To a large extent, color has always been connected with our emotions. Like when you think of blue, it’s often associated with sadness. Red has always been associated with love or passion. What happens when color is no longer present? on tonight’s show smart mindwe meet a painter whose work radiates bright colors and conveys emotion in each piece. Recently, however, he has been unable to create art as he once did.
When his ability to create work declined, his manager asked Oliver for help. With Oliver’s career in jeopardy, she believes Oliver is his only hope of getting back on track. The painter Gabriel doesn’t want to leave home, so Oliver has to pay him a visit.
Chapter 9: The Color Blind Painter – Talented – Pictured: Robert Manning Jr. as Gabriel Ferguson and Zachary Quinto as Dr. Oliver Wolfe. Photo: Rafy/NBC © 2024 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. all rights reserved.
Gabriel wants nothing to do with Oliver. He is happy with his lifestyle and desperately wants Oliver to leave him alone. It’s not until Oliver is getting ready to leave that he notices the difference in Gabriel’s work. The previous ones were in color, the new ones are not. It’s not that there isn’t any color, it’s just that it’s not the right color. He has a painting with blue bananas. Oliver then notices that Gabriel’s socks don’t match and determines that he is color blind.
Gabriel laughed at this and immediately corrected him, saying it wasn’t that he didn’t see the correct colors, but that he didn’t see them at all. “Everything is like burnt charcoal,” he says, and when he expresses this to Oliver, everything immediately becomes black and white. This vision, the sudden way Gabriel sees the world, causes a drastic change in his personality.
Chapter 9: Color Blind Painter – Talented – Pictured: Robert Manning Jr. as Gabriel Ferguson. Photo: Rafy/NBC © 2024 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. all rights reserved.
Back at the hospital, Carol is still seeing her patient Alison, you know, the woman who slept with her husband Morris. It’s hard to understand why she did this to herself, and as a psychiatrist, I thought Carol would know better. Why couldn’t she see Alison’s manipulation? (I guess I know it’s hard to witness, but still). Morris didn’t make things easier by telling her to “move on,” but he had no idea she was “treating” his mistress.
After meeting Alison for the first time, I knew something was wrong with her. When she returned to the hospital and asked to see Carol, a nurse told her she was unavailable and she nearly lost interest. Erica and Dana were there to help calm her down, but she was taking information from them and then calmly walking away with some answers, and I knew then that she knew what she was doing when she saw Carol. What is her final outcome?
Chapter 9: Color Blind Painter – Talented – Pictured: Tambella Perry as Dr. Carol Pierce. Photo: Rafy/NBC © 2024 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. all rights reserved.
Now that we have some answers, Gabriel agrees to let Oliver take him to the hospital for a checkup to see what’s causing the sudden color blindness. It turned out that he had encountered an accident. Shortly thereafter, he began to lose the ability to see color – the world looked different to him without it, which is why he decided to stay in it. Digging deeper into the crash, we learned that Gabriel was trapped in the car for a long time before he was rescued, and during that time he was exposed to toxic carbon monoxide. This exposure can cause damage to the part of the brain that processes color.
There’s no way to reverse the damage, but Oliver believes there’s a way to open the channel and allow him to temporarily see colors: psychedelic mushrooms! Interestingly, such drugs do make you see interesting colors (…As far as I know). The only thing this does is remind Gabriel of the wife he lost in the accident. For a moment, he saw his wife just as he remembered her: full of life, full of life. Gabriel knows she is gone and his memory of her has turned gray, he has lost everything and wants it to be over.
Chapter 9: The Color Blind Painter – Talented – Pictured: Alex McNichol as Dr. Van Marcus, Zachary Quinto as Dr. Oliver Wolfe, Ashley Lathrop Starring Erica Kinney and Spencer Moore II as Jacob Nash. Photo: Rafy/NBC © 2024 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. all rights reserved.
Oliver convinces him that losing the ability to see color doesn’t mean he can’t see the beauty in the world. Despite the new differences, it’s about finding a new way to create a picture. “A world without color is not a world without emotion, but it does require a new way to express our inner feelings.” Gabriel embraced his new way of seeing the world and created new art: all black and White – Seeing the world in a new light.
The episode ends with Carol walking to her car after get off work only to find that it has been vandalized. Do we still need to question who is responsible? Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Alison Chang-Whitaker.
What do you think of tonight’s new episode? smart mind? Share your thoughts below or connect with me on X/Twitter @chenfordhugs
