TV JEN CHANEY - In (Very Extreme) Treatment

The Patient can sneak up on you in many ways.

THE PATIENT IS NOT EPIC. Unlike several of the major shows arriving on TV of late-House of the Dragon, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power-it does not boast dizzying visual effects, take place in a fictional realm, or have any connections to a larger cinematic universe.

While they go big, The Patient remains appropriately, suspensefully intimate and contained. For long stretches, it functions as a two-hander with scenes that involve a pair of actors doing exceptional work opposite each other: Steve Carell as therapist Dr. Alan Strauss and Domhnall Gleeson as Sam, a patient with homicidal tendencies. Much of it is set in a single room, the spare finished basement of Sam's isolated home in the woods. Most of the ten episodes run 30 minutes or less; the first lasts a mere 20, which is precisely how much time is required to establish the show's central premise and conflict. It is, pardon the pun, all killer, no filler, but not in the ways you may imagine.

Sam is a serial murderer who kidnaps Alan, chains him up in said basement, and insists that Alan cure him of his desire to take the lives of people he deems offensive. Yes, we see Sam engage in some rather violent behavior, but The Patient is not a “murder show.” It doesn’t fixate on the grisly nature of Sam’s crimes or a police investigation into them or, refreshingly, any sexual compulsions that may be driving him. Creators Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, in the follow-up to their masterpiece The Americans, steer all the way around serial-killer tropes to create a limited series that offers surprising twists and thoughtful nuance in equal measure.