The creators of The Americans, Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, have presented a new limited series starring Steve Carell as a therapist who kidnaps his own patient to continue therapy sessions. This premise breaks almost every thriller rule, as it details severe abuse and violence without glorifying it and even portraying the serial killer as mostly ordinary. While the show has received mixed critical acclaim, it has piqued the interest of Netflix audiences as they hoped to find a compelling thriller to replace the controversial cliffhanger cancellation of Mindhunter. The Patient is a game-changer in the thriller genre, as it offers a more profound exploration of the human psyche and its ability to disguise the most brutal aspects of its nature.
Since Netflix canceled Mindhunter on a cliffhanger, viewers have been seeking its replacement for years, disappointed by most suggestions because they don't focus on what made the original series so addictive.
However, The Patient deserves more attention than it got in 2022. The series, created by Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, who also created The Americans, presents a 10-episode limited series that could be described as absurd when boiled down to a simple logline. Steve Carell portrays Alan Strauss, a therapist who discovers that one of his patients is a serial killer and kidnaps him to continue their therapy sessions.
Instead of focusing on the shocking answers, The Patient goes in the opposite direction, asking uncomfortable questions and understanding a killer, rather than glorifying one. It portrays the serial killer as ordinary, a person capable of terrible things but not necessarily a mastermind or a larger-than-life movie monster. Throughout the series, Alan's position becomes increasingly impossible as he tries to balance self-preservation and genuine professional curiosity.
Despite the premise being reminiscent of a pulpy thriller, The Patient succeeds in asking uncomfortable questions and providing much more content than thrilling answers, similar to Mindhunter. The Patient is interested in behavior, guilt, grief, and the possibility that someone capable of terrible things might recognize something broken inside himself. Its creators understand that the scariest part of someone like Sam isn't what he does but how, in many ways, he appears ordinary.
Unlike most other thriller series, The Patient is remarkably restrained, focusing more on understanding the killer than glorifying him. Perhaps the most notable aspect of The Patient is that it portrays the serial killer as someone capable of terrible things but not necessarily a mastermind or a larger-than-life movie monster. The series focuses on finding something broken inside oneself and using it to correct the problem rather than romanticizing its capacity for evil, unlike ghoulish entertainment.
These are all aspects that modern viewers crave and ignored in most thriller series. (2519 characters
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