“The Missing Link” Brings 'Patience' Another Unexpected Friendship

Now that we’ve introduced the two main characters and laid the basic groundwork for their burgeoning partnership, “The Missing Link,” the third episode of Patience, opens in a classic murder mystery manner: with a dead body. There’s a woman on the floor of York’s Castle Museum, and once again, a cleaning lady finds the dead person. (These poor custodians!)

Before we get much further, I need to address the Ghostbuster in the room: For some as yet unknown reason, there’s a suspect in this episode named Peter Venkman. Yes, the same spelling, and no, there’s no connection to the movie nor anything supernatural. It’s not even based on the Astrid ghost episode. 

(This was highly distracting, is what I'm saying.)

Back to our recap. Fearing the potential results, Metcalf hesitates to authorize ADHD testing for her son, Alfie. When she finally does so by the end of the episode, it’s a nice (if overdue) realization that both she and her ex need to be on the same page to properly support their son. It’s purposefully tied back to the same dialogue she uses to convince Hunter to give Patience leeway, highlighting how Metcalf is growing as a result of her work with Patience.

After interviewing the museum manager, Raymond (Mark Umbers), the dead woman is identified as Emily (Abigail Gypens), a fossil expert and one of the museum’s conservators. Patience takes one look at the body and concludes she drowned. Although Dr. Parsons agrees that the physical markers are there, Emily’s clothing is dry, and there’s no evidence of water anywhere. Parsons’ report later confirms drowning – but without signs of struggle.

Emily’s record shows a criminal charge for fossil trafficking, later dropped when her ex-boyfriend Peter Venkman (Robert Lonsdale) admitted to stealing and hiding them in her bag. At Emily’s apartment, the police find a real and rather large dinosaur bone and have second thoughts about her innocence.

The investigation is temporarily halted when Metcalf brings Alfie lunch and introduces him to Patience. They have instant simpatico. Patience lets Alfie handle the fossil – he’s a dinosaur enthusiast and recognizes its authenticity. 

(Wouldn’t the bone be evidence? At the very least, shouldn’t they be wearing gloves?)

Upon returning the bone to the museum, manager Raymond says it would be worth thousands at auction and claims not to know Emily stole it. The detectives study CCTV footage of Emily stumbling to a side entrance of the museum as if drunk. It also captured Peter trying and failing to enter the same door. To pursue their suspect, Metcalf asks Patience an enormous favor: would she pick up Alfie? This is a massive overstep of their relationship, presumptuous and uncomfortable to refuse. However, Patience agrees, and she and Alfie form a bond. She shows him her mice, and they talk about not having friends. It’s the best possible outcome.

The detectives track Peter down at an auction where he’s waiting to sell a fossil. He runs, but Metcalf and Hunter catch him and cuff him. When questioned, he claims Emily asked him to meet at the museum but didn’t answer the door. He mentions a call from an unknown number from a woman who sounded drunk, but he deleted the voicemail.

Patience attempts to piece together a dinosaur model that Alfie was gifted and subsequently asked her to complete (after first throwing a fit that it had no instructions). It’s a puzzle she’s not enjoying, until she finds a picture of Darwin’s tree of life. She realizes Emily, who had the tree as a tattoo, had a recent branch added to her ink. She and Metcalf reinterview Raymond, who is dismissive and eager to get rid of them so he can be featured by a prominent science journalist (Samantha Fadahunsi), whom we saw earlier completely disregard the crime scene tape. Raymond suggests that the updated tattoo suggests a scientific breakthrough, akin to the discovery of a new species.

Unfortunately, she’s misunderstood Metcalf’s directive to “immediately” bring her any breaking case information, and barges in on an active interview just as it seems Peter Venkman is about to confess. Hunter yells at Patience and she flees in tears. Metcalf is more concerned with Patience and her evidence, while Hunter is seething about the suspect slipping through his fingers.

Metcalf finds Patience in one of her happy places: a center square in town where her father used to take her. Patience opens up about feeling out of place and needing to be useful. 

Metcalf sweetly apologizes for not being clearer, then doubles down on the good intentions by insisting they don’t have to keep working together if it’s too much; they could just be friends. Patience is overjoyed and even smiles.

Patience gives Metcalf the new evidence: she thinks Emily died by secondary drowning, which is very rare. Her lungs would have been filling with fluid over hours, making her weaker. Emily’s tox screen did not show intoxication, and testing the water in her lungs traces her drowning to a park where a taxi driver had ferried her.

The taxi driver has a criminal past but is a red herring. Before the detectives can haul in another wrong suspect, Patience intercepts. She thinks Raymond is the murderer: a speeding ticket puts him in close vicinity to where and when Emily inhaled the water that killed her. Once again, Patience is correct.

Raymond practically lays the confession at their feet in the manner of someone who thinks he’s entirely in the right. After Emily made a new discovery, a breakthrough on something Raymond had worked on for two years, he stole her article and published it as his own. He got front-page press and, as director of the research, felt entitled to use her work, comparing her to a “monkey with a typewriter banging out Hamlet.”

They fought at the park where she was fossil hunting. Emily filmed Raymond while accusing him of stealing her work and threatened to go public with the footage. He got desperate and threw her laptop into the lake, then tried to take her phone. They both fell in, and when he thought she had hit her head, he left her there. Raymond is charged with manslaughter.

(She got out of the lake and slowly drowned over several hours. That’s fairly terrifying.) 

The episode ends with Alfie giving Patience a spontaneous hug. She’s shocked and unsure how to respond, but ends up smiling, though she does not reciprocate. Their natural friendship is an unexpected original development, one I might actually enjoy more than the core relationship.

Patience Season 1 continues on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on PBS, the PBS App, PBS Passport, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. All six episodes are available for members to stream on PBS Passport starting from premiere day.