It’s a cliché to say that a TV show has a “killer premise”, and it’s doubly clichéd to make that observation of a serial killer drama. And yet, it’s also the only way to describe The Patient, Disney Plus’s new 10-part serial, which has the Black Death of killer premises. A psychopathic murderer wants to fight the instinct to kill, and so enters therapy – but he can’t open up his tortured id without risking his freedom, so he kidnaps his therapist to keep him on hand for one long session.
Domhnall Gleeson is Sam, known to the police as the John Doe killer. He starts attending psychotherapy with the recently widowed Dr Alan Strauss (Steve Carell), wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. But however much Sam might want to talk, his fear of capture holds him up – that is, until Alan wakes up in Sam’s basement with a manacle around his ankle. “I have a compulsion to kill people,” Sam finally admits. “Every once in a while, I just do it.” And so begins a Pinteresque two-hander between Sam and Alan, with both men fighting to repress Sam’s worst impulses.
