Brilliant Minds Chapter Nine: The Colorblind Painter

“The Colorblind Painter,” is clearly inspired by the eponymous chapter from “An Anthropologist on Mars.” Notable additions include: A dead wife, psilocybin and the painter getting his groove back thanks to Dr. Wolf. Meanwhile, Dr. Carol finds herself in a psycho-thriller plotline, and she has no one to blame but herself. Overall Grade: B.  

Wolf VOs about how when we are happy we see colors as brighter. Then he asks what life would look like in black and white. We see Van and Ericka wake up together. Ericka wants to keep things casual and uncomplicated and not tell anyone at work. Translation: She’s actually crushing on Jacob and doesn’t want him to know. Van should be able to sense this, right?

Wolf calls Josh and leaves a message. Josh is at a conference and Wolf is anxious about not hearing from him. Wolf then makes a joke about how conferences are not fun. I don’t know about medical conferences but science conferences are big fun for nerds. Also, Wolf should be anxious: I have heard many stories of people hooking up at conferences. 

Also: I’m not surprised that Wolf’s got an anxious attachment style given his relationship with his parents. (Could also be mixed: anxious/avoidant. What do you think?)

An art dealer drops by to enlist Wolf to help her client, a painter named Gabriel Ferguson. He’s stopped painting due to migraines or something, she’s not sure. 

Wolf visits our painter (played by Robert Manning Jr.) who immediately tries to give him the boot. On his way out, Wolf cannily notices that Ferguson’s recent work is less colorful than his older work and that he’s wearing socks of two different colors. How long have you been colorblind? Wolf asks. Our painter explains that he’s not just colorblind, as in people who mistake red for green, but he sees the entire world monochrome. 

Our painter, played by Robert Manning Jr., is diagnosed with cerebral achromatopsia, due to carbon monoxide poisoning. 

Now we see the world through the colorblind painter’s eyes, and it is just like an old-timey black-and-white movie. However, this is not what the actual “Colorblind Painter,” saw, as described by Oliver Sacks. The real Colorblind Painter said that he saw the entire world in shades of grey, where even new snow looked kind of dingy. “Everything seems to be made out of lead.” The real Colorblind Painter actually enjoyed watching old-timey movies, because he said that they were not as distorted as his vision had become. 

Carol is doing therapy with the woman her husband had an affair with -- an unhinged lady who apparently sought her out for that reason. This shows very poor judgement. I can understand why Dr. Carol is curious to hear what this woman has to say -- but it’s textbook bad idea. Also, this gal is manipulative; she threatened suicide when Dr. Carol tried to pass her off to someone else.

When Dr. Carol slips and asks how the Side Piece feels about dating a married man, Side Piece is all like, “Wait, when did I tell you that he was married?”

She’s on to you Carol! Pawn her off on another therapist before you get yourself unalived!

Intern Jacob catches Van on the phone saying, “I love you too,” to someone, and he says, “Ericka is going to kill you!” Wait, he knows? Not, it seems he doesn’t.

Jacob asks Van who he was talking to, and he won’t say. Seems unlikely that he’d say “love you,” if it’s just a casual thing. I bet he’s seeing his mom or something. Jacob is jealous of everyone having new loves and not him.

Like the real colorblind painter, our fictional one got into a car accident. Unlike him, Gabriel is going to the hospital, so the interns can interact with him I suppose. 

Carol has lunch with her estranged husband, Morris. “Don't let one night that meant nothing destroy 20 years that meant everything. I love you,” he says. His story conflicts with his Side Piece’s. I’d believe my husband over her; what would you do?

The interns find a police report of Gabriel’s accident. Apparently his wife died in the accident and he was trapped in the car for a while. This is not true for the real Colorblind Painter, but it points to what I think is going to happen: I bet Gabriel got carbon monoxide poisoning! In Oliver Sack’s story, this possibility is suggested by Francis Crick (yes, that Francis Crick). 

Funny scene where Dana Dang hides from Dr. Carol after being yelled at by her.

