The Pitt Season 2 Finale Inadvertently References A Hilarious Moment In Hbo History

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This article contains spoilers for "The Pitt" season 2 finale, "9:00 P.M."

While some viewers who watch "The Pitt" as a mystery box show might be disappointed that Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) didn't die in the latest episode, the rest of us were treated to another thrilling and satisfying episode of television. We learn more about what's been going on with Dr. Al-Hashimi, Dr. Javadi (Shabana Azeez) is inspired to center her career around mental health, a baby is delivered and the mother is saved — and that's only about half of the episode.

Near the end, we also discover the whereabouts of Digby (Charles Baker, who also played Skinny Pete on "Breaking Bad"), the unhoused man who's been at the hospital for most of the Fourth of July day shift. Digby went missing once earlier this season, only for us to find out that he was simply saying a long goodbye to his deceased pal, Louie (Ernest Harden Jr). But his second disappearance of the day dovetails with another dangling mystery that emerged late in season 2: what happened to Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell)'s ID badge.

It turns out the badge ended up with Digby, who is last seen walking through the park across the street from the hospital, pushing the emergency department's mannequin and explaining the history of fireworks. "More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese were throwing bamboo into fire to make explosions," he says. "They went on to invent gunpowder, and boom! The rest is history."

That line inadvertently calls back to one of the funniest moments in recent HBO history, which happened in the series premiere of Nathan Fielder's "The Rehearsal."

I remember laughing so hard at the above moment in "The Rehearsal" that I practically fell out of my seat. 

To help Brooklyn's Kor Skeete admit to his trivia team that he lied about having a master's degree, Nathan Fielder not only builds an elaborate recreation of Kor's local bar so he can practice the confession in the same environment where it will happen in real life, but Nathan manages to get his hands on the actual trivia questions that will be read during the night Kor will confess the truth. Kor's trivia performance needs to be flawless for his confession to take place, but in an effort to maintain some semblance of ethics, Nathan doesn't give Kor the questions in advance. That would be cheating. Instead, he "incepts" the answers into Kor's head by staging various actors around New York City who talk about seemingly random pieces of trivia loud enough for Kor to overhear while he and Nathan stroll around the city.

The culmination of this idea is when the two stumble across what appears to be a crime scene. Unbeknownst to Kor, an actor playing a cop reveals there's a hostage situation nearby — a criminal has shot someone and taken four other people hostage. Straight-faced and serious, the fake cop utters the not-so-subtle, trivia-inspired line: "It's days like these when I curse the Chinese for inventing gunpowder."

Did "The Pitt" writers purposefully craft Digby's dialogue about the origins of gunpowder to remind people of this moment in a totally different TV show? Almost certainly not. But what's the point of working at a pop culture website if I can't share my reaction to the tiniest connections, real or imagined, between two brilliant pieces of TV from the same parent company? Both are important moments; in "The Pitt," it's an exhalation after a hellish day, in "The Rehearsal," it's proof of just how far Nathan will go to achieve his goals. 

It's days like these when I'm thankful to work at /Film.com.