Spoilers ahead for the Season 2 premiere of Brilliant Minds, called “The Phantom Hook” and available streaming next day with a Peacock subscription.
Brilliant Minds is back in primetime in the fall 2025 TV schedule, and the Season 2 premiere was a rough ride for Zachary Quinto‘s Dr. Oliver Wolf during multiple points in the timeline. While dealing with his father’s return in the present (as well as taking a punch to the face from an MMA boxer with alien hand syndrome), a flash forward to six months in the future finds Wolf in Hudson Oaks Behavioral Health Services, clearly against his will. Showrunner Michael Grassi spoke to CinemaBlend about the flash forward, as well as the great song choice for the sequence.
The context for why Wolf will be committed to a psychiatric facility within six months isn’t clear in the Season 2 premiere flash forwards, with the episode picking up in medias res with the neurologist staging an escape attempt. He almost makes it out, which seems to be a sign that he’s every bit as brilliant six months into the future as he is in the present, but something has clearly gone very wrong, and he was sedated before he could break out of Hudson Oaks.
The premiere was bookended by flash forward sequences, both set to Buddy Holly’s “Everyday.” When I spoke with the showrunner ahead of Brilliant Minds‘ return, he explained why the writers wanted to start Season 2 with the jump forward in time:
A lot of last season, our storylines were centered around Wolf and his past and his relationship with his mother and his father, and how that sort of defined him and made him the doctor he is today. I think this season we’re continuing that story, but in a brand new way. We’re finding Oliver in a psychiatric facility six months from now, and it’s very clear that he doesn’t want to be there. He’s not doing great there, and I think every episode of this season, as we build to the six months from now, we’re going to be asking ourselves within each episode, what’s going to be the thing that breaks Wolf? What’s going to be the thing that sends him to the psychiatric facility?
The premiere already revealed one way that the flash forwards can tie back to Wolf’s cases of the season, with the neurologist landing a punch on an orderly, raising the question of how he learned to hit that way. (The MMA fighter gave him a tutorial.)
Fortunately, Michael Grassi also indicated that Brilliant Minds won’t spend the full season just teasing answers about the flash forward without a payoff. The showrunner went on:
That story will continue to develop in surprising ways, and there will be some twists and turns along the way. Within this Season 2, we will catch up to the six month time jump and learn why Wolf is at Hudson Oaks.
If Brilliant Minds keeps up with real time, then the present storyline should catch up with the Hudson Oaks flash forward by the end of March 2026. I have to wonder if NBC broadcasting the 2026 Winter Olympics will affect how soon into the season we get answers, as the network usually doesn’t air new episodes of any of its shows during the weeks of the Olympics.
On a more fun note than Wolf being sedated and the drama potentially taking a few extra weeks off for the Olympics, the choice of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” for the flash forward was a peppy juxtaposition to Wolf’s desperation to break out of Hudson Oaks.
The song was heavily featured in Prime Video’s Good Omens Season 2, but under very different circumstances. Michael Grassi explained the choice of “Everyday” for the flash forwards to six months in the future:
I love that song. I think we sort of had, like, ‘upbeat tunes’ scripted. I forget what song I had in my mind, but we have an amazing music supervisor. Her name is Season Kent. She is iconic. I love working with her. She was on our show last year as well, and she sent us that song, and it was like, ‘Yep, that’s the one.’ The perfect way in, and it’s the perfect juxtaposition to what Wolf is going through and how we’re meeting him in this facility. I love that song, so yeah, big props to Season Kent, our music supervisor.
Keep tuning in to NBC on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET for new episodes of Brilliant Minds, following new installments of The Voice. If you prefer to keep up streaming, the latest episodes are available on Peacock next day. The full first season can also be found on the platform.
