Alcatraz
“On March 21st, 1963, Alcatraz officially closed. All the prisoners were
transferred off the island. Only that's not what happened. Not at all.” –
Emerson Hauser
By now everyone should know that I am a huge fan of the works of writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams. For the uninitiated Abrams was
the director of Star Trek & Super 8 and is the producer of the latest (and
best) film in the Mission: Impossible series. Abrams is the co-creator of Lost
& fringe, which loyal readers know as two of my favorite shows of all time.
The latest show from Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions is Alcatraz and after three
episodes I am hooked.
Alcatraz stars the delightful Sarah Jones as San Francisco homicide detective Rebecca Madsen, Jorge Garcia as historian/author/comic book store owner Doc Soto and Sam Neill as FBI agent Emerson Hauser. When you have a show with a cute blonde, Hurley and Dr. Alan Grant produced by the brilliant Abrams you have a winner.
The series is full of mythology and questions, which is something I thoroughly enjoy in a TV show. It seems as if every time something is revealed it leads to more questions. For a guy like me that watches a lot of TV it is great to have programs that make me think. It is my ability to think for myself which prevents me from ever watching Jersey Shore, Fox “news” or anything with a Kardashian.
In the first episode we learned that all the prisoners
mysteriously disappeared off the island in 1963 and were never heard from or
seen again until they suddenly began to reappear in 2012 having not aged a day.
How and why they disappeared has not yet been made clear, but that’s part of the
fun of a show like this. It is clear that Dr. Emerson and his assistant, Lucy
Banerjee (Parminder Nagra) know more than they are willing to share with Rebecca
and Doc.
*********I am warning you with peace and love: Spoilers ahead! ****************
Jack Sylvane was the first known prisoner to reappear in the present day. When we first see him he is asleep in a closed off portion of Alcatraz. He is revealed to have only a key to a mysterious locker and a whole lot of cash and appears to have no idea how he got there. Well he goes and murders the man who was once the deputy warden who had once refused to allow him to see his visiting wife. As we flash back to 1960 we learn that Sylvane was subjected to some strange blood tests. Why? Well we don’t know yet. What we do learn is that Sylvane’s wife divorced him and married his brother, which made for a rather awkward reunion. Eventually Sylvane opens the locker to find a gun, goes on a killing spree and obtains another mysterious key. When he is eventually captured by our crack team of heroes he begs Rebecca to shoot him, which she does not do. He is instead taken by Hauser to an underground replica of the interior of Alcatraz and put into a cell. Was Sylvane acting as a hit man for someone? We shall see.
While looking through the missing inmates Rebecca recognizes one, her grandfather, as not only a former inmate,
but also the man who killed her partner a few weeks earlier. He is still out
there and I am sure we will be seeing more of him in the season to come.
A sniper by the name of Ernest Cobb was the next prisoner on the loose. He began his killing spree and his M.O. was quickly recognized by Doc. For the purposes of not going on and on forever I will not go into too much detail on this episode even though it was excellent and substantially more sinister than the first. What I will say about this episode is that it was made clear that no one was safe and that the writers are willing to go out of their way to shock us with surprising twists. As Rebecca, Doc and Lucy tracked down Cobb they were able to locate the yucky hotel room where he was staying. Cobb was not there and when Lucy opened the curtains she was shot by Cobb who had indeed been one step ahead of them and set himself up across the street. Lucy somehow survived and was taken to the hospital.
With Lucy now in a coma, Hauser went back to Sylvane and asked if she was a target. He said he did not know. He also asked him if he knew Cobb and he said no. Well, it was clear that when Cobb was caught and taken to the sterile Alcatraz that they did indeed know each other based on the looks they gave each other. But what was the connection?
The episode ended with what can only be described as a shocking twist. We are taken back to 1960 where the warden is telling Cobb that he will be seeing a special doctor to evaluate his mental problems. That doctor was none other than Lucy Banerjee, looking exactly the same as she does in 2012. So whatever happened to the missing prisoners also happened to Lucy, but I am guessing she is actually in on the secret as to how and why.
Episode
three was the creepiest and also gave us another unexpected twist. In this
episode we are introduced to child killer Kit Nelson. At first we see Kit being
brutally beaten by the other inmates in 1960 and taken to the infirmary to see
Dr. Beauregard, the doctor with a cigarette. We later understand why he was so
hated when we find out the nature of his crimes. It seems Kit liked to kidnap
an 11 year old boy, leave a white chrysanthemum on his bed and then return the
body 48 hours later. During those 48 hours he would take the kid to do the fun
things his deceased brother liked to do: fishing, going to the movies and
enjoying some cherry pie. Then he would take the child to a bomb shelter and
commit the murder. In this case he kidnapped a boy named Dylan, who undoubtedly
would be scarred for life if he survived the ordeal.
I had to look up the actor who portrayed Kit because he was so genuinely creepy I was frightened. Canadian Actor Michael Eklund was behind the decidedly disturbing portrayal of a serial killer.
Dylan played along as best as he could, but saw a way to escape at the bomb shelter and made a run for it. Kit was able to catch up with him, but was stopped in the woods by Rebecca and Doc. (On a side not Rebecca looked incredibly sexy standing in the rain confronting the creep) Kit was shot and killed by Hauser and Dylan was safely returned home. It was there that Doc revealed a little more about himself and told Dylan that he too was kidnapped as a child. He told Dylan that although his escape was not easy, he was able to do it and it gave him sort of a superpower much like the superheroes he likes to read about. Doc has already been shown to be a vulnerable character and this helped to explain him.
