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Brilliant Minds Cast & Creator Talk Romantic "Obstacles," Iconic Friendships & What's Next
After a season of will-they-won't-they romance, one friendship sticks out most by the end of Brilliant Minds Season 1.
This story contains major spoilers for all of Brilliant Minds Season 1.
The four fresh-faced neurology interns at Bronx General Hospital — Dr. Ericka Kinney (Ashleigh LaThrop), Dr. Van Markus (Alex MacNicoll), Dr. Dana Dang (Aury Krebs), and Dr. Jacob Nash (Spence Moore II) — made it through Season 1 of Brilliant Minds (mostly) unscathed. But with all that drama came new friendships forged in fire, romantic complications, and plenty of lessons.
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Ahead of the two-part Season 1 finale, NBC Insider hopped on paired calls with Krebs and LaThrop, as well as MacNicoll and Moore, to get the lowdown on their characters' Season 1 journeys and tease what could be coming down the line.
"There was rivalry there, but then at the end of the day, it is one of those things where it goes from rivalry to camaraderie or brotherhood — they go from being rivals to teammates and I think they’ve also shared a lot in common as far as personal stuff as well," MacNicoll told NBC Insider. "I think there’s that bond. I think the more they get to know each other and the more they’re going through these experiences in a medical environment with all these patients and helping each other out, the deeper their bond gets and the closer they get."
The Bronx General Hospital Intern Love Triangle
From Episode 1, Dr. Ericka Kinney showed herself to be the intern team's "quarterback," and while she proved that over and over again, her fellow interns Van and Jacob took notice. Both men made attempts to woo Ericka, but only Van was successful.
However, by the end of the season, Van and Ericka's situationship had failed, and while Jacob's interest hadn't waned — Hello, longing looks! — any romance was up in the air.
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When we asked MacNicoll and Moore who they thought should be Ericka's endgame, Moore was quick to throw Jacob's name in the ring.
"I feel like Jacob is a guy, especially with the way he comes off, who has a lot of luck with women, maybe," he mused. "But Ericka is not one to be won over easy; she is a challenge and she just makes Jacob be the best version [of himself] – she pushes Jacob to be a better version of himself and I think he’s very, very intrigued by that."
MacNicoll's good-natured response as a fan of the series was that he sees how Jacob and Ericka would be great together.
"As Alex on the outside, I gotta agree with everything Spence said about [Jacob and Ericka's] dynamic; I do think it has the potential to be a cool, long-term thing," MacNicoll said. "And then as for Van and Ericka, I think Ericka is the type of person where ... she seems to have it all together and everything, so I think she would help anybody out — whoever her partner is. She’s a very uplifting, wonderfully emotionally mature person, so I would hope for Van to also be in the running for her long-term partner. But we’ll see what happens."
Dr. Dana and EMT Katie Rodriguez
The two-part Season 1 finale also saw the unexpected return of Mishel Prada's EMT character Katie Rodriguez, who audiences first met in Episode 10, "The First Responder." Sparks flew between Dana and Katie, but their connection was left open-ended — until the finale.
"There’s something really exciting I think in the relationship we see with Dana and Katie … [Katie] allows herself to be taken care of," Prada told NBC Insider at the time. "I mean, she gets to a point where she has no choice and Dana really shows up with her in a way that isn’t somebody having pity on somebody — it’s almost just really showing up as a human being and being like, 'It’s OK for us to need each other,' and I think there’s something really powerful in Katie letting Dana in in that way that leads to hopefully something deeper."
And after that apartment collapse, Dana and Katie were once again reunited after one hell of a day (to put it lightly).
"There was a lot of back and forth with the writers about what Dana’s love life [looks like]," Krebs revealed. "'What would a partner look like for her?' And there were a lot of possibilities."
But Dana's connection with Katie is "special," Krebs said.
"I like seeing Dana disarmed," Krebs explained. "And I think this is someone who can really understand the toll that the job takes. And there’s that lovely moment on the staircase where we exchange numbers where so much has gone down in that episode where Dana does not have anything left to perform. And I love that scene because she’s kind of always performing a little bit. And she sits down next to her and she’s just there. And I think that that’s such a rare moment for that character and I think it shows the potential for how these two can connect in a really serious way.
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"But I do think that if they do get together there’s going to be some ... obstacles," Krebs teased.
"Do you guys want a love story?": Brilliant Minds & iconic TV friendships
Despite all these up-in-the-air romances, it's Brilliant Minds' friendships that shine through by the end of the season. Dr. Carol Pierce actor Tamberla Perry previously told us about just how open the series' writers are to mining the cast's real-life relationships with each other for inspiration, and the same holds for the interns.
