Wow, hate to tell you this, folks, but we are on week three of sipping the nightmare fuel that is The Pitt’s mass-casualty shooting story line. It remains haunting and emotionally impactful even as the chaos subsides. Admittedly, that moment when a teary Dana comforts Jake over the loss of his girlfriend absolutely did me in. I know in my heart a Dana the Charge Nurse hug would be healing! Alas, there is very little time on this show for healing or processing, since in a real Pitt move, just as the Pitt Fest trauma comes to a close an ambulance pulls up with yet another story line to horrify us: A possible measles outbreak thanks to anti-vaxxers! This shift will break us all!

Hey, speaking of mental breakdowns, “8:00 P.M.” begins with Dr. Robby still in the fetal position, now reciting the Shema prayer over and over again in the pediatric room turned morgue. Everyone needs him and no one can find him. It’s Whitaker who comes across his attending first, and the med student turns out to be a great person to help Robby snap out of it. When I think of how close we came to Santos being the one who walked in that peds room first, I shudder. The man may have never recovered. And while Whitaker isn’t particularly comforting, comfort isn’t exactly what Robby needs in this moment — he needs to be reminded that he has a job to do. Whitaker sits with him at first but then stands up and reaches for his hand. He needs Robby to get up, they all do, otherwise they are “fucked” out there. He doesn’t force him to walk out of the room once he’s up, instead grabbing the blanket he came for and leaving with a quick but effective, “I’ll see you out there, captain.” One last reminder that they need Robby to lead them through this.

And it works! Robby takes a breath and steps back out on the floor. His first order of business? A quick survey of what’s happening, then telling everyone that they’re doing a great job. I really do love this man. Later in the episode, he finds Dr. King finally having a cry after she reunites the woman suffering from PTSD, Trish, with her daughter Morgan, and when Robby finds her he tells her she should never apologize for having empathy. He tells her she was “awesome” amid the chaos. “I’m really glad you’re with us, Dr. King.” And now I’m the one in the fetal position; it’s very full circle.

None of this is to say that Robby is totally fine. He’s not fine at all. He, like most of the people working in the hospital, probably won’t be fine for a while after this, and those cracks make themselves quite evident throughout this episode. You know, like when Robby finally reams out Gloria after holding in so much of his ire for most of his shift. It seems the line is Gloria taking Robby to task for allowing unscreened blood donations and not following up on David’s kill list. “Jesus Christ, Gloria” he bellows in the middle of the ED. They’re trying to work here; they’re trying to save as many people as possible. “Go back to your micro-managerial ivory tower and let us get back to work!” he yells. He isn’t wrong and you’d think Gloria could read the blood-stained room by now, but the outburst is a dead giveaway, especially to those closest to him like Dana and Abbott, that Robby is frayed.

There’s other out-of-character moments for our fearless leader. Gloria informs everyone that the shooter has been “neutralized” — the SWAT team found him near the festival grounds with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head — and they shouldn’t be receiving any additional victims. “There aren’t adequate words for what you’ve done down here,” she says, thanking them all. This, of course, means that they now need to deal with David Saunders, who is still handcuffed and bleeding from the head over in a locked patient room. “I told you he didn’t do it,” Robby says to McKay, which is, honestly, pretty shitty. Even worse? When he tells her that he wanted to handle this all a certain way and she pushed. “You made this fucking mess, you’re gonna have to fix it.” McKay was being cautious and it very easily could’ve gone the other way — how would Robby feel then? It seems like “better safe than sorry” is a good play in this situation. Regardless, Robby is taking out a lot of his emotions on McKay.

One thing that Robby is right about: Fixing this situation with David isn’t going to be easy. The kid is angry and scared and all he wants is to see his mom. He certainly doesn’t want to listen to McKay tell him he needs help from a professional. When Theresa does come into the room, she tells him about the petition and that she is going to place him on a hold. He does not take it well. And yet, still, I’m on Team McKay here. Unfortunately for her, this isn’t the only ongoing drama she’s dealing with ahead of next week’s finale: Two cops show up to arrest her for tampering with her ankle monitor. She, Abbott, and Dana try to explain why she had to drill a hole into it, but the episode ends with McKay being put into cuffs.

