Patience Season 1 Episode 3 Review: The Missing Link
On Patience Season 1 Episode 3, “The Missing Link,” a case at a natural history museum strengthens Patience’s bond not only with Bea, but also with her son and her team.
A young woman is found dead on the museum floor. Patience immediately determines Emily’s cause of death as drowning, though the only source of water anywhere nearby is a small sink and her clothes and the scene are totally dry.
After a dead end with an ex and some fossils smuggled from the lab, Patience stumbles on a missing puzzle piece involving the museum director, who has already been acting suspicious in waiting to report the crime and avoiding questions.
The team learns that Emily randomly made a breakthrough he’d been working years toward. He shoved her into a water-filled quarry far from the museum. In the hours following, she stumbled to the location of her own death, slowly dry drowning.
Amidst these disturbing discoveries, Bea continues to advocate for Patience and makes progress with Jake and her team. But the strongest new bond Patience finds is with Bea’s son, Augie. Partly as a result, Bea consents to have Augie tested for ADHD.
Our second case of the series is another solid, if somewhat predictable one. Both Emily’s ultimate cause of death and actual killer are fairly easy to call early on, especially as we prioritize listening to Patience’s first instincts on everything.
Much as I appreciate nuanced cases where the “victims” are hardly innocent and the perpetrators have solid motives, it’s satisfying to see someone who’s just a terrible person get their comeuppance, and that’s certainly the case here.
I’d like to have touched more on the underlying theme of men taking credit for the work done by women. To some degree, it reflects the struggle for Patience to be taken seriously, even with the additional factors at play there.
As in the first episodes, though, the case is secondary to the interactions between main characters, often just being used to motivate their discussions. The progress we see there in this hour is both satisfying and heartwarming.
Slowly but surely, Bea’s team is becoming more open-minded. She hits the nail on the head in telling Jake that they have more to learn from Patience than she does from them and working as a unit will help them all.
It’s a lesson for her to learn as well when it comes to her son. Given her bond with Patience, I’m a bit surprised at her reluctance to have Auggie tested, but by the end of the episode, it seems speaking those words aloud made them truer for her, too.
Seeing Patience and Auggie develop a fast and true kinship is truly the highlight of the episode, from playing with the mice in Patience’s lab to working on a dinosaur sculpture that, frustratingly for Auggie, comes with no instructions.
The fact that this may stem from their shared neurodivergence is only hinted at and only strengthens how authentic their interactions feel. We’re moving quickly toward everyone working effectively together, and I hope that theme continues.
What did you think of this episode of Patience? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!
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Patience airs Sundays at 8/7c on PBS
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Caitlin Wyneken
Caitlin is an elder millennial with an only slightly unhealthy dedication to a random selection of TV shows, from PBS Masterpiece dramas to some of the less popular series on popular networks. Outside of screen time, she's dedicated to the public sector and worthy nonprofits, working to make a difference in the world outside of media.