“The Patient” Episode 5, perhaps takes the show to its darkest corner as of yet, making its serious and grim nature very evident. It is not heroes or timely saviors that we have been watching, of course, but mere men with real fears and dangerous addictions. With a comparatively longer runtime, Episode 5 nails this unusual content with its style while also heightening the drama for the upcoming episodes.
Spoilers Ahead
‘The Patient’ Episode 5: Recap And Ending
Sam had last been seen leaving his apartment in an attempt to meet with his ex-wife on the advice of Alan at the end of Episode 4. Now, “The Patient” Episode 5 begins with him driving to his ex-wife, Mary’s house, and the two seem to meet each other after a very long time. Although Alan had advised his patient to talk with her because of the genuine relationship that he felt they had between them, Mary and Sam’s relationship is nothing short of awkward and even strange, considering that the two were once married. Sam first asks her about their adopted daughter, who they had gotten from Bangladesh, and Mary informs Sam that she had also recently gotten a second one for herself. Sam does tell his ex-wife that he is in therapy and that it is his therapist who has asked him to visit her, and Mary, too, looks happy that he is finally in therapy, but there is nothing else left between the two beyond these small conversations. In the end, they decide that the best way to conclude their sudden meeting would be for Sam to take back his sofa from Mary’s house, which had stayed back since their divorce.
On the other hand, Elias realizes that he and Alan are once more alone in the house, except for Candace on the upper floors, and he now comes up with a plan. The young man, who is clearly suffering mentally from the imminent danger of being killed, tells Alan that they should try to work out some means of escape from the house since they might just die anyway. He asks Alan to convince Sam to bring him into the room during their next therapy session, and then the two will try to attack Sam and bring him down somehow. Later on, Alan talks to Elias some more about his family and tells him that he would like to leave a message for his family through Elias, the same way Elias had told him about his message for his parents earlier. In it, Alan asks Eliot to tell both his children, Shoshana and Ezra, that he loves them a lot and would also like to apologize for the uneasiness in their lives in recent times. It is evident that Alan’s wife Beth had not taken their son Ezra’s conversion to Orthodox Judaism very well, for she, too, found it difficult to let her son live life the way he wanted. The barrier between the two kept growing, even when Ezra had children of his own, and this never got any better, for which Alan feels apologetic. Alan and Elias’ conversation comes to an unexpected end when Sam suddenly returns home from Mary’s and enters the house, pulling in his old sofa.
Sam sits down for a session with Alan and admits that his trick of diverting his mind away from murder has not worked. If anything, Sam’s time at Mary’s house seems to have made him think even more about his past traumas, as while telling Alan about Mary’s adopted children, Sam suddenly talks of the sheer cruelty his father possessed when he beat him regularly in his childhood. Fueled by these old hurting memories, Sam gets up and rushes to Elias’ room in an attempt to kill him, and Alan has no option but to call out to Candace for help. The mother rushes down the stairs and manages to stop her son from killing, as it suddenly seems like Candace really can control Sam with her words if and when she wants to, but the mother’s character is still not totally clear as she helps her son out during this situation of emergency but then stays unseen during the other parts. The distraught Sam spends time by himself for a few hours, possibly trying to divert his mind, and then returns to have a session with Alan sometime later. The psychotherapist now seems to open up some more to his patient and also try out the plan that Elias had suggested earlier. He calmly tells Sam that his diagnosis of the latter’s situation is gradually starting to make him feel that Sam’s killing spree is not really stemmed from the beatings and tortures of his father during his childhood. Instead, Alan says, Sam has an urge to kill on his own at times, and all his reasonings of childhood trauma or even his belief that every one of his victims was disrespectful and hurtful to him were all excuses made by his agitated mind. Alan now tells Sam that he wants to bring Elias into the room and make him have a conversation with Sam in order to better understand his patient’s condition. After a few initial protestations, Sam agrees and drags Elias into the room, and seats him on a chair. Alan reveals that he has already had a few words with the young hostage and asks him to recount the story of how he made his new dish for his ailing mother to Sam. Elias starts to talk, stammering about how his parents came from Greece and started their restaurant, but Sam quickly loses control and jumps on Elias and starts to choke him. Alan calls out for help from Candace again, but to no avail this time, and then he can only hold his breath and look away as Sam kills Elias only a few feet away from him. Sam shakily goes to his room and takes a look at all the wallets of his victims, while his mother is seen to be awake in her room upstairs, but she has decided not to respond to Alan’s calls this time.
What Effect Does This Murder Have On Alan?
Although Elias’ murder is what the Episode 5 ends with, it is perhaps not too difficult to assume what this sudden turn of action would mean for Alan. Firstly, and physically, this incident makes the chance of Alan’s safe escape from Sam’s house all the slimmer, for the psychotherapist has not just heard about Sam’s killings but has now even witnessed one. Despite his eccentric nature, Sam is very conscious and careful about his safety for he fears getting caught as well, and he would therefore not want to let Alan walk free having witnessed one of his terrible crimes. Furthermore, the ending scenes with Elias also reveal to Sam that his psychotherapist and his hostage had been talking to each other enough for one to know stories about the other’s life. Sam might not take this lightly either, as he also once says that Alan is, after all, his therapist and not Elias’. If Sam perceives this as a loss of trust and confidence between him and Alan, then that, too, would make Alan’s survival all the more impossible.
Beyond the physical dangers, though, Elias’ death terribly affects Alan mentally, as can be understood. From the message that Alan leaves for his children, it is almost felt that the man is apologetic for the hard situations in their lives that he did not directly create. For a man of such nature, the incidents of the last few scenes would always mean that he was the one to indirectly lead to Elias’ death. Alan took the decision to try and bring Elias out during the session, and it all ended so terribly. It is not certain as to why exactly Alan had made Sam bring Elias out, as it is not clear that he wanted to go ahead with Elias’ plan of attacking Sam. It is possible that Alan, who has always tried to make situations and relations between people better, genuinely believed that he could help both Sam and Elias by making them talk to each other and, from now on, would definitely feel responsible for the tragic failure. Although he had known Elias for a very short while to exactly feel this way, there was almost a feeling that Alan saw his son Ezra in Elias, instead it was just completely the other way round. Ezra would have been like Elias had he been a loving and caring son instead of choosing to stay away from his parents. Elias’ murder marks the death of someone very close to Alan, and the entire extent of its effect on the man is to be seen in the following episodes.
What To Expect Next From “The Patient” Episode 6?
The drama of the psychological thriller series is undoubtedly heightened with the end of “The Patient” Episode 5, and it is possible that a faster pace will be maintained from here on. The most important aspect will be Alan’s survival and how he is affected by this whole situation. Whether he can finally make an escape would be the thing to look forward to. Sam’s reaction to the murder is also important, as he still does not show signs of an emotionless psychopathic killer despite his actions, and there seem to be some drops of remorse and guilt in him. Lastly, Candace is extremely inconsistent when it comes to being strong-willed against her son; at the end of episode 5, it seems that she does not respond to Alan’s calls because she fears that she cannot stop her son from killing this time. But she does not make an attempt either, and whether that has any more profound significance might be explored in the later episodes.
