Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 4 recap and review: "The Blackout Bride"

Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 4 brings us a great mixture of comedy, drama, and heartfelt moments. This episode sees Wolf turn detective as well as doctor.

Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 4.

We know Dr. Wolf will go much further than other doctors to get into the minds of his patients. This episode sees him go a little too far, but it’s the only way to attempt to save a life.

The episode starts with a bride stumbling into the hospital covered in blood with no memory of the events of the night. She’s not covered in her own blood, though. What happened, and where is the groom?

Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 4 reminds us the cops aren’t always there to help

Of course, with a bride stumbling into the hospital covered in blood, it means the cops show up. They’re not interested in helping the bride. She’s likely killed the groom, and that’s all they care about. The problem is they go about it all in the wrong way. They’re not going to get answers if they don’t allow the doctors to treat the bride as a patient.

Pierce does everything she can to stall the cops, but it’s not enough. When the bride starts to have a seizure as the cops try to pull her out of the hospital, though, they have no choice but to listen to the doctors. They can either help with medical treatment or step back.

What caused the seizure, though? Dr. Wolf needs to get into the mind of the patient, and that means taking the drug that she took. That drug? Only Molly. Except it’s not. After he takes it and ends up in the club that Bridget and her groom, Charlie, went to, Dana learns that the Molly was laced with PCP. Well, it certainly leads to some brilliant moments for Wolf to dance his worries away, but it means some flashbacks for himself.

As Wolf starts to overheat, he and Dana find somewhere cool to go to. Well, that leads to them finding Charlie. He is in a walk-in freezer, almost frozen to death. He’s still alive, but his pulse is faint. There’s also another situation: he was stabbed!

It doesn’t take long from this point to find out what happened. Bridget lashed out with the drugs in her system and she ended up stabbing Charlie with an ice pick. It seems like a cut and dry case, right? Brilliant Minds has made it clear that is never the case with this series. There is still something going on with Bridget.

Bridget has Maple Syrup Urine Disease

Honestly, I have to look up the disorders and diseases mentioned in this show because some of them seem completely made up. I’ve never heard of Maple Syrup Urine Disease, so I made sure that this wasn’t something made up for the series. It wasn’t, and I’ll give the writers their due for finding some of the rarest and most curious of conditions.

After Charlie wakes up from surgery, he tells the doctors that he and Bridget had been on a strict diet that involved high protein and no sweets. While that would just be annoying for most people, for Bridget, it was a potentially fatal diet linked with stress and her underlying condition.

Maple Syrup Urine Disease is an inherited metabolic disorder that affects how the body is able to metabolize amino acids. The amino acids build up and become toxic, leading to multiple health problems. In this case, mixed with the drugs and the stress, Bridget had seizures and they would have killed her had it not been for Charlie mentioning the diet.

Sadly, it doesn’t end happily for Bridget. Just as Wolf is taking her to see Charlie, Dana walks into the hallway in tears. Charlie had to be rushed back into surgery and he didn’t make it. Just as Wolf was offering Bridget some hope that Charlie saved her and wanted to see her, he had to go back to tell her what happened.

One downside to this episode is that we don’t get to find out what happened to Bridget after this. The cops wanted to arrest her from the start, and now they had proof that she stabbed Charlie and was high on drugs at the same time. Sure, her medical condition played a part, but that doesn’t always matter in a court of law. I’m intrigued by how that would play out, and I’m sure Wolf would be on her side to offer testimony about all the ways everything played against her. It would likely end up being manslaughter instead of murder.

I do love Dana's development in this episode. She spends a lot of time running around after Wolf, but she still gets a meaty moment at the end. She isn't afraid to show her emotions and care for patients, and this will serve her well as the show continues. We need doctors who really care, and Wolf certainly sees that in Dana.

The interns find a way to save John Doe in Brilliant Minds

This episode did put more focus on Ericka and Jacob. They two are from very different walks of life. Ericka is determined to be a good doctor. She’s missed out on a lot of fun in return for studying, and she’s committed to being the best doctor. She also looks down on those who don’t work as hard as her, and she needs to step off them.

This episode sees her trying to control Jacob a little too much. Sure, Jacob should put patients first, but don’t all doctors get up to things in closets and on-call rooms? We’ve seen enough Grey’s Anatomy to know this happens, right? It’s almost like Ericka is jealous because she likes Jacob but won’t admit that to herself.

The two were given the task to find a way to not have John Doe transferred to a long-term care facility. There was nothing Wolf could do without finding a medical reason to get him to stay. Just as Ericka and Jacob think they’ve failed, they decide to take him to one of the delivery bays, allowing John Doe to feel the breeze on his face; something that hasn’t happened in a long time. When his foot moves, the two interns rush him back to Wolf.

Wolf, at first, thinks that it’s just a reflex, but then he checks for pupil movement. It looks like John isn’t in a coma after all. What is going on with this patient, and can Wolf save him? Well, Ericka has managed to give John Doe a chance to remain in the hospital. This storyline is going to continue. My theory is that John Doe has some form of Locked In Syndrome.

I’m glad that we got to know Jacob a little more in this episode. While he is a bit of a party boy, he does take his job seriously. He wants to be a good doctor, and he is also capable of being a good friend. He reminds me a lot of a young Karev in Grey’s Anatomy, and I’m ready to see some character growth already.

I don’t find myself connected to Pierce’s personal drama at the moment. I think there’s just a lot going on with the cases each episode and a lot to take in about the interns and Wolf. Also, I don’t know enough about Pierce to care about her marital drama. I think this could have been a second half of the season storyline, but I’ll give it some time to play out.

Brilliant Minds airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC. Catch up the following day on Peacock.

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