'Patience' Recap: Season 2 Episode 5

Patience airs Sundays at 7:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
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A significant new Viking rune has been discovered in Norway – but it might be a forgery. And that’s not the most shocking thing about it. When the media-friendly archaeologist Samuel Henry begins a presentation about the rune in York, he loses coherence and then collapses, dead. His notes for the presentation, written in shorthand – which Patience can read – show that he was going to reveal the rune as fake.

Samuel had been a student at the university where he was presenting, a prodigy of Laurence Croft, the professor who unearthed the rune. Croft denies that the rune was forged. 

Samuel’s death could have been caused by high blood pressure, stress, or recreational drugs. He took medication for anxiety and depression, and also had the recreational drug MDMA in his system. A witness says a woman ordered a drink for Samuel before his presentation; maybe he was drugged.

The woman is his former girlfriend Natalie. She says she ordered the drink but Croft delivered it to Samuel. She says Samuel had become withdrawn over the last few months.

Natalie leaves immediately after her interview with the police, so Frankie follows her and sees her stop at Laurence Croft’s house. They yell at each other, then Natalie goes inside briefly before leaving quickly. 

The detectives learn that some journalists were at Samuel’s presentation, having received an anonymous tip-off about illegal acts in the archaeology department. One of them reached out to Croft for comment – so he was at least aware of rumors of forgery. 

The detectives bring in an independent expert to examine the rune. She notes that the inscriber’s signature is uncharacteristically boastful – and that the rune is fake. 

Croft dies before the police can confront him about the forgery. His bag is upturned in his office as though he were looking for something. A post-it tucked away on his desk has a list of numbers. And his secretary, Cathy Wilkes, says he was out of sorts after Samuel’s death. 

When asked why she visited Croft after being interviewed by the police, Natalie admits she warned him that she had told the police that he brought the drink she ordered for Samuel to him – and that made Croft inexplicably angry. Natalie is surprised to hear the rune is a forgery, but does say that Samuel had been acting weirdly since it was discovered, asking her to drive to out-of-the-way locations in the middle of the night, including an industrial site where a guard dog chased them off. Croft had intimated that Samuel was taking too many drugs, and Natalie assumed that explained his behavior. 

Croft died from a peanut allergy, although there was no evidence of food in his office. He must have overturned his bag in search of his epipen, which was missing. 

Patience’s relationship with Elliot has hit a bump. She struggles with spontaneity, which has led Elliot to make a few jokes about precise scheduling and accidentally offend her. He apologizes but again makes a joke without thinking. When she brings the issue to her autism support group, some of the members tell her to dump him, since he seemingly can’t accept her for who she is. Her friend – and group leader – Billy urges caution.

Patience tries to address things by giving Elliot a formal document listing what she needs from the relationship and encouraging him to share his own. He is taken aback, which leads her to worry that they are too different to last in a relationship. She breaks up with him. At home, upset, she tells Douglas that it feels like Elliot has been making fun of her, while he says that doesn’t sound like Elliot. Misunderstandings are common in relationships, he tells her.

She is late to work the next day and uncharacteristically ruffled, leading Frankie to ask after her wellbeing. She explains that she broke up with Elliot, and that she’s fine; it’s for the best. Elliot hears and walks away, hurt.

In a video of Samuel’s collapse posted online, Patience notices a man walk away as soon as people rush to Samuel’s aid. Only the man’s back is visible, but the detectives eventually find footage of him on nearby CCTV getting into a car registered to a Brian Shepstone. He’s a sculptor – perhaps he is the one who forged the rune.

Patience has guessed that the numbers on the post-it in Croft’s office are incomplete coordinates, and, pairing them with a geographical reference in the rune writer’s signature, she narrows them down to a location – presumably one that Samuel also checked out in his odd nocturnal quests. 

Once there, she recognizes a camper van from a photo on the desk of Cathy Wilkes, Croft’s secretary. The location contains a studio for forged art. As Brian explains, no one wanted his original art. But he makes a good living from the forgeries – as evidenced by a substantial payment from Croft to an offshore account in Cathy’s name before the dig in which the rune was “discovered;” Cathy is Brian’s wife. 

Cathy appears with a viciously barking dog, letting go of its leash so that she and Brian can flee. But Patience calms the dog, despite Frankie’s fear, and Frankie and Jake catch the fleeing couple. Brian is ignorant of any illdoing other than forging the rune, but traces of peanut flour were found both on Croft’s notes in his office and Cathy’s desk. She explains that Croft slipped MDMA into Samuel’s drink before his presentation, hoping to discredit him when he revealed the rune as a forgery. When the drug killed Samuel and Cathy confronted Croft, the professor said he would pin the blame on Cathy and Brian. She wanted to scare Croft by activating his allergy – but then went further to protect her husband and took Croft’s epipen, too. She and Brian are arrested.