Compassion and empathy are some of the most crucial core values in the medical field, more so when it comes to treating ailments affecting something as complex, expressive, and sophisticated as the human brain, and putting a caring emphasis on these aspects is what separates NBC’s latest medical drama, Brilliant Minds from numerous similar entries in the genre. While viewers who have binged classics of the genre like Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Doctor are going to find certain tropes being followed, the series manages to make its mark by establishing a strong emotional connection, aptly founded upon the core values themselves. The pilot episode allows Brilliant Minds to have a solid start, as actor Zachary Quinto dons the white coat as the interesting lead medic. Inspired by neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’ treatise of real-life experiences as a doctor in Bronx General, the series dives deep into the subject of neuroscience to highlight the intricacies of the human mind—both perceivable and non-perceivable.
Spoilers Ahead
Dr. Oliver Wolf Joins Bronx General
The opening scene of the pilot episode introduces Dr. Oliver Wolf, a brilliant neurologist who opts for unconventional methods to treat his patients, like how within the first five minutes of the episode, Dr. Wolf is shown to have taken one of his elderly patients, Harold, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s on a bike ride through the streets of New York to let him meet with his granddaughter, who is getting married. Harold used to be a proficient pianist, and as Dr. Wolf gives him the chance to play piano during the wedding ceremony, it acts like therapeutic treatment, and the old man is able to recognize his family members for the first time in a long while. Dr. Wolf deeply cares for his patients and goes to absurd lengths to help them heal as he addresses the problems of the psyche on a deeper level, going beyond the copybook methods. However, his methods obviously don’t sit well with the hospital he has been employed to, and they terminate his job after facing pressure from the patient party.
Dr. Wolf’s caring self is a product of his childhood pain and, to some extent, his own condition, which has contributed to his suffering from social anxiety. Since his childhood, Oliver has suffered from the inability to recognize people by their faces, a condition medically known as prosopagnosia—and his father, with whom he shared a strong bond, had helped him to navigate through the problem. Oliver’s father himself had suffered from a psychological condition, details of which are not revealed in the first episode, but due to the condition, he somehow got tied up in a violent incident, which resulted in him getting imprisoned. The interesting factor is that Oliver’s mother, who is a medical personnel herself, gave up on his father, considering him a lost cause, despite a young Oliver pleading with her to give him a second chance. Affected by the broken family relations and the social anxiety stemming from his own condition, Oliver lives alone, tending to his fern-growing hobby. However, the sordid past has given Oliver a deep sense of empathy towards others, especially the misunderstood, and a strong determination to help those in need.
After Oliver gets fired from his job, his old friend from medical school, Carol Pierce, present chief of the psychiatric department in Bronx General, arrives knocking at his doorstep with a job offer at the neurological department in her hospital. Oliver is initially unwilling to take up the offer, but Carol, who knows what keeps Oliver ticking the most, appeals to his sympathetic side by mentioning a patient who has recently undergone epilepsy surgery and thereafter has started believing her children have been replaced by someone else’s. Curious and willing to help out, Oliver begrudgingly agrees to join Bronx General.
Hannah Peter’s Affliction Creates A Rift In Her Family
At Bronx General, Oliver is annoyed after learning that he has to show the ropes to four interns—Van, Ericka, Dana, and Jacob as well, as he prefers to work alone—without the fear of being judged or hated by others due to his condition. However, Carol convinces him to work with the team, and he looks into patient Hannah Peter’s situation. Right off the bat, Oliver gets into an argument with Dr. Josh Nichols, chief of neurosurgery, who performed Hannah’s surgery, as Oliver accuses him of committing a mishap during the procedure.
