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Another of the 63s -- a poison and chemistry expert named Johnny McKee -- shows up in 2012. He hates bullies, but he also kind of just hates guys in general. Rebecca and team notice that most of his victims are men, including the 70 or so former classmates he killed at his high school reunion. In the present day, he takes up a jobs where he has his pick of victims. First, he works as a bartender and then poisons several guys who order him around and just act like all-around assholes. , he takes a job at a fancy spa, where he doses the pool water with poison after one customer is especially rude to him.
The team is alerted to his reappearance when a video of his bar killings goes viral. They track him down by interviewing his former neighbor Jack Sylvane (yay!), finding where he's buying his poisons and then to his freshly-abandoned makeshift lab. Eventually, they intercept him in the subway, where they foil his plan to gas a car full of men with phosgene.
In the flashbacks, Lucy tries to help Johnny. At first he's reticent, but she presses on. The girl that he's been talking up as his sweetheart was actually the girl who humiliated him in front of a gym full of boys. They pelted him with firecrackers, one of which blew off a testicle and made him kind of bitter about the scrotally complete.
The present-day subplot has Dr. Beauregard trying to wake Lucy from her coma. He's tries acupuncture, electroshock, and so on, but nothing will wake her. He asks Hauser to read Lucy's favorite book to her so she can hear his voice, but Hauser scoffs. For some reason, reading to a comatose patient seems more ridiculous to him than any of the other million things about this show. He finally decides to read to her, and it's kind of sweet. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode opens with Hauser visiting Lucy at the secret prison in the woods. She's still in a coma, despite Dr. Beauregard's best efforts. He says he's tried electroshock, acupuncture and traumatic memory therapy. That last one probably failed because she can't talk about her memories while she's unconscious. She is, however, dreaming, as Hauser notices from her active EEG. "Whatever she's dreaming about is obviously better than her options here in our so-called reality," Dr. Beauregard says. Maybe she thinks she's a cop in the 1970s. Dr. Beauregard hands Hauser a copy of The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins and instructs him to read to Lucy. Interestingly, Beauregard still calls her Sengupta, rather than Banerjee. "I believe the sound of your voice might draw her to the surface," Beauregard says, "where my science might reach her." Hauser looks uncomfortable. "She needs a reason, sir," Beauregard says. "Love is a good one." Hauser leaves the book on Lucy's bed and walks away, telling Beauregard to call him if he comes up with a "tangible treatment." I suggest removing Hauser's head from his ass. It wouldn't help Lucy any, but it's still worth doing.
Night in the city. At a loud, crowded bar, a young Asian man gets the bartender's attention by repeatedly snapping his fingers. "Our friend just got engaged," the man says. "It's our job to get him laid and your job to get him drunk!" The bartender looks bored. He says, "We can brave human laws but we cannot resist natural ones." He says it's a quote from Jules Verne, which impresses his customer not one bit. The bartender says he'll make "something special," which on most nights might mean a Saliva Martini. But tonight? Tonight is kind of special. The bartender takes a little pouch of yellow berries from his pocket and begins chopping them up.
Flashback, 1960. Our bartender sits in the rec yard, studying a glass jar full of bugs. Seems like glass would be one of those contraband items, but whatever. "Hey, McKee," another inmate says. "Cullen wants you." McKee isn't interested, but he doesn't really have a choice. With a slight limp, McKee heads up the steps to stand before an older inmate. It's Cullen, and he says he has a "favor" to ask. He wants a quiet little librarian named Grindle killed. "He's been selling pig-stickers outta the libarry," Cullen says. Grindle's been horning in on Cullen's shiv business so Cullen wants McKee to poison him. "And if I refuse?" McKee asks. "You won't wanna say no to me," Cullen says. McKee calls him a bully. Cullen's going to cry himself to sleep over that one later.
Present. McKee brings a tray of berry-laced drinks over to the celebrating assholes. They all take a sip and start choking a couple of seconds later. McKee calmly takes off his apron and walks away as his customers fall to the ground. He can forget getting a decent tip now.
Alca-Hub. Doc is at the computers, playing some kind of game that my non-gaming self doesn't recognize, when he gets an alert. A video pops up on one of the monitors. It's from a YouTube-type site and shows the deaths at the nightclub. It already has several thousand hits. Doc highlights the bartender's face, searches the computers and comes up with a match. "Oh, boy, Johnny McKee!" He calls Rebecca, who's curled up in bed with some case files. Doc, freaking out, tells her about the video. She asks him to meet her at the crime scene.
After the opening credits, it's suddenly morning. Did they really wait that long to go investigate? That seems... unwise. Doc is waiting outside the club when Rebecca shows up. He info-dumps about McKee. To sum up: He's smart, he likes poison, he killed 42 people at his high school reunion with cyanide. They head inside, where Hauser has already managed to spin the story to the cops as a drug overdose. While the manager digs up McKee's application, the team goes over what they know about their suspect. Doc says most of his victims were men, but nobody knew why.
