One thing Brilliant Minds season 2 is able to do is manage the multiple subplots that are all surely going to start to come together soon. In Brilliant Minds season 2, episode 4, we get to see Ericka continue to spiral, and it’s Porter who is causing a few of the problems.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Brilliant Minds season 2, episode 4
Thanks to Canadian Thanksgiving, this recap isn’t a live one. However, there’s still a lot to break down from the episode.
As for the six-month-later storyline, we get to see Wolf gamble in cards with pretzels, which is enough to create a scene so that he can get to a phone and call the one person he needs to talk to: Josh. The problem is that Josh is with Porter, who is sharing that the neurology department is in good hands. Is it really?
That takes place at the start and at the end, continuing to focus on Porter as the villain of the story. I’m still curious at whether there is some bigger reason Carol encouraged Wolf to go into one of these facilities.
Dealing with the patient in Brilliant Minds season 2, episode 4
Throughout the episode, Wolf has a new patient to deal with. He, Ericka, Dana, and Porter are helping Arianna Burnett, a woman who is under a guardianship with her husband due to early-onset dementia. However, she’s sure that her family is poisoning her to control her, and Wolf isn’t all that certain that Arianna is suffering from dementia.
Josh is the one who entrusts Wolf in treating Arianna, because her husband is one of the bigger donors to the hospital. Bronx General is struggling financially, and Josh is looking for ways to bring in more money rather than cut costs, which means helping Arianna.
Sure enough, things take a turn when Wolf helps Arianna escape the hospital to take a few risks, including gambling at a casino. It turns out that she doesn’t have dementia at all. She has a condition that involves an improperly functioning amygdala, which means that she needs to take risks. She doesn’t have a sense of fear, and if she doesn’t take risks, then she ends up with memory loss.
Of course, those risks need to be taken in controlled ways, but at least we know that Arianna’s family isn’t poisoning her. Now they have a way to help her.
Ericka goes through a spiral
While Porter forces Ericka and Dana’s relationship to suffer more by telling Dana that he would have reported Carol as well, Ericka decides that she wants to treat Sam, the homeless schizophrenic man who keeps coming into the ER. She wants him to go through an MRI, but Porter doesn’t allow it to happen.
What does Ericka do? She decides to take a page out of Wolf’s book and sneak Sam in. When Sam kicks off, they’re caught, and it causes even more problems.
Feeling like she’s failing and unable to find Sam on her run, Ericka ends up taking more pills at home to balance everything out. She was on the verge of telling someone about her problems, and now she’s breaking down even more.
Is this connected to why Wolf ends up struggling mentally? Is Ericka going to end up being placed in Hudson Oaks? Is it possible that he goes in there to help her?
Brilliant Minds airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.