Episode 7 of The Patient ends in disappointment for our protagonist. We have mostly seen him struggle with his feelings and not able to express his inner anger and pain. He has a lot of that bundled inside, not getting the right opportunity to release it. But he finally understands that he might never even have a chance. So he takes this one with both hands. Episode 7 is different from the other episodes as Alan’s storyline becomes its focal point. Domnhall Gleeson hardly features in it. It is “all about Alan”, apparently. The patient has certainly got its dramatic heft right and spatially delivers on the thriller elements. However, the plot has certainly been topsy turvy and this might just be the point from where it takes off. Read our recap and ending explainer of The Patient’s episode 7 “Kaddish” below.
The Patient Episode 7 “Kaddish” Recap
Alan’s mind is now playing games on him. We first saw him among the “dead” in the previous episode when he imagined himself to be in a concentration camp-like place. With no hope in sight, Alan is certainly poised to give up getting out of that place. But this time, he sees a glimmer. Remember when he put a note in Elias’ mouth? That is what floats his boat. Along with “death”, he also sees a slew of police officers breaking in through the glass to rescue him. But when he wakes up, he cannot escape his present. He is still chained to the bed and no one has come to help. Back at square one.
He once again takes reprieve in Charles’ office. That place seems like his comfort zone – his safe haven – to keep his sanity in the midst of all this pandering. Alan is still terrified, he confesses. But the note might just be his lifeline and ticket home. After Elias’ body is dumped, the police find it the next day. After the post-mortem, the coroner informs them of the note and the cavalry arrives. In an unusual tone, he explains how he hits him first in the back of the head with a heavy object and then he stabs him. With a stream of blood gushing out, the police officers shoot his head off with their automatics.
His eyes are literally hollow because of the bullets. Alan is desperate to get out and for him to go to these lengths to imagine his escape just shows how much. In this madness, Alan still hasn’t lost his sense of reason. Of course, he envisions the other possibility. While rolling out the body from the carpet, Sam finds the note and comes back home to stab Alan in the chest. To Charlie’s disappointment, Alan forgoes the idea of using his high school wrestling experience to beat the crazed serial killer. “Old age” and “Weakness” are two things Alan keeps mentioning and Charlie wants to address that.
To give him some hope, he says Sam is Alan’s most interesting case to date, to which the therapist replies with a sassy title for his book: “Sam’s Treatment”. In their conversation, Alan deduces that Sam follows Chesney and an alternate world of his fans to be normal in it. Being one of them, he can escape his own troubles. He also seems to think of his “obvious dream” as the culmination of elements from his personal life. A concentration camp – maybe in Auschwitz – men reciting the Kaddish, dressed in Orthodox overalls, are all represented by various experiences of his life that had a great impact on him. The basement, his wife Beth, and Orthodox son Ezra are emblematic of the above three, respectively.
Charlie sees this as a thrust to push Alan back to do what he loves the most: his work. He has done it all his life and thinking about other stuff isn’t serving him well. The temptation to go back to his old self and while away the time in his work deserts Alan for some reason. Charlie even pushes Alan to let out all his frustrations with Ezra and life in general. It might be his last day on earth. Keeping that in mind, how does he want to spend the rest of it? Beth and him confronting Ezra when he joined the “cult” and Beth breathing her last on her deathbed flash across his eyes. He tatters at the glass doors dreaming of an incursion by an armed cavalry. He starts reciting something in Yiddish, probably from the Kaddish, as Beth used to, as Sam parks in. It is a moment of great significance for him.
Sam comes in but isn’t angry or violent. He simply asks Alan what he was trying to do standing up and staring into nothingness. Alan confesses that he wanted to recite the kaddish for his wife but cannot remember the words for some reason. When Sam says he wants another session, Alan defeatedly retires to the bed and says he is exhausted. Sam just walks away and Alan is still alive! Charlie seems to be relieved too and the two even joke around for a bit. He has survived the night as Sam goes to work. Alan anxiously waits around for the police to get the hint and come rushing there. In a twist of events, Sam has not gone to work but to his old high school.
