The Pitt Season 2: Dr. Mel King’s Legal Troubles, Explained – SlashFilm

Don’t clock into your ER shift if you haven’t watched “2:00 P.M.,” the latest episode of “The Pitt.” Spoilers ahead!

A constant on “The Pitt,” the HBO Max medical drama from showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, director and executive producer John Wells, and its star Noah Wyle, is that none of the characters are having a good day. Set in a busy Pittsburgh emergency room and structured so that each episode takes place in a real-time “hour,” the series features a truly outstanding ensemble cast (led by Wyle as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch) — and that includes Taylor Dearden’s Dr. Mel King. Again, nobody on “The Pitt” has a “good” day, but Mel is having an exceptionally bad one.

A big part of Mel’s no-good, very bad day is her upcoming deposition in a medical malpractice case … and in the season’s eighth episode, we finally learn what the case concerns. Both Mel and her fellow resident, Dr. Parker Ellis (Ayesha Harris), are named in the lawsuit, and before her own deposition, Mel runs into Parker. They’re not really supposed to discuss the case in any traditional sense, so Parker delivers a “monologue,” as she terms it. She then tells Mel:

“The malpractice case is frivolous. The mother of the measles kid claims we caused intellectual decline by performing a spinal tap. But the tap was perfect with no complications. Her son presented with altered mental status due to low oxygen from measles pneumonia. Any change in intellect was due to hypoxic brain injury. It had nothing to do with your spinal tap. End of monologue.”

Fans of “The Pitt” now know exactly why Mel is being deposed — it’s related to a pediatric measles case that made waves on the show back at the end of season 1. 

In the award-winning first season of “The Pitt,” the doctors are stymied and understandably quite frustrated when they’re tasked with caring for a young boy suffering from measles-related pneumonia and other complications … only to learn he’s unvaccinated because his parents don’t believe in the proven efficacy of the vaccine. I do want to note that a February 2026 article in The Atlantic noted that physicians are seeing far more deaths from measles, particularly amongst children, as the United States government steadily rolls back vaccine mandates and requirements for the younger set. Why even bring this up? Well, “The Pitt” places a focus on current American events through the patients it portrays.

Not only is the young patient suffering from measles that could prove to be deadly or cause lifelong mental and physical problems, but his parents are also unwilling to let Dr. Robby and Dr. Mel King perform a spinal tap that could help him. (The doctors suspect that the boy has developed acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, which basically means that the brain and spinal cord are both swelling to the point where it endangers a patient’s life.) The father of the family eventually agrees to allow a spinal tap, overruling the boy’s mom, who’s enraged when she learns about the procedure. Still, as Dr. Parker Ellis told Mel, the spinal tap was “perfect” and didn’t make the boy’s condition worse; had he been vaccinated against measles, none of this would have even happened.

We don’t know what’s going to happen with Mel’s deposition yet or if we’ll even see it on screen, but those are the facts of the case. Otherwise, is Mel having a half-decent day? No!

Just like pretty much all of her colleagues, Dr. Mel King is having a fairly cruddy day on season 2 of “The Pitt,” which takes place on the quintessential American holiday of July 4. Beyond her deposition — which proves incredibly stressful for her — Mel also gets attacked by a patient she thinks is flirting with her during the season’s second episode, “8:00 A.M.” As it turns out, the guy is a suspect in a local robbery, and while they’re chatting about the Renaissance Faire, of all things, he flees, knocking Mel to the ground and potentially injuring her head. (In a sweet scene, Mel’s mentor-of-sorts, Dr. Frank Langdon, played by Patrick Ball, takes time to treat her and make sure she’s okay, and even shuts off the lights over her ER bed so that she’s not overstimulated as a neurodivergent patient.)

Mel does have a great save alongside Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones), when they correctly diagnose a young woman with bulimia after noticing tell-tale signs on her teeth … but the deposition quite literally looms large over her entire day in the titular pit (she brings it up in almost every scene, point in fact). Even as she treats an inmate who was injured in prison — a difficult feat considering that guards are surrounding the man and insist that he remain handcuffed — Mel frets about the deposition, which is understandable! 

In any case, we’ll learn about the aftermath of her legal issues as “The Pitt” season 2 continues; it airs new episodes every Thursday at 9 P.M. EST.