McKay and David aren’t the only two with story lines that’ll need to be wrapped up within the next hour. There’s also, if you can believe it, the fucking measles. Just as Dr. Shen (more of him in season two, please and thanks) declares the triage area quiet, an ambulance shows up with a 13-year-old experiencing sepsis and pneumonia — Flynn also has a strange rash. His younger sister Georgia called 911 because their parents are out at the movies. Shen and King don’t recognize the rash, but as soon as Robby steps into the room, he knows its measles. The look on his face when he says to call Public Health because there’s likely a measles outbreak, well, you can feel exactly what he’s feeling. Something along the lines of you have to be fucking kidding me here, because honestly, you have to be fucking kidding me here.

It gets worse! Robby and King talk to Georgia and learn she had the same thing as Flynn about a week prior and that their family had been traveling in Orlando recently. Flynn isn’t contagious any longer, but he most likely has ADEM, or acute disseminated encephalomyelitis post-infection immune response. ADEM has a 20 percent death rate and even if the patient lives, it could cause permanent brain damage.

Things get worse when Flynn and Georgia’s parents come flying in and we learn that their mother, especially, is not only anti-vax but anti … most things doctors do? Robby wants to quickly get approval for a spinal tap to see if this really is ADEM before moving forward with treatment, but the mother — armed with “Dr. Google” as Robby puts it — refuses to let them. There are too many risks, she says! She doesn’t care if all three doctors in the room assure her that this is a standard, and very safe, procedure. She’d rather wait and see if Flynn gets better on his own. This enrages Robby, who, remember, just watched a whole bunch of people, including his surrogate son’s teenage girlfriend, needlessly die. He snaps. He actually yells at the parents before having to physically remove himself from the room before things get even more heated. Shen has King take the parents to see Georgia, but then he goes to check on Robby. Even Mr. Iced Coffee can tell something is wrong. Robby is still ranting, though: “They want medical treatment but they don’t want medical advice? What the fuck are we doing?” You can feel the frustration jump off the screen and the anger is warranted, but still, you have to wonder if Robby will ever be able to rein it in again on this shift. He’s got an hour to try.

• I’m a sucker for the old-school “ER docs versus surgeons” rivalry, and we get a good taste of it here when the last victim from the shooting arrives — a Navy corpsman named Brian who is the brother of Whitney, who we met when Kiara and Lupe informed her that her husband was dead. Brian, who spent hours trying to help victims on-site, even though he was shot in the thigh, has an intracardiac air embolism that’s blocking blood flow to his lungs. Abbott guides Mohan through a risky procedure while arguing with Dr. Walsh, who wants to follow protocol and get Brian to a hyperbaric chamber. Walsh’s way would cost Brian precious time he doesn’t have. Mohan pulls off Abbott’s maneuver and the ER/surgical rivalry continues!

• Another moment that made me a little weepy: Esme from custodial services checking on Robby, asking him if she can get him something to eat. The Pitt has made it a point to show that a hospital doesn’t only run because of its doctors and nurses but that there’s a whole team of people — desk clerks, orderlies, custodians, security — who keep things going; this is another nice nod to that.

• Has Santos finally found the right fit with a mentor in Dr. Ellis? She seems to tolerate Santos’s whole brand the best so far, no? She’s also witness to some very awkward interactions between Santos and Langdon, who are forced to work together on another possible drug overdose. Things remain quite strained between those two!

• McKay’s dad finally arrives to take Harrison home and he’s played by …Fiona Dourif’s real dad, horror icon, and Academy Award nominee Brad Dourif. He’s only there for a brief moment, but upon finding Harrison with Chad, he does say the line “Chadwick Harrison Ashcroft the Third. A douchebag name for a douchebag guy,” and that, my friends, is awesome.

• Whoa! Is Mateo kind of into Javadi? He and his dimples have her sit down before she has an adrenaline crash and he calls her a “rock star.” Better yet, he calls her Victoria.

• Okay, fine, I did laugh when the clown called the hospital “a fucking circus.” I’m an easy mark!