procedures, medical terminology, and equipment use. This training was meant to prepare actors for working in technically accurate scenes.
For The Pitt season 2, boot camp has been shortened to a week. In the interview, Taylor Dearden confirmed this change, explaining that the new timeframe gives less time to prepare procedurally.
The training time adjustment is based on the cast members' earlier familiarity with the medical procedures from season 1. Dearden added that the cast requested more time, referring to new material for the next season.
"For season one, it was two weeks, and it was going over everything standard when a trauma comes in: 'Here are the things that happen. We'll just randomly assign you to scenes that will take place, like you’ll do the ultrasound'. So we knew what ultrasound meant, where we go, how you hold it, and all of it so that they could just do shorthand with us and not have to teach us every single time," she added.
Taylor Dearden's perspective
In the same interview with Vanity Fair, Dearden indicated that this reduction in preparation time diminishes the time the cast spends studying medical procedures and blocking.
"We don't have a lot of rehearsal at all, and it's stuff that we've never ever done before. It was going really, really fast," she noted.
She explained that the busy shooting schedule demands a precise grasp of procedural choreography. Dearden believes limited rehearsal time can pose problems with sequencing medical movements in scenes. She also shared that bootcamp for The Pitt season 2 will begin on June 1.
Evolution of Dr. Mel King's character
In The Pitt season 1, Dr. Melissa "Mel" King conducts a spinal tap on a child patient over a parent's protest. The test is performed under emergency conditions within the show's real-time hospital environment.
Speaking about the storyline, Dearden shared with Vanity Fair that she liked the way her character evolved over the course of the first season.
"I like that evolution of Mel’s character, of becoming so much more of an advocate for the patient. It’s less about getting it done legally and with permission, and more about saving lives."
Taylor Dearden characterized the scene as a technical challenge; coordination with the medical experts working on set was needed. She wanted to see her character have more scenes with co-workers in The Pitt season 2. She saw the potential for more scenes with professional interactions.
Representation of neurodivergence
Taylor Dearden plays Dr. Melissa "Mel" King in The Pitt, a character written with neurodivergent traits. Dearden has ADHD and reported that she drew upon some of her own experiences when developing the character.
"I pitched what is a very real ADHD thing, which is we are just amazing at emergencies. Something in our brain clicks. We can do things that we read about once freshman year. All of a sudden, we can pull it out."
She added,
"This is an actual medical thing. We are overrepresented in emergency departments and firefighters, because there is some weird part of the ADHD brain that clicks into the perfect emergency person."
Dearden incorporated behaviors like hyperfocus and stimming into the characterization of Mel, indicating that the character processes information in this way.
"I do hope in season two that there’s more obvious stimming. It’s something that people will see—like repeating words, or liking patterns and textures and stuff."
Dearden also explained that she favors depictions of a spectrum of neurodivergent characteristics in the media.
The Pitt season 2 overview
The Pitt season 2 is scheduled to premiere on Max in January 2026. The season will follow a single 15-hour shift during the Fourth of July weekend, set approximately 10 months after the events of Season 1. The storyline includes the return of Dr. Frank Langdon following a rehabilitation program.
Some of the cast members who return are Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Patrick Ball as Dr. Frank Langdon, and Katherine LaNasa as Nurse Dana Evans. New people will be added to the cast in The Pitt season 2.
The real-time storytelling will continue, with every one of the 15 episodes equating to an hour of the emergency department shift.
The episodes of The Pitt season 1 can be streamed on Max.
