RECAP: ‘Brilliant Minds’ Season 2 Episode 15 — “The Missing Person”

After a long break that included news of Brilliant Minds’ cancellation, the show returns to finish out the series with a great episode in Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15, titled “The Missing Person.”

The episode picks up with Carol (Tamberla Perry) bringing her revelation of Wolf’s (Zachary Quinto) state of mind to Josh (Teddy Sears). Carol mentions that Wolf’s hallucinations aren’t new, but the situation with Sofia feels different. This is especially true following the emotional distress of his dad returning and disappearing again, breaking up with Josh, and Charlie’s revenge. Carol says she’s going to track him down, just like she used to back in their college days. 

Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 keeps Wolf offscreen for the most part. He’s there in the beginning, when he pulls up to his motorcycle shop. Then again, at the end, but otherwise the episode focuses mostly on the main case of a patient on a missing persons list named Denise, played by Emmy-nominated actress Nava Mau.

Carol’s concern for Wolf drives Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15. 

Denise ends up at Bronx General after a panic attack during a night out causes her to collapse in the street. While in the ER, Dr. Thorne realizes there’s something else at play. When the team discovers she’s on the missing person’s list, Denise is reluctant to explain why, even as her symptoms get worse.

Further investigation reveals a non-cancerous tumor on her spine that releases adrenaline, which causes the panic attacks. Her family shows up, but Nico heads them off despite the obvious worry they show for their missing sister and daughter. The dad has dementia, as evidenced by his confusion about their arrival at the hospital. After Denise refuses to see her family, even after asking Nico if her dad seemed okay, Carol sits down with Denise to discuss why she’s running away from her family.

This conversation in Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 is one of the show’s best moments, confronting the reality of caretaker fatigue. Denise, despite having two brothers, is the only one expected to take care of her father, a task that she doesn’t mind doing because it’s her dad and she loves her dad. But as he got worse, taking care of him on her own got harder. And when her panic attacks started, she saw it as a sign from the universe that she needed to leave. The only way she saw to do that was to disappear.

Nava Mau, as Denise, delivers one of the series best moments. 

Carol offers suggestions to Denise, such as assisted living, but Denise doesn’t think she could have that difficult conversation with her dad. But Carol insists difficult conversations like that need to happen for the best of everyone, including Denise. It’s something that Carol herself needs to hear as she struggles to decide what to do when she finds Wolf.

This is emphasized even more in Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 when Denise asks for her family and tells them how tired she is and how much help she needs. When she suggests assisted living to her father, and he accepts, it’s likely a moment that sticks with Carol and leads to her decision to take Wolf to Hudson Oaks by the end of the episode.

Carol finally gets some answers in Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 when the motorcycle shop calls Wolf’s phone, and she arrives demanding answers. There, she’s reunited with Rosie, the wife of Wyatt, one of Wolf’s friends and a patient from Season 1. Rosie says that Wolf came by wanting to sell his motorcycle, a red flag that Carol clocks and what ultimately leads to her deciding to come clean to Wolf’s team about what’s going on.

The severity of Wolf’s current situation becomes increasingly clear. 

Carol’s candor to his team sets the appropriate mood for how serious this situation is. It also makes Charlie confess his part in Wolf’s deterioration, and Carol tells him he needs serious help.

Charlie’s confession leads Carol to Noah’s apartment, and she finds it trashed. But all roads lead back to Bronx General. Wolf shows back up at Bronx General, looking for Sofia’s medical files. He’s very clearly not doing well, which everyone clocks, but Josh is the only one to get him to listen by telling him he has Sofia’s medical file.

Josh calls Carol, and Carol sits down with Wolf and reminds him of how they used to handle these kinds of situations together, but this time, she doesn’t think she can. However, Wolf is too far out of it, and pleads with Carol to help him save Sofia by sending him to Hudson Oaks, which loops us back around to that flash-forward scene in which Carol encourages Wolf that he’s doing the right thing by admitting himself.

The episode ends on the complicated emotions playing out across Carol’s face as she sits back and watches her daughter’s orchestra concert. It’s a great moment that lets the audience fill in what Carol might be thinking, which is why the story about Denise and her father plays such an important role in this episode.

Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 is the show at its best. 

Elsewhere in Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15, Katie and Dana (Aury Krebs) navigate the next step in their relationship — moving in together. But Dana has trepidation about it that she doesn’t tell Katie about, and Katie oversteps by telling Ericka about their decision before Dana can talk to Ericka about finding her own place. It’s a great showcase of Dana and Ericka’s friendship, but it also allows for good communication between Katie and Dana.

Dana admits that she still feels rejected from when Katie didn’t choose her in the kickball game, and Katie confesses that she sometimes feels like a third wheel in her own relationship. This moment leads to a love confession as the two decide they aren’t quite ready to move in together yet.

Though Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 15 is the beginning of the end for the show, it returns with a knock out of the park, filling in some necessary holes about how Wolf ends up at Hudson Oaks. It also does a great job at paralleling the patient story about caretaker fatigue and Carol’s own complicated feelings about getting her best friend the help he needs.

Brilliant Minds Season 2 airs new episodes on Wednesday nights on NBC and is available to stream the next day on Peacock.

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