Elsewhere, McKee is sitting in the lobby of a fancy spa or hotel when he notices the guy to him chuckling about something on his phone. He's watching the video of the club deaths. High-larious! McKee looks at the phone, confused, and asks, "Is that on television?" Whoever sent him to 2012 neglected to inform him about the Internet. A man with a clipboard approaches and summons McKee. He proceeds to interview McKee for a position as pool boy. McKee says he's worked at a library, a garden and a laundry before. Technically, it's all true. He gets the job because he says he loved chemistry class, so the interviewer figures that means he knows how to mix pool chemicals. Imaginary San Francisco has a 0% unemployment rate.
Rebecca and Doc are currently pulling up outside 142 Broadway, which McKee listed on his bar application as his address, but also appears to be a fake. Except, once again, he was technically telling the truth. Doc realizes that McKee's old cell number was 142 and it was in the Broadway cell block. He thinks some more and realizes that Jack Sylvane was McKee's old neighbor.
Alca-Hub. Hauser tap-taps at the computer and erases all the club death videos from the Internet. What about all the videos still on people's phones? Or downloaded on computers and flash drives? That's the "viral" part of "viral videos." Rebecca comes in and says she wants to talk to Jack Sylvane. Hauser resists at first, and then agrees to bring Jack to her. While he's at it, maybe he could bring her a barrette. Tired of seeing that hair in her eyes all the time. Rebecca pops down to the storeroom where Doc is going through McKee's belongings. Is there a reason why any of this, or any of them, actually have to be at Alcatraz? Wouldn't being on the mainland be so much easier? Anyway, McKee had a bunch of articles and books by Jules Verne. "The future is now," one article proclaims. Doc goes on to say that McKee argued that killing his classmates was "justifiable homicide" because the men were all bullies. Also among the assorted mementos is a picture of a young woman named Ginny. The right side of her face is horribly burned. Doc and Rebecca wonder if McKee isn't seeking revenge on whoever disfigured her. Why wouldn't they already know he's the one who did it? They know about all his other crimes.
Spa. McKee is hard at work at his new job when one of the clients throws a soggy towel at him. "Hey, towel boy. I need a fresh towel." And some manners. McKee hands him a dry towel with a big smile, then heads into a back room to dump a vial of yellow liquid into the pool mixture.
While he waits for the poison to kick in, he has a flashback. He meets up with Grindle in the library. He trades a girlie magazine for one of Grindle's shivs. Then he asks if Grindle is going to Movie Night. Grindle isn't interested until McKee mentions Mamie Van Doren's boobs will be on display. (Aside: Modern-day Mamie totally looks like Kim Zolciak.) By the time McKee finishes with his flashback, six men are floating dead in the pool. Did he even get his intended target? Because that guy seemed to be on his way out of the pool, what with the needing of the dry towel. I have to stop thinking or I'll never finish this.
Alcatraz. Rebecca sits down with Jack while Hauser and some of his special guards hover nearby. "My name is Rebecca Madsen," she introduces herself. "I'm a detective and I have to ask you some questions about Johnny McKee." Jack scoffs. "If I don't answer, is he going to give me to Beauregard again?" he asks, nodding toward Hauser. This piques Rebecca's interest, but Hauser reminds her to stay on task. She offers to give Jack back the picture of his wife if he talks. Rebecca can't resist asking him about his return. Like the others, he doesn't know how or why he was brought back.
A flashback plays out as Jack remembers a conversation he had with McKee. McKee talks about Ginny. They went to the malt shop for egg creams, talked all night and held hands. He told her about Jules Verne and Ginny was impressed with how smart he was. She said other boys were stupid. "She kissed me," he says. "It was the kind of kiss that no matter what happened to you the rest of your life, it's enough to know that you had that kiss." Aw. "What happened to her?" Jack asks. "I couldn't tell you," McKee says. Also kind of the truth, as we'll later learn. (In the present, Jack is going on about how much McKee loved Jules Verne. "The future is now," he says. "The future is right around the corner, he said." For real.) The flashback continues with McKee talking about men someday landing on the moon. He dips the business end of his new shiv in a jar of mashed berries.
Back to the present. Jack tells Rebecca about McKee's "killing jar," the jar of insects he kept in his cell. He says McKee got the poison from plants that grew on the island. "Some kind of nightshade." As the guards prepare to take Jack away, Rebecca sneaks in a question about Tommy Madsen. Jack tells her about the blood. He also tells her about the "hole underneath the hole," presumably the place where the Warden's subterranean visitant lives. Rebecca calls Doc and tells him about the nightshade. She asks him to find out if anyone in the city sells it. It grows all over the island, so why would McKee need to buy it? Stop thinking!
