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So, things were pretty terrible in Alcatraz back in 1963, due in part to a sadistic Deputy named E.B. Tiller. He takes particular glee in punishing a thief named Jack Sylvane. When hundreds of criminals and dozens of guards disappear off the island, Jack is among them. Cut to 2012 and a bunch of tourists are exploring the facility. Jack wakes up in a cell in the middle of a tour and looks exactly the same as he did almost 50 years ago. He doesn't seem terribly puzzled these events, despite not seeming to consciously understand any of them. He kills Tiller, then steals a giant key from another man who doesn't seem to have any relation to Jack's past. Then he kills that guy and a bunch of others,
Detective Rebecca Madsen is called in to investigate Tiller's death before she's quickly dismissed by a fed named Emerson Hauser. She manages to steal a bit of evidence from the scene that has Sylvane's print on it. This connects her to Alcatraz and a researcher named Diego Soto. Even though Madsen's partner was recently killed and she was all "I don't want another partner," she's eager to team up with Soto. Soto seems to be the only one truly amazed by all of the weirdness. Madsen just kind of... goes with it. They soon run afoul of Hauser, who turns out to be running some kind of secret government operation to retrieve all these missing inmates. They all end up working together to capture Jack and squirrel him away in a shiny new jail in the middle of a forest. Along the way, Madsen realizes that her grandfather is not only one of the missing inmates, but the man who killed her partner, too. Hauser hires both her and Soto for his team with the promise of many Abrams-esque adventures to come. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Sam Neill's voice sets up the show for us as we zoom over the night-black waters towards the foreboding silhouette of Alcatraz. "On March 21, 1963, Alcatraz officially closed due to rising costs and decrepit facilities. All the prisoners were transferred off the island, only that's not what happened. Not at all." That... is kind of terrible dialog. On March 20, a ferryboat pulls up to the island and two uniformed guards disembark to find the premises strangely vacant. All the lights are on, but nobody's home. The older guard tells the younger -- who looks to be a pup of about 20 -- to ready his weapon. They go over to the prison proper and find it just as empty as the outside grounds. The cells still bear the personal effects of their missing occupants, but all the doors are closed. The older guard says, "Radio the station. Tell them to send everyone." Sam Neill continues: "302 men disappeared that night. They were never seen or heard from again. Until now."
Cut to the present day as tourists crowd the prison. A little girl hears a metallic clang in the distance and separates from the crowd to investigate. She finds the door open to one of the solitary confinement rooms, peers inside and lets out a shrill scream. The adults come running and find a man asleep on the floor inside. A park ranger tells him to move along, apparently thinking he's some hobo-type looking for a place to crash. The man appears to be fortyish, handsome, with perfectly mussed hair and carefully cultivated stubble. The tour group moves on, leaving our handsome hobo to gape at his surroundings in shock. He pulls on a wool jacket he's been holding and goes outside. He shakily makes his way to the ferry. A ranger asks him for a ticket. He digs around in his jacket and is surprised to find money, a ferry ticket and a locker key. Once on the ferry, he reaches into a tourist's shopping bag and pulls out a book about Alcatraz. He thumbs through a collection of mugshots and finds his own staring up at him. His name is Jack Sylvane, Inmate 2024.
Flashback to 1960. Guards open the cell doors to let prisoners file out in unison. As Jack leaves his cell, a man calls him back. He's wearing a decent suit and is accompanied by guards. He tells the guards to check Jack's cell. "It's clean, Mr. Tiller," one of them says. Tiller goes to look for himself, tosses aside a framed photo of a blond woman and comes back with a screwdriver. "Clean my ass," he says. No thanks. Jack insists it's not his, but Tiller tells the guards to take him away. "Today's visiting day," Jack says. "Not for you," Tiller says with a little smirk.
In the present day, Jack finds Tiller's photo in the book. An old man now, he received a Medal of Valor from the FBI. Jack and his pretty eyelashes seethe with rage. Cue the title card. Alcatraz!
