Summary
Brilliant Minds lets most of its character drama settle into the margins in “The Pusher”, as an excellent case hogs the limelight.
Sometimes, Brilliant Minds only has a so-so case of the week to justify focusing primarily on the characters and their interpersonal drama — see, for example, the Season 2 premiere. But sometimes it just has a rip-roaring case at its core that deserves to hog the limelight, and this is very much the case in Episode 3, “The Pusher”. This isn’t to say there’s no character drama in the margins; on the contrary, there’s a fair amount, including the pretty significant revelation, teased in the previous episode, of who really reported Carol. But the twists, turns, and emotional power of the main story are the primary focus, and rightly so.
That story involves a woman named Gloria being seemingly pushed onto the subway tracks. Katie is first on the scene, diving down onto the rails before the power has been shut off to save the day. The risky move saves Gloria’s life but doesn’t go unnoticed by Dana, though we’ll discuss all that a bit more later.
In the meantime, we’re introduced to Van’s baby mother, Michelle, a social worker who wants Van’s help with a case. As it happens, it’s the same case. Gloria is the caregiver for Adam, a nonspeaking young man with severe autism who is also the prime suspect in having pushed her onto the tracks. “Nonspeaking” is the preferred term versus “nonverbal”, but means more or less the same thing; Adam has things he wants to express, but vocalized speech isn’t his preferred method of communication. This means that Wolf and his team need to figure out how best to communicate with Adam to learn what really happened on the subway platform.
This creates two mysteries in one, essentially, and “The Pusher” relishes both. The investigation portion largely focuses on Van and Michelle, initially when Van’s mirror-touch synesthesia allows the doctors to realise that Adam is hypersensitive to noise, and then when he and Michelle visit the group home where Adam lives to gather more clues. Through his roommate, they learn that he ages out of the group home when he turns 26, which is soon, and he’s frightened about having to leave. It’s a useful breakthrough that will also, as far as the police are concerned, constitute a motive for attempted murder.
The only downside of Brilliant Minds Season 2, Episode 3 is that it’s perhaps a touch too obvious that Adam isn’t guilty of anything other than trying to help. When he throws Dr Porter around — I like to think deservedly — Van and Michelle, who had seen his extensive artwork in the group home, realise that he was trying to grab Porter’s pen. With the right tools in hand, Adam scribbles what looks like a Rorschach test but turns out to be a hastily rendered butterfly. By chance, Wolf figures out that the mysterious word he’s trying to say is “say ah” — the instruction doctors give when telling patients to open wide. He’s trying to communicate that Gloria is sick. In so doing, he saves her life.
It’s on account of this sickness — she has lupus, a unique symptom of which is a butterfly-shaped rash — that Gloria passed out at the station and fell on the tracks. Adam is totally innocent. And despite a bit of a disagreement with Gloria over where he might live after aging out of the group home, there’s a solution to that, too — he’s moving in with her, and she’s going to be his guardian full-time. No, you’re crying!
Alex MacNicoll and Stacey Farber in Brilliant Minds Season 2 | Image via NBC
Anyway, there is, as mentioned, some stuff going on elsewhere. Carol has gotten her job back, for instance, and happens to mention in passing to Ericka and Dana that it was someone other than Alison who reported her in the first place. Ericka can’t let this go and spends the entire episode investigating who it might have been. Her questioning even gets back to Carol herself, through Thorne, who, as well as being extremely charming, also turns out to be pretty wise. He pretends to know who sold her out and asks her if she wants to know, and she decides she doesn’t, since whoever it was did the right thing. He doesn’t really know, of course, but he proves his point — the identity of the snitch doesn’t matter.
Ericka comes to this conclusion too and starts to see the value in being open and honest with her colleagues. This is building to her confessing to Dana, who’s facing away from her, that she has continuously been popping pills since her building collapsed, but Dana takes the sentiment to heart and confesses that she was the one who reported Carol. She won’t say why but claims to have her reasons. She also says she’d do it again if she needed to. This will almost certainly drive a wedge between Dana and Ericka, even though it seems clear Dana has her fair share of unaddressed trauma.
This crops up in her relationship with Katie, too. She badgers her constantly about risking her own life to save others all the time, and eventually confronts her about it, saying that her risk-taking reminds Dana of losing her sister. Katie has a pretty romantic justification for why she acts so rashly, which seems to solve the issue for now, but it’s clear Dana isn’t entirely even keel. More to come throughout the season, I suspect.
Brilliant Minds Season 2, Episode 3 can’t quite bow out without another cliffhanger. It turns out Muriel has already been replaced — by Dr Nichols, who has spent the entire episode trying to avoid Wolf on account of his new position. And now he wants to talk.
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