I watched my dad slowly die on ‘The Pitt’

Few things are more satisfying than spotting a show’s hidden Easter eggs. But most fans of HBO Max’s The Pitt missed one: a background character in the ER’s packed waiting room who went largely unnoticed — until he died in the April 16 Season 2 finale (spoilers ahead).

Only then did fans start connecting the dots: Patient Jasper Reed had been there since the Jan. 15 premiere, struggling with the heat and quietly shedding layers episode by episode until he died in a tank top.

Actor Ronald Alan Scarlata played the ill-fated character. Once the show wrapped, his real-life daughter, Amy Scarlata — a freelance social media producer who co-hosts the Turtle Time podcast about Bravo shows — gathered clips of her dad on The Pitt and posted them on TikTok, where they took off. As one stunned commenter put it: “OH SNAP HE WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME?!” Another added: “Now I have to rewatch the season and look at everyone in the waiting room.”

“I think that’s part of why that video sort of popped off as people were like, I never noticed him,” Amy tells Yahoo. “And so now it’s inspiring people to look at the details that go unnoticed because the show moves so quickly. There’s no way you could pay attention to everything.”

She’s not the first family member to post about a loved one dying on the show. The niece of Ernest Harden Jr. — who played the beloved Louie on The Pitt — did her own TikTok about her uncle’s character dying, captioning it: “Me watching my uncle casually watch himself die on TV and I’m just sitting there like 👁️👄👁️.“ Amy says that video inspired her to post about her own dad, who goes by Ron.

The slow demise of Jasper

Part of what likely struck a chord with viewers watching Amy’s videos was the dramatic change in the character’s appearance over the course of the series. “I noticed a lot of people talking about how he came in so dignified — with his hat and his jacket — and that made it even sadder,” Amy says. “He was dressed up, and then his dignity slowly got stripped away.”

Some viewers found the scene heartbreaking. Others laughed at the dark humor of Dr. Shen (Ken Kirby) and Dr. Ellis (Ayesha Harris) pretending that Jasper wasn’t dead to avoid alarming people in the waiting room. For many, it was a mix of the two. “It’s both so funny and so sad,” wrote one commenter.

Despite his character’s demise, Amy says her dad was thrilled when he landed a role on The Pitt. “When he messaged us that he got this gig, we were all so excited because we all loved it, and he was like, ‘This is my favorite show.’”

That enthusiasm came in handy. Because the entire season unfolds over a single 15-hour shift, continuity is crucial. While background actors typically work only a day or two on most shows, Amy says her dad had to show up over several months of filming. But for Ron, who turned 80 last month and taught acting for nearly 30 years in Torrance, Calif., that wasn’t an issue. “This is his retirement fun job,” she says.

So what’s it like watching your dad pretend to die on TV?

It’s not every day that you get to watch your dad slowly “die” on television, so understandably, Amy says people kept asking her if she was OK. The family’s morbid sense of humor helped. “The first time I saw his makeup, I was like, Wow, they really left you to rot in the waiting room. You’re, like, really dead. So we joked about it.”

But when the actual episode aired, Amy says she was a bit shocked at just how dead her dad looked. While the makeup had been more subtle at first, her dad told her the director asked the makeup artists to up the ante. “I hadn’t seen it at its completion,” she says. “So when I watched the episode, I was like, My God, he’s really a goner. But I wasn’t upset. I was proud of him.”

While this wasn’t Ron’s only brush with the spotlight — he also appeared as a background actor in a restaurant scene on Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, thanks to his other daughter, who worked as a gaffer on the show — Amy says his role on The Pitt was the most fun.

Ron’s only complaint? “He was a little bit disappointed that he didn’t get to actively die,” Amy says. “I think he wanted to have a shining moment where he actually had, like, a heart attack or something. But nevertheless, he got the screen time and then [the attention afterward] has been fun too.”