spoiler ALERT! This post contains details from Monday night’s episode of NBC’s Brilliant mind.
Eric Dane guest stars on NBC brilliant mind For a heartfelt and personal episode in which he plays a firefighter battling an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis.
The Thanksgiving episode of the medical drama comes nearly four months after the 53-year-old actor revealed his own ALS diagnosis in April. In it, his character Matthew refuses to tell his family about his ALS, a progressive disease that causes loss of muscle control. During the episode, the doctors at Bronx General managed to convince her that she was better off relying on her village rather than trying to navigate it on her own.
Showrunner Michael Grassi told Deadline that the story was born out of a phone call from Dane’s team, who said he was a fan of the show and wanted to be a part of it.
“I was very excited to have the opportunity to tell a story with him and what he is currently doing,” Grassi said. “So Eric and I had a series of conversations, and funny enough, our first Zoom, I had to go home to an emergency with a family member who was dealing with a difficult diagnosis, and I Zoomed from that family member’s home, and I remember our conversation very quickly started focusing on this very simple idea of what it’s like for a family to navigate a difficult diagnosis.”
While the episode is built around Matthew’s arc, learning how to deal with a difficult diagnosis and asking for help from those around him, those themes resonate for all the characters this week as Wolf (Zachary Quinto) grapples with losing his father again and Erica (Ashley Lathrop) tries to help Sam (Nabil Rajo) get on the transplant list after his liver fails.
In the interview below, Grassi reveals the episode.
DEADLINE: This is quite an emotional episode, especially considering Eric’s real-life diagnosis. How did you develop this story and when did Eric’s involvement come to fruition?
Michael Grassi: So I think it was like September, probably, Eric’s team reached out to us, and he said he was a fan of the show and wanted to be a part of it. brilliant mindKatie, I’m a big fan of Eric Dane, So when I heard he wanted to join brilliant mindI was so excited to have the opportunity to tell a story with him and what he’s currently dealing with. So Eric and I had a series of conversations, and funnily enough, our first Zoom, I had to go home to an emergency with a family member who was dealing with a difficult diagnosis, and I Zoomed from that family member’s home, and I remember our conversation very quickly started focusing on this very simple idea of what it’s like for a family to go through a difficult diagnosis. There is no rule book. There is no guide. There is no right way. There’s no wrong way, and it’s really hard. So we just wanted to show, especially for our Thanksgiving episode, what it’s like for a family to pull together? The other big part of it is that we talked about this character, Matthew, who is a firefighter who has dedicated his life to helping others and saving other people, and when that’s your existence and purpose, what does it feel like to let people in (and) accept help? I think that’s the hardest thing for this character of Matthew, and I think it’s hard for a lot of people to accept help.
So while this story is specific to ALS and Matthew’s situation, it is also universal in many ways. So these are all some big topics that we were excited to talk about. The last thing we were excited to explore was this idea that, on our show, we talk a lot about adaptation, and we talk about how people adapt. One thing about ALS that is difficult for many patients is that the adaptation never stops. So if someone has, let’s say, a spinal cord injury and they undergo surgery, you adapt to that, and you can potentially move on from there. But I think with something like ALS, once you adapt, something changes again, and you’re re-adapting and re-adapting and re-adapting. It’s not easy by any means, because you’re always trying something new. So those are all things that we talked about in the beginning and that we were interested in exploring in this episode.
DEADLINE: What arose from some of those conversations about what he wanted to bring to this character that reflected his own experience with ALS?
Grassi: So, I think from day one, Eric and I were on the same page in the sense that we didn’t want to tell a story about the diagnosis, in the sense that, like, it’s a medical mystery, (and) we have to figure out what’s wrong. We wanted to tell a story about someone who’s already been diagnosed and who comes to our hospital and makes a connection, and, strangely enough, because everyone in the hospital knows about Matthew’s condition, it’s a safe place. It’s a place where he can be himself, and he has relationships with Dr. Pierce and Nurse Silva and Wolf and Dr. Dang, because they’re all people he can be open with in that moment. We want to meet Eric where he is, and we want to tell an honest story, and we want to meet him and his story in the context of where he was that day…When you’re battling a progressive disease, sometimes things change every day. So we wanted to be really open and collaborative and keep the conversation going every day. The best part of this process was working with Eric and making sure he felt good, and we felt good too. He was very generous on the set and it was really great working with him.
Deadline: The theme throughout this episode is learning to depend on others and accept help. We see it with Sam, and we see it with Wolf too. Once you knew Eric was on board, how did you begin to weave these episodes together so that these season-long arcs would tie in with Matthew’s story in this way?
