“Patient” with Steve Carell: a controversial series about a psychotherapist and a maniac locked in the same basement

The show’s protagonist, the recently widowed psychotherapist Alan (Steve Carell), wakes up in bed as if waking from a bad dream. But it soon becomes clear that the nightmare continues: Alan is chained to a bed in an unknown basement and realizes that one of his deranged patients has been taken hostage.

The same patient Sam (Don Gleason, who is returning to a similar role after his role as the murderer in McDonagh’s hysterical Calvary) apologizes, but agrees that despite the absurdity of the situation, he will not let Alan go anywhere. She needs a therapist to overcome her bloodthirsty craving to kill other people.

Thus begins a 10-episode on-screen duel between two venerable actors and their protagonists: On the one hand, they are completely unlike each other, and on the other hand, they find dark reflections of their souls in their opponents.

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Frame from the series “Patient” (2022)

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But if the pilot episode, which hangs guns on the walls of Alan’s “dungeon” where it’s supposed to be fired later, sounds interesting, the tension dissipates as the show progresses and the series sags under the weight of its own ambitions.

First of all, the format ruins the story. The writers chose the unexpected (and a failure, as the first three episodes show) timing: episodes ran no more than 25 minutes. It seems like the dynamics and rhythm within each episode needs to go off scale, but somehow the screenwriters manage to turn the timing into a real audience test for perseverance.

During those 20+ minutes, each episode manages to just look around and (God forbid) give one more or less interesting scenario twist, which isn’t enough. In general, the format of the series for this story was chosen for growth – at a full meter (and two hours of screen time) it would be more comfortable.

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Frame from the series “Patient” (2022)

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It is an illusion that it is easier to work with a small form. In fact, such chronological tastes force writers to be concise, when the thought and form of the author’s presentation are expressed so broadly that the audience does not have time to get bored. But in “Patient” you often have to check the clock on the wall and wonder – when is the end of the session?

Everything is so vague and the main characters come to life with the help of the talents of the actors who play them (Carell and Gleason are an unexpected but curious duo), but not thanks to the good character arcs that are sorely lacking. sharpness. The hope that their relationship will develop in an interesting way gives Sam’s deceitful character—a pathological liar begging his therapist to help him stop killing, but at the same time he doesn’t want to be completely honest with her. Because of this, Alan is forced to search for gaps in his captor’s mind and risks becoming a perpetual evil with him.

Alan’s story unfolds thanks to the distorted structure of the narrative: each chapter is split into the present and the past, because memories are the only place the hero can escape from prison.

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Frame from the series “Patient” (2022)

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In these flashbacks, his wife Beth survives, and his son Ezra, who later converted to Orthodox Judaism, still honors his family and parents more than the Torah commandments. Perhaps the authors want to equate Sam’s and Alan’s experiences: The first is the result of the persecution of his father, the carrier of this destructive gene; The second is a father who has not been able to bridge the painful gap between himself and his adult son, who sets out to find a foothold in life.

But with all these audience advances, Patient is a failed therapy experience. In all its potential, the series resembles a session with a not-so-good psychotherapist who, in a desire for financial gain, spreads a problem over 10 short sessions, one session would be enough to resolve it.