Patience Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Forgeries, Murder, and Heartbreak

A man collapses while giving a lecture on Patience Season 2 Episode 5, “The Runes.” The large, inscribed rock he’s speaking about appears to as well.

The vision of the tablet turning to dust is just that: a hallucination Samuel has before he dies. The detectives are told that he had learned the tablet was a forgery and may have been about to expose those involved to his live audience.

Everyone in the university’s archaeology department is a suspect, with a colleague, Laurence, standing out until he too is killed. Frankie and the team track another lead down to find a man named Brian creating more forgeries in a workshop.

Though Brian himself is not involved with the university, his lover Cathy is. She admits to accidentally killing Lawrence but says Lawrence himself killed Samuel. After an emotional confrontation, both are taken away in handcuffs.

Outside the case, Patience deals with the twin stressors of trying to maintain a relationship and learning that marketing employee Zinzi is trying to turn her into a neurodivergent social media star. She has no interest in the publicity.

Unfortunately, the personal developments with Elliot also quickly do downhill. After a miscommunication about her need for stability, she feels he doesn’t understand her needs. They break up while agreeing they want to stay friends.

While the writing and acting are solid, there’s nothing terribly interesting about this episode’s case. I’d like to unpack the Viking lore behind it a little more, but in the end the forgeries are made for the same reason as any others: money.

We do pick up a bit in the end, where we’re told Brian doesn’t know Cathy killed anyone, that she claims she never meant to, and she does seem genuinely devastated with guilt. It’s enough for us to feel some sympathy, but only some.

The real gut punch comes from the developments in our favorite couple—and they’d only just started to define themselves as such, too. Frustratingly, I do feel the whole thing could be resolved if either Patience or Elliot were better at explaining themselves.

Does that mean such a conversation will take place and they’ll get back together? I’m not too optimistic at this point. Patience even expresses that she doesn’t feel she’s able to have this kind of relationship, and I’m not sure she’ll change her mind.

It’s a depressing end to a sweet little arc, but the silver lining is that not too much should change. Elliot is still very much in Patience’s corner and while they’re both sad, of course, neither is moving to cut the other from their life.

Zinzi, on the other hand, might be pushing Patience to the verge of a restraining order. But maybe this is just start of another beautiful friendship and our heroine discovering she might actually be open to a certain degree of fame. Maybe.

As we enter the second half of this second season, Patience and Frankie seem to have found their own rhythm and mutual respect. Especially given the breaks in her other connections, I hope we lean into for this over the last few episodes.

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Patience airs Sundays at 8/7c on PBS.

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