In some unknown area of San Francisco, a man with a blond crew cut is chased across rooftops by another man and a woman. When his pursuer lands badly and finds himself clinging to eave, the blond man kicks him in the face. He struggles to hold on. The woman comes running along and makes a leap and a landing that should break her ankles, but she gets up and runs over to her partner. For a moment, the blond man stares at her with wide-eyes, then keeps on running. She tries to help her partner back up onto the roof, but he slips and falls a long, long way down. She stares in horror.
"Madsen," a man's voice says. Now she's sitting in an office, staring into space. "Detective Madsen!" She blinks and forces herself to pay attention to the present. She looks very young. She has a Kara Thrace blond bob that says, "I'm spunky and tough, but secretly vulnerable!" The man calling her name is her lieutenant and it's been three months since her partner died. They don't have any leads on the man who killed him, so the lieutenant says it's time to move on. That doesn't sound like something a cop would say regarding the murder of another cop. The lieutenant offers her a list of possible new partners, but none of them sound right to her. She's saved from making an immediate decision when someone interrupts the meeting to say that Madsen's wanted on a homicide call.
Crime scene. Tiller lies dead in the shattered remains of his glass coffee table, a knife plunged into his heart. (He should have known he was done the minute he bought that table. People who own glass tables always come to a band end on TV.) One of the cops on the scene, played by super cute Santiago Cabrera, fills Madsen in. He tells her the vic was a fed, which is her cue to hurry up and gather up as much evidence as possible before getting booted from the case. She notices a picture that's been knocked over on a shelf. It's from Tiller's younger days at Alcatraz. Sam Neill walks in and tries to shoo Madsen away. He introduces himself as Emerson Hauser, but that doesn't mean anything to Madsen, so she gives him lip about not taking orders from him. Right on cue, she gets a call from Lieutenant Reeger, telling her to scram. On her way out, she asks Santiago -- er, Jimmy -- to run Emerson Hauser's name through the database. Couldn't she do that herself, being a detective and all? Maybe she's too busy stealing that picture from the crime scene. What a great way to screw up a case, lady.
She takes the pilfered picture to the lab and scans it. A print on it is a match for Jack Sylvane, but when she tries to access a computer file about it, she finds it's been restricted. Luckily, we live in modern times, so she just web-searches the name, which leads her to online articles about Alcatraz, which leads her to articles about both Deputy Tiller and Jack. Most seem to be written by a Dr. Diego Soto.
She tracks him down to a comic book shop. He's arguing with a young guy about a video game and she ingratiates herself by making a Pac-Man ref. He shakes hands with her and introduces himself. "Diego Soto. Will you marry me?" We get an info dump about how he has Ph.Ds in criminal justice, Civil War History and has written four books about Alcatraz. She introduces herself and asks for his help on a case. She shows him a copy of the stolen picture. He recognizes Warden James and Deputy Tiller. She asks him about Jack Sylvane. Jack robbed a grocery store that counted as a post office simply because it sold postage stamps, which meant Jack's crime was a federal offense. First he went to Leavenworth, where he killed an inmate who tried something in the shower, then got sent to Alcatraz. Madsen tells him Tiller was killed and Jack's prints were at the scene. "I'm sorry, but that's just not possible," Soto says. "Why not?" she asks. "Because Jack Sylvane died over thirty years ago." Madsen makes a little confused face to see us into commercials.
We rejoin the show in 1960, where Jack has been in the hole for some time. Tiller opens the door to find him trembling, his plates of moldy bread uneaten. "Come on, 2024, on your feet," Tiller says. "Let's go." Jack shuffles over to the door. "What did you say to my wife?" Jack rasps out. Instead of answering, Tiller pretends like he made a mistake. "It's Red getting sprung today, not you." Back Jack goes into his dank pit of hell. Tiller reminds him of a truth about Alcatraz: "Things can always get worse."
Present day. Jack pays a clerk at some YMCA-type place eight bucks to use the locker room. It's not a hot shower he's interested in, but a locker he opens with the key he found in his jacket. Inside are new clothes and a gun, which the clerk sees when he comes to bring Jack a towel. Jack throws him against a locker.
