‘Brilliant Minds’: Brian Altemus Teases ‘Explosive’ Stuff to Come With Wolf & Charlie
Preview
What To Know
- Season 2 of Brilliant Minds has introduced Dr. Charlie Porter (Brian Altemus), a new resident in Dr. Oliver Wolf’s neurology department, whose true motives remain unclear.
- Brian Altemus teases something “explosive” to come.
- Altemus discusses if his character’s perspective has changed the more he works with Wolf, with the two frequently clashing over patient care and methods.
When Brilliant Minds returned for its second season, it introduced a few new characters, including a new resident for Dr. Oliver Wolf’s (Zachary Quinto) neurology department, Dr. Charlie Porter (Brian Altemus). He claims to be there to learn from the best (Wolf) but clearly has an ulterior motive, given the side of the character we’ve seen in flash forwards, the timeline in which Wolf is a patient at Hudson Oaks, run by Dr. Amelia Frederick (Bellamy Young).
“Things are definitely going to come to a head in a pretty explosive way,” Altemus tells TV Insider ahead of the Monday, December 1, episode. “It’s stuff that I still, thinking back on the days that we filmed, get excited and butterflies about, so it’s very fun to watch.”
Wolf and Charlie have been butting heads for most of the season, with the head of neurology, from the beginning, thinking the new resident was there to spy on him for his mother, Dr. Muriel Landon (Donna Murphy), formerly the CMO (chief medical officer); Dr. Josh Nichols (Teddy Sears) now holds that position since she retired. Then, they disagreed about patient care, particularly that of Jorge Torres, who survived what should have been a fatal fall. But is working alongside Wolf changing how Charlie feels about him at all?
“I think there’s moments where he starts to say, OK, maybe his practices do have a positive end result, but at this point, I’m still just looking to clash with Wolf at every step of the way,” says Altemus. “I think he spends too much time with patients. I don’t understand his methods, and I think they’re wrong. I think there’s moments of levity where you get to see, OK, he’s kind of seeing that Wolf might have some decent ideas, but it’s just pretty [much butting heads] the whole time.”
At the beginning of the season, Quinto told us that for Wolf, Charlie seems to be “a little bit of an agent of chaos,” and he suspected, having only filmed up to Episode 8 (which aired on November 17), “Charlie represents something to Wolf that he’s going to have to reckon [with] and confront.” We’ll have to see if that’s the case.
What’s your theory about Charlie? Let us know in the comments section below.
Brilliant Minds, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC
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M
I absolutely detest the mental health story line. I am cringing at every episode, knowing what is coming. The only reason I am still watching is that I like the show enough (based on its first season) to want to watch long term, after this is over, and I don't skip parts of a show and then continue watching.
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A
When they began to show that teaser taking place in the future in which Wolfe is held in a psychiatric institute, I have been so uneasy, I don’t think I will continue watching. I hate this concept, especially when today’s reality has a similar feeling of helplessness. I like my heroes to be competent, not victims.
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K
I didn’t like the Charlie character from the start and with the flash forward scenes I wonder what he did to Wolf to see him
In that shady hospital. I sure hope it turns out to be an undercover thing but it probably won’t. I don’t like seeing people being twisted by another person and Charlie is showing so much disrespect to Wolf. Perhaps Charlie needs some comeuppance 🤔🤔
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L
When I first saw that flash-forward stuff, given that Hudson Oaks seems kind of hinky from the very start, I assumed Oliver will be there on some kind of undercover mission. Nothing has really deep-sixed that take for me (yet)...actually, more the reverse.
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V
I do not like Dr Porter! He is untrustworthy and dangerous to Dr Wolf. Do not like the fast forwarding to Dr Wolf in Hudson Oaks Psychiatric PIT. I cannot believe his (Dr Wolf) mother would allow him to be committed/admitted to a dump like that Hudson Oak. Get real.
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T
It's not him as much as Al Calderon's character as Nurse Nico Silva who's as annoying, condescending, and as relentlessly chipper as a newbie on the ward as much as continuously force feeding us same-sex relationships with all the judicious restraint of members of Congress that I dislike. It's like driving a hammer into a piece of lace.
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