Carolyn Jenkins is a writer at Collider whose expertise varies from horror to drama and has a long history of variously consuming narrative television
Patrick Dempsey’s return to network television happened quite literally with a bang. After his shocking departure from Grey’s Anatomy in 2015, Dempsey plays the antithesis of McDreamy in the new Fox series, Memory of a Killer.
Based on the Belgium-set film from the early aughts, the new series follows Angelo , a hitman for a New York mob family. He is close with his childhood friend and mob contact, Dutch , who has no idea that Angelo has a life and family in the suburbs. His pregnant daughter, Maria , also doesn’t know about her father’s life. She thinks he sells copiers for a living rather than the disturbing reality of his actual job. Keeping his lies straight would be a tall order on a normal day. Things get even riskier when Angelo starts developing symptoms of Alzheimer's. The disease isn’t new to television, nor to Dempsey's roles. Grey’s Anatomy often explores these issues, predominantly through Meredith Grey’s mother, Ellis Grey , a brilliant surgeon diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. The first episode of Memory of a Killer doesn’t officially diagnose Angelo, but it lays the groundwork for a heartbreaking disease that affects many households. ‘Memory of a Killer’ Brings Authenticity to the Neurological Disorder Alzheimer’s is a tricky subject to tackle, and the show's producers wanted to get it right. Typically, fiction depicts the most harrowing stage of the disease, when patients lose their sense of time and surroundings. Memory of a Killer instead sets benchmarks, so viewers can understand the progression of the disease. The series does this by introducing Angelo’s brother Michael , who is in the late stages of Alzheimer's. Michael is in a long-term care facility, where Angelo visits him and confesses his secrets to him. While there, the caregiver explains to Angelo that early signs of Alzheimer's include forgetting PINs or misplacing keys. These details make it easy to spot when the same thing starts to happen to him. First, Angelo forgets his apartment's security code, and later, he haphazardly leaves his gun in the fridge, where a one-night stand finds it. These early warnings interested executive producer Aaron Zelman and Patrick Dempsey, who also serves as a producer. Zelman explained in a recent interview how he put this into practice. "It was very important to us, and Patrick as well, that we show this in a way that is accurate. We have a neurologist who is a consultant for the show, and we run all of the dialogue — anything that involves doctors explaining things — by her, and it all checks out. Making sure that the symptoms themselves are portrayed accurately is also very important to us." Anyone familiar with the plot of the original film or the logline of the series knows what is about to happen. Angelo’s lies will start to unravel when he can no longer keep his stories straight. However, it is still important to present the disease believably. Shows like The Pitt wouldn’t get far without realistic medical portrayals, and the same goes for Memory of a Killer, albeit in a more heightened way. The new Fox series offers a rarely seen depiction of the disease's presentation, framed by a gripping crime story. 8 10 Memory of a Killer Like Follow Followed TV-14 Crime Drama Thriller Release Date January 26, 2026 Network FOX Cast See All
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