A police detective in Yorkshire teams up with an autistic woman working in the records department in the British series “Patience” on PBS. Patience Evans is content to be squirreled away, working alone amid all those file folders, but when Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf requests some information, Patience slips in another file that, at first glance, seems unrelated. But there are shared patterns between the two cases. Detective Bea (as Patience calls her) is intrigued and compels the young woman to leave the comfort of her solitary workspace to come out into the field and help her solve crimes.
This new experience is at turns thrilling, distressing and overwhelming for Patience, depending on the moment. When she pushes through the discomfort, it’s because she has a genuine curiosity and is a puzzle-solver by nature. And she cares. She’s emotionally invested.
Actor Ella Maisy Purvis is neurodivergent herself and I like that the show (adapted from the French-Belgian series “Astrid et Raphaëlle”) neither infantilizes the character nor treats her as a brilliant but robotic savant who cracks a case by simply scanning a room. She doesn’t solve the crimes so much as identify important clues, patterns and other details overlooked by everyone else that help Detective Bea (Laura Fraser) piece together the bigger picture.
Their pairing is awkward and tentative and involves a learning curve for both. Bea can be dismissive and sometimes terse, though she gradually becomes more thoughtful in her approach. For Patience, a sharp word or any deviation from her routine can be devastating and discombobulating. Sometimes she’s willing to stray from her usual schedule, but she needs a minute to come around to the idea and it’s on Bae to slow down, take a beat, and let Patience decide either way. “Fancy a trip to the mortuary?” Bea asks one day when a new case is dropped in her lap. Patience pauses, wrapping her head around this unexpected change in plans, but then a small smile reaches her lips. “Yes,” she says firmly.
Bea and Patience carry the show, while the rest of the ensemble is just sort of there, not really adding much, aside from Bea’s obnoxious and bigoted subordinate (played by Nathan Welsh) who is dismissive and sneering about Patience, both to her face and behind her back. I get the idea behind the character; sometimes you need a foil. But the guy has no redeeming qualities (until he suddenly comes around at the end) and I’m not sure what we’re meant to think when Bea, as his boss, just smiles wanly instead of putting him in his place.
The cases themselves are interesting enough and sometimes pivot around an amusing premise. When a best-selling crime novelist is found dead in his home, the police note that his door had been bolted from the inside and there are no other obvious signs of a break-in and Patience excitedly points out that it’s a classic locked-room mystery!
“I just worry whether she can adapt,” a colleague tells Bea patronizingly, and she counters: Don’t we have to ask ourselves the same thing? It’s a process of figuring out one another’s needs and processes and negotiating a way to work together that is respectful of Patience, but also effective at unraveling what happened. Bea and Patience both wear their nails cut short, with perpetually chipped nail polish, and it’s a small detail but the kind of visual cue that subtly suggests a common bond, despite their differing temperaments. Less effective are the numerous flashbacks to Patience’s childhood. I wish detective shows would abandon this trope forever, it’s a time-filler that adds nothing.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say this is a new spin on the genre, since so many crime solvers — from Sherlock Holmes to Adrian Monk to Professor T — bear traits that could place them on the autism spectrum. But it is a series that aims to capture a less cliched, more multi-dimensional portrayal of autism that also includes a flirtation with a co-worker. An actual romantic subplot!
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a TV show or film that’s authentic and actually shows what it’s like day to day in a workplace being neurodivergent,” Purvis has said in interviews, making an argument for more autistic actors and writers to be involved in these kinds of stories: “The kind of perspective that comes from lived experiences can’t be learnt, and so when you’re casting for roles which have neurodiversity as part of their character it’s really important that those voices are being heard and are actively in the room.”
“Patience” — 3 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: 7 p.m Sundays on PBS
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
