/ TV series / Patriot

I doubt that you're watching Patriot, I doubt that you have heard that this series even exists. But, most of all, I would hate to think that this relative obscurity in these all-in-all online times is what makes it special, or anything else that stinks to elitism. On contrary, for Patriot, you need to be well aware of what is being filmed and broadcasted to fully understand why Patriot is currently one of the best things out there.

When I imagine who would be the target audience of this series, I can hardly imagine another person next to me on the sofa. At the same time, Amazon has a lot of stupid policy of project coordination. Approved pilots are letting the audience decide their fate (the thing is still being administered by producers of Amazon), so it is even more unlikely that some audience reacted to this material and gave enough wind to the sails, so some producer decided to take risks with this material.


Michael Dorman is playing John Tavern, or John Lakeman, an agent of the US secret agency who is in serious depression because of the work he is dealing with. One of the ways to fight this depression is folk music. Namely, in spite of the warnings of his bosses, he performs in folk clubs, and here, in the Luendayvisov spirit, he confesses his soul by describing the details and "crimes" he committed by executing the orders. His boss is his father, and he is playing "John Locke" from Lost. His brother is a successful senator who, if necessary, hopes in to help.

John, as John Lakeman, gets the job of finding a job in a firm dealing with something that is so formulated to instantly refer to the absurd systems of Gilliam's Brazil. Work in that company is used as a "cover up" for traveling to Luxembourg (of all countries? !!), since this is one of the few countries that does business with Iran. In Luxembourg he has to surrender money that will allow the victory of an anti-nuclear pro-American candidate, but things do not move properly ...

I understand that, while I tell you what it is, you can think that there is just a little of a parody in the basic setting, and there is nothing strange, but everything is in executions.

The patriot is about a futile attempt to deal with the loneliness, depression and melancholy of a modern man in an absurd-parody setting that relies on the agent series. Each of Conrad's heroes, despite the amount of involvement in the main story, brings with it a private luggage that defines it. Each of them is strange in some other way. Each of them have secrets.



Patriot is not easy to watch. Every scene, every frame is thought-to-detail, and each carries a real or apparent "cosmic" weight that requires you to feel the "moment". In addition, the series continuously goes back and forth over time, changes locations, explains heroes or situations to other heroes and situations. "Zen moments". Nothing in Patriot happens just like that. Regardless of how many events looked like a covenant parody of genre, our heroes are "troubled" with them as if they were drowned in raw realism. What in some series lasts a few seconds and is mostly functional only to bridle some scene here becomes the most important moment. Time slows down. Conrad makes us live with the hero, what is happening to him, in order to understand his decisions or feelings later.

Patriot is almost perfect. I repeat, it is incredible to me that somebody has managed this, and then I had the patience for a production that has a flawless casting, set design, costumes, props, and fucking Luxembourg as the epicenter of all criminal events! Although there are no real bonding scenes, nothing here was cheap. And there are frames that last only a few seconds, and they seem to have been fitted for two days. The luxury you will not find in any other series at the moment.

There's something from Thomas Pynchon in there too. Something or everything, actually. Pseudo-genre, pseudo-crime, and pseudo-dissolution, a knit capitalist system, bizarre episodists, a mildly marijuana atmosphere, vaguely "where" and even more vague "why?" It is necessary to accept that you accept that life and "cosmos'' are like that. With some inherent narrative it's hard to break through and master it. Due to that the frustration and emotions. And smiles.



Patriot, just like Pynchon's literature,, is not particularly warm. Especially not as Better Call Saul. Although there are some very likable (Edward) and cute heroes (John), Patriot with his style even the most rational situations fills with irony and cynicism. Or sabotage them with parody

Note: This was my translation from Serbian to English from Before After article: 'Tv Gonic: The Patriot' by S.Vujanovic