Is [Spoiler] Dead on ‘Brilliant Minds’? Brian Altemus Talks Cliffhanger & Charlie Reveal

Charlie lets Wolf in on that fact in the middle of a gala. As he explains, he got into medicine because his mother’s doctor sold his family a fantasy about her getting better when she was dying, and he wanted to make sure to tell his patients the truth. After, Charlie reveals to Wolf that his father drank himself to death after his mom’s death, and so he’s been alone since he was 14. Wolf tries apologizing, but Charlie refuses to forgive him. Instead, he gives him the address where his father is — Noah (Mandy Patinkin) left Wolf at the beginning of the season — and, since not processing trauma can break a person, wants to see who breaks first.

As the fall finale ends, Wolf goes to the address and, when no one answers, breaks in. Plus, Van (Alex MacNicoll) thinks his girlfriend Michelle (Stacey Farber), who had been hesitant to attend the gala, just didn’t show up, but she’s really unconscious in a car after a crash. Uh-oh!

Below, Brian Altemus breaks down the fall finale and teases what’s ahead after that cliffhanger.

This fall finale has major moments for Charlie. How much of his backstory had you known from the beginning? Had you known about his mom and everything from the beginning of the season?

Brian Altemus: Not from the beginning of the season. By the time we were filming Episode 4 or 5, I was starting to piece a little bit more and more together. Michael Grassi does an incredible job of giving information, teasing information, even for us, so we’re kind of jumping in the deep end of what we imagine and just going 110% in that direction, just trusting that the writers have something really good lined up for us, and they continue to do so.

Why do you think he wanted Wolf to know that now, at this point, who he really is?

Charlie’s conscious of not leading patients to the same painful experience that my mom went through, and the family that goes along with those patients. He’s seeing it live happen in action. Jorge Torres, he’s seeing the pain that can come from a mother watching her son go through treatment that Charlie doesn’t think is necessary. So it’s really about making sure that the patients that he’s seeing aren’t going through the same pain.

So, he feels like, “If not now, when?”

Yeah. And, “Why is someone else going to have to live through this pain that I’ve already lived through?” and “I want to stop.” I mean, I feel like everyone in some little type of way, unless you’re the Joker, you want to alleviate some kind of pain and suffering in the world, and this is Charlie’s way of doing that.

Charlie doesn’t accept Wolf’s apology when he tells him he’s sorry. He says, “Let’s see who breaks first.” That’s chilling. What does he want to see in Wolf? Is it what we’re seeing in the flashforwards? Is it something else? Is he kind of not sure? Did he set out with a specific goal in mind?

It’s a loose goal. It’s definitely a takedown stance. He does not want to see him practicing medicine the way that he has been, and if that means his medical license is revoked, his medical license is revoked. If that means he changes his ways, he changes his ways. I don’t think Charlie has a good idea of what it exactly means. He just knows he’s coming in to change things.

Charlie gives Wolf what he says is his dad’s address, leading to Wolf breaking into that place, wherever it is. What does Charlie want to accomplish there? Just making Wolf think his dad was close and didn’t want to see him? Also, it’s like, what would be more cruel: that it’s actually Noah’s address or for him to make Wolf think it is?

Yeah, right. I mean, the mental game there is tough, I mean — I can’t ask the question back to you. I think it’s incredibly demonic to give an address that’s not actually his address and to say that it is. I mean, going on a wild goose chase for something not there is sadistic, to say the least. So I’d like to say that that is his address because if not, we take a whole different direction with Charlie. We take the direction of a literal psychopath and not in the, “He’s crazy. Oh my God, he’s crazy.” I mean in the literal sense of the word. So I would like to keep him as much as he is going for revenge, and he has a vendetta. He’s not psychopathic. So I like to think that is actually his dad’s address.

But then you also never know if it’s still the address, if it was once his address, if he’s there…

If he’s there, if he’s not, and who knows.

Talk about filming that scene with Zachary, going head-to-head. It was so good.

I mean, not only that scene, but the scene in the end of [Episode] 8. When I imagined this role doing the auditions and going through the callbacks and whatnot, I mean, this is what you’re preparing for. So just like any good game or any good match, you know what you’re headed for, and you’re kind of preparing all along the way for that. So when the day comes, you’re nervous, you’re excited, you’re just above all prepared so that you can do whatever it is that they’re asking you to do in the moment. And also, I mean, the way that showrunners run the show is fantastic. I mean, I got to actually speak with the writers, with Michael, with DeMane [Davis, director] about the direction we wanted to take the scene and the physicality of it, the movement, all of it. And so by the time we got there, everyone was just kind of buzzing, and then you just throw everything against the wind and into the wind and let it go. So it was one of my more fun days on set, for sure.

That’s not the only mystery at the end of this episode. There’s the matter of Michelle in that car accident on the way to the gala, and that kind of feels like it’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck situation where everyone has to put any conflicts aside when the show returns. What can you preview about that? Is that what we’re going to see?

Exactly that. The show does a great job of handling conflict and showing compassion through conflict, and there’s an incredible amount of compassion saying, “Hey, I know things aren’t good between us right now, but we really have to be there for something bigger than what’s going on between us.” And as much as they have their personal vendettas, they are in the field of care, and they’re going to care for the people, for anyone, but especially people they care about to begin with, they’re going to put aside their differences.

There are all these mysteries about these flashforwards. We’ve seen Charlie in a couple of them. Should we be wondering if there’s any sort of connection between Charlie and Amelia?

I’m going to leave that one up for time. We will see, I don’t even know if they’re on the same wavelength, if they have the same goal. I know that they definitely have some shared interests. We’ll see if they collaborate or corroborate.

When you were filming the flashforwards we’ve seen so far with Charlie, how much did you know about what’s going on there? Was it just what you needed to know for that scene?

Just what I needed to know for the scene and guessing all the ways in which it could go, and then saying, “OK, we did a take in this direction. Let’s go 150% in that direction. Let’s do a take in this direction.” Because that’s the beauty of writing as we’re going, and I don’t know where we’re headed, so you give them options.

Brilliant Minds, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC

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