It’s 2025 and measles are everywhere, even MAX‘s The Pitt!

**Spoilers for The Pitt Episode 14 “8 PM,” now streaming on MAX**

Halfway through The Pitt Episode 14 “8 PM,” an ambulance arrives at the hospital with a patient not hurt at PittFest. 13-year-old Flynn Edwards (Ivan Fraser) arrives unresponsive, suffering from days of an illness that have slipped into pneumonia. His life was apparently saved when his little sister Georgia (Kayla Anjali) called 911. Their parents? Out at the movies (while their kid is sick???).

While Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) and Dr. Shen (Ken Kirby) struggle to diagnose the boy’s illness, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) immediately recognizes it as measles. “Just goes to show how old I am,” he quips.

Mel and Robby soon learn from little Georgia that her family recently traveled to Orlando for a dance competition, a city known for international tourism. Georgia initially got sick, but easily got better. Flynn, on the other hand, has developed pneumonia that could lead to his eventual death. The doctors need to perform a spinal tap in order to figure out next steps. If he has ADEM, he needs steroids. If he doesn’t, though, the steroids would suppress his immune system making survival that much more difficult.

When Flynn’s parents finally arrive at the hospital, we meet the first season’s final villain, as it were: Flynn’s mom, Hillary (Kerry Knuppe).

First of all, I just need to give actress Kerry Knuppe incredible praise for nailing a hyper-specific sort of upper middle class suburban mom who gets her science research from Facebook memes. Hillary Edwards swans into the ED in a beautifully tailored camel coat and proceeds to act like she knows more about medicine than the team of doctors we’ve been following for almost fifteen hours. When she’s asked if Flynn’s been vaccinated for measles, she practically guffaws, “No.” (Who would do something smart, safe, and effective like that for their child?)

As the episode goes on, she immediately puts up a fight when it’s suggested that Flynn needs a spinal tap. Keep in mind, her unconscious child, whom she left alone at home, already has a tube down his throat helping him breathe. Hillary keeps consulting horror stories on her iPhone, prompting Dr. Robby’s latest burst of rage. (And mine!)

Besides being accidentally topical, this latest Pitt storyline underlines one of the core theses of the show: doctors and nurses are experts in medicine and ought to be trusted over strangers on the internet. Hillary thinks she knows better and she clearly does not! (Again, I have to praise Knuppe for perfectly capturing the perfectly panicked and clipped cadence of a specific type of woman who thinks she knows everything.)

Will Dr. Robby and his team somehow convince Flynn’s parents to allow the spinal tap? Will the kid die of measles? Will Dr. Robby’s no good, horrible, very bad day ever end?

You’ll just have to tune into next week’s Season 1 finale of The Pitt to find out.