Oliver takes his medical team to Hannah’s home to observe and get to know his patient better and to diagnose the problem by identifying the underlying issues she is facing while interacting with her children. Hannah is suffering from Capgras delusion, a condition that results in people mistaking their close ones as identical imposters, and to some extent, her situation is similar to Oliver’s face blindness disorder as well. Oliver tries to help Hannah through visual stimulation, like his father had advised him to remember basic traits of a person to identify them separately, and even though Hannah remembers certain traits of her sons, Gus and Ellis, she isn’t able to match those traits when they appear in front of her. Things take a wrong turn when, at night, Hannah evicts her sons out of her house, and child security officers take custody of her children, separating them from their mother. Unless Oliver and co. are able to help Hannah reconcile with reality and somehow convince the officer that Hannah is mentally fit to be a mother, custody of the children will directly go to their estranged father, who is already trying to corner Hannah. Oliver meets with Gus and Ellis and promises them that he will do his best to help their mother get better. Oliver tries to help Hannah by taking her to her childhood home, but she remains disconnected despite recognizing the place. On their way to the place, Hannah shares her fond memories about spending time with her sons while having a picnic in the ‘Bluffs’.
We learn a bit about the intern associates of Oliver as well: Ericka is hardworking and nerdy, while Van is the quiet, reserved type. Dana has anxiety issues and a tendency to take medication randomly, and Jacob, a former college quarterback who lost his career to an injury, is a bit restless and cynical. Seeing Oliver relentlessly making an effort to help Hannah regain her connection with her sons, Jacob, who doesn’t really consider Oliver’s procedure as practical, shares his disappointment, but gets promptly shut down by Ericka, who seems to have trust in Oliver’s methods.
Was Dr. Wolf Able to Help Hannah Peters?
When visual stimulation don’t seem to help Hannah reconnect with her sons, Dr. Wolf opts to use auditory stimulation—by making Hannah listen to the audio recordings of her son during their time spent together in the Bluffs. While this is able to generate a strong emotional response from Hannah, she also undergoes a seizure as the emotional surge proves too much for her mind to handle. She fears that her epilepsy has returned, but Dr. Wolf ensures her that it is more of a nerve memory issue, which is a common occurrence post-surgery, and can be treated in time. However, Dr. Nichols meets with Oliver to inform him that he will drop him from the case, as Hannah having seizures despite having her surgery done puts a bad rep not only upon Nichols as a surgeon but on the hospital as well.
After learning about this, Hannah is dejected and unable to bring herself to emotionally connect with her sons; she decides to take her life by going to the cliffs and driving off the edge of the cliff. However, Oliver had anticipated Hannah would go there after finding her absent at the hospital, and reaches just in time to stop her from taking a horrid step. He firmly assures her that he will guide her through every step to reunite with her children. The next day, in the presence of Dr. Nichols and the child safety officer, Oliver puts Hannah in a blindfold and allows her children to interact with her, which ultimately does the trick. The auditory stimulation helps Hannah to connect with her sons, and as she is overwhelmed with emotions, everyone present is able to acknowledge the connection. But completely returning to her past self will be a time-consuming affair for Hannah, and Oliver promises the child safety officer that through communication, using altered lenses that prioritize auditory connection over visuals, and being aware of her condition, Hannah will return to her usual self as the loving mother she always has been. The only thing he asks from the officer is to provide her a chance—a chance that his father never received. As the officer agrees, Oliver keeps his promise to Hannah by overseeing every step to her complete recovery.
Later, Oliver decides to turn a new page in his own life as well, as he decides to get acquainted with his interns, and revealing his condition to them encourages them to open up as well, which will help them form a bond and allow Oliver to identify them at the same time. As Oliver meets with Carol, he rightly anticipates that Carol willingly picked the first case for Oliver at Bronx General—which was too similar to his condition—to help him in the first place. Carol acknowledges that the disorder that hinders Oliver’s ability to identify others through appearance actually allows him to probe deeper into their minds and emotions, letting people know better than others ever could. Taking leave from her, Oliver goes to meet the chief medical officer of the hospital, who had demanded to meet him previously, and it turns out she is none other than Oliver’s mother herself. As the episode ends with Oliver coming face-to-face with his mother, it is hinted that through the case of the week format, the underlying main plot will concern Oliver reconciling with his own past.