He meets Mr. Buchella, in all likelihood his counselor from school. The two greet each other and Sam recounts an incident from the old days. Mr. Schube, one of the other teachers, threw a chair that almost hit another student but didn’t return the next day. Sam asks if Buchella got him fired and he replies yes. Sam makes an ugly confession about his life: he doesn’t like his life. He isn’t happy and thinks his life isn’t working out. Sam asks if Buchella thought he’d turn out like this but the teacher denies it. Even though Sam was different and had a hard time, Sam always was a hopeful kid. He shockingly asks Buechella to be his therapist – to offer him counseling sessions. He isn’t sure but says he wants to think about it.
He gives him his number and as he leaves, Sam asks if living with his therapist would be a good idea. Buchella nods his head in denial and Sam thinks about the statement. Alan revisits some of the days from the past when Ezra’s grandchildren used to come to their house. In one of them, we see Ezra not coming in, riding off on his bike. Sitting in his car, Sam calls up his ex-wife to ask if she found something to be wrong with him. But to his surprise, the things she mentioned aren’t about his character or things that would label him a bad guy. This is great news for Alan, by the way. The more Sam is convinced he can get better, Alan’s chances of making it out alive and maybe even helping Sam would increase.
She only had two complaints. That Sam’s life revolved around food (an occupational hazard) and that she wasn’t sure if he ever loved her. Sam puts down the phone and gets off on a bridge. He stares at it hard, contemplating whether or not to make the jump. In a therapy session of his own, Alan confesses hatred for Chaim, Ezra’s father-in-law, and his son. He left all of them in the dust by choosing a ridiculous life. While Ezra was devoted to Chaim’s family, when his own visited, they were given second-class treatment. They weren’t Jewish enough to be treated with respect and love. He still cannot understand his son’s complex angst towards the world and his father.
Alan recounts how when Beth was lying on her deathbed and wanted her family around, Ezra gave a condescending speech. The family had decided to give Beth a pill to end her suffering. Everything was ready and Beth only wanted her family to be around her. That is when Ezra declared it to be “illegal”, not just in law, but also in God’s eyes. He wasn’t even there for her in the final moments. He always rebelled against her and thought that the family didn’t support him turning Orthodox, but he should have swallowed his pride to send her away peacefully. Ezra was never able to process the grief of his mother’s death and Alan understands how pain can paralyze people like that. But it didn’t give him the right to take Beth’s last wish away from her.
The Patient Episode 7 “Kaddish” Ending Explained
Does Alan succeed in his plan to escape?
Charlie listens in silence and appreciates Alan opening up to him about this difficult subject. Sam comes back with dinner and in a gesture of goodwill, with a printer to give him the poem Alan couldn’t remember. The therapist is proud of Sam’s emphatic behavior. He was finally able to subrogate himself in Alan’s shoes and understand how it felt to be facing his troubles. Just as things are looking up for Alan, he asks Sam about Elias. To his disappointment and utter shock & heartbreak, Sam did not leave Elias’ body where anybody could find it.
He doesn’t reveal where but just says he left it at a place where no one could find it. What had happened was that as Sam was about to actually do what Alan hoped he would, at a red light, a man in another truck pulled up to him and looked down mysteriously in his truck bed where the body was wrapped. If he did indeed leave it and the body was discovered the next day by the authorities, the trucker would be able to recognize it was Sam who did it. The police might have found him and as we have seen in previous episodes, he is scared of getting caught the most.
There goes the last sliver of hope that life had thrown Alan at. He got a bit too greedy thinking of everything good that would have happened. Sam sets up the printer and prints out the prayer for him. From his reactions, it looks like he is telling the truth, and going by his tradition of not being able to control himself in the past, he is being honest. Alan quivers in fear and disappointment. He takes the paper in his hands and asks Sam to give him privacy. He wants it to be just his moment alone and Sam duly obliges, going back to the other room. Alan recites the prayer in Beth’s honor as Sam listens patiently, wondering what it says.
So Alan’s plan turned out to be a failure. The two options that he had contemplated to Charlie were both wrong and a third, unexpected one, was actually true. In the scheme of the series, we all kind of anticipated that to hold true. Because now, it is quite certain we will see the entirety of season 1 get wrapped up in Sam’s house. The conclusion is getting more ominous by the minute but the writers always have the option to pull one out of the hat.
<< PREVIOUS EPISODE
THE PATIENT (MINISERIES) EPISODE 5 EXTERNAL LINKS: IMDB
CAST: STEVE CARELL, DOMHNALL GLEESON, LAURA NIEMI, LINDA EMOND
Where to watch The Patient