Madsen heads over to a place unimaginatively called Ray's Bar. A seventy-something man greets her, "Hey, Becky!" She calls him "Uncle Ray" and asks him for help on her case. Ray's not surprised to learn that somebody murdered Tiller, who was the Deputy Warden when he worked there as a guard. Soto joins Madsen at the bar. He immediately recognizes Ray. "It's an honor, sir!" He says he studied Ray and even named a character in his comic after him. Yet he never interviewed him for one of his four books on Alcatraz? Info dump: Ray isn't Madsen's biological uncle, but raised her after her parents died. She says her grandfather, Tommy Madsen, was a guard at Alcatraz with Ray. "You write about him?" Madsen asks. "Sure," Soto says, making with the shifty eyes. Soto's uncovered a death certificate for Jack Sylvane from 1976. Uncle Ray tells them to stay out of it because it's a federal case, blah blah blah, but Soto quickly talks her into sticking with it. He tells her that the last time he was on the Rock, he found a room full of all kinds of files and things he wasn't supposed to see. You'd think a prison, even a decrepit old one, would be better at locking that crap away, but apparently not. They agree to meet up again.
As they make their way onto the island the morning, Soto pulls Madsen away from the stream of tourists. They head into an area that's been blocked off by a very low-hanging chain which they just step right over. Soto tells her they're going to the barracks, where the guards lived with their families. It's just as depressing a place as one would imagine. They get to Soto's mystery room and find it blocked off by a gate. Madsen gets to work picking the lock. "Aren't you kind of young to be a detective?" Soto asks. "Yeah, I get that a lot," she says. "Bet you have a pretty cool origin story," he says. I bet not. She explains: "I was raised by a cop. He'd bring his cases home. I'd read them before bed, put Post-its where I thought he should look. I actually helped him solve a few cases." Ooh, don't make me hate you halfway through the first episode, lady. She gets through the lock (she studied locksmithing in kindergarten) and they find a room stacked floor to ceiling with file boxes and inmates' personal effects. Suddenly, the lights click off. A smoke bomb rolls towards them. One sniff and our intrepid trespassers drop to the floor, unconscious.
Madsen wakes up to voices. "This is a mistake," Hauser says. "She found us, she won't stop until she finds him," a woman says. "We need her, Hauser." Beside her, Soto is just coming to. They're somewhere in Alcatraz, in a part of the prison that's been outfitted with high-tech computers and lab equipment. Regarding gassing them, Hauser explains: "We have strict protocols for dealing with intruders here." Yes, because gassing them won't raise any questions. The unknown woman introduces herself, "Lucy Banerjee." She compliments Madsen on stealing the photo from the crime scene. It was bold and effective! Hate levels rising. Madsen is suspicious because she knows Hauser doesn't really work for the feds. He says he's tracking down certain criminals for the government. Eventually, they get around to the subject of Jack Sylvane. A street camera caught him following Tiller home the other night. He should be 85, but he looks like a 40-year-old Eddie Bauer model. For some reason, Madsen is only very mildly surprised by this. When Hauser gets a call about Jack's Alcatraz uniform turning up downtown, Madsen talks her way into going with him.
1960. After his stint in the hole, Jack winds up in the infirmary. Not because he's sick, but because a doctor is taking kind of a lot of blood from him. After the doctor leaves, prisoner 2002 on the other side of a privacy screen strikes up a conversation with him. He mentions a secret layer of the prison "below the hole," but Jack just wants to mope. 2002 warns him about terrible things about to happen, but gets no more specific than that.
Present day. Madsen, Soto and Hauser wind up at the locker room and confirm with the clerk that Jack was the one who attacked him. Luckily, the clerk wrote down the number of Jack's cab.
Two uniformed cops track Jack down to a street outside a posh-looking home. They order him to show them his hands, so he does. By shooting them both in the chest. A man inside the house hears the shots and goes to investigate. Jack's already inside, somehow. "Are you Barclay Flynn?" Jack asks. "I'm here for you." He orders Flynn to open a safe and give him the small, black bag contained therein. Inside is a key nearly the size of Jack's palm. With no obvious emotion, Jack shoots Flynn dead.