Hauser then took the body of Kit to his underground Alcatraz where he proceeded to deliver him to none other than Dr. Beauregard, who like Lucy and the prisoners had not aged a day. Before Dr. Beauregard could light up, Hauser informed him that he would soon need help with a friend. Who is the friend? Lucy? Doc? Rebecca? Or is it someone we still have yet to meet? That kind of stuff is what makes shows
like this so darn much fun for me. It’s not just a simple police procedural,
but so much more with all the twists and mythology.
So where is this show headed? For now I do not know, but I am sure that given enough time we will eventually learn the destination. Will every episode end with the mysterious Hauser bring a prisoner or a body to New Alcatraz? When will we see Rebecca confront Grandpa Madsen? One can only begin to wonder.
Alcatraz can be seen Monday nights at 9:00 PM on Fox or online. I urge all my loyal readers to give this show a try.
By now everyone should know that I am a huge fan of the works of writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams. For the uninitiated Abrams was
Alcatraz stars the delightful Sarah Jones as San Francisco homicide detective Rebecca Madsen, Jorge Garcia as historian/author/comic book store owner Doc Soto and Sam Neill as FBI agent Emerson Hauser. When you have a show with a cute blonde, Hurley and Dr. Alan Grant produced by the brilliant Abrams you have a winner.
The series is full of mythology and questions, which is something I thoroughly enjoy in a TV show. It seems as if every time something is revealed it leads to more questions. For a guy like me that watches a lot of TV it is great to have programs that make me think. It is my ability to think for myself which prevents me from ever watching Jersey Shore, Fox “news” or anything with a Kardashian.
*********I am warning you with peace and love: Spoilers ahead! ****************
Jack Sylvane was the first known prisoner to reappear in the present day. When we first see him he is asleep in a closed off portion of Alcatraz. He is revealed to have only a key to a mysterious locker and a whole lot of cash and appears to have no idea how he got there. Well he goes and murders the man who was once the deputy warden who had once refused to allow him to see his visiting wife. As we flash back to 1960 we learn that Sylvane was subjected to some strange blood tests. Why? Well we don’t know yet. What we do learn is that Sylvane’s wife divorced him and married his brother, which made for a rather awkward reunion. Eventually Sylvane opens the locker to find a gun, goes on a killing spree and obtains another mysterious key. When he is eventually captured by our crack team of heroes he begs Rebecca to shoot him, which she does not do. He is instead taken by Hauser to an underground replica of the interior of Alcatraz and put into a cell. Was Sylvane acting as a hit man for someone? We shall see.
While looking through the missing inmates Rebecca recognizes one, her grandfather, as not only a former inmate,
A sniper by the name of Ernest Cobb was the next prisoner on the loose. He began his killing spree and his M.O. was quickly recognized by Doc. For the purposes of not going on and on forever I will not go into too much detail on this episode even though it was excellent and substantially more sinister than the first. What I will say about this episode is that it was made clear that no one was safe and that the writers are willing to go out of their way to shock us with surprising twists. As Rebecca, Doc and Lucy tracked down Cobb they were able to locate the yucky hotel room where he was staying. Cobb was not there and when Lucy opened the curtains she was shot by Cobb who had indeed been one step ahead of them and set himself up across the street. Lucy somehow survived and was taken to the hospital.
With Lucy now in a coma, Hauser went back to Sylvane and asked if she was a target. He said he did not know. He also asked him if he knew Cobb and he said no. Well, it was clear that when Cobb was caught and taken to the sterile Alcatraz that they did indeed know each other based on the looks they gave each other. But what was the connection?
The episode ended with what can only be described as a shocking twist. We are taken back to 1960 where the warden is telling Cobb that he will be seeing a special doctor to evaluate his mental problems. That doctor was none other than Lucy Banerjee, looking exactly the same as she does in 2012. So whatever happened to the missing prisoners also happened to Lucy, but I am guessing she is actually in on the secret as to how and why.
I had to look up the actor who portrayed Kit because he was so genuinely creepy I was frightened. Canadian Actor Michael Eklund was behind the decidedly disturbing portrayal of a serial killer.
Dylan played along as best as he could, but saw a way to escape at the bomb shelter and made a run for it. Kit was able to catch up with him, but was stopped in the woods by Rebecca and Doc. (On a side not Rebecca looked incredibly sexy standing in the rain confronting the creep) Kit was shot and killed by Hauser and Dylan was safely returned home. It was there that Doc revealed a little more about himself and told Dylan that he too was kidnapped as a child. He told Dylan that although his escape was not easy, he was able to do it and it gave him sort of a superpower much like the superheroes he likes to read about. Doc has already been shown to be a vulnerable character and this helped to explain him.
Hauser then took the body of Kit to his underground Alcatraz where he proceeded to deliver him to none other than Dr. Beauregard, who like Lucy and the prisoners had not aged a day. Before Dr. Beauregard could light up, Hauser informed him that he would soon need help with a friend. Who is the friend? Lucy? Doc? Rebecca? Or is it someone we still have yet to meet? That kind of stuff is what makes shows
So where is this show headed? For now I do not know, but I am sure that given enough time we will eventually learn the destination. Will every episode end with the mysterious Hauser bring a prisoner or a body to New Alcatraz? When will we see Rebecca confront Grandpa Madsen? One can only begin to wonder.
Alcatraz can be seen Monday nights at 9:00 PM on Fox or online. I urge all my loyal readers to give this show a try.
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