Patience Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Patience Steps Up for a Young Friend

On Patience Season 2 Episode 4, “The Timetable,“ 11-year-old Lola is on a family train trip when her father is killed. After seeing his body, she’s left quietly chanting out the train’s stations and arrival times.

Lola has a teenage sister, Evie, who’s frustrated by her needs and a mother who has gone missing. At Franke’s (unsubtle) nudging, Patience offers advice on where to find her and eventually begins to bond with Lola, looking for clues in the few words she says.

Much of the hour is dedicated to a plot in which Evie, desperate to help her family get money, smuggles drugs in Lola’s knapsack. Their father knew and may have been caught up in things, but it turns out the entire storyline is an extended red herring.

Another woman, Nadine, had a daughter at Lola’s school. Following that girl’s tragic death, Nadine snapped and now believes Lola is her child. After killing Phillip, she attacks and ties up Evie, the girls’ mother, and a social worker all to kidnap Lola.

Monroe is able to diffuse the intense and depressing situation before anyone else is killed and Lola and Evie reunite with their mother while Patience looks on. Later, Patience, Elliot and Billy all bond awkwardly but rather sweetly at a pub quiz.

It’s a common trope for a neurodivergent main character to be expected to immediately connect to another person, especially a child, who shares their condition. It’s often handled awkwardly, with little attention to the differences in those on the spectrum.

Here, Patience actively points this out and fires back at Frankie’s assumptions she’ll automatically have lots in common with Lola. But Monroe is right, too—when Lola first flees in panics, Patience’s instincts are essential in tracking her down.

Then, of course, Patience does connect with Lola largely though the understanding they share. It’s a bit cliché, but it is nice. It also shows Patience, regularly infantilized for her own struggles, getting the chance to be the support she’s often needed herself.

With a motive as power as maddened grief of a woman who lost her child, the case winds up heartbreaking for all involved, and I wish we had more time to unpack Nadine’s state of mind and the nightmare it creates for this family.

The drug subplot, while intriguing, ultimately goes nowhere and largely serves to make Evie look worse when she’s refusing to take any accountability for something that could endanger her family. I’m glad we get to see her sticking up for them later.

After all this, it’s once again nice to return to the slow upward curve of Patience’s personal life. We didn’t even need to bother with our brief moment of angst: even most autistic people understand there will be some awkwardness in first meetings.

But we’re soon past it and getting to see that while Patience has a hard time with some things, she’s excellent at others, specifically pub quizzes. Here’s to more scenes with, Elliot, and Billy getting chances to step away from this stressful world together.

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Patience airs Sundays at 8/7c on PBS

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