Summary
“The Girl Who Cried Pregnant” is another fascinating case for Brilliant Minds with an excellent balance of humor and drama, ongoing subplots and character development.
Brilliant Minds keeps surprising me. Episode 6, “The Girl Who Cried Pregnant”, doesn’t just offer up an interesting core case with some surprising and effective turns, but it balances the supporting cast better than usual, with the interns all getting something to do and even Carol getting a (small, admittedly) subplot of her own.
Sure, there’s some stuff missing – there’s nothing from John Doe here, although Carol’s excursion does pertain to him, and Nichols is suspiciously absent – but you can’t have everything. There are even fewer flashbacks; not that I’ve strictly minded them until now, but the present-day stuff feels a bit more pacey without having to lurch back and forth as much.
Mass Pregnancy
The A-plot in “The Girl Who Cried Pregnant” is, unsurprisingly, about a girl who gets pregnant. But there’s a twist! She’s not really pregnant – and she’s not the only girl.
I enjoyed the escalation of this premise. It’s weird enough for a young woman to be manifesting physical symptoms of pregnancy – morning sickness, lactating, the whole nine – and not be carrying a fetus. But when it turns out that all of her friends are also apparently pregnant, it’s clear something more intriguing is afoot.
This is what’s known as mass psychogenic illness, something that has cropped up throughout history all over the place. Groups feel sick at the same time, in the same way, despite no obvious external causes. And it can be serious. Like, deathly serious. So Wolf and the interns are against the clock.
Back to School
The solution – part of it, anyway – is for the doctors to go back to high school. One of the students must be the “index patient”, or patient zero, in other words, and treating them will treat the group. But it means determining the exact cause of the mass hysteria, which can be basically anything.
Being back in a high school setting affects everyone in different ways. Wolf is suited since the principal is an extremely handsome guy who takes an interest in him. Jacob is in his element. But Dana, particularly, struggles, even having a panic attack in the library (we later learn her panic attacks started when her sister died; the news was broken to her when she was in the library). Luckily, one of the pregnant girls, Lily, lends her a sympathetic ear.
This leads to a breakthrough in the case. Wolf had already established that the girls have an oxytocin connection creating a very strong bond between them, but Lily reveals that they’re really a coven of witches who cast a spell to get pregnant, and now believe that the magic is backfiring as curses, which is why Sarah collapsed in the school’s hallway, suddenly blind.
Carol and Dr. Wolf in Brilliant Minds | Image via NBC
Empathy
When another pregnant girl turns up at the hospital to see the others, the full scope of the problem is revealed. This girl, Sam, really is pregnant. And she’s about to give birth.
Sam is patient zero. She was pulled out of school at three months pregnant and this loss resulted in such a surge of empathy among her friends that they manifested their pregnancies in solidarity – for Sarah, this was even strong enough to create tangible physical symptoms.
But Sam still has to give birth. And it’s Van who takes the reins here, despite his mirror-touch synaesthesia, which he gets around by focusing on the cool, calm Ericka. Hmm – is a romance developing here?
If I had to complain about anything in Brilliant Minds Episode 6, it’d be that I think telling the girls they’re not pregnant is glossed over to facilitate an overly happy ending to the subplot. I don’t mind the conclusion, but a touch more focus on the actual moment of realization would have been appreciated. Not to nitpick, obviously.
John Doe’s Neurotech Trial
After Wolf diagnosed what was wrong with John Doe in the previous episode, it turns out his offhanded comment to Nichols about getting him fitted with a nanotech communication system wasn’t just bluster. He intends to enroll him in an experimental trial.
This is what Carol spends “The Girl Who Cried Pregnant” doing. Luckily for her, the doctor running the trial is very good-looking. Unluckily for her, he hates Wolf, or at least hates his resistance to authority and tendency to go off the rails. But he’s willing to put his prejudices aside for Carol and John Doe, just so long as Wolf plays by the rules. A developing romance here? Maybe.
With this and Wolf’s flirtation with the high school principal, Mark, there are glimmers of a romantic future for both of these characters, though admittedly not without strings attached. I suspect more of this in subsequent episodes.
