‘Patriot’ offers likable, daft look at a sad spy’s life
Daffy, low-key and likable, Amazon’s new series “Patriot” will have you wondering where it’s going, until you realize you’re already willing to go along for the ride.
Describing the show’s premise won’t do the show justice, partly because tonally it deftly balances absurdity with pathos and partly because the acting is so good.
It stars Michael Dorman as John Tavner, a U.S. intelligence officer — actually something of a superspy, only he feels a bit depressed about it. Occasionally, John relieves his angst by appearing at open mic nights at clubs to accompany himself on guitar and sing songs he’s written about his situation, often with startlingly revealing lyrics.
John is loyal, though. He works for his dad, Tom Tavner (Terry O’Quinn), a former congressman and now the State Department’s director of intelligence who has tasked his son to get a job at an international piping company based in Milwaukee so he has a nonofficial cover to travel to key cities overseas.
It’s 2012, and Tom is worried about Iran’s upcoming election, which pits a cleric with nuclear ambitions against a secularist willing to step back from developing a bomb. So he comes up with a plan to back the least objectional candidate.
John, using the last name Lakeman, gets the job at the piping firm by pushing a more qualified applicant in front of a truck. It almost seems out of character until you realize that this Texas boy will do what it takes for his country and for his dad — only it weighs on him. He doesn’t even get angry over bureaucratic screw-ups, like that his fake Social Security number has 10 digits.
Meanwhile, his schoolteacher wife, Alice (Kathleen Munroe), waits around wondering where he is, and his congressman brother, Ed Tavner (Michael Chernus), who also does covert things for his dad, hides the fact that he has a son from an African-American girlfriend because he represents a rural Texas district. Also, John’s boss (Kirkwood Smith) hates him.
Complications arise when a money delivery goes awry in Luxembourg resulting in an investigation into three homicides in a city that graphics inform us hasn’t had any murders for years. That’s the quirky fun of “Patriot,” which takes unexpected side trips into esoteric matters, such as who did a better version of “Pancho and Lefty” — Willie Nelson or the original by its writer, Townes Van Zandt.
At one point, John and his dad, who also plays guitar, do a nice duet of Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You.” And while Ed doesn’t have the musical talents of his brother and father, he explains to his wife that he has fond memories of seeing the Beastie Boys in concert with his dad.
It’s these weird but human
moments that propel “Patriot,” created by Steven Conrad (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”), even as it keeps the spy-thriller plot simmering.