Just a heads up before we begin this episode. The Baron of Botox deals with difficult topics including depression and suicide.

It is not recommended for young audiences.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode for information on resources for anyone who is suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts.

Let's begin the show. It's been nearly five years since Dr. Brandt took his own life, but his ghosts are everywhere.

I often wonder if walking down Fifth Avenue, which he liked to do in an oversized faux-for jacket

while humming the Dr. Shago theme no less, would now feel like

being in a fun house. He would spot versions of himself hailing calves, taking selfies,

and admiring their faces in the high-end store windows.

And I see his invisible hand, in the sculpted and plumped up faces on screen and in magazines

and all around me.

I was recently in the locker room at the gym in New York

when I spotted a woman who appeared to be wearing no makeup.

Her eyelashes were jet black and long, extensions.

The flesh of her lips was pink and swollen,

pillowing out over the natural lines of her mouth.

Her baseline, her sweaty, no makeup, post-gyim face had been optimized and I had so many questions.

Did I notice because this is the kind of thing I've been training myself to notice or do we all notice, at least at first, and then our eyes just adjust?

Do humans have an innate ability to override the uncanny? And if we do, what happens next? Do we all

just move on to humans 2.0? Of the many people I heard from during the

course of making and airing this

podcast a plastic surgeon named Dr. Carlos Wolf was probably the most

unexpected. He contacted me via LinkedIn and I was primarily struck by the frankness of his message.

...