While the first half of the season didn't see Dana and Ericka interact much, the back half — especially in the wake of Ericka's death-defying apartment building collapse — has solidified the pair as arguably the closest relationship among the interns. They're now roommates, and when Ericka was working through her PTSD surrounding the collapse, Dana was the one she turned to for comfort.
Throughout our interview, LaThrop and Krebs were giddy about sharing how much their real-life friendship meant, with LaThrop calling Krebs one of her "favorite people, period."
"So it’s really fun that we get to show that friendship and the blossoming of that and it makes it easy because I’m not really acting," LaThrop said.
"I have been begging [the writers] for a Dana/Ericka friendship this whole season," Krebs said. "And thankfully we have a showrunner and room full of [writers] who really care about bringing us to the characters and also asking us what we’re hoping for and what we might want to see. And you’re not gonna get every single thing you asked for, but one of the pillars of what I so desired was — Ashleigh and I are so close in real life and I was like ... 'We should be exploring that onscreen!'"
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Krebs joked that while most of Ericka's time outside the hospital this season went to "the love triangle with the boys that I'm constantly lamenting about not being a part of," she's just happy that Dana and Ericka's friendship can be explored more from here on out.
"What I really love so much about their friendship is they are such complete opposites and they are so good for each other," Krebs continued. "They both are ambitious and they both want to be good doctors but in such different [ways] ... and Ericka is, I think, one of the only people in the show that really sees Dana past her mask of her humor and her off-handed comments. There is one really lovely moment in Episode 6, where Dana’s come back, she’s had the panic attack, and Ericka turns to her — [it’s] very romantic!"
In fact, when Krebs jokingly brought up Dana and Ericka's friendship maybe being something more to creator and showrunner Michael Grassi, he didn't immediately turn her down.
“He looked at me with his beautiful eyelashes [and his] anime eyes and he’s like, 'Do you guys want a love story?'" Krebs recalled, laughing. "And I didn’t even realize this was a seed I could plant, but..."
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When we spoke with Grassi about the pair's friendship in a separate interview, he responded with similar enthusiasm: "I’m so happy [we're] talking about this!"
"This has been sort of the grand plan from the beginning, where we’re putting Ericka in a situation where there are two really attractive, really smart guys who are interested in her and vying for her attention. And that’s not what she signed up for, that’s not what she wanted," he said.
That's made clear in these final episodes, which Grassi said sets the real goal: "It’s a way into a friendship story. A really deep friendship story with Dana."
Dana and Ericka's growing friendship is one of Grassi's favorite storylines of the season, he said.
"'Who is she gonna choose, Jacob or Van?' No, she’s choosing the person that she really needs right now," he continued. "And that’s Dana!"
The goal is to create an iconic television friendship.
"It’s sort of what I’m most proud of in all of my work. Like I think of like iconic friendships on Degrassi back in the day... Betty and Veronica is one of my favorite friendships in Season 1 of Riverdale, and I think those female friendships are so important," Grassi said. "And I want that to be one of the beating hearts on our show. Just like [Dr. Oliver] Wolf and Carol have such a deep-rooted friendship. I want to start building that with our interns as well."
Jacob and Van's friendship also ends on a touching note once Jacob learns Van's big secret: He's got a kid, Liam (Henry Falk). And while Liam's existence isn't an outright secret, Van's not exactly advertising being a dad. So when Van introduces Liam to Jacob, it opens up the doctors' relationship to a new level.
"I feel like the reason [Jacob is] always poking at Van and having some type of slick remark for Van is because deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down, I actually do appreciate Van’s presence," Moore said of Jacob's relationship with Van. "I think I do identify he’s good at what he does, even if he does fumble the bag a couple times earlier in the season.
"I feel like as the alpha that Jacob feels like he is, I feel like he wants to kind of enforce his will or impose his will over any situation, especially if there’s a threat in his eyes. Because I’m looking at [Van], especially coming from a football background, as competition. I want to be big dog on campus," Moore continued. "But I do think that deep down, I really do want to be like Van in a lot of ways and I do feel that, in the moment when Liam is brought into the equation, it’s just like, 'Yo, this is a cool dude and I can trust him and I can lean on him,' and this is exactly the type of fellowship that Jacob’s been needing and yearning for in this space. I feel like he hasn’t had a proper bro outlet in the hospital. So this is exactly what the doctor ordered for Jacob, this newfound fellowship."
Brilliant Minds is available to stream on Peacock.
