Spoilers! The following contains spoilers from theSeason 2 finale of "The Pitt."
It's officially time to check out of"The Pitt."
HBO Max's acclaimed series, set over the course of a shift at a Pittsburgh emergency room, wrapped up its second season on April 16, with an emotional finale featuringa wild birth that leads to a c-section, crying in the parking lot and some therapeutic karaoke. And now fans will have to wait months before seeing their favorite healthcare workers again.
But that doesn't mean we can't start talking aboutSeason 3 of the series already,which should hopefully be full of the same drama, emotion and shock that fans have come to love.
Here's everything we know aboutSeason 3 of "The Pitt"so far, from when it's back to who will be returning.
How does 'The Pitt' Season 2 end?Here's where every hospital character ends up
When will 'The Pitt' return for Season 3?
It'll be awhile until you can check yourself back in to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, but not as long a wait as for many streaming TV shows in the modern era. "The Pitt" is scheduled to return in January 2027, eight months from its emotional April 16 finale. But most streaming shows take a year or even two or three (like Netflix's "Beef" for example) to come back for new seasons, so it might seem like no time at all passes before we see Dr. Robby again.
"I'm too nervous about being unemployed again, so I tend to press my luck," Noah Wyle told USA TODAY. "We're crafting storylines in the writers' room, we'll be back shooting in June, and hopefully get back on the air in January."
When will The Pitt' Season 3 be set?
Each season of "The Pitt" takes place over the course of 15 hours of a single day, focusing on the chaos of the emergency room in real time. Each day is a particularly rough one for the healthcare workers, keeping the stakes high. Season 1 had the staff responding to a mass shooting. Season 2 was set on the 4th of July, a traditionally busy day for hospitals because of fireworks, heat and large gatherings (plus the hospital being forced to go analog following a cyber security threat did not help). Season 3 will be quite a bit chillier, Wyle says.
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"It will be pre-Thanksgiving, moving into colder weather," says Wyle, 54. "The holidays are approaching. The weather's changing. People are turning on their heaters for the first time."
"It will be explosive," he promises.
Sepideh Moafi steps into "The Pitt" Season 2 as the new attending physician, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. Who else is new for Season 2 of HBO Max's Emmy-winning drama? And why are they at the Pittsburgh ER? Find out on January 8.
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Who's new on 'The Pitt' Season 2? Meet Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi and more
Sepideh Moafi steps into "The Pitt" Season 2 as the new attending physician, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. Who else is new for Season 2 of HBO Max's Emmy-winning drama? And why are they at the Pittsburgh ER? Find out on January 8.
The early-winter setting also means it won't be very long for the characters between seasons (Seasons 1 and 2 were set about 10 months apart). "So it's not as big a (time) jump as the last time," says creator R. Scott Gemmill. "And we'll play with the colder weather."
Who is returning, and who is not, for 'The Pitt' Season 3?
"The Pitt" caused major drama for its fans when producers announced thatDr. Mohan, played by Supriya Ganesh, would not be returning for Season 3.Producers explained that, trying to stay true to the realities of a teaching-style hospital that they're trying to portray, characters will have to come in and out of the story without warning.
"Part of the nature of the business of a teaching hospital is that people come, they learn, and they leave," Gemmill says. "In order to try to be truthful to the process, we're turning over our cast. It's still a great launching pad for young actors. They do their time with us and then, God bless, they go on and do great things."
Producers haven't announced any other official departures, but it has been announced that Ayesha Harris, who plays night shift doctor Parker Ellis, will become a regular for Season 3, meaning her character probably makes it off the night shift.
What will Season 3 of 'The Pitt' be about?
There will be medical emergencies and character drama all over again in Season 3, and Dr. Joe Sachs, a producer and medical advisor on the show, explains how hard it is to make that all happen in a single day of story time.
"We have to do character development in 15 hours, in one day," he says. "We have to be very careful to keep it real, yet reveal things about characters that add to the richness of the storytelling and the emotional content."
"In terms of Season 3, what we're doing is we're trying to create the richness, the experience, of what everyone can go through in a 15-hour shift that will be entertaining, and that will be revealing, and that will help the audience learn new things about the characters."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Everything about 'The Pitt' Season 3 we know so far