Reviewer Rating: 4.6/5.0
4.6
Brilliant Minds improves each episode by adding more impactful cases and emotional character arcs.
Steve Howey guest-starred in Brainy Season 1 Episode 3 as Dr. Wolfe’s friend and mechanic Wyatt, who is experiencing memory loss. As his condition worsens, Wyatt is forced to make an impossible decision that changes his life forever.
Elsewhere, interns monitor a prepubescent girl named Emily who suffers from heart block caused by laughter. We also learned more personal details about many doctors that influenced how they treated their patients.
An impossible choice: living without remembering new memories
Who knew Dr. Wolfe would make house calls or be a friend of his machinist? He always goes the extra mile.
It’s funny to see a group of bikers smashing down Dr. Wolfe’s door because Wyatt (Steve Howey) was shot.
Unfortunately, that’s where the humor ends. Wyatt had no riding tremors. His memory problems have gotten worse over the past few weeks.
Initially, Wyatt thought everyone was overreacting, but Dr. Nichols discovered that a brain tumor was blocking Wyatt’s third ventricle and causing a buildup of spinal fluid.
Finally, Dr. Nichols demonstrates empathy and understanding of bedside manner. Maybe he’s kinder to patients.
Still, Wyatt faces an impossible choice: undergo surgery and lose the ability to create new memories, or forego the surgery and have just months to live.
It’s hard not to get emotional about this case as Wyatt refuses to be a burden to his wife, Rosie. He wants to go out on his own terms and Steve Howey’s performance is very classy.
In this case, Dr. Wolff and Dr. Pierce are once again on opposite sides as he wants to save the patient at all costs.
Dr. Carol Pierce: Imagine waking up every morning not knowing what happened the day before, let alone ten minutes ago. Does this sound like a life to you?
Has Dr. Wolfe’s most dangerous plan backfired?
What do you want your last memory to be? Wyatt wants to reconcile with his estranged daughter Haley, and Dr. Wolfe is determined to make it happen.
However, sneaking Wyatt out of the hospital and into a bar is risky, especially since Haley isn’t too happy to see her father.
She resented him missing every recital and event of her childhood and wanted to make sure he knew that, even if it was the last thing he remembered.
It wasn’t until he collapsed outside that she realized she wanted another chance with her father.
When Dr. Nichols came to pick them up, he was angry, but he put his anger aside to help Wyatt.
Even in those serious scenes, it was fun to see their banter and to see Dr. Wolfe share Van’s fear of needles while performing a spinal tap in the car.
Why do Dr. Nichols have these needles in his car?
Thankfully, Wyatt pulled through and his daughter told him that she loved him and forgave him, even if she had to repeat it. He’s determined to create memories with his family, even if he doesn’t remember them.
Save Emily without suppressing her joy
Preteen girls should attend a Taylor Swift concert to laugh at slapstick comedy.
So it makes sense for Emily’s parents to worry about their daughter having a seizure when she has one.
The medicine her last doctor prescribed wasn’t working, but Dr. Wolfe wanted to stoke it, watch it, and then treat it.
It seems hard to believe that a preteen girl would watch The Three Stooges, but it’s fun to see Emily and Dr. Wolfe bond over the movie.
Naturally, she was misdiagnosed. She suffers from heart block caused by laughter, so they need to find a way for her to live her full life.
The interns argue about this, with Dana and Jacob insisting that beta blockers work, while Van and Erica counter that the drugs numb the mind and reduce happiness.
The best part of the series is getting to know how these four work together and learning from Dr. Wolfe. Their friendship is so interesting.
What happened to Fan?
Van often overstresses his patients, from feeling the spinal needle to Emily passing out while doing it.
Although Jacob mocks him and thinks of him as a delicate flower, Van admits that he often shuts out the unpleasantness of the world as a coping mechanism.
However, there’s more to it than that. Van suffers from a neurological condition called mirror touch syndrome, which means he can feel whatever the person he’s talking to is feeling.
It explains many of his early reactions and is foreshadowed in Dr. Wolfe’s character description of being excited about research. The show even uses flashbacks at the beginning of episodes.
Van feels like a freak, but Dr. Wolfe thinks they can use it to solve other cases.
Dr. Pierce’s Marital Problems
When Dr. Wolfe asked Carol what she wanted her last memory to be, she responded that eating Italian food with her husband and daughter seemed like something worth fighting for.
However, her marriage to husband Maurice seemed to be strained and she hid from him at work.
The series never specified what unforgivable mistake Morris made, but I suspect he cheated with a co-worker because Carol couldn’t get over it.
Hopefully we’ll get to see Maurice and Carol work out their counseling issues and see the ferocious Dr. Pierce break down. As she says, psychologists make the worst clients.
Some memories are best forgotten
An important part of this episode involves preserving memories. Since Dr. Wolfe was just a child when his father became ill and died, he has some selective memories.
In order to preserve those precious memories, her mother never corrected him, making her a “bad person” in her son’s eyes.
Muriel Landon always seems to have a challenging time, so it’s refreshing to see her emotions as she compares her son to her father and lovingly touches the resurrection fern. This makes Dr. Wolfe realize that she taught him how to water the plants, not his father.
Although his memory of his father was inaccurate, his mother assured him that their love was unwavering. That exciting scene made me wish Dr. Wolfe and his mom could rebuild their relationship, too.
TV Fanatics, do you think Brilliant Minds is improving? Would you like Steve Howey as a guest star? What’s your favorite character arc?
We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please share them in the comments below.
Watch “Ingenuity” online
