‘Brilliant Minds’: 7 Burning Questions That Will Never Be Answered
Brilliant Minds ended after two seasons on July 1 with a finale that was just as strong as the rest of the series. (This is definitely one of the shows we’re going to miss the most.) However, it’s also an episode that was completed before NBC made its decision about its future, but showrunner Michael Grassi admits that he wouldn’t have changed anything if he had known; he likes that it ends on a cliffhanger.
“I love where we end because it’s a promise of our trio — Wolf [Zachary Quinto], Carol [Tamberla Perry], and Josh [Teddy Sears] — off on medical adventures together, and I love that for them. And then I feel like still in the world today, I come across stories about medicine or I’m reading about Oliver Sacks. I’m like, ‘Oh, that would’ve been a great medical adventure for our trio to go on in Season 3.’ So I feel like we ended them exactly where we needed to,” he told TV Insider.
The series ends with Wolf and Josh back together and on vacation with Carol when they come across the rest of the hotel guests unconscious and in serious need of medical assistance. But what exactly is going on there is just one of several loose threads after the finale.
“Currently, we are canceled, but do I believe in miracles? I don’t know,” Grassi said when we asked about the chances of the series being saved. “Maybe? Hopefully. But I have no idea. Maybe, I don’t know, help me. Let’s get it picked up somewhere else. Let’s campaign.”
Scroll down to see our burning questions that we fear will never be answered, then leave yours in the comments section below.
Brilliant Minds, Streaming Now, Peacock
What does Oliver and Josh's relationship look like going forward?
We’ve only briefly seen Oliver and Josh together, and they only reunite at the end of the finale. But it does feel like both are in the right place for the relationship to work this time (and since there won’t be a Season 3, we prefer to imagine they stay together this time). But they’re both still stubborn, they’d continue to clash at work, and you know that everyone in their lives would butt in from time to time. Plus, Oliver’s mother, Muriel (Donna Murphy), inevitably organizing a dinner to get to know Josh would have made for great television.
“In my mind, if we were continuing to tell their story, I think we’d continue to show them in the workplace together and what that looks like and all the fun of them tackling cases together. And at the same time, what does it look like for Josh and Wolf navigating a relationship? What does it look like when they move in together? What does it look like if they’re maybe planning a wedding? What does it look like if they’re finally, maybe Josh is going to get something that he really wants such as a kid? What do those conversations look like?” Grassi told us.
“I think in Season 3, it would’ve been navigating a lot of the realities of what it is to be in a relationship with Wolf. At the same time, we had a plan for Wolf to have a new fun secret in Season 3 with the Hudson Riders to continue some tension there. Not that he’s having any romance on the side, but he would’ve been potentially a secret doctor for the biker gang, which would’ve been very, very fun,” he continued.
Will Carol and Thorne get back together?
If anyone deserved some happiness in her life, it was Carol, after what she’d been through with her ex-husband and his lies and drama at work. It seemed she found that with Thorne (John Clarence Stewart), though she pressed the pause button after he went around her to get a patient the surgery he needed but refused to have. Grassi didn’t think the door was “closed” on a future together, so, what would it have taken for Carol to trust Thorne again in the way she needed to? And for Thorne to not make a similar move in the future?
Will Ericka build a relationship with her birth mother?
In one of the most heartbreaking moments of the finale, Ericka (Ashleigh LaThrop) struggled to introduce herself to the woman she discovered had to be her birth mother. Dana (Aury Krebs) and Van (Alex MacNicoll) were by her side as she went to the diner where she worked, then waiting outside when she finally did tell her who she thought she was. But the woman said she never gave a baby up for adoption. The look on her face said otherwise, and Grassi confirmed Joan is her mother.
He told us that there were “plans for her to come back and see what a relationship could be between them” in Season 3. But how would Ericka have handled finding out Joan lied to her, and what would those conversations have looked like? There’s no way that road would’ve been an easy one.
What was wrong with the hotel guests?
Oliver, Josh, and Carol couldn’t even go on vacation without their work interrupting their personal lives, with them finding the hotel guests unconscious, with signs of seizures, when they went down to breakfast in the final scene. While that felt like it could’ve just been a “hey, guess what we did on our vacation?” conversation for Season 3, Grassi revealed to us that he had a “two-parter plan.”
He shared, “We would’ve totally picked up and had sort of a fun, remote vacation episode, like a worst-nightmare vacation where they have to figure out what’s wrong with all of these poor people at the hotel that are in grave medical danger, and maybe a few of the interns might’ve shown up to help support. Maybe they would’ve brought some patients back to Bronx General.”
Can Oliver and his half-sister Margo build a relationship?
It was revealed that Oliver’s hallucination of his father Noah’s (Mandy Patinkin) neighbor Sofia (Sarah Steele) was really his way of coping with learning that he had a half-sister. Steele returned at the end of the season as that character, Margo, and introduced herself to Oliver, also revealing their father had died in an accident. She would’ve been part of Season 3, and it would’ve been interesting to see just how different that dynamic would’ve been from the one we got between Oliver and “Sofia” — especially given her one-night stand with Dana and what would inevitably continue to happen there.
“The plan would be in moving forward to have her potentially join Bronx General and have a new brother-sister, sibling dynamic in the hospital, which would’ve been really fun,” according to Grassi.
What role will Muriel have at the hospital?
Josh took over as interim chief, which then became permanent by the finale, after Muriel’s exit. But, as Grassi told us, in Season 3, the goal was “to find a new role for her at the hospital” to have her “a little bit more in the mix.” That would have had to lead to more scenes between her and Josh, and given his personal relationship with her son, we can only imagine how fun that would have been.
Did Carol and Thorne's patient kill his wife — and maybe others?
You never know about a person, as Thorne learned in the final moments of the last episode. Detectives came to speak to him about his patient, Allen (Jake Epstein), whose wife’s body was found in his car trunk — and he named the ER doc and Carol as his alibis. Did Allen kill his wife? It certainly looked that way. But could he also be responsible for other deaths? That‘s the question we can’t help but have, especially since Grassi said “that would’ve been a serialized story” in a Season 3.
Conversation
Please read the TV Insider Community Guidelines.
Register or sign in to join the conversation.
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services