The second season of NBC’s medical drama “Brilliant Minds” kicked off Monday with what collection star Zachary Quinto describes as a “mystery bomb,” together with his character, Dr. Oliver Wolf, below shut supervision in a psychological establishment.
“It’s a pretty revolutionary perspective that we come in with: we don’t know how he got there or why he’s there, and we don’t know why he can’t leave,” Quinto advised HuffPost in an interview. Because it seems, Dr. Wolf’s look within the facility is a flash-forward, with every of the brand new episodes rewinding the motion six months to supply “breadcrumbs that lead to what I hope will be a satisfying [end],” he added.
“Brilliant Minds,” which premiered final yr, relies on the lifetime of Dr. Oliver Sacks, the British neurologist and creator identified to a era because the “poet laureate of contemporary medicine,” within the phrases of The New York Instances.
Sacks died in 2015 at age 82, having spent most of his life each closeted and celibate. Quinto, nevertheless, portrays Dr. Wolf as a homosexual man who makes no secret of his sexuality amongst his cohorts at New York’s Bronx Common Hospital, however grapples with a deep-rooted concern of intimacy that could be linked to his experiences with prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and from having grown up with an absent father.
Like Sacks, Dr. Wolf has a detailed confidante in Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry), a personality based mostly on Dr. Carol E. Burnett, the primary Black graduate and one of many first ladies to graduate from New York’s Albert Einstein School of Drugs in 1960.
Written and created by Michael Grassi, “Brilliant Minds” didn’t benefit from the out-of-the-gate success of HBO Max’s “The Pitt.” Nonetheless, the present’s premiere season obtained widespread acclaim, notably for Quinto’s efficiency and a nuanced tackle psychological well being. Its two-episode finale was particularly riveting, with Dr. Wolf having an sudden reunion together with his father, Noah (Mandy Patinkin of “Chicago Hope”), who had lengthy been presumed useless.
One other buzzy plot level was Dr. Wolf’s romance together with his colleague and onetime adversary, Dr. Josh Nichols (performed by Teddy Sears). After weeks of slow-building stress, the 2 males connected after being shaken by a tragedy midway via Season 1. By the beginning of Season 2, nevertheless, their relationship has cooled.
“Someone once said to me, ‘Once you see a happy couple on TV, that’s when you know it can’t last,’” quipped Sears, who beforehand co-starred with Quinto on “American Horror Story” in 2011. “There’s a lot of love there, but there’s also a lot of reality to deal with.”
Dr. Nichols, he added, will spend future episodes “attempting to understand Wolf reconciling with his father, to give him the space and time he needs. But he also wants to know how he figures into Wolf’s life. There’s only a certain amount of time he’s willing to allow Wolf that emotional grace. Ultimately these two still have to work together.”
Season 2’s premiere episode, titled “The Phantom Hook,” finds the collection veering additional away from the specifics of Sacks’ life, with Dr. Wolf at odds with a brand new neurology resident, Dr. Charlie Porter (Brian Altemus), whereas treating a champion boxer unable to manage his personal arm.
Sacks was, in fact, already the topic of a extra simple biopic, 1990’s “Awakenings” starring Robin Williams. For his half, Quinto likens his work on the present to “excavating a quarry with a spoon” whereas remaining true to the essence of the late medical pioneer.
“I’m grateful I had time before we started the first season to dive into Sacks’ writing, the many interviews he gave and the articles he wrote,” he mentioned. “I feel like I laid a strong foundation for myself to understand who [Sacks] was. It was a great springboard, and now we’re swimming in the deep water, because this is its own story.”
New episodes of “Brilliant Minds” air Mondays on NBC at 10 p.m. ET, and can be found to stream on Peacock the next day.
