The Pitt showrunner on “surprise” finale reveal: 'It wasn’t meant to be like, 'Oh, my God!''

The 15-part series follows a team of doctors and nurses, led by Dr Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), as they navigate a raft of challenges in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room.

And in the finale, which has now aired in the US, viewers were caught off guard by quite the surprising moment.

In the final episode, and 15th hour of the shift, a lot had happened, from Robby successfully convincing the police to let Dr Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) off with a warning and Dr Melissa King (Taylor Dearden) convincing the father of a patient with measles to undergo a crucial spinal tap test, to Dr Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) convincing a suicidal patient to seek help.

Elsewhere, Robby finds himself on the rooftop of the hospital, where at the start of his shift he found ER attending Dr Jack Abbot (Shawn Hatosy).

After a heart-to-heart, the pair wander down to the park outside the hospital, where they're joined by some of the ER nurses and med student Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez).

As they crack open a beer, Abbot removes his prosthetic leg to clean some blood off his shoe - something viewers were previously unaware of.

Speaking of that moment to Variety, creator R Scott Gemmill (ER, NCIS Los Angeles) explained: "In a traditional series, you might not know how you're going to end the season, right? Because we were in real time, 15 hours, we had to have an idea.

"So a lot of the scenes that you see much later in the season — like the roof scene, the park scene, the scene where Robby throws Langdon out, the scene where Dana talks about quitting, the scene where Collins [played by Tracy Ifeachor] confesses having had an abortion — all those were written close to the first episode because we needed to know that those actors could get there.

"They were audition scenes. And then I really wanted Abbot to have been a vet who had lost a limb and but was still rocking and rolling."

Executive producer John Wells added that they "wanted it to be a surprise".

"There was no mention of it," he told the publication. "Nobody talks about it. Just somebody with a disability that doesn't limit him. So that was the intent. It wasn't meant to be like, 'Oh, my God!' It was meant like, 'Oh, wait a second…'"

Read more:

• Strike star Holliday Grainger breaks down new drama The Stolen Girl: 'It's not a revenge thriller'
• Unforgotten creator explains how he makes viewers question if new drama is true story

While season 1 has now come to an end, there is some good news for fans: season 2 has already been greenlit.

The second season will pick up 10 months after the events of season 1's finale, with Gemmill telling TV Line that they are planning on covering "Fourth of July weekend".

He said: "Nine, basically 10 months later, gives a lot of room for us to have developed a few stories in the interim, and catch up with everyone."

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.