Patriot is a slim volume at 18 episodes, but it made a lasting impact on my mindscape that I’ve compared to the crater left by Deadwood more than a few times. Beside their sheer wow-factor and the fact that both shows were highlights of their platforms and got cancelled before their times, they have little in common. The two seasons of Patriot creator Stephen Conrad and his cohorts left us are a gift of a similarly grand scale, but wrap up in a much more concrete fashion. I don’t think a Patriot binge will leave you dissatisfied; there are very few empty calories here.

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The show follows a government operative-slash-aspiring folk singer named John Tavner (Michael Dorman), codename: John Lakeman. But his misadventures attempting to hand off (and later re-secure) a bag full of money meant to buy a Middle-Eastern election for United States interests has less in common with Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and more in common with the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading. At every turn, we’re treated to the absurd minutiae and grueling realities of spy work. Tropes of the genre are turned on their head with sardonic regularity as John slogs through a never-ending workday from hell.Which isn’t to say John Lakeman isn’t a phenomenal spy embroiled in a high-stakes situation. On the contrary, John faces so many “how is he possibly going to get out of this one?” moments that his terrible luck becomes a running joke, and the fact that he will ultimately triumph in every realm but self-care can be taken for granted. John is a super-spy -- able to memorize vast texts or climb electric fences or murder innocents whenever his country needs him to -- and yet as the series progresses, we become more concerned with the toll his missions take on him than whether the money will end up where it’s supposed to. It’s a spy series where you’re rooting for the spy to finally, for once in his life, prioritize himself over his duty. All of this is complicated by the fact that his CIA handler is his own father (Terry O’Quinn), his wife Alice (Kathleen Munroe) has reached the limit of her patience with his work, and Luxembourgian detective Agathe Albans (Aliette Opheim) is hot on his heels. John struggles to maintain his cover as a piping engineer at a Midwestern logistics firm -- where his boss Leslie (Kurtwood Smith) evolves from a simple antagonist to a highlight of the show -- while combating the PTSD that is so often glossed over in the spy genre.Ultimately, depression takes up as much of the spotlight in Patriot as action or deadpan humor, and as someone who struggles with depression, this author found it to be a resonant and hugely impactful treatise on the subject. Recurring jokes repeatedly pay off in touching ways you couldn’t have expected (some non-sexual same-sex cuddling, anyone?) and vice-versa, with tragedies drawn into focus as ridiculous, twisted cosmic jokes played on us and the characters.Patriot touches on sadness, duty, bureaucracy, politics, and family in unique and always unexpected ways, and wraps it all in a thriller that’s funny and surprising from start to finish. The balance of plot twists, new and unique characters (Dennis McClaren, John’s work friend, is worth the price of admission alone), indelible dialogue, nuanced visual iconography, fresh cinematographic concepts, and stellar performances conspire to make Patriot as close to a perfect show as I expect to see for some time to come. I always knew exactly what Patriot was getting at, but never once could I imagine the circuitous, incredible route we’d take to get there.

Binge It! is IGN's recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we're here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we'll discuss a piece of content we're passionate about -- and why you should check it out.