This was a really interesting one for me. I’m profoundly obsessed with Patriot season 1 - I think it’s a self-contained masterpiece. It’s like Waiting for Godot meets Dr. Strangelove or Jon Le Carre hit his head, thought he was a satirist, and wrote a comedy of errors when he should’ve been in the hospital. I loved it so much I wrote a spec of it for the fellowships. I basically set it at the start of what would be season 2 - and was pleasantly surprised when I guessed a few things right for the real S2: the return of an old character thought to be dead, a specific sort of scene between an secondary father and son duo, a train trip to a foreign city, little pieces like that. But it’s impossible to see where this season ends up and that’s part of why I loved it.
The interesting thing is that I was pretty bored with the first half. At times, it even verged on feeling like these new, early episodes were hollow repeats of the first season — the same shaggy-dog story machinations of a spy plot gone wrong and slowly going wronger, except without the profound, tragic humanistic statements on existence in the background. Maybe there were, but they didn’t feel like new statements. Don’t get me wrong, still beautifully shot and filled with some choice moments. Then all of a sudden, halfway through the 8 episode season, the entire rhythm changed. Without giving too much away, John Tavner and his crew finally take a break from the mission and have an all day part of sorts. That episode (“Fuck John Wayne”) is totally and utterly brilliant: laugh out loud hilarious, tragic, surprising, and ultimately revolves back into a core aspect of the overarching plot. I wish I could’ve been in that writers’ room for that one! And the remaining 2 episodes (so I guess it’s even past the halfway point that things ramp up) carry you through on a gripping, deliberately paced ascent towards a crazy finale. I think it’s because they found a way to turn the major catastrophe of the season into an event that is totally grounded in character (in the relationship between John and his wife) and as a result we see John transform in a wholly unique way. It’s a show about elision, eliding vital and at times absurdly upsetting details of reality in order to get the mission done. At the same time, it’s a show about people who wear their hearts on their sleeves and are incredibly compassionate even as they commit terrible acts - or witness those they love commit them. And beneath the style (I didn’t even get into all the directorial moments that hearken back to French New Wave and so much else), and the odd character direction, and the ridiculous shaggy dog story - there is a tragic heart to all these characters.
Now the real question is whether we’ll get a season 3…