‘Brilliant Minds’ Ending Explained – Everyone Faces Their Fears In An Excellent Finale

Brilliant Minds hasn’t always explicitly been about fear, but the theme has certainly lurked in the background. All of it comes to the fore in the first season’s ending, with Episode 13, “The Man Who Can’t See Faces”, forcing almost all of its characters to confront their worst terrors, some longstanding and some relatively new. Wolf has to face the reality that his father is alive and his mother deceived him all his life; Ericka has a newfound elevator phobia following the events of the penultimate episode; Dana is scared of opening herself up romantically; Van is scared of cracking the pristine veneer of parenthood with the truth about his mirror-touch. And so on, and so forth.

Oh, and as ever, there’s a cliffhanger for good measure. Since Season 2 of Brilliant Minds hasn’t been confirmed yet, it could be a long wait for resolution. But the finale provides a lot of emotional payoff for good measure on both a plot and character level, so if this is goodbye from NBC’s medical drama — though odds are it won’t be — it bowed out on a high.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

Following the collapse of the apartment building, the displaced surviving citizens are being sheltered in a local church and ministered to by Pastor Thomas, a very nice lady who unfortunately believes she’s being sent divine visions by God. Wolf notices the tell-tale symptoms of a neurological condition immediately and, even though it isn’t quite the time, asks Pastor Thomas to come in for an MRI scan. Since she’s keen to prove the existence of miracles, she agrees.

As it turns out Pastor Thomas has glioblastoma — brain cancer, in other words — and is dying rather rapidly. With treatment and surgeries, she can extend her life a little, but not indefinitely. Eventually, the cancer will kill her. It’s just how long she can endure the treatments without sacrificing her quality of life.

Her other option is to have no treatment at all, which is what she chooses. It’ll give her less time, but that time will be put to better use helping others. Initially, she wants to keep her diagnosis secret from her congregation, but she decides against that, understanding that with the support of friends and loved ones, her final days will be significantly more meaningful. Dr. Wolf and the interns, all of whom are in attendance for this sermon, take the message on board too.

Going Up

Thanks to her experiences in the apartment building, Ericka has developed a phobia of elevators which the other interns try to help her with using exposure therapy. This doesn’t quite take, though. Ericka’s still cripplingly afraid of losing someone in an elevator, and her guilt over Celia’s death has prevented her from supporting Gene.

There are two things that help Ericka through this. One is Pastor Thomas’s sermon, during which Ericka plucks up the courage to sit beside Gene and hold his hand. The other is Dana. A habitual taker of prescription medication, Dana suggests to Ericka that she could help assuage her anxieties with pills, and Ericka inadvertently insults Dana by claiming she doesn’t need “a crutch” to get by. Shortly after this conversation, Ericka is magically healed, she claims thanks to some totally non-chemical coping mechanisms.

She’s lying, obviously — she’s secret popping pills. Could this progress into a bad habit in Season 2? It’s very likely.

Aury Krebs in Brilliant Minds | Image via NBC

Daddy Issues

The big overarching aspect of Brilliant Minds Episode 13 is, of course, Wolf’s discovery that his father, Noah, is still alive. This is something that Muriel has kept from him and intends to keep from him even now, albeit with Carol’s help, but by the time the two of them get to Wolf’s place, Noah is already there. Needless to say, Wolf does not take this news well, taking out his frustration by sabotaging his relationship with Nichols.

Wolf’s anger isn’t exclusively directed towards Noah — in fact, it’s more directed at Muriel. Even when she sits down and tells him the truth — that Noah disappearing was his idea, to protect Wolf after the incident in the woods — Wolf is still hung up on the idea that his father needed help that he and Muriel could have given him. Donna Murphy is brilliant in this scene, and her apology — one for each version of Wolf we’ve met in the flashback sequences, all of whom sit before her in turn before we cut back to Zachary Quinto — moved me almost to tears.

Eventually, Wolf sits down with Noah, standing Nichols up in the process, and asks him outright why he has chosen to come back now after thirty years away. Of course, he has an ulterior motive, which is where the cliffhanger ending of Brilliant Minds rears its head. Noah has some kind of mysterious neurological condition that he has traveled the world trying to diagnose, but nobody seems able to help. He doesn’t know how much time he has left. The only way he’s going to get more with Wolf is if his son can diagnose and treat his condition.

And Another Thing…

Here are some other things of note that occurred in the Brilliant Minds finale:

• Dana finally reciprocates Katie’s advances and the two of them kiss.
• Van is struggling with raising his son because neither the kid nor his mother knows about his mirror-touch synesthesia. This makes the tantrums twice as hard to deal with (it seems like the kid has some behavioral issues). By the end of the episode, Van decides to tell them both about his condition.
• Jacob still clearly has a thing for Ericka, and it seems like she might be similarly inclined.
• Muriel receives a complaint about Carol for continuing to treat Alison despite knowing she was her husband’s mistress (see Episode 11 for more on this.) Until the matter is properly looked into, Carol is placed on administrative leave.