Tuesday TV Touchbase: Brilliant Minds

Boy, yesterday's post was a bit of bummer, wasn't it?

Did I watch anything related to July 4th and celebrating America's birthday?

I caught up on Lucy Worsley's PBS special on the American Revolution.  God knows I love Lucy, her clever insights and her distinctive fashion choices. (She spends part of the special in silver wedged heels paired with white bobby socks. It was so cute!)  

I also caught the NYC fireworks on NBC.  Somehow I missed the part where the Brooklyn Bridge caught fire.

And I caught some random bits of ABC's Disney Celebrates America such as David Muir climbing up to the torch of the Statue of Liberty. (That was pretty darn cool.)

The always unbiquitous Ryan Seacrest was on hand to host musical segments from Disneyland.

Look like he was having fun but as you gathered from yesterday's post, I was not in the mood to party.

Onward! It's time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase. 

Last week, Andrea and I checked ourselves out of Bronx General Hospital.

While the rest of America checks in to Seattle's Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital over on Grey's Anatomy or the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center on The Pitt, we chose to hang out with the gang at Bronx General on Brilliant Minds.

And now we have reached the series finale.  

Frequent promotions for Brilliant Minds during the 2024 Summer Olympics compelled Andrea to really want watch this show. God bless her but she is easily influenced by marketing.

Hey, the show stars Spock from the Kelvin timeline Star Trek movies so, hey, why not? I'm on board too.

So that's two people watching the show.

And not may others beyond that, it seems. 

Brilliant Minds went on a break for this year's Winter Olympics with 6 episodes still to go in season 2.  It was during that break that NBC announced the show would not be renewed for a season 3.  And those last 6 episodes would air during the summer.

I fully expected NBC to renege on that deal and say to hell with it and burn 'em off on Peacock or some damn thing.  

But NBC followed through and ran those 6 episodes as promised.

So we got to see the resolution of the Hudson Oaks storyline.  In the first episode of season 2, we got a flashforward to Dr. Oliver Wolf as a patient at the psychiatric facility and desperae to escape.  

Over the course of the season, we were witness to Wolf's slowly unravelling mental health to the point he was hallucinating a patient named Sofia and at the pre-Olympic break sees the timeline catch up to Wolf being admitted to Hudson Oaks.

Hudson Oaks actually does Wolf a lot of good in his recovery from his mental breakdown. But there is some sketchy shit going down as Dr. Fredericks, the administrator, has a bad habit of denying patients their release when they are otherwise well enough to leave. She's bilking insurance companies for excessive stays and pocketing those funds into her own bank account.

SPOILER: Dr. Fredericks gets busted! 

The final 6 episodes also give us some resolution to the will they/won't they between Dr.Oliver Wolf and Dr. Josh Nichols.

Reminder: Brilliant Minds is as gay as fuck. 

Dr. Dana Dang breaks up with her paramedic girlfriend but has a one night stand with Sofia.

Wait! Wasn't Sofia part of Wolf's hallucinations?

Is Dana hallucinating Sofia now?

No, she is real but her name is Margot and she turns out to be the sister Wolf didn't know he had from the 2nd family he didn't know his father had.

Meanwhile, Josh and his boyfriend Beau break up because Beau wants to get married but he sees that Josh is still hung up on Oliver Wolf.  

Which Josh can't argue with that.  

Near the end of the episode, Josh shows up at Oliver's home with a fern.  (Oliver, a consumate medical professional who has saved the lives of many people, has an ongoing battle with keep plant life alive.) 

Josh says, “This thing has taken over my life. It’s unpredictable, stubborn, moody, I never know what it needs, it’s all I can think about." 

Guys, I don't think Josh is talking about the fern. 

Even the frequently oblivious Oliver can figure that out.   

And we get a big damn kiss.

Again: Gay. As. Fuck. 

Not knowing that NBC was going to cancel the show, the producers do button up a few dangling plot lines but some are still flapping in the wind.

• Erica thought she found her birth mom.  The woman denies it but hey, we out here in TV land can hear the dramatic music cues and we know something is up with that.
• Carol and her ER doctor boyfriend hit a serious bump in the road after he commits an ethetical violation when he defies Cariol's diagnosis of a patient.  
• Did Dr. Charlie Porter actually turn a corner to become a nice guy after spending most of the season actively plotting against Dr. Wolf? Wolf forgave him and Wolf's team of interns have slowly started to accept him.  Andrea and I are not sure we do.
• Is Margot going to hang around to be a sister to Oliver? And give Dana another roll in the hay?

The episode ends with Oliver and Josh on vacation together in Mexico with Carol along as their designated straight 3rd wheel.

But a medical crisis has struck their resort and the trio spring into action and....

We're done.  

Brilliant Minds was a smart show that challenged it's audiences expectations and made you think.  What defined this show was not so much the medical genius on display with each impossible case but it's dedication to empathy, the insistence on seeing the world through each patient's eyes.   

Brilliant Minds deserved a better fate and it will be missed.

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We're not quite done! 

We go from Bronx General to General Hospital.

The classic ABC soap opera landed on our viewing schedule recently and I'll tell you why.

The TuesdayTV Touchbase Too is back and will post in a few hours later this morning.