NBC’s Brilliant Minds offers the best representation of neurodivergence I’ve ever seen.
As an autistic person, I’m very aware of the stereotypes and negative tropes that plague most characters with any type of neurodivergence.
Even “The Good Doctor,” for all its strides in the field, created more problems than it solved, though “Bright Minds” owes it a debt of gratitude.
Wolfe’s neurodivergence is only part of his story on Brilliant Minds
The most important difference in Brilliant Minds is that it follows a neurodivergent doctor, rather than focusing solely on his neurodivergence as a source of conflict.
Sure, Brainy Season 1 Episode 1 opens with Wolfe getting fired for taking a dementia patient out of the hospital without permission, but that was just his unorthodox methods, not his face blindness. or other neurodivergent traits.
Of course, neurodivergent people are more likely to break the rules in this way. We are often reluctant to follow guidelines that seem to impede progress rather than help it.
Still, the story casts Wolfe as a man who got into trouble because he approached medicine differently than everyone else, rather than someone who was viewed with suspicion by everyone because of his neurodivergence.
This is a subtle but important difference between “Bright Minds” and “The Good Doctor.”
The Good Doctor often recounts how Sean’s autism affected his success.
His rigidity and desire for sameness send him completely over the edge when something disrupts his daily routine, his forthrightness offends someone, or some doctor thinks he shouldn’t be a surgeon because he suffers from autoimmune diseases. Autism.
The Good Doctor’s portrayal of an autistic character is meant to be inspiring, but its insistence on making Shaun’s autism the source of conflict inadvertently reinforces stereotypes about autistic people, especially those who have little to no The idea of possible success in a traditional career.
So far, Brilliant Minds has avoided this pitfall. Wolff is neither an expert nor someone for whom neurodivergence-related challenges are viewed as serious obstacles to success.
Rather, his neurodivergence is part of who he is, and he learned early on to compensate for his difficulties so that he could succeed.
When prosopagnosia came closest to becoming a serious handicap, Nichols complained that Wolfe ignored him in the hallway, something Wolfe quickly clarified by explaining how his condition was caused to As for when Nichols walked past him, he couldn’t see Nichols at all.
The intersection of Wolfe’s neurodivergence and past trauma becomes clearer
“Bright Minds” does something similar to what “The Good Doctor” did in its first season: It uses flashbacks from Wolfe’s childhood to explore the trauma that made him the man he is today.
However, the emphasis is different. While the death of Sean’s brother Steve in “The Good Doctor” was undoubtedly traumatic, its impact on him was mostly limited to the plot point of Glassman later taking him in.
Steve’s death was not mentioned on other occasions until he began to consider having children of his own.
Instead, Wolfe’s trauma to the brilliant mind is… trauma.
His father’s mental illness and subsequent death deeply affected his teenage years and became intertwined with his neurodivergence.
Wolfe grew up to be a doctor who strived to help others and was passionate about caring for his patients, especially those the world wanted him to give up on but was closed off to most relationships.
When he first returned to the Bronx General, he didn’t even want to teach interns.
This cannot simply be dismissed as “neurodivergent people have poor social skills.” Of course, that’s part of it, but he’s also afraid of letting anyone get too close due to early losses.
Wolfe, who is also openly gay, grew up in a time when it was unsafe to go out.
This is important on several levels.
At a time when LGBTQ+ representation on television continues to decline, we need more characters like Wolf.
I particularly enjoyed Wolfe’s relationship with his sexuality, and relationships in general, which is complicated.
He embraces himself but doesn’t want anyone to get too close to him for various reasons. His interpersonal trauma leads him into trouble with Nichols, his former enemy who will undoubtedly one day become his lover.
He’s a gay protagonist, not a gay minor character, and I bet he doesn’t suddenly die in a gay attack to prove that homophobia is on the rise, like in The Good Doctor What Doctors Did to Arthur Season 7 Episode 5.
(Yes, I still feel bitter about it, and always will. Just because a gay writer endorses the story, it’s not OK for a gay character to die needlessly.)
It’s unheard of for neurodivergent LGBTQ+ characters to appear on television, despite significant overlap between the two groups, especially the trans and autistic communities.
Wolff proves neurodivergence looks different in everyone
Wolff is not autistic; He suffers from another neurodivergent disorder called prosopagnosia, which means he cannot recognize faces and must memorize specific details of each person’s appearance so he can remember who they are.
This situation is unlike anything we’ve seen on television before, except for a 1992 episode of Fences in which a man used the situation to justify the murder of his brother.
It’s done honestly and shows how it’s both similar and different to autism. This isn’t the only neurodivergent condition in Brilliant Minds, either.
Van suffers from mirror touch syndrome, a rare condition in which he can feel his patients’ pain and other symptoms, while Dana suffers from anxiety disorders caused by the trauma of her sister’s death.
(Yes, these are neurodivergent types, although they are not the most compelling types to be misrepresented on television.
There are many more examples where the brain is wired differently than in autism and ADHD, although it’s important to get these right as well.
Having all these different characters helps prevent The Good Doctor’s main problem, which is that Shaun is an outlier that no one understands or completely likes.
Until the final season, he was the only autistic person in the entire series, doctor or not, reinforcing the idea that autism is unusual and difficult to deal with.
Without good doctors, there would be no smart minds.
That doesn’t mean The Good Doctor is a bad series.
It was an important show that broke some important barriers. Despite its missteps, it takes seriously the idea of autistic people as human beings.
It fails to focus on how difficult autism is for other people. This isn’t about how “tragic” it is for parents to have an autistic child or any of that nonsense.
That’s why I don’t think “Bright Minds” could exist without “The Good Doctor.”
Before this series, a show about a doctor with autism was unheard of, let alone any other neurodivergent disorder.
Of course, the producers could have marketed it.
But if there’s no evidence that audiences are interested in a neurodivergent character, let alone a well-rounded character like Oliver Wolfe, will NBC or any other network buy it?
Of course, we have no way of knowing, but I think it would be a harder sell.
I don’t think “Bright Minds” is superior to “The Good Doctor,” but rather that it builds on “The Good Doctor” and makes something better and more representative of people with autism.
Over to you, bright-minded fanatics!
What do you think? Does “Get Smart” build on “The Good Doctor” or was it always going to make its way into the world of television like it did before?
Hit the comments and let us know what you think!
Brilliant Minds airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC and Tuesdays on Peacock.
Watch “Ingenuity” online