Soon after, the A-Team arrives on the scene. Madsen chases after Jack while the others tend to the mess he left behind. Jack easily outruns her, so wherever he's been must have a pretty good fitness program. Madsen returns to Flynn's to tell Hauser she lost Jack. Flynn's foot twitches even though he's supposed to be dead. "What's this guy's connection to Sylvane?" she asks. "Even if Jack Sylvane didn't know Flynn, that doesn't mean there weren't people that wanted him dead," Hauser says. Clunky. "So you're implying that Sylvane is being used by someone," Madsen says. "I didn't think I was implying it, I thought I was saying it," he says. Heh. Soto comes in with info about Jack's wife, now dead, who married Jack's brother. Did he just know that off the top of his head? They ditch Hauser to go look for Jack.
Jack is currently on his nephew's doorstep, talking his way inside by pretending his dad knew Alan Sylvane. While his nephew goes off to find his dad, Jack noses through pictures of his ex-wife and brother. He flashes back to the day his wife visited him in prison and asked for a divorce so she could hook up with his brother. In the present day, Alan walks into the room and immediately recognizes his miraculously young-looking brother. Alan has a minor freak out. "What happened to you, Jackie?" "What happened was my brother married my wife," Jack says. "Nothing that came after that matters worth a damn." He pulls out his gun and cocks it.
Some time later, Madsen kicks her way in through Alan Sylvane's front door. For some reason, she allows Soto to come in with her, even though she knows Jack is dangerous. They find the nephew bound and gagged in the living room.
Jack stands before his wife's gravestone. He says he still loves her. Madsen walks up behind him, gun at the ready. He doesn't shoot her. Soto stands off to the side with Jack's brother, whom Jack also apparently did not shoot. Madsen asks Jack why he killed Flynn. "I only did what they told me," he says. She asks him lots of other questions, but he doesn't answer. He wants her to kill him, so he points his gun at her. Madsen doesn't shoot him, but some SWAT guys do. He's badly wounded, but not dead. Hauser shows up and takes him away.
Later, Madsen and Soto return to the Alca-Hub to give back the picture she stole. Jack is now in prison, Hauser says. "What about his brother?" Madsen asks. "Oh, he won't be a problem," Hauser says. Madsen is disturbed by what that might imply, but not disturbed enough to turn down a chance to hunt down more Alcatraz inmates. "Jack Sylvane was just the beginning," Lucy says. Hauser looks a little bit guilty. "That's why you're here. You've been waiting for this," Madsen says. "A very, very long time," he agrees. He shows her into a room where he's amassed a gallery of information and pictures of the missing prisoners and guards. I recognize actor Ian Tracey in one of the mugshots, so he must be scheduled for an appearance. Hauser repeats the voice-over from the teaser. He was that young pup of a guard, once upon a time. He's aged remarkably well. As Madsen looks over the mugshots, she recognizes inmate 2002. He's the one who killed her partner. His name? Thomas Madsen. "My grandfather wasn't a guard... he was an inmate," she says. She says this with less emotion than one might muster when discovering one's favorite brand of mayonnaise is out of stock at the store. She accuses Hauser of luring her into helping him. He denies it, but still wants her help. "Is anyone else's head exploding right now?" Soto asks. I wish mine was, but I'm feeling a little underwhelmed. Madsen agrees to sign on, with Soto as her new partner.
A black SUV drives through a rainy, dark forest, coming to a stop near a small, nearly hidden shed. Hauser gets out of the driver's side and retrieves Jack from the back seat. Jack is handcuffed but otherwise unrestrained, yet offers no resistance. Hauser punches in a code at the shed door and they're taken down via elevator to a gleaming white prison cell block. The place is empty, save for two armed guards. "Welcome home, Jack," Hauser says. He head-butts Jack. "E.B. Tiller was my friend." Ominous music plays. The guards take Jack to his cell. "Not to worry, Jack," Hauser says. "You won't be lonesome long." He makes a cartoon villain face and the screen goes black.
Tippi Blevins disappeared from prison fifty years ago and then mysteriously reappeared to write about this show. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.