The odyssey of Patrick Melrose (Sky Atlantic) concluded as it began, with the cremation of an unloving parent. Thus the masterplan of David Nicholls, who adapted Edward St Aubyn’s novel sequence, swam fully into focus.
Some devotees may have been thrown by Nicholls’s decision, like a feinting chess grandmaster, to castle books one and two and start with the latter. But with this artfully arranged pair of bookends, it made all sorts of sense all along.
The journey of the hero (if that’s the word for the snorting, raging Patrick Melrose) took him from the grip of powerless addiction to a redeeming peace enabled by forgiveness.
Perhaps the final episode’s hugely moving outro was a little too neat...