L is for Lobelia

There is no way that Brady is as dumb as he seems. Like - if he’s willing to go to great lengths -including sacrificing his own potential (aka singing)- then I wouldn’t be surprised if Brady dumbed himself down so that he’d always be Boomers equal. Brady actively attempts to come up with plans to prevent Boomer from embarrassing himself - and the majority of his attempts in the past succeeded. He sacrificed his own chances at getting his voice heard for his brother. In Brady’s own words in the episode “Tone Deaf Jam”, “Our brotherhood works best when we’re both equally bad at everything.”

That gives us a unique insight into how Brady’s mind works, he’d do anything for his brother, he doesn’t want to be better then Boomer at anything because he cares too much about Boomer to overshadow him at anything like that. 

There’s actually been moments where there’s proof that Brady is smarter and more capable then he appears, for example, in the episode “Oh Brother, Where Arr Thou” he defeats the pirate with the pirates own peg-leg and in the episode “Brady Battles Boo- Mer” he tricks the ghost into coming out of Boomer’s body - and then even while at a disadvantage, he manages to defeat and capture the ghost. In the episode “Kings of Legend” it’s actually Brady’s idea to move back the statue of Zadoc another 4 feet since the darkness had grown 2 feet - he actively came up with an idea to move the statue so that the kingdom would have more time. That was a pretty smart idea on his part, common sense really - he also had the kingdoms best interests at heart, he’s more empathetic then Boomer and he also recognizes his faults. In one of the episodes, he displays the ability of understanding his own faults by admitting that when around Mikayla he has trouble controlling his impulses to flirt with her, that shows a form of empathy and self-knowledge and actually wisdom that few people show - it’s maturity. Out of the two brothers, Brady comes up with the majority of their good ideas, he’s actually more mature then Boomer at times.

 In the episode “Sleepless in the Castle“ we’re introduced to Sleep Ninja Brady who is smooth af and capable of taking down four fully armed and trained guards by himself without any help. This is the guy who makes it a point to seem just as physically weak as Boomer is, he also makes a point at being really clumsy - but sleep ninja Brady isn’t clumsy, sleep ninja Brady can do handstands and backflips and he never trips or falls. At some point in the episode, Brady actually admits that he was awake during some of the times in which “sleep ninja Brady” had beaten down his own brother - revealing that he is in fact more capable then he seems and he’s aware of it, it also brings to light that he’s capable of pretending to be something else without anyone being any wiser to his act.

In the episode “An Ice Girl for Boomer” Brady transforms a cave woman into a beautiful lady, he transforms her into the perfect girl for his brother, something that I doubt Boomer could do. Brady is more selfless then Boomer, in fact he is selfless enough that in the episode “Kings of Thieves” Brady comes up with the idea to become Sirocco, to prevent Lanny from stealing the money of the people. He stopped Lanny and returned the money, he disguised his voice and appearance so no one would recognize him. Brady actually throws a bag of money at an old lady when she screams at him, hitting her in the face, and then apologizes sarcastically. 

In the episodes “The Evil King” Brady actually avoids mentioning that Lanny had pricked him (aka cursed him), he’s suspiciously silent when Lanny lies badly saying that he was cursed too. It’s not the first time that he straight out ignores Lanny’s quest for power, deliberately ignoring him and looking the other way. 

Now the episode that actually brought me to the conclusion that Brady is smarter then he appears is in the episode “Pair of Geniuses”, not only did he manage to come up with something to give them some time before they’d get caught by Mason and Mikayla (a plan that actually succeeded, they had no idea that Brady and Boomer had been gone for a week until a week had actually passed, which was Brady’s intention.). Brady is prepared in advance to be able to deceive Mason and Mikayla whenever he and Boomer want to get out of the castle. When Brady gets his brain back after being cursed with dumbness, he instantly says “PI = 3.14159, Monaco is the second smallest country in the world. The universe is not infinite, at the end of it is…. Woah. That was a rush.” if the reversal of the curse brings a persons intelligence back to how it was before they were cursed, that means that the small bit of info we get after Brady gets his brains back is knowledge that he actually knows.

He knows what the first 6 digits of PI is, he knows what the second smallest country in the world is - and the last sentence implies that at some point he probably read some information or theories from a science magazine. He was also smart enough to know that if the rest of the island got their intelligence back they wouldn’t like him anymore. There’s times where he’s been genuinely stupid, though everyone has their moments.

Who knows, maybe all of that were coincidences, rare glimpses of insight. Or maybe Brady is smarter than he seems and dumbs himself down for his brother and actively gives in to his more sillier urges. This is a self-conscious empathetic teenager whos whole world is his brother, he’s mature enough to know that he has to mature in order to be a better ruler, he’s wise enough to recognize when he’s wrong and when he has faults and to attempt to make up for it. An idiot wouldn’t try to keep themselves silent so that they don’t flirt with a girl who doesn’t want to be flirted with, in that one episode “Poetry Slam” he recognizes that he’s been going too far when it comes to Mikayla, he recognizes that she doesn’t like him flirting with her - and he admits that he knows this - and he also recognizes that he has trouble controlling his impulses and keeping his mouth shut around her so he actively makes a plan to prevent himself from making her uncomfortable - and for that to happen, he refuses to talk to her and tries to avoid her during the first half of the episode, he bites his tongue and tries to control himself around her because he doesn’t want to lose her. Of course, Brady does make a mistake later in the episode with trying to ban Poetry, but everyone makes mistakes, and he manages to win her friendship back in the end using the very thing she loves - Poetry. In “Pair of Clubs” Brady manages to trick the kingdom into going to his club over Boomers.

LEWIS PULLMAN as BOB REYNOLDS