For one season on Brilliant Minds, we’ve watched Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) spend hours or days with a patient to figure out what’s ailing them, at times leaving the hospital in order to learn more. The second season of this brilliant medical drama will show the other side of the hospital, the ED, and that’s Dr. Anthony Thorne’s (John Clarence Stewart) territory. It’s very different.
TV Insider has an exclusive sneak peek from the Monday, September 22, Season 2 premiere, highlighting just that. Jacob (Spence Moore II) finds Thorne trying to take a break on a gurney (he just wants “five more minutes”) and reminds him that patients have been waiting for hours.
“Why do you think that is? You notice anything here in my ER?” Thorne asks. him. “Like certain services upstairs, they like to take their sweet time, so I have to deal with the backlog down here. All day, all night, my life is an overcrowded hallway.” He is, of course, referring to Wolf. Watch the full sneak peek above for much more, including a glimpse at guest stars Laura Vandervoort and Duke Davis Roberts.
Showrunner Michael Grassi raves about bringing in Stewart. “I love John Clarence Stewart, and he’s excellent, and he’s one of my new faves,” he tells TV Insider.
While we’re just meeting Thorne for the first time in the premiere, he’s been working at Bronx General for a while. “What’s so cool about Brilliant Minds is that neurology and psychiatry, that floor on our hospital, I call it the mothership. Our stories will always center around there. But one of the opportunities of getting a Season 2 is getting to open up our hospital and meet other departments and meet doctors like Dr. Anthony Thorne,” Grassi explains.
“And what’s really interesting is contrasting his approach to medicine to Wolf’s approach to medicine. Wolf can spend days with a patient or hours and go on field trips with them or go to their home and get to know them because that’s how he is a doctor. That’s how he approaches his patients, by getting to know everything about them. That’s how he helps them.”
He continues, “Thorne, on the other hand, is looking at that and is like, ‘That’s not possible for me. I work in the ED, I’m seeing hundreds of patients a day.’ He sees the way Wolf practices medicine as a luxury, and it’s just like, ‘Why does he get all of that? Why is he holding up beds while I have people in the hallway down in the ED?’ We’re going to see how their approaches sort of collide and play their dynamic and how do they find their footing together within this hospital, because a lot of neurology cases come through the ED, so we get to sort of see them in that world this season and in that new set, which is so exciting.”
Grassi also teases that Thorne’s dynamic with Carol (Tamberla Perry), who’s on leave from behind the head of psychology and Wolf’s best friend, is fun as well. “They’re friends. They’ve worked together before, so we get to catch up to them and see how their relationship sort of develops and how they’re there for each other because they’re both going through divorces, and that’s really interesting,” he says.
What’s your first impression of Thorne? Let us know in the comments section below.
Brilliant Minds, Season 2 Premiere, Monday, September 22, 10/9c, NBC