The titular character of Patience has a difficult time adjusting to her new job. She’s moved up from the criminal records department to interacting with all new people while helping solve cases. Though she enjoys the criminologist side of the work, she feels uncomfortable around her colleagues due to her autism.
However, in the third episode entitled “The Missing Link,” Patience begins to warm up to Alfie who is the son of Deputy Inspector Metcalf. Though he seems like a regular boy, we received glimpses that Alfie may be neurodivergent himself.
We spoke with star Ella Maisy Purvis about the two characters. “With Patience’s relationship with Alfie, it’s sort of I know and you know,” she said. “Let’s just have this connection. We don’t need to say it. Okay? I’ve been what you’re going through. It’s going to be okay and I think that’s really special and lovely to see that sort of tenderness between these two neurodivergent characters.”
One scene from the episode that stood out for Purvis was when Alfie visits the criminal records department and her character introduces him to her best friend. She remembers that moment with actor Maxwell Whitelock fondly. It seemed very personal because like her, Whitelock is also neurodivergent.
“Yes, Maxwell is fantastic. We did this scene with the mice. We were both literally [enthralled]. I don’t think we spoke. We were just playing with these mice just exactly the same. Then I kind of like looked over and <nodded>. Right? We weren’t speaking. We were just fascinated. Look at these tiny animals. He’s fantastic. He’s so talented and so lovely. So I definitely think there was an art imitates life aspect of it.”
New episodes of Patience release Sundays on PBS.
