About The Original Patriot
Post 1618:
There are a few things one (generally) tries to do when they make something. I’d say originality is among the first characteristics that come to mind. Of course, nothing is new under the sun. But it should at least look like you tried to do your own thing.
I thought I’d start there, because I wanted to type a few words about a show called Patriot. It came out several years ago, one of the programs produced by a delivery service called Amazon.
It only lasted two seasons, and let me be honest and say that I have a few episodes to go. Still, I wanted to mention how impressed I am with the uniqueness of the show. It’s all over the place. It’s a dark comedy and it certainly looks for laughs. Then it looks for all kinds of other stuff. Okay, I’ll describe a little bit: There’s a sad and enervated intelligence agent who is commissioned by his father to work undercover as an engineer for an industrial piping company based in Milwaukee so he can go back and forth to Luxembourg a number of times, all so he can stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Sound normal? Well, the main character is also a folk singer-songwriter who finds a bit of solace in performing and/or recording songs that specifically describe his clandestine operations and all the horrible crap he has to do in the name of the mission.
It gets weirder. His best buddy is a guy he met because he needed clean pee, a guy he stabs in the leg like a day later. There’s a dog, of course, stolen from a man that needs an emotional support animal for his PTSD. Then returned. Then stolen again, I think. Some of this stuff is hard to keep track of.
And yet, there is a plot. Crazy and weird as it is, the writer pays attention to all the nutty details. The implausible things that happen are supposed to be implausible. He’s going for original. He gets there.
What is really going on here? It occurred to me that the main character might be “America.” There’s a scene when someone asks him what he has to do and he says he has to shoot somebody. Not anyone in particular, just somebody he hopes did something wrong. It sort of sounds like the foreign policy of an empire.
The show is funny, sad, and it tries your patience. But I’ll say this—you can’t predict the next scene. Not the dialogue, the situation, or how it’s shot. That’s pretty cool. And the song thing? I should dislike musical narration, but there’s something in the way they pull this off. It’s used sparingly enough to be one of the biggest strengths of the show. Maybe the best thing about it. I almost want to write a brooding folk song myself.
If you want original, it kinda means you want something you don’t know you want. If that makes sense. About as much sense as Patriot. I recommend. Cheers and see you after.
