In the past we have Sonny Burnett, a new arrival at Alcatraz and a kidnapper for ransom – kidnapper with a shotgun no less. And he apparently has money hidden still, money he offer’s the prison’s big bad in exchange for protection.
Unfortunately, the money wasn’t where he said it would be and the person he hired to protect him stabbed him many times instead. This was a poor investment methinks and he ends up in the infirmary with Dr. Beauregard being both amusing and cynical
Warden James wants to give him more time in solitary before going back but Tiller wants to throw him right back in to force him to “adapt”. Y’know Tiller, you can be evil, heartless and cruel but you’ll still not be a tenth as creepy as Warden James. And Warden James impressively gives him a creeptastic smackdown. Tiller, most displeased, tells Burnett he has to be a predator – or he will be prey.
So begins his training regime while in solitary to become as strong as he can – then he comes out and attacks someone who the protection-giver was protecting. A clear challenge. But Tiller seems determined to get him up to that challenge and encourage him to become stronger and more vicious. Which leads to him putting out his attacker’s eyes – far worse than killing him in Alcatraz – and we seem to have a definite threat from Tiller to Warden James. Oh Tiller, you’re hitting above your weight there, Tiller.
In the present Ray, Rebecca’s uncle and the man who raised her, ex-cop, is having a meeting with Hauser – to get Rebecca out of the Alcatraz programme. Hauser is less than pleased and also points out that he knows Ray has seen Tommy Madsen. Rebecca’s grandfather. We then cut to Rebecca who is still haunted by nightmares of Tommy Madsen killing her partner. Drama and angst incoming
Ray has a hard time convincing Rebecca that he hasn’t seen Tommy and doesn’t know where he is as well. He really needs to work on those tenses. Rebecca doesn’t use her influence to make Hauser stop watching Ray – she wants to know if Tommy shows as well. Smooth, Ray, smooth.
Speaking of drama, 1 bloke from the extra’s department just got messily shot with a shotgun by Sonny Burnett, one of the 63s. And kidnapped the person driving with him who is worth a lot of money as the husband of a company founder.
In comes Dr. Soto, Rebecca and Hauser to investigate – Hauser playing tough guy over his bullet wound (heh, and Dr. Soto saying he’s not human) and Dr. Soto pointing out that Burnett never murdered people in his kidnappings in the past. Time to interview the wife, Mrs. Hellen Campbell and founder of the company – and it turns out she was kidnapped by Sonny Burnett as well, when she was 14. Nice spooky connection there.
But it turns out that Sonny actually kidnapped Ellen to be an accomplice in kidnapping not a victim for money, though after 3 months she escaped him. Rebecca questions, clearly doubting the kidnapping, since he didn’t keep or restrain her (and believes she is hiding something). And his new ransom of her husband requires them to leave $100,000 in the same place she was held as a girl, where she escaped from. The money also the same amount Sonny Burnett asked for in his last kidnapping in the 60s. But when Rebecca gets there, the bag isn’t empty – it contains Mr. Pier’s head.
And while Rebecca is making the money drop with Dr. Soto and Hauser, Sonny is at Hellen’s house, killing her police guard and showing his too-young face to her – and he believes she betrayed him when she was 14 and went to the police. He doesn’t hurt her – he just goes to her to see her face when he tells her her husband is dead. Rebecca is right, Helen is hiding something – the money Sonny had hidden that disappeared? She took it – which lead to him being stabbed in Alcatraz.
Go some police work and, I’m happy to see, Dr. Soto shows how clever and capable he is (especially after last episode) which is a nice balance. They track him down – and find he is now hunting Helen’s daughter – and he buries her alive though he gets captured in the process and the daughter is rescued from a horrible horrible death.
Hauser is apparently human since he needs to get his wounds checked by Dr. Beauregard (and that makes him a braver man than most!) though whether Beauregard is is questionable since he hasn’t aged since the 1960s. We also learn that all of the 63s are healing quickly and in amazingly good health – with pre-existing conditions also being healed. They have something extra in their blood – colloidal silver which is apparently healing. Dr. Beauregard also makes it clear that he wasn’t the one putting this in the blood, it was all Warden James. Of course, super-healy blood could be transfused to heal someone else – and Dr. Banerjee/Sangupta is still in a coma. A coma they can heal her from, perhaps, if they find an inmate of the correct blood type.
And this is why Hauser wants them all alive (though I do love Dr. Soto’s line “he doesn’t realise he’s the only one who shoots them, right?” He has some great lines) to get a matching blood type. But, alas, not all of the prisoners were experimented on, at least, not by Warden James.
I dislike Ray going behind Rebecca’s back to try and remove her from the programme. She’s a grown woman, more than capable as we saw last episode. She’s an asset – and she’s also more than old enough to make her own decision without a father figure going behind her back to “do what’s best for her”.
I also dislike Rebecca’s implication that Helen wasn’t really kidnapped because she wasn’t restrained. She was 14 and with a man with a shotgun, a kidnapper. It doesn’t take ropes and cages to imprison someone or abuse them.
Unfortunately, this show continues the pattern of heavy erasure, which is a great pity.
