Somebody's having a bad day at the office.
Psychotherapist Alexander Strauss (Steve Carell) gets more than he asked for from new patient Sam Fortner (Domhnall Gleeson) in the menacing trailer for The Patient, premiering August 30 on FX on Hulu.
"I'm not content. I get angry," Sam says in the trailer. "That's the sort of thing you help people with, right?"
Carell's character, however, is struggling himself. He's having visions of people in bed next to him and admits, "My whole life, I have been trying to figure myself out so I can help other people understand themselves so they can have good relationships, and here I am."
Still, he agrees to take on Sam as a new client after he begs, "I want you. I want the expert. I'm not normal. I need to get better."
As they begin to work together, Alexander assures his new client that the hardest part is already over.
"Anyone who has come this far," he explains, "who has made the choice to come to therapy and keep hammering away at the hard things, they can be helped."
That's when Sam really opens up.
"I have got bigger problems," he admits. "I have a compulsion to kill people."
Gulp.
Flash to Carell's therapist being locked to a chair with Sam sitting across from him, as if the power dynamic has completely shifted. Alexander pleads for his patient-turned-captor to think things over, begging, "Successful therapy requires a safe environment without anything like fear hanging over every session."
Good luck with that.
From the executive producers of The Americans, the series also stars David Alan Grier, Andrew Leeds, Linda Emond and Laura Niemi.
The Patient premieres August 30 on FX on Hulu.