I bet they will wonder if his problem is psychogenic, caused by trauma in the accident. The way you could tell this for sure would be to show him images that can only be perceived by people who DON’T see in color. If you can do this rapidly, you probably have a brian problem (cerebral achromatopsia,) not a mind problem (hysterical colorblindness.)

Next scene: Dr. Wolf gives my diagnosis. Nailed it!

Dr. Wolf asks Gabriel if he’d like to talk about his dead wife, and he does not. 

Side Piece (name “Allison Wittaker”) shows up and demands to talk to Dr. Carol. Allison frets that Dr. Carol never cared about her to begin with, and Dang tells Allison that Dr. Carol does care about her. Indeed, just last week, Dr. Carol asked for Dang’s help tracking her down when she didn’t show up to therapy. Oh no! Now Allison knows that Dr. Carol knows that Allison is the other woman who destroyed Dr. Carol’s marriage! This is about to get messy, my friends!

Intern group hug from a previous episode. (NBC/UNI)

Wolf and the interns decide to give the artist psychedelics to help him see color again, and to ease his depression. In the real Colorblind Painter, by the time Sacks meets the painter, he has lost his entire conception of color and he’s no longer even dreaming in color. So psychedelics probably wouldn’t have worked for him. As for the fictional Colorblind Painter -- maybe? It’s definitely not a good idea to do this without a certified psychedelics therapist. I imagine our team is just going to wing it.

And that’s what they do: Gabriele takes psilocybin and sees his wife in color in his mind's eye. Flashback time! Teen Wolf lays on a couch, seeing everything in black and white. His dad appears and says he’ll never leave him. Teen Wolf comes out as gay to Dream Dad and Dream Dad rolls with it. He says that Teen Wolf is too hard on his mom. 

Van says he’s not hooking up with anyone -- especially not anyone at the hospital. Ericka overhears and looks upset.

Dr. Wolf calls and leaves a long message for Dr. Nichols, talking about his colorblind painter, and then accidentally deletes it. He gets a call and must rushes to the painter’s studio. Gabriele is having a crisis and is about to burn all his paintings while his art dealer(?) looks on in distress. Wolf talks him down. 

If this scene happened, I totally missed it. Perhaps it was cut? Teen Wolf appears to be buying drugs from a friend. (NBC/UNI)

Wolf grabs some groceries for the painter, and Wolf realizes he left his wallet in the bodega. Gabrielle looks out the window and confirms that it’s there on the counter. “Wait you can see that in the dark?” This is accurate! People who lose their color vision often gain acuity, especially at dawn and dusk. 

Wolf says, “Without color your brain must be sensitive to wavelengths undetectable by the typical eye.”

If you change the last word to “brain,” this sentence is more or less true. Here’s a better one: “Since you damaged your brain's color-processing region, your visual system compensated by applying more resources to processing brightness, contrast and texture."

Carol admits to Wolf that she’s still seeing Side Piece Allison as a patient, and Wolf says Carol needs to stop.

Wolf gives Gabriel rose tinted glasses. In the real story, Oliver Sacks gives his painter green tinted lenses. I don’t quite understand how they work, however. I guess they narrow the light spectrum to the wavelengths that the painter is most sensitive to so he can discern between more shades of gray. 

Reference is made to “Country of the Blind,” (which reminds me of an excellent book by a journalist who slowly loses his vision and learns to operate in a sightless world, “The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight.”)

“Text me, you Luddite,” Cute! 

At the painters’ request, Wolf takes away his color paints. He’s a monochrome painter now.

Ericka gets freaked out by people talking about her and decides to end it with Van.

As for that, “I love you. See you this weekend,” it turns out that Van was talking to his son. He’s 6 years old and lives with mom.

Wolf opens a present from Nichols and it’s a cell phone. The note says “Text me, you Luddite.” Cute! 

Wolf and the interns go to the artist’s opening, and he’s painted Wolf in black and white. Gabriel says that it’s some of his best work. 

Dr. Carol terminates therapy with Side Chick Allison. In retaliation, Allison says “He told me he loved me.” The “he” in this case is Dr. Carol’s husband. Later, Carol walks out to her car and finds it smashed up. Scary!