'Patience' Recap: Season 2 Episode 8

Patience is available to stream. Recap the previous episode.
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Nicola Barclay thinks Patience can help her. She saw chatter about Patience’s impressive crime-solving skills online, thanks to Zinzi’s efforts, and wants Patience to find evidence that she was wrongfully convicted of murder 15 years ago. Her sponsor in an addiction support group, David Exeter, was stabbed at his house then. Nicola found his body and was drunk and scared and so didn’t report it right away. But she had his blood on her, and the police argued that she killed him because she was afraid he would report her to child support. 

Nicola says she only just got out of prison and wants justice. Patience glances at her file and finds that the investigation was shoddy and marred by missteps. She calls Frankie to help her. Frankie agrees only because the investigation was led by her former boss in Manchester, Callum Banks, and she knows that he has cut corners to get the highest arrest rates in the country. Frankie and Patience bring Nicola to the police station and then head down to the archives to delve further into the case.

While Nicola waits nervously in the lobby, she spots an alert on a TV for herself. She wasn’t released from prison; she absconded during a day leave. She slips through a sliding door and finds her way to the archives, where she draws a gun just as Frankie receives the same alert on her phone. Nicola fires a gunshot at the ceiling, causing an evacuation of the rest of the police station. She demands that Frankie and Patience help her with her case.

The phone rings and Frankie says they should pick it up – it will be the police wanting to negotiate. Nicola makes Frankie answer. It’s her old boss Banks, who has arrived to take charge of the hostage situation. Frankie pleads for an hour to work with Nicola, but he wants to storm the station now. He reluctantly agrees, then hangs up and orders an assault team to prepare to go in. You can’t trust Frankie, he tells Baxter. 

Patience sets to work on Nicola’s case under time pressure – but first she needs the original case files from Manchester, and the archives computers are locked down. She calls Jake for help; he and Will sneak into the station and send the file from an upstairs computer. A frightened Patience tries to retreat to her nook of the archives to work – alone. Nicola objects, but Frankie convinces her to allow it. While Patience works, Frankie carefully talks to Nicola and learns that she lost a son at age six in a hit and run. That tragedy led her to alcohol. 

With 15 minutes left in the negotiated hour, Banks sends an assault team in. They kill the lights just as Patience is explaining to Nicola and Frankie that the murdered David Exeter kept a register of who attended his addiction meetings – which are anonymous – in a code based on atomic numbers, so they can learn who attended the meeting he held the day he was killed. As the assault team sweeps the archives, they throw a smoke grenade. Frankie and Patience get on the ground and call out that they are police; Nicola has disappeared. 

Banks blames Frankie. An outside investigator is brought in to determine how an armed fugitive got inside the police station, but Frankie refuses to speak while Banks is there. Baxter talks to Frankie in private, and she tells him that Banks tried to frame her when she called out his shoddy police work in pursuit of high arrest rates; that’s why she left Manchester for York in a hurry. She also tells him that Banks worked on Nicola’s case. Baxter convinces the investigator that Banks has a conflict of interest and should not be part of the investigation.

When Patience is questioned by the investigator, she explains Nicola’s case and pokes holes in the evidence Banks collected. Nicola claimed she didn’t attend the addiction meeting David hosted at a converted glass factory the day he died, but she had residue on her shoes from the factory. David was in a wheelchair, so the pattern of residue he left is different from footprints. Patience believes someone else came into his apartment with residue and killed him; Nicola then picked up the residue that person had left when she found David’s corpse. 

But Banks didn’t consider other possible culprits. David’s last call was to Nicola; Banks argued that David threatened to report Nicola to child support for her surviving daughter and so she killed him.

Baxter and Jake surreptitiously allow Frankie and Patience to communicate after their interviews with the investigators. Frankie mentions the hit and run that killed Nicola’s son, which Patience didn’t know about. Patience requests a phone call when the investigator returns. 

Billy doesn’t pick up, so she calls Elliot instead. He has been anxious for news of her, having rushed to the station when he heard over dispatch radio that hostages had been taken in the archives. With Baxter’s help, he retrieves more records from Manchester regarding the hit and run, per Patience’s request.

Patience settles in with the files, snuck in by Jake, in the cell where she will spend the night. The next morning, Parsons visits her as a “medical professional” to check up on her. Patience asks her to access some medical records.

Banks wants to hold a press conference blaming Frankie for the security lapse, but Baxter insists that he first listen to some evidence. After all, Banks was in charge when an armed fugitive escaped from a cordoned-off police station. 

Patience has figured out why Nicola fled prison when her sentence was to end in just a year. It’s not for exoneration; it’s for revenge. She wants to kill the man who killed her child in a hit and run, and Patience helped her finally identify him, by cracking David’s code of who attended his addiction meetings. With the help of her colleagues, Patience has identified the man who ran over Nicola’s son as Andrew Montagne – and learned that he attended David’s addiction meeting the day David was killed. Andrew confided in David about the hit and run and David encouraged him to confess to Nicola, calling her to let her know the culprit had come forward. But Andrew had second thoughts and killed David before Nicola could get there and learn who he was.

The investigator is impressed by this; she will now look into Banks and his work in Manchester. Patience thanks Elliot for his help and tells him after some hesitation that she made a mistake breaking up with him. She learns that he’s not dating the coworker she has seen with him; he likes Patience. She kisses him then gets on Frankie’s motorcycle to go catch Nicola before she kills Andrew.  

Frankie and Patience arrive at Andrew’s building faster than the rest of the police. Frankie gives Patience her bulletproof vest and they follow Nicola and Andrew to the roof. Nicola is trying to force Andrew to jump off the roof at gunpoint. Frankie tries to talk her down, but it’s Patience who is successful. Unfortunately, when Nicola lowers her gun, Andrew grabs her. Frankie rushes towards them and the gun goes off, hitting Frankie.

She’s fine, if wounded; and Nicola and Andrew are apprehended. When Frankie returns to the station the next week, she learns that Nicola’s original conviction has been overturned and that Banks’ career is collapsing. The investigator reported Frankie and Patience for breaking protocol, but is so impressed by their quick investigation that they will not go on probation. She refuses to accept Patience’s attempt to resign.

As Patience and Elliot are once again dating, a woman stops them. It’s the woman they met at the house Patience’s mother sent her to from beyond the grave. She has something to tell Patience: She’s her sister.