'The Pitt's Fan-Favorite Doctor Confirms Noah Wyle Gave His Blessing to Return [Exclusive]

The Pitt was a certified home run for HBO Max the second it premiered on the service, becoming one of both the production company and the streaming platform's biggest hits of all time. Season 2 pulled in even more viewers than the Emmy-sweeping first outing, and for good reason, especially since it introduced even more new characters to the Pittsburgh emergency room that are destined to become new fan-favorites. From the professional-yet-complicated Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) to new med student Joy Kwon (Irene Choi), the Noah Wyle show's ambitions to have a rotating roster of medical professionals seems like a foolproof plan, even if it makes saying goodbye to characters like Dr. Heather Collins (Tracy Ifeachor) and Dr. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) that much harder.

Though one facet of The Pitt that has developed the quickest cult following is the night shift team led by Dr. Jack Abbot (Shawn Hatosy) — so much so that many fans have been clamoring for an entire spin-off series following the night team, though that dream has repeatedly been debunked. Even the night team got a new face in the form of Dr. Cyrus "Crus Control" Henderson (played by Shrinking star Luke Tennie), and it sounds like we haven't heard the last of The Pitt's newest superstar. I had the opportunity to speak with Tennie during his promotion of Apple TV's Shrinking at the Newport Beach TV Fest, and when asked if we could see him again in the now-in-development Season 3, he shared the open invitation he received from star and co-creator Noah Wyle:

"Noah Wyle told me in the hair and makeup trailer last time, he said, 'Hey, if there's a night shift, Crus is on the night shift, and we always see [the] night shift.' And I said, 'Okay, good to know!'"

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

Crus as a character is one of the most interesting additions to The Pitt's roster in Season 2, partially because of the character's attitude towards X-rays and MRI, which he views as being unnecessary when he can diagnose with an ultrasound machine. An unorthodox way to look at it, to be sure, but also one that ends up coming in handy for Dr. Robby's (Wyle) team after most of their computerized equipment is taken offline. When asked about his character's unique approach to diagnosing without modern equipment, Tennie likened it to a new genre of sorts for the medical world:

"It was kind of pitched to me as 'This guy is sort of on the cutting edge.' It felt kinda like medical hip-hop. Like when hip-hop started after the blackout in New York, people got all this DJ equipment and stuff, and it was kinda this thing where people learned to DJ on the fly. It was this sort of new, flowy, 'I'm gonna take this track and then I'm gonna get an MC.' Nobody really knew what was going on.

I think Crus is kind of on the cutting edge of [a] new hip-hop style of diagnosing issues with ultrasound versus using an MRI or X-rays. That stuff is expensive, and it's hard to move around. A fricking ultrasound cart, you can move that thing around. It's super easy to maneuver throughout the hospital. It's perfect for emergency medicine. So I think that kind of angle fits with the character description of Crus being someone who's so calm and cool and collected."

The first two seasons of The Pitt are streaming now on HBO Max. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates on Season 3.