'The Patient': a fascinating cocktail that combines psychological thriller with 'In treatment' and 'Misery'

Phenomena like Dahmer on Netflix, which after its success was transformed into an anthology series that will explore a new real case in a new season in September, demonstrate that the viewer's attraction to serial killers remains current. The series we propose today takes advantage of that trend, but makes a novel proposal in its format: a psychological thriller with 25-minute episodes.

In The Patient, Steve Carell (The Office, The Morning Show) plays Dr. Alan Strauss, a psychologist who is kidnapped by his patient, Sam, played by an unsettling Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina), a serial killer who hopes to cure his homicidal impulses.

Chained to the floor of a room where he soon discovers there will be no one to hear his cries for help, Alan Strauss must find the quickest and most effective therapy to satisfy his captor's desires, while thinking of a way to escape from his nightmare.

As the days go by, the protagonist, like the viewer, will soon understand that there are only three possible options: finding the right treatment for Sam to set him free, killing him and escaping, or becoming another of his multiple victims.

One of Steve Carell's best roles

Steve Carell in 'The Patient'

Although it may be hard to believe, Carell never received an Emmy for his unforgettable performance in The Office, where he brought to life the incompetent, inappropriate and clumsy, yet charismatic Michael Scott.

His talent for comedy is unquestionable, but he has also shown to excel in drama, a genre in which he earned a well-deserved Oscar nomination for portraying John du Pont in Foxcatcher and another Emmy nomination for his role as the troubled Mitch Kessler in The Morning Show, but it is here where as the main character he had the opportunity to shine and showcase his full dramatic range. And he seized it.

From the creators of 'The Americans'

Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, responsible for The Americans, demonstrated in their espionage series that within a tense story about the Cold War, they could explore a more intimate narrative, the drama of a couple living under the constant threat of being discovered while realizing that their loyalties were not the same.

'The Patient'

In The Patient, they propose a similar game: in the key of a psychological thriller, they explore a plot of grief, and the family conflict that arises from religious beliefs. A theme they both know well, as they were raised in Reform Judaism.

The result is a fascinating, contained, claustrophobic, and tense story, in which pitch-black comedy complements a cocktail of In Therapy, Misery, Hannibal, and Mindhunter.

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence