[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Brilliant Minds Season 1 Episode 8 “The Lovesick Widow.”]
Brilliant Minds doctors Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) and Josh Nichols (Teddy Sears) essentially played out an entire rom-com after the two first shared a kiss in the series premiere.
There were the adorable covert smiles, and the sneaking away to kiss in Oliver’s office. They even had a moment where Oliver’s mother, Dr. Muriel Landon (Donna Murphy), caught them in the elevator! Then came the obstacle, with Muriel telling Josh not to break her son’s heart and him going to break it off with Oliver, only for Oliver to convince him to give their romance a real shot. So what does that mean exactly going forward?
Sears says that Josh hesitated because of that conversation with Muriel as well as hospital politics and his character not being an impulsive guy (which is why Oliver had to make the first move) and questioning how this fit into the life he made for himself at Bronx General. But after Oliver’s appeal, “these two begin to really build a sort of firm, solid relationship. This is when we see them begin to, going forward, build what we’d call a healthy, steady, dare I say, monogamous relationship,” he tells TV Insider.
“I’m really excited to see, especially if we can get another season, how that can strengthen or not. I’m very hopeful it can strengthen because it would be nice to see healthy couples on TV,” adds Sears. “We usually see some, they’re healthy for a second, then maybe they get acrimonious or something, or drama happens. It would be lovely to have these two be each other’s rocks, if you will. Hopefully, we’ll get to tell that story.”
Going forward, it is going to be “complicated” and surprises are coming for the couple, says executive producer Michael Grassi. “They’re starting something. It’s really early days. It’s like, what is this? How do they define it? How do they tell their friends or their family? Also what’s nice is they’re pulling stuff out of each other that’s interesting. I think Josh challenges Wolf in some surprising ways as well. A big example of that is we’ve met Wolf, he’s a bit of a Luddite. What is it like to date someone when they don’t have a cell phone?”
There are also disagreements to come about patients. “Neurosurgeons and neurologists have really differing views on what’s best for a patient and how to sort of approach patients,” Grassi explains. “We’ll see them have some stuff to figure out moving forward.”
Adds Sears, “We’ll see in later episodes how they differ in approaching a patient’s care. Wolf has a very firm idea that it needs to be this, but Josh feels like surgery and surgical interventions are the best way, the most effective way. Certainly, for him, they’ve always been the way of achieving the desired results. The drama can come from that, and these two can probably find themselves in a place where, how could you suggest this? I can’t believe that you wouldn’t think of that. And then, how do you resolve that? It gets into, are we fundamentally different as it comes to patients and their approach to care? All of these things we can mine if we get another go at it, but as far as the respect and the caring and the attraction, I think that’s not going anywhere.”
This episode also touches on Oliver and his mother’s relationship, with the former confronting the latter about sending away a guy he liked when he was younger and the implication that she didn’t like that he’s gay. He felt rejected for years, he told her. It was a different time and she was scared for him, she offered. But he didn’t need her protection, he just needed her love, he said. Like the show and some patients, this part of Oliver’s life is inspired by Oliver Sacks.
“When he was growing up, it was illegal for him to be gay in the U.K. and when he came out to his mother in real life, she said to him, you are an abomination and I wish you were never born. I didn’t want to tell that exact story, but I wanted to tell a story that was inspired by that part of the real Oliver Sacks’ shame that he lived with. He was celibate for 35 years of his life,” explains Grassi. “So capturing that relationship with his mother in our new contemporary way and how she made him feel [in] the past and how is he dealing with that and bringing that to his relationships in the present and it all unfolding within our hospital feels like a really authentic story of a mother and son finding a way to talk about something that may have been difficult for them to talk about. And if he hadn’t accepted that job at Bronx General, I don’t think they would be in this situation where they’d be taking this huge step forward in their relationship [in] understanding each other in a way that they haven’t before.”
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What we won’t see going forward is any tension between Josh and Muriel. “We do see them working together on one very busy day in the hospital, no mention or whiff of what’s going on, particularly because Wolf and Muriel are in a very thorny place in their relationship, and Josh doesn’t want to get in the middle of it,” says Sears. “However, if these two do stay in a relationship, how could it not impact the hierarchy of the hospital? And that’ll be an interesting thing to explore if we get the chance.”
What we will see coming up is Oliver’s best friend, Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry), having to be clued into his new relationship. “When does Carol find out, how does that fit into Wolf’s dating relationship in the past, even in the upcoming episodes?” asks Grassi. “One little tease is that we get to see Wolf and Carol when they were roommates in college together, which is inspired by the real Oliver Sacks who had his really close friend, Carol Burnett, and they spent a lot of time together when they were younger, and she saw him through some tough times.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Dr. Ericka Kinney (Ashleigh LaThrop) is clearly into Dr. Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) but it was Dr. Van Markus (Alex MacNicoll) she invited over and fell into bed with in the final moments. “Ericka is so by the books. I think she’s always done everything in a way where she feels like she’s in control of it. And I think the idea of sleeping with Jacob was way too vulnerable for her because she does have feelings for him, and I think it was too scary, the idea of sort of breaking her celibacy—she hasn’t slept with someone a very long time as we learned in the episode,” Grassi explains. “So the safer choice for her in that moment felt like Van because she’s not aware of Van’s feelings for her. She’s just like, I work with him. He’s such a nice guy. This is the safer choice for me. But I think that will become very complicated and we’ll definitely play that through in upcoming episodes in exciting and surprising ways.”
It is a love triangle, yes, but the executive producer calls it “a little more nuanced.”
What are you hoping to see from Oliver and Josh’s relationship going forward? And the Ericka-Van-Jacob love triangle? Let us know in the comments section below.
Brilliant Minds, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC