The Pitt concluded its captivating and thrilling first season on Max with a post-shift moment with the doctors as they bonded.

And after a season of proving herself in Pittsburgh’s busiest ER, Dr. Samira Mohan concluded her day not only with just a celebration…but with a breakdown as well.

In the Season 1 finale of The Pitt, the young doctor hits her highest high — and moments later, her lowest low. For Supriya Ganesh, who plays Mohan, that full-circle emotional arc is what makes the episode so powerful.

Mohan doesn’t want to leave work in ‘The Pitt’ Season 1 finale

“It’s a moment where she doesn’t want to leave,” Ganesh said. “She wants to take on more patients even though her shift is way over. But that high comes crashing down, and she ends up crying and breaking down when it’s time to go.”

The shift is especially poignant given how much of Mohan’s identity is wrapped up in her job.

“She was always pitched to me as a workaholic, and so I think she gets a lot of her reason for being from work and from being there,” Ganesh explained. “And I think being a workaholic in any circumstance is a little tricky, right? But then it’s especially tricky when you’re an ER doctor, because as we’ve seen throughout the season, there’s just such immense trauma you go through during your daily shift. And if you don’t know when to turn it off, that can be really bad for your mental health. I think that’s what [showrunner R.] Scott [Gemmil] was trying to show with her storyline — that she just went through this incredibly traumatic thing, and she doesn’t really know that she has gone through this traumatic thing, in a way, because she’s hit this career high.”

Proving herself in the middle of chaos

Despite the pain, the moment is a personal win for Mohan, who has spent much of the season fielding doubts from herself and others about whether she was ready for the job.

“Throughout the season — or even throughout the shift — we’ve been told that she’s ‘slow-mo’ [and that] she might not be able to step up,” Ganesh said. “And so it’s so cool when she’s able to do that. But then it’s a little… I don’t want to use the word bittersweet, but it is. It’s just a little bittersweet because it is such a traumatic event to have to experience a career high.”

Still, that moment of stepping up meant everything for Mohan — and for Ganesh.

“I think that moment was very important for her to step up to the plate and show a lot of people that she does belong here,” she said. “I think she is similar to me in some ways — where if you’re given a lot of time to think, you can overthink. So it’s really good for her to just be put in a situation where you don’t have time to do that. If you try to overthink, you’re going to mess up the whole situation. And so I think that was a really good environment for her to show that she does belong here.”

When the shift ends, the toll shows

But even in success, the toll lingers.

“So much of that questioning has gone away as a result of her stepping up to that plate,” Ganesh continued. “But again, it’s bittersweet. That adrenaline high and adrenaline crash is something that a lot of ER physicians experience. We have some med techs on our show, and while I was going through that scene, I even asked them, how do you deal with this? How do you turn it off? They said — and similar to the character — they don’t really know when to. There are so many people who said, ‘I’ll finish my shift, go straight to my car, turn the car on… and then all of a sudden I’m in tears.’ I just realized I intubated an infant today because they were about to die. And that was really hard. So it was very special to be able to show that this career, even though it is rewarding, does take its toll on the doctors.”

‘The Pitt’ finale provides a rare glimpse of life beyond the hospital

While the emotional weight looms large over the finale, The Pitt also offers a rare exhale — a brief but meaningful moment in which the characters gather at a park for beers after their shift. For Dr. Mohan, it’s a first.

“That was a really special moment for Samira, actually, because she doesn’t really socialize outside of work,” Ganesh said. “So I think this is really the first time that she’s interacting with her coworkers in a non-work setting. And I think even Princess says, ‘Nice to have you join us,’ because usually she doesn’t. And it’s like those little interactions like that, that I think are so filled with subtext — and Scott does such a beautiful job of doing that.”

That scene of quiet bonding — decompressing with her colleagues for the first time — also points to real growth for Mohan.

“It felt really special to feel like there’s some character growth happening there, and her realizing, like, oh, I can’t just be at this job all the time,” Ganesh said. “It was also very interesting filming in Pittsburgh. We filmed that outside the hospital that the show is based on or structured around, and it was definitely interesting. We also filmed that in September before we ended up actually filming the last episode, [and] we didn’t really know at times what the ending was going to be, even though we were given general outlines. So it was kind of like we were filming the last scene of the last episode before actually doing it. It was the only thing, I think, we’ve done that was really filmed that out of sequence. Everything else was in sequential order, so it was definitely interesting having that experience for sure.”

Looking ahead to Season 2

As for what’s next, Ganesh is just as curious as fans are about where Samira Mohan’s story will go in Season 2 — but she’s hopeful that her character’s small personal wins in the finale will ripple outward in meaningful ways.

“Yeah, I am so curious to see hopefully where my character will go in Season 2. I would love to know myself,” she said with a laugh. “But I absolutely agree. I think it would be so cool to see her have that realization and have it play out in terms of knowing when to turn it off, in terms of knowing when to go back home.”

Ganesh added, “Because with Episode 15, it just does such a good job of showing that. I think Episode 15 is very interesting because up until then, Samira is all about work. I think she has a personal life that’s kind of kept under wraps — a lot more compared to a lot of the other characters. And in 15, you realize, oh, it’s not under wraps. There’s just no personal life. This is just all there is. And I think Scott just did such a great job of showing that. So yeah, I’m curious to see if it goes forward in Season 2 as well.”

The Pitt Season 1 is streaming in ints entirety on Max.