Chapter Six: The Girl Who Cried Pregnant
Brilliant Minds Recap and Review
Episode Grade: C. Points for: Gratuitous Mandy Moore. Demerits for: Boring. (NBC/Uni)
We open with a flashback of young Dr. Wolf (wolf cub, Jaden Waldman) abandoned by his dad in the woods. Why? Unclear, and this will stay that way.
Back to the present: Dr. Carol swings in and says she’ll be staying with Wolf because it’s her husband’s nesting week. That’s a thing that separated parents do these days, where the kid stays put and the parents switch off, like an AirBnB host who just forgot to leave.
They chat about their love lives, Wolf changes the subject to John Doe, the locked in patient. He wants to get him into a clinical trial for something called Neurolink. The only problem? The guy running the program, Simon Gadston, doesn’t really like Wolf because he has a reputation for not following protocols. Dr. Carol apparently has a flirty relationship with him, and offers to intercede on Wolf’s behalf.
The two are interrupted to see a pregnant teen who has traveled all the way from New Jersey for a sonogram at Bronx General to keep her parents from finding out. The doctors arrive as a sonogram is being performed, and we see that there’s nothing in this gal’s swollen belly.
Hysterical pregnancy, also known as pseudocyesis —this is something that actually happens — not to American teens, usually, but to married, infertile women in cultures that put a huge emphasis on the importance of getting pregnant. They want to be pregnant so badly, they stop menstruating, become tired and nauseous, and may even start showing physical pregnancy symptoms. Their bellies and breasts swell (possibly because they unconsciously eat more) and they may even lactate a little. (Adding to the problem: some antipsychotic medications can induce lactation and stop your period.)
The mind-body connection is nuts!
In Wolf-land, random adults can visit high schools and wander freely. (NBC/Uni)
A bunch of teen girls show up squealing. They are friends of our first patient, Sarah (Amalia Yoo) and they are all false-pregnant too. None of them really look pregnant to me.
Could this actually happen? I think so! There’s a famous example of girls in a Kenyan boarding school who all developed mysterious symptoms at the same time, and it turned out to be a case of “mass-hysteria.” They weren’t faking it — I mean, maybe some of them might have been — but for the most part they were extremely distressed by their symptoms, which included paralysis and leg twitches. The crisis seems to have been triggered by extreme stress over final exams.
There are lots of other historical examples of teen girl mass hysteria, and social media may be changing the way it spreads. I couldn’t find any recorded cases of mass-hysterical pregnancies in any age group, however.
Wolf and his colleagues decide not to tell the girls that they are all not actually pregnant yet because they want them to be compliant. Most medical ethicists would not agree with this plan.
Dr. Dana’s panic attack results in a breakthrough with one of the false pregnant teens.
They decide to go to Bellwood High school to find the “index patient” — the one who sparked the whole thing and has some kind of underlying trauma. Dana does not want to go and would prefer to stay at the hospital and run tests. Girl I am with you.
Cut to the Wolf Pack striding down a locker-lined hallways to the tune of …a B-Side Britney Spears song? No, it’s Mandy Moore’s debut single, “Candy.” It’s a real clone — she sings “come to me,” as “come to may,” just like the Backstreet Boys, “It’s going to be may.” Who was giving these ‘90s pop stars English pronunciation lessons? Max Martin? (Probably it was Max Martin.)
A sexy principal is talking to the teens’ parents, saying they are testing for mold. Wolf gives them the good news: None of your kids are pregnant. As to why they think they are, he says the girls might be stressed out by “intense parents.” The parents don’t take this well. “Save yourself,” sexy principal Mark Owens (Christopher Bencomo) whispers to Wolf. They have chemistry, cute!
Sarah quite rightly asks Wolf why he’s following her around. He says he’s concerned she’s growing up too fast. She replies, “High school is brutal. Becoming a mother has put it all in perspective. My life doesn't revolve around the SAT or prom anymore,” Sarah says. “She’s changed me from the inside out.”
Dr. Carol provides more free psychoanalysis for Dr. Wolf.
Wolf admires her sense of purpose and says that he’s always felt directionless.
Cut to Wolf Cub lost in the woods, looking for his dad.
Dr. Carol is at “Hudson Tech University” which has gorgeous cherry blossom trees, and she’s trying to talk Dr. Simon Gadston into trying NeuroTech on her John Doe. Carol promises Wolf will follow all the rules.
Dana is in the high school library and the lights go all wonky — Ghostbusters?? No, just a panic attack. She puts ice on her neck — definitely works! The kid she’s been shadowing gives her chocolate.
