Brilliant Minds Chapter 11: The Other Woman
Brilliant Minds Chapter 11: The Other Woman. Quick recap: Allison is OK, Jacob and Van fight over Ericka and it seems like winning might the primary motive for both guys, not their deep feelings for Ericka. Carol finally asks Morris for a divorce, and we learn that she had serious postpartum depression. A guy with tics gets surgery to fix them, which causes Wolf and Josh to discuss whether we should be changing people or changing society to be more inclusive of neurodiversity.
We open with Dana and others wheeling in Allison who we found collapsed in her apartment in the previous episode. She’s overdosed on something, probably intentionally. As you may recall, Allison is the blonde gal who Dr. Carol Pierce’s husband was seeing on the side. Then she creepily sought out Dr. Carol for therapy without telling her about her relationship. Dr. Carol figured it out and kept seeing Allison as a patient to squeeze more intel out of her about her husband’s affair.
Dr. Carol is bemoaning this ethical lapse of hers and tells Dr. Oliver Wolf that she hopes Allison survives so she can “make this right.” Make what right? I’d say if your violent stalker offs herself, that’s a problem solving itself. Anyway, there’s nothing Dr. Carol can do to help Allison besides refer her somewhere for inpatient treatment and scoot on out of her life.
Dana and Van are carping about their workload. Jacob slinks over, looking rather predatory, and notices Dana’s pink Crocs. Then he challenges Jacob to “a game,” and Jacob takes him on. Now, Jacob and Van should not know they are rivals for Dr. Kenny’s heart, so what the heck is this “game”?
We’re in Wolf’s office where he is seeing the rakishly handsome Ezra Smith (Alexander Pennecke), who has Tourette’s syndrome. The real Dr. Wolf, Oliver Sacks, also had a long-running relationship with a guy with tourettes he called “Witty Ticcy Ray,” a drummer who felt that some of his musical talent stemmed from his disorder. Anyway, Ezra tells Wolf that he wants to get surgery, as deep brain stimulation implant, to get his tics under control. (This is a real intervention for Tourettes, but usually only very severe cases.) Ezra asks for a referral to a neurosurgeon and Wolf is like, I know just the guy.
Wolf and Dr. Carol are in the hospital’s break room kitchen. (The fridge features a flyer that says “Take your food home,” and a picture of someone’s dog.) Carol says she hasn’t been able to leave the hospital because she’s so worried about her stalker potentially dying. Wolf tells her to go home and get some rest.
Ezra’s character appears to be based on the story Witty Ticcy Ray by Oliver Sacks. Ezra seems a lot less kinetic than Sacks’s patient.
Allison is awake and feeling fine. She’d like to see her psychiatrist, Dr. Carol Pierce, who Wolf says is not available. Allison says she will come back when Dr. Carol is free and wants to get out of the hospital. Kenny explains that she’s on a psychiatric hold and she’s going to be transferred to a psych bed in a locked ward soon. After the interns leave, Allison tells Wolf that she’s the villain, the other woman who always dies at the end of the movie.
Wolf checks in with the interns, and I think I understand what the game is now: Whoever discharges the most patients wins.
Carol goes home and sees her husband interacting cheerfully with their daughter. Flash back to Carol holding her daughter as an infant, talking on the phone with Wolf, and suffering from postpartum depression. Back in the present, Carol fesses up to Morris about the whole Allison situation. Morris says that the reason he cheated was because Carol looked at him as the source of all her disappointment, and Allison looked at him as the source of all her happiness. “She could have been anyone,” Morris says. “She doesn’t deserve to be a casualty of our marriage,” Allison replies.
Is “The Game” a real thing that medical interns do? If so, I am alarmed.
Even thought it’s a very bad idea, Carol goes to check in on Allison. Allison takes the opportunity to tell Carol that Morris had been insatiable, when it came to sex. “How long had you been depriving him?” she says. Carol says that it must be scary to be in a hospital all alone, to want something from someone who can’t give it to you. This little exchange is venomous. I hereby diagnose Allison with borderline personality disorder (because of her unstable interpersonal relationships and seeing people as all good or all bad.) Allison threatens to end Carol’s career. Flashback to young Carol with her infant, and she has a total breakdown, hasn’t slept in days, and won’t go outside because it isn’t safe out there.
