Brilliant Minds – Once Upon a Time in America

Yet another amazing episode of Brilliant Minds tonight. It was an emotional rollercoaster – but man the frustration I also had watching this one was off the charts. If that’s what they were aiming for with this storyline, they got me. 

Benny and Jorge, while working on window repairs for the 39th floor of a building, experience a crane malfunction which sends them falling to what you’d think would be their deaths.Their safety mechanisms failed but miraculously, they survived the fall and were transported to Bronx General in critical condition. Josh tasks himself with their surgeries to get them stable before sending them over to Oliver in neurology to assess the damage further. 

As all of this is happening, both Benny and Jorge’s family arrive waiting to get any kind of news of their condition. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Benny and Jorge are brothers. You would’ve missed that too with the way their mother was acting though. She was more concerned with them helping Jorge than whatever outcome happened for Benny. This is where my frustration started. The minute we meet that woman, I was disgusted in her behavior. She gave Josh her necklace and said “God chose you. Please save my Jorge” Ma’am, excuse me? Uh, and what’s Benny? Chopped liver? 

“Once Upon a Time in America” – BRILLIANT MINDS, Pictured: Sol Miranda as Ana Torres. Photo: Pief Weyman/NBC © NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights

Benny is the first out of surgery; he’s remarkably stable given his injuries. When Oliver ask if the family has been informed, Dana tells him they were told but no one moved, most likely because of the mother’s say so. I rolled my eyes so far im the back of my mind when I heard this. I truly needed to know what this man has done to make his mother not even care whether he lived or died. At least she sat outside his hospital room, right? When Carol came over to talk with her to get her to come to terms with what was going on with Benny, she said her bible is her therapist and dismissed her. 

Benny is awake and speaking (which is an insane miracle by the way). Seeing the cross on his bedside table lets him know that his mother is around, but he doesn’t seem to thrilled. A few cognitive exams shows that Benny is recovering well. Oliver lets him know that they’re trying to get his mother to come up and see him and he already knows its a waste of time. Now we know why she doesn’t care much for him. It’s because he doesn’t follow in her religious way of living. He wants to be his own person and to his mother, that’s worse than murder. 

“Once Upon a Time in America” – BRILLIANT MINDS, Pictured: Al Calderon as Nico Silva. Photo: Pief Weyman/NBC © NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Carol and Ericka give their mother an update; Dr. Nichols had a complication during with Jorge, but Benny is awake. Her response? “God is with [him], he’ll save Jorge” I wanted to punch her, or smack some sense into her… something! Carol tries to speak some sense into her and at first I thought ‘finally a breakthrough’ when she finally went to see Benny, but she said the most hurtful things to him. Come to find out, Benny lost his ability to understand his first language (which is concerning, but in this moment I am so glad he didn’t understand her). Then she has the audacity to ask why he isn’t responding. I beg your pardon? 

When she comes back and “apologizes” saying that she will accept Benny if he accepts God back into his life. Nico is brought in to interpret but he isn’t as honest throughout this exchange; he tells them both what they want to hear. At this time, Benny’s condition takes a turn for the worse. Now all of a sudden his mother cares and is crying for him – girl, bye. Mind you she was only like this because of the lie that Nico fed her. What if she had been told the truth? 

“Once Upon a Time in America” – BRILLIANT MINDS, Pictured: Zachary Quinto as Dr. Oliver Wolf, Teddy Sears as Dr. Josh Nichols. Photo: Pief Weyman/NBC © NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Things are looking better for Jorge so Josh goes back to work on Benny. He does everything that he could but it was too late for Benny. And what does this woman do? Smacks Josh clean across his face and rips the necklace she gave him earlier from his neck. Jorge made it through, is that not what she wanted? I did try to be sympathetic to her because she did just lose her son, but a mother’s love should be unconditional. I couldn’t feel for her in that moment, because her pain for losing Benny only came after Nico intervened with a lie. What was more emotional for me here is how guilty Josh felt not being able to pull this miracle off for both of the boys. Good on Oliver to tell him it wasn’t his fault and he did all he could. 

One good thing to come out of this also is Dana and Ericka reconnecting. They saw how short life could be and just how small their grudge was in comparison. Dr. Thorne still irks my soul. I love the moments he has with Carol, but then in any other capacity he upsets me; why are you a doctor if you don’t care? Why are you making it seem like Jacob checking in on his patients is so wrong? You know what, never mind, Carol you can do so much better girl. 

Two new faces in this hospital and two new faces I don’t care for. Who I do care for, however, is Nico Silva. I thought he was going to make number three on my list of nurses/doctors I don’t like, but he proved me wrong. I think it was a mutual respect between him in Oliver though; he made the effort to learn the nurses names and faces because Nico made a point to know them. Nico also showed his appreciation and apologized for not trying to understand Oliver’s way of learning faces. He seemed so eager to help him too which is an improvement from Charlie Porter and Anthony Thorne. Do better you two. 

Going back to Josh – I feel like this loss is going to hurt him down the line and the thought of that makes me nervous. I hope he overcomes this. 

I could go on forever about this episode but I’d like to hear your thoughts. Share them below or connect with me on X/Twitter @chenfordhugs