Sarah collapses — right before the commercial break! “Everything’s black, I can’t see.”
Lead teen is quick to figure out each intern’s one and only trait character trait via tarot.
Sarah’s fine! All the girls have been admitted for observation and Erika has given them name tags to help Wolf. How thoughtful! Erika also taps in when Van can’t take one of the girls’ blood.
The girls start singing — very creepy. I catch the words “enter our wombs.” Wolf says they have to join the cult. Wolf makes reference to oxytocin being stimulated by group singing forming the biological basis for the mass hysterical pregnancy. It’s interesting how shows like this — and even articles I’ve written — strain to make specific biological connections to complex human behavior, as if to prove that something isn’t “all in your head.” It’s like, if you understand that your teen’s prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed, you don’t pin their impulsive behavior on character flaws. But the teen’s impulsiveness and all their personality traits are surely physically manifested in the brain. We are our brains, gross, jiggly masses of jello. This is why Oliver Sacks often wrote of the mind/brain. The two are the same thing, as bonkers as this seems.
Our doctors are now doing Tarot reading with the teens, and Sarah pulls perfectly accurate cards for our interns, representing the lesson that weighs on their soul right now. Dr. Kenny: a queen in a throne, perfectionism. Intern Jock pulls the knight. “A heroes complex.” Dana has an upside jester, “a fear of stillness,” Van has a heart with swords in it (feels too much.) Wolf pulls the death card. Is it bad? No, just an ending, Sarah says.
Teenager Lilly has a seizure and everyone freaks out. OK… I mean, psychogenic illness is certainly real, but I wouldn’t be that panicked about (what is probably) a false seizure. Afterwards, Lilly gives Dana the goods: The girls all cast a spell to make themselves pregnant, without any male intervention. They are on “WitchTok,” TikTok for witches.
Dr. Wolf goes to chat with the principle for unclear reasons. Carol asks if it’s a date. Sadly it is not.
“Have you ever heard of WitchTok?” Our tarot teens are in a coven!
Wolf asks the sexy principal what the girls are stressed about. Principal Owens says that a few months ago one of the girls was taken out of the school by her mom and put into homeschool. Cut to the hospital, where one of the teens is going into labor. “Who is she?” Van asks. Apparently this one just slipped in to be with the others. She’s the “index” patient. Samantha Lee.
Van says she’s having an actual baby; he looks like he can feel it. Van coaches Samantha Lee through the final push, and all the girls scream with her. It’s an adorable, moving scene! I, personally, would not want any of my friends around when I’m giving birth, because I get very mean when I’m in pain.
Now, with the help of a chalkboard, Dr. Carol and Wolf explain that the girls conjured up false pregnancies in solidarity with their friend who was taken out of school and hidden away when she got pregnant for real.
Check out my book — it’s about my late-in-life discovery that I’m faceblind just like Dr. Oliver Sacks, the real Dr. Oliver Wolf.
Another crisis to commercial break! Samantha Lee is hyperventilating: preeclampsia or panic attack? Panic Attack. Carol talks her through it.
Wolf VOs about how we have to change and evolve as people. We see a montage of him explaining to the girls what happened to them in very compassionate terms, as empathy in its highest form. The girls do a ritual where they write down losses they are mourning and throw them into a fire. The sexy principal asks Wolf out for a drink and he says he’s unavailable. Guess Wolf isn’t ready to evolve there yet.
Intern group hug! “We’ll be your coven.” Very cute. (photo credit NBC/Uni)
The interns are hanging out at Ericka Kenny’s house. Van says that he was able to coach that teen as she gave birth by focusing on Ericka “Steady, confident, brave. You were my anchor.” Aww, sweet. Dana says that she had a panic attack in the HS library because she was in her High School library when she got news that her little sister, Olivia, had died. Group hug.
Dr. Carol and Wolf are hanging out at his house, and Dr. Carol breaks the news that she got John Doe into the trial. Wolf says that the teens reminded him of the last time he saw his dad, when he was left alone in the forest. We flash back to that for a second — where a ranger finds a scared Wolf Cub in the woods.
Wolf says he wishes he’d tried harder to find his dad in the woods. Dr. Carol says that Wolf is punishing himself by cocooning in with his books and plants. Then they find a literal cocoon on one of his plants. A reference is made to a drunk med school kiss.
Wait, med school? I thought they said Dr. Carol was a psychologist, and psychologists do not go to med school, they get PhDs. I guess she’s a rare psychiatrist/psychologist.