Wolf goes on a walk with Ezra and witnesses firsthand how people treat him with disdain and pity due to his tics. Wolf then chats with Dr. Josh (the neurosurgeon) and says that it’s a shame that they have to do this surgery when another solution would be just to change the world, to make tics more socially acceptable. This is the Social model of disability, and it argues that (contrary to the medical model) disability is the result of a person’s interaction with society. I agree with it -- I mean, left handed people were once considered disabled and borderline demonic, but now we give them special scissors and we don’t make a big deal about it.
Josh asks Wolf if would have his prosopagnosia cures, and Wolf says, “Change how I see the world? Definitely not.” I know I would get mine fixed in an instant! I hope that we get some form of face recognition glasses in my lifetime so I can experience what it’s like to see people and automatically know who they are.
Allison starts shaking uncontrollably, but her tremulousness is fixed by ativan. Apparently she had serotonin syndrome, caused by too much of the neurotransmitter in your brain.
“That Liebman pastrami hits different,” Carol says. Her daughter Maya has brought her lunch. Maya tells her Carol that she doesn’t have to single-handedly fix everything all the time. Flashback to young Carol with infant Maya. Morris pries infant Maya out of Carol’s arms and tells her that she needs sleep and to get some help. “I’ll never hurt you,” Morris says. Big promise my friend!
Wolf sees that Ezra is on the schedule for surgery. Josh explains that Ezra signed himself up quietly because Wolf doesn’t want him to get the surgery. The two lovers/doctors have a little standoff where Josh, the neurosurgeon, says that Wolf, a neurologist, doesn’t see him as an equal. Somehow this becomes a relationship metaphor?
Jacob is about to discharge a patient but he thinks twice about it, which sets him back in “the game.” He diagnoses the patient with a rare autoimmune disorder and everyone shows up to applaud Jacob. Our poor patient seems upset that he isn’t going home.
Dana wins The Game. Jacob tells Van that he would have won but he had to do what was best for his patient. Van says, I know what you’re doing. You like Ericka. But she picked me. Cold. But you know what’s even colder? What he says next. “Thanks for the ice cream.” (An episode or two ago, Jacob brought Ericka ice cream and wanted to hang out but she sent him packing because Van was over, canoodling with her already. By the way, earlier Van whispered to Ericka that he really cares about her, and that Jacob only cares about winning. What if Van is just saying that to win? Evil machiavellian genius!
Jacob flirts with Ericka and then “lets it slip,” that Van has a kid. Ericka sees through him and says, do you want to get with me or something? Jacob hems and haws and she leaves the room in a snit. She says that she’s not here “for this,” she’s here to become a doctor. “Boys, I’m surrounded by boys,” she says hilariously.
I have to say, I’m on Morris’s side here. You cheat once or twice during a 30 year marriage and it’s all over? Seems draconian. Also, Morris crying breaks me.
She storms into the vending machine room and asks Van if he has a kid. “A human child?” Dana says. Ericka asks Dana to leave the room. “I will need to be filled in later,” she says to Ericka on her way out. Ericka tells Van that she doesn’t want to be his friend with benefits anymore.
Dr. Carol tells Allison that she has borderline personality disorder. Did I nail that or what?? Then she goes home and tells Morris she wants a divorce because he broke his promise to never hurt her and she can’t forgive that.
Meanwhile, Wolf apologizes to Jacob for being hard-headed about the surgery for Tourettes guy (which went well.) Wolf says that he wished that he could have plucked the bipolar disorder out of his father, who was so ashamed of it. This is interesting because the question is where does the mental illness end and the person begin? It points to an issue with the medical model of mental illness, especially with conditions like Tourette's, autism, or ADHD, where the traits that are pathologized can also be integral to the individual's identity, personality, or even strengths. The medical model often seeks to "cure" or "correct" these traits, framing them as deficits, while ignoring the broader context of how society perceives and accommodates differences. This tension raises important questions about whether we are treating a true "illness" or suppressing a form of diversity that challenges societal norms.
Clearly we are in need of some big drama to bring us home to the end of the season, and we get it: Ericka’s crappy building collapses! Bronx General braces for a flood of casualties from the disaster, and everyone is worried about Ericka, who is trapped in the elevator with an old guy and a young woman.