Grassi: So when we heard Eric was going to be on the show, I was looking at the board and our episodes and our air dates, and I thought Eric, can do the show. Thanksgiving episode is coming. Thanksgiving episodes always introduce this idea of family, which is always great, and I think for each of our characters, for Matthew, for Sam, for our schizophrenic patient who has been a serial patient this season, and even for someone like Wolf, you can’t do it alone. I think for a person like Sam, loneliness means death. You must have a strong support system to undergo a liver transplant. For something as progressive as ALS, you also need a support system to keep you going. Even a guy like Wolf has to learn to let people in. So I think the theme of people needing and being open to that was something that fell into place and felt very satisfying and universal for this episode.
Deadline: Wolf has solved some pretty incredible cases, but it’s also interesting to see him face cases he can’t really fix, like the ones with Matthew and Sam. How do you think about the ways that affects the characters, especially Wolf’s interns, when they begin to realize that they won’t always be able to accomplish these medical miracles?
Grassi: You’re touching on something that was very much inherent in the original concept and pitch of this show, which is inspired by Oliver Sacks. Many neurological conditions have no solution. They don’t have any easy solutions. While this is something that Dr. Wolf is aware of, I don’t think it makes it any easier, because you’re working with people who are processing it and struggling with this idea, which involves grief, because your life is changing, and you’re saying goodbye to something that you probably aren’t able to do anymore. So I think a big part of it is the term I used earlier, which is adaptation, and how you move forward, and incredible flexibility. the show has been called brilliant mindBecause the mind is unreliable in terms of what people are willing to accept as their new normal. So I think if you could ask somebody, ‘What would you do if you had that?’ Many people will say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to live that way.’ But you can’t say that unless you’re the person involved, because when you’re actually living with it you’d be surprised how much you’re willing to adapt, and how much you’re willing to move forward to do the things that are important to you. So it’s such a big part of the show.
In terms of how it affects the trainees, I think we really see that story reflected in Erica. Erica is very Type A, and she needs Sam, and she wants to fix him. She really, really does. I think Wolf and Carol, who have a lot more experience with this, know the path she’s on, and they can see the heartbreak, but they also can’t handle it because they know she has to go through it, and she has to learn it, and this is a way to learn it. Sam, there’s no easy solution to this, and I love that we’re playing a schizophrenic patient who is in our hospital and trying to get help in a way that doesn’t feel sensationalist and doesn’t feel like there’s a problem. I’ve seen some medical dramas in the past where they introduce a character who is battling a debilitating illness and then, ‘Oh, there’s a magical solution at the end.’ That’s not what we’re doing brilliant mindThere is no magical solution, but there is a way forward, as difficult as it may be, through resilience and moving forward,
DEADLINE: I love that they managed to find his family. Can you talk about whether we’ll be seeing more of Sam and what his story will look like now that he’s also suffering from liver failure?
Grassi: We’ll see more of Sam. That was a story we were really passionate about at the beginning of the season, which is that the reality of transplant is that, if you’re struggling with a mental illness or your mental health, you’re not prioritized on the list, and sometimes don’t even make the list. So the conversation we’re having in the room is this idea of who deserves care (and) why? There are many reasons for this. They probably won’t even take care of themselves, so they won’t be suitable as a liver. But our team is trying to prove that Sam is someone who deserves it and deserves care. Interestingly, you need a support system, right? So, Erica, it does. She finds his family, she brings them in and they hear how hard it is to take care of Sam. Later, they’re going to try to get a place in New York to take care of him, and that’s really hard for a lot of families who do all this work. Yet, when all of that is presented to the transplant board, just like in real life, the transplant board still rejects Sam. So I think we’ll continue that story… and our doctors will ask the question, who deserves care? It’s an interesting and very real drug that we talked about a lot, especially with our doctor in the room, Daniela Lamas, who has written a lot about it.
DEADLINE: You also have Mädchen Amick as Matthew’s wife in this episode. How did that casting happen?
Grassi: I worked with Mädchen for several seasons RiverdaleHe also directed episode 207 this season with our patient who was having musical hallucinations, So I asked her, ‘Mädchen, do you also want to star in an episode?’ And I thought it was the perfect opportunity to have her play opposite Eric Dane and support the Matthew story and be a part of that complex family, Mädchen is so amazing, and she’s so good in the episode, The scene that always fascinates me is when she is buttoning his shirt, I also love his scene with Carol, She does an amazing job in the episode,
DEADLINE: The scene at the end, when all the firefighters and the people he saved come up to his house, is also very touching.
Grassi: it’s really beautiful. And his[voiceover]at the end of Act 6 was really special, too. When we shot that scene, it was very emotional for a lot of reasons, and the entire crew stood up and clapped for Eric for about 10 minutes after we shot it, because it was so incredible, and he was so good at it, and he impressed all of us. It was incredible.
brilliant mind Airs Monday nights at 10pm ET/PT on NBC.
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