TV

The Patient

One man would actually rather go to therapy... but he's a serial killer.

Photo: FX

It’s always a good thing when somebody seeks out therapy, but it’s less good when they take their therapist hostage and demand they silence their urge to kill. In this psychological thriller, a serial killer named Sam Fortner takes a therapist, Alan Strauss, hostage. Alan must attempt to stop Sam from killing again — and avoid becoming his next victim.

The Patient, a 10-episode limited series, was created by Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg (The Americans). It stars Steve Carell as Alan and Domhnall Gleeson as Sam.

  1. Episode 10 The Cantor’s Husband
    The Patient Series-Finale Recap: Broken Vessels No longer willing to play Sam’s game, Alan shows his final card.
  2. Episode 9 Auschwitz
    The Patient Recap: Man’s Search for Meaning There are so many signs that Sam is trying to change, but he keeps failing to get it right.
  3. Episode 8 Ezra
    The Patient Recap: Breakthrough While Sam backslides, Alan confronts the hard truths of his past as well as his uncertain future.
  4. Episode 7 Kaddish
    The Patient Recap: In Treatment With Alan going through his own stuff, he doesn’t really have much left to give his patient. And Sam is pissed.
  5. Episode 6 Charlie
    The Patient Recap: Empathy for the Devil Running low on options, Alan tries to take the lemon of a rotting corpse and turn it into therapeutic lemonade.
  6. Episode 5 Pastitsio
    The Patient Recap: Can’t We All Get Along? Alan is beginning to panic.
  7. Episode 4 Company
    The Patient Recap: The Main Point How did they get Kenny Chesney to sign off on this?
  8. Episode 3 Issues
    The Patient Recap: How I Met Your Mother Freud would’ve had an absolute field day with Sam Fortner. A serial killer who lives with his mother? That’s Norman Bates–level creepy.
  9. Episode 2 Alan Learns to Meditate
    The Patient Recap: Safe Space Although his focus is understandably on Sam, Alan may have some of his own demons to exorcise.
  10. Episode 1 Intake
    The Patient Series-Premiere Recap: This Is Not the Way An eerie, effective opening chapter considers what constitutes a safe space for serial-killer therapy.

The Latest on The Patient

  1. chat room
    The Patient’s Linda Emond on Coming to Terms With Mothering a Killer“There’s a certain martyrdom for what she went through. That’s how she made sense of it: She saved her son and stood by him.”
    By Ben Rosenstock
  2. exit interview
    ‘There Are a Fairly Limited Number of Ways This Could End’The Patient’s creators, Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, unpack that brutal series finale.
    By Jen Chaney
  3. tv review
    The Patient Is All Killer, No FillerSteve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson deliver strong performances in a thought-provoking thriller that succeeds by keeping its focus narrow.
    By Jen Chaney
  4. steve carrell
    A Serial Killer Is Holding Steve Carrell Hostage in The PatientA new psychological thriller from The Americans duo.
    By Natalie Lin
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