How ‘Brilliant Minds’ Boss Worked With Eric Dane to Craft Powerful ALS Episode

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Brilliant Minds Season 2 Episode 9 “Fire Fighter.”]

Eric Dane guest stars on Brilliant Minds in one of the show’s most powerful and best episodes, one all about accepting help from others.

Dane plays Matthew, a firefighter with the same disease he has, ALS, and Wolf (Zachary Quinto) and Carol (Tamberla Perry) are by his side as he struggles to tell his family, his ex-wife (Mädchen Amick), and daughter (Chloe Avakian). With Wolf joining his family for Thanksgiving, Matthew does agree to move back in with his ex as his family, fellow firefighters, and those he’s saved over the years come together to show they’ll be there for him. The episode then ends with him agreeing to voice banking, which uses his voice to create a synthesized one.

Elsewhere in the episode, Muriel (Donna Murphy) is determined to spend Thanksgiving with her son and sees just how little time Wolf has been spending in his house since his dad left, and Ericka’s (Ashleigh LaThrop) patient, Sam (Nabil Rajo), needs a liver, but that’s much easier said than done in his situation.

Below, showrunner Michael Grassi discusses bringing in Eric Dane and telling this story, teases what’s to come, including with Wolf and Josh (Teddy Sears), and more.

Talk about bringing on Eric Dane, what you wanted to do with him onscreen, and the conversations you had with him about the character and how much of his own life you would pull.

Michael Grassi: Eric reached out to us. He was a fan of the show, wanted to do the show, and I’m a huge Eric Dane fan, and I was so excited to bring him onto Brilliant Minds and into our world. And we had a number of Zooms before he came to shoot, and we had many conversations about this storyline and what it could be and what it meant. And funny enough, when I had my first Zoom with Eric, I had flown home for a family emergency and a difficult diagnosis, and I think very quickly in our conversations, the story became, “How does a family navigate a difficult diagnosis? How do you take some news that is very hard to process, and how do you share it with people, and how do you process it yourself, and how do you do the hardest thing of all, which is accept help?” Especially when we talked about his character being a firefighter, somebody who’s dedicated his entire life to helping other people and that kind of service, having to accept help sometimes as the hardest thing you can do. So we were really excited to tell a really grounded family story about what it’s like to move forward after you learn about a diagnosis.

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Was there anything specific that he suggested that you included?

Well, I think we wanted to make sure that Matthew’s world felt full and fleshed out and that it wasn’t sort of a simple story. So I think in our conversations we sort of found complexity and nuance to Matthew, and just getting to know each other a little bit sort of helped develop and cook the story. And from minute one of talking to Eric, I just felt his generosity of spirit and his collaboration, and that continued from the second he arrived on set to his last day on set. He was incredible to work with. He really, really was.

Because you’re also telling a story that we know has a heartbreaking ending — it’s said in the episode that nobody survives this — and this is also Eric’s life. So what was the careful approach to telling that part of it?

It was really challenging, and Eric and I had a lot of conversations about it, and he opened up to me and said that being in the scenes was difficult at times. And I said, “Eric, I’m sorry.” And he’s like, “No, it’s good. It’s good to be having these conversations, even in a fictional setting, because they’re real conversations that families have to have and families are having on a daily basis.” I think it was difficult, but I think it was all in the spirit of sharing something and sharing a story and sharing an experience and letting other people out there know that they’re not alone and that, while it’s difficult to deal with this, it’s better to do it knowing that you have support and that other people are going through it as well.

I have to say two of the moments I was especially moved by were Matthew outside, as everyone was there to support him, and Matthew letting his ex-wife help with his shirt. And by the way, Mädchen as his ex-wife, great casting.

Isn’t she amazing? Well, I worked with Mädchen on Riverdale for many, many years, and I’m a huge fan of hers. And she also directed Episode 7.

So talk about including those two moments and ending the episode with that voice recording because a really big, powerful moment to end on.

The moment where everyone shows up to support him was so important because, like I said earlier, this is a man who dedicated his life to helping others. And I think Wolf has this idea of, “I want to show him how much he’s helped others and how all of those people want to help him back.” And I think that’s what that moment is. And also, I know it’s a big thing in the firefighter community to have sort of retirement processions. So it was that sort of thing is celebrating him and celebrating his work. And the scene with Mädchen is also one of my favorite scenes, Meredith, and it’s so beautiful because the simplicity of letting someone help you do a task that you were able to do on your own, your whole life that you can no longer do on your own, something as simple as buttoning a shirt and allowing someone in to help you do that, it feels like just a simple moment of grace and makes me emotional just thinking about it. That’s such a beautiful scene.

And the VO in Act 6, we were really excited to give Eric that moment to, for the first time ever, we have, it’s not Wolf guiding us through the end of Act 6. It’s Eric. And when we shot that scene, it was obviously really emotional for many reasons, but Eric was incredible, and he delivered a vulnerability, and he really felt like he was telling the story of Matthew in such a beautiful way, but also pulling from his own life and experience. And after we finished shooting that scene, at the end of the day, the cast and crew stood and clapped Eric out for 10 minutes. And I’ve never experienced that on a set, and it was a beautiful moment I’ll never forget. And we were just so moved by Eric’s performance and his work ethic the entire time he was there in his collaborative spirit.

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And the last little tidbit I’ll give you is every time we called cut on shooting a scene, he was joking around and laughing and connecting with the cast, and he was just so much fun to have on our show, so one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my career working with Eric. I’m so glad he came to do Brilliant Minds and told the story.

His character is also one I really want an update on. Is it possible that we could hear about Matthew in the future?

Oh, I hope so. I hope so. We haven’t gotten that far yet, but I would love that.

I also have to admit that when Matthew first brought up a facility, my first thought was of Hudson Oaks…

Trust me, Meredith, that crossed my mind. He’s like, “I found a place, it’s called Hudson Oaks.” [Laughs.]

You’re so dialed into the parallels of the story and all of the stories in the episode, even Sam’s story. We’re telling a story of, for these people, you need to let someone in order to survive. And I think that’s a big thing for Wolf as well, and he’s been starting to isolate himself a little bit more. Muriel’s like, “Let’s spend Thanksgiving together,” and Wolf is avoiding her, so Wolf won’t let Muriel in, so she literally has to let herself into his house and cook dinner and force him. And I think it brings up a lot of feelings for Wolf in that moment, especially as she’s sort of struggling with the fact that her son is struggling and she’s trying to stay optimistic, and she’s holding on, and she’s just talking about Dad. And I think it’s like Wolf’s like, “Stop. He’s not here to carve the turkey. I’m going to do it.”

I think it’s showing that Wolf is potentially in a place right now where he’s not his best. I think Muriel sees that and that sort of — because I think a lot of people when they’re struggling are functioning in their lives and they’re going to work and they do their day-to-day, but sometimes physical stuff in their lives starts to take a toll. And we show that with the fact that his ferns are dead and the fact that he hasn’t cleaned up the mugs that were left by his dad after his dad left. So those are very clear signs that maybe Wolf isn’t doing as well as we thought he was.

Would Wolf have lashed out more at his mom when he found her there if he hadn’t been through what he just was with Matthew?

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think having just spent the entire episode trying to convince Matthew to let his family in, I think Wolf couldn’t have walked in that day and said, “Get out.” Because he’s been preaching that for the entire episode. But it was still really hard for him. It wasn’t easy.

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I love seeing Muriel just be Wolf’s mom. We saw in this episode, they both clearly still have a way to go together. So are we going to continue to see that mother-son relationship? That’s the only relationship right now since she’s no longer at the hospital.

Yeah, we’ll see her very, very soon. I think I can tease that we see her in Episode 210, our midseason finale as well. And she is amazing in it, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s some really good Muriel stuff coming up.

You gave Josh a new love interest. Why?

Well, Wolf, I think, broke Josh’s heart, and I think Josh was wanting to be let back in. And I think a big part of what we’re telling in this story is that Wolf struggles to let people in when he’s struggling, just like Matthew. And I think Josh tried, and I think he maybe saw that this isn’t a viable relationship for me. And he got put together with somebody that he had been in a relationship prior to Wolf, who we’re going to continue to explore what that means for him. But I think Josh is trying to navigate this the best he can because I think Josh is somebody who wants to lock it down and wants to maybe get married and wants some of those things. He loves structure, and I think Wolf wasn’t able to provide any of that structure for him, so he looked for it elsewhere. But the story is developing. So stay tuned, please.

I was going to say it doesn’t seem like Wolf is in that position yet either, and it seems like it’s going to take quite a bit because I mean, based on where he is in the flashforwards, it’s not happening anytime soon.

Yes, the story is unfolding in real time, but we’ve got lots of surprises coming in developments. But also, the thing I’ll say is that what’s clear is that both of these feelings, both Josh and Wolf, they care about each other a lot. And that is clear in our storytelling and clear in their scenes together. And they have lots of good stuff coming up.

Speaking of romance, Carol and Thorne (John Clarence Stewart) and their sparks, which I am loving, but it feels like both have pasts that could make them hesitant to really jump into something. So is that going to be coming into play?

Yes. Stay tuned for more on these two. I love Tamala and John’s chemistry, and I love these two characters, and I love how they intersect in the hospital, and I love that they have a history, and I love that they’re sort of safe landing places for each other in the hospital a little bit. So that story is also developing and more soon there.

So last season’s recurring patient had a tragic ending. You kind of seem like you’re sending up Sam for the same thing. Is history going to repeat itself? Does it feel like to the doctors perhaps that they’re kind of on a similar path that they’ve been on with other patients they’ve treated for an extended period of time?

Let me say that the Sam story is a really important storyline for us because it’s what happens in real hospitals, and Sam needs a new liver, and it’s very difficult to get on the donor list when you’re struggling with a mental illness. It’s just the truth. You get put much lower on the list, even if you make the list at all. So his story, a lot like Matthew’s story, a lot like Wolf’s story, and many people’s story, is Sam can’t survive without a support system. He can’t do this alone. For Sam, alone means death. So Erica finds his family in [Episode] 9, as you saw, but the system doesn’t see it that way, and it’s still not enough considering his mental health history. And I think one of our big themes this season and on our show in general is, who deserves care? So we are continuing to tell that story, and that’s a story that will continue, and it’s high stakes for Sam. It’s a nuanced story about what it’s like to live with this condition. And what I love about it is that it’s not sensationalized, there aren’t any sort of magical solves to what Sam has. We’re playing it really real, so more soon on that.

What can you tease about the next time we see the flashforward timeline?

It’s coming in the midseason finale. We’ll get a little bit more on that story — and some other big surprises.

Brilliant Minds, Mondays, 10/9c, NBC