Summary
Brilliant Minds Season 2 does a lot of work on its overarching plot in “The Upside Down”, fleshing out Porter’s villainy and the threat of Hudson Oaks.
A lot of Brilliant Minds Season 2 has been about the future. The teases of Wolf’s eventual incarceration in Hudson Oaks, no doubt thanks to Porter’s Machiavellian scheming, have been pretty consistent throughout, and have been fun to keep track of, especially in episodes that I think give you key clues about what’s really going on. Episode 8, “The Upside Down”, is like that, though pretty explicitly. There’s a big focus on Porter and his burgeoning clash with Wolf, and on Hudson Oaks itself, which is nice, since the previous outing barely mentioned it.
The reason Porter works as a character is that he’s right – technically. We’ve seen this a few times throughout the season, instances of him doing or saying the right thing in a way that sometimes feels at odds with his otherwise deeply smug personality. Remember, Wolf isn’t exactly even-keel at the best of times, and his tendency to get overly attached to his patients is a double-edged sword. Framing this in relation to Jorge’s coma makes sense, since that plot has been going on for a while and is meaningful to multiple characters.
However, because Porter has been depicted as flagrantly sinister from the jump, it’s basically impossible to see him speaking to Ana without Wolf’s consent as anything other than an effort to undermine Wolf. And Wolf’s counterargument is also correct – mixed messaging from Jorge’s doctors sabotages the trust that Ana has in his care. A part of me thinks this would work a bit better if there were a little more credence given to Porter’s argument – sure, he has a point, but there’s absolutely no ambiguity around who the show is siding with here – but there’s just enough validity for it to work.
I also suspect that Porter refusing to take constructive criticism and taking open jabs at Wolf’s approach isn’t just him being arrogant; I think he’s letting some of his ulterior motives, his lingering resentment towards Wolf, slip out here. He mentions to Ana that he has some experience with Jorge’s situation, which connects to my theory that his mother was Wolf’s brain tumour patient, whom he fought so hard to save, he ended up sacrificing her quality of life in her final days.
Porter is able to get one-on-one with Ana because “The Upside Down” is backdropped by a plane crash that causes a mass panic in the ED, taking Wolf out of the picture to work with Thorne – a compelling character who needs something more personally tailored to do – on the pilot who managed to land the plane safely despite her vision having become mysteriously inverted. This A-plot isn’t especially interesting – she literally has a migraine, it turns out – but it does occupy focus while things happen elsewhere.
Which brings us to Ericka. Having confessed to Dana about her Benzo addiction, she has definitely taken a positive step, but a random drug test, coupled with the panic around the plane crash, throws her into disarray. She immediately contemplates trying to game the system, since she’s terrified of losing her dream career, but in the process, she ends up re-revealing her predicament to Jacob, and then revealing it for the first time to Van, who recommends she reveal it to Nurse Silva. This all feels a bit too simplistic, since everyone seems to be trusting a self-confessed drug addict to just deal with the problem all on her own, but whatever.
It has a positive conclusion either way. Silva takes the news extremely well and tells Ericka to come back for the test in two weeks, when she’ll hopefully be clean enough to pass it. But she gets the memo and goes to Carol, finally confessing that she needs real help. There’s a therapist in her future, and hopefully a bit of resolution now that the cat is firmly out of the bag.
Brilliant Minds Season 2, Episode 8 also makes a proper villain of Amelia, and we have to wonder if she’s connected to Porter in some meaningful way, since the pieces are starting to slot together a bit too neatly. Amelia is essentially using Hudson Oaks to keep patients against their will, and this is clearly the fate that Oliver’s heading towards. But given that Carol clearly sees through Amelia’s smiley deception, I do wonder how Wolf is going to end up there without her intervention. Whatever Porter is planning to entrap him, it’s going to have to be pretty sophisticated.
Now that Ericka’s addiction is out in the open, Jorge is awake, and there are pretty clear villains with fairly obvious schemes to focus on, it feels like Brilliant Minds may well be shifting gears to enter a new phase of the season.
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