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This week’s Brilliant Minds tackled weighty subjects with its usual blend of medical mystery and character-driven drama. The case of Steve (Joshua Echebiri), the ex-Marine plagued by visions of dead comrades, initially presented as a straightforward Ptsd diagnosis. However, Oliver’s (Zachary Quinto) sharp eye for detail and his willingness to consider the unconventional led to […]

Brilliant Minds Episode 5 Recap: Ghosts, Cte, and a Glimmer of Hope...

Zachary Quinto, Spence Moore II and Ashleigh Lathrop in ‘Brilliant Minds’ episode 5 (Photo by: Rafy/NBC)

NBC’s Brilliant Minds episode five opens with Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) reflecting on coping mechanisms and how they help us make it through the day. Oliver’s voiceover tells us that sometimes our ghosts are visible to everyone. Other times, only we can see them.

In the case of ex-Marine Steve Hill (Joshua Echebiri), his ghosts seem very, very real to him. Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry) tells Oliver that Steve’s suffering from intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety, and that he revealed he’s been seeing ghosts of people he served with.

Carol and Oliver meet with Steve and his pregnant wife, Anna (Sabryn Rock), and she confirms he’s been struggling. Steve doesn’t want to burden his wife, but confesses he often breaks down. He hands over his medical records from the Va,...

Dr. Wolf has a case that isn’t as cut and dry as it would initially seem in Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 5. This looks like it should be a case of Ptsd, so why is Wolf taking it?

There are many stories of veterans with Ptsd. It happens due to the things people see in a time of war. While that is terrible, it doesn’t seem like something Dr. Wolf would handle right away. There has to be something more to this case.

There’s a mysterious illness involved in Brilliant Minds season 1, episode 5

While the promo makes it look like this could be a case of Ptsd, the synopsis tells us that it is some sort of mysterious illness. What could this be? Did he suffer a knock to the head while he was serving leading to a brain injury? That would be another typical case for doctors when it comes to marines.

New York City is getting another shot in the arm this summer with Free Shakespeare in the Park’s happy Merry Wives, playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s embraceable adaptation of the Bard’s The Merry Wives of Windsor starring Watchmen‘s Jacob Ming-Trent as that great, rotund creation Falstaff.

Briefly delayed by injury and Covid, Merry Wives opens tonight as a most welcome – and, with vaccines required, as safe as can be – escape from the woes of the world. With an update to a contemporary South Harlem peopled with a splendid assemblage of West African immigrant characters, Merry Wives enhances the classic farce with up-to-the-minute references, the occasional brief snippet of R&b crooning, and a same-sex romance that seems completely at home in the setting.

If the intermission-less production, directed by Saheem Ali, doesn’t quite reach the joyous heights of Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub similarly updated Twelfth Night,...

New York’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production this summer of Merry Wives, a comedy adaptation by Jocelyn Bioh of the Bard’s Merry Wives of Windsor, will feature an all-Black cast including Jacob Ming-Trent (HBO’s Watchmen), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Broadway’s To Kill A Mockingbird), Shola Adewusi (CBS’ Bob Hearts Abishola) and Susan Kelechi Watson (NBC’s This Is Us).

The Public Theater announced the complete casting today, along with new dates for the staging in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater: Performances will begin Tuesday, July 6 (instead of the previously announced July 5) and run through Saturday, September 18 (an extension of three weeks from the previously announced engagement). The official opening night is Tuesday, July 27.

The extension is designed to compensate for current social distancing procedures that will require limited audience capacity of 428 at the 1,800-seat Delacorte. The audience capacity could be expanded if state requirements for small- and medium-sized venues change before July.