Doc pays Nikki a visit while she's in the middle of an autopsy. The tox screens came back negative for all the usual suspects, and cyanide, too. Well, they know its nightshade now, don't they? This scene doesn't serve much purpose but to get Nikki and Doc to smile at each other again.
Rebecca and Hauser stop by the spa long enough to theorize that McKee is "stepping up his game," then head off to meet Doc. Then we see McKee in some lab somewhere, fiddling with a gas canister. He feeds some of the gas into a cage. Inside, a mouse sniffs and squeaks. Man, killing a bunch of jerks in a club is one thing, but what did that mouse ever do to you?
1960. Lucy talks to McKee in the infirmary while Warden James watches on. "Poisoning is a very personal crime," Lucy says. Is it? It seems kind of distanced to me. Lucy wants to know why most of McKee's victims have been men. He avoids answering. "Do you dream about your killings, Mr. McKee?" she asks. "I don't dream, Dr. Sengupta," he says. "Ding-ding-ding, time is up," Warden James says. Is he tired of listening to McKee or trying to keep him from saying more about the dream thing?
The A-Team heads into a Chinese herb shop. The proprietor recognizes McKee's mugshot and starts speaking to them in Chinese. (Mandarin? Cantonese? I'm half Chinese and I have no idea.) Oddly enough, it's not the dim sum-loving Rebecca who understands him, but Hauser. He gives them an address where the nightshade was delivered to McKee. He also gives Hauser a parcel of herbs for his "murky chi." Heh. Can this guy join the team?
The address points them to an abandoned high school. Inside is McKee's lab. And the poor, dead mouse. They notice a faint which of fresh-cut grass. Doc takes a look at McKee's blackboard full of notes, googles something and realizes McKee has made phosgene. "In low concentrations, its odor resembles hay or grass," he reads. He also reads a list of horrible things it does. This is the point at which I, having smelled that grassy smell, would have run from the room while breathing into my shirt. Everyone just kind of stands around, continuing to breathe in low concentrations of poison. It's apparently what he used in the pool. Also on the blackboard: "The future is now." Doc just happens to have that Jules Verne article with him. It's about an underwater subway that leads San Francisco to Oakland.
Sure enough, McKee is on a train somewhere along the Transbay Tube. The car is full of men in blue and yellow vests and baseball caps. Sports thing? I have no idea. He quietly takes out the engineer with a poison-soaked rag to the face.
Flashback. The inmates have gathered in a makeshift theater for movie night. Grindle takes a seat in front of McKee while the bully Cullen takes a seat beside him. Towards the end of the movie, McKee takes out his poisonous shiv. Mamie dances and sings and then the credits roll. Most of the prisoners file out of the room, including Grindle. It's Cullen who's dead, foaming at the mouth with a small scratch at the back of his neck. Nightshades can be extremely toxic, even fatal when ingested, but I don't think the droplet he has on the end of his shiv is enough to do the job. Especially when it's just scratched into the skin. The guards discover the crime and make everyone line up. "Who do you think had the stones to kill Cullen?" Grindle asks. "Could be anyone," McKee says. "Nobody likes a bully."
Alca-Hub. The team pulls up a map of the subway system. It shows that one of the trains has stopped. They're on the phone with some guy and ask, "What's the quickest way down there?" The guy thinks for a minute. "The quickest way from the island of Alcatraz? To an underwater subway several miles away? Why, that would be a wormhole!" Or maybe he just tells them to take a maintenance car to the emergency escape tunnel.
At the same time that the team is on the phone, McKee has stopped the train and hooked up a canister of phosgene to the vent system. Safely sealed in the engineer's compartment, he watches as the gas fills the train and the passengers begin to cough. Miraculously, the team arrives on the scene, having traveled from the island in mere moments. Hauser finds an axe and breaks the windows, freeing the passengers. McKee runs for it. Rebecca chases after him. They fight in the maintenance tunnels. Rebecca knocks him over onto the rails. A jolt of electricity knocks him out. Kind of anticlimactic.
Alca-Hub. Doc and Rebecca watch the evening news. The police are apparently blaming the incident on a faulty vent system. "Where do they come up with that stuff?" Doc asks. "Where do you think?" Rebecca asks in answer. In other news, Doc has dug up some info on the mysterious Ginny. Her face was burned by acid dye, also known as ferrocyanide. They realize McKee was the culprit, but why?
For an answer, we get another flashback. Lucy and Warden James take another whack at Johnny McKee. They ask him about Ginny. He tries to put on cocky airs, but Lucy sees through him. Eventually, he admits she wasn't his girlfriend. He insists that all they did was go to the malt shop that one time, but Lucy knows different. She recounts what actually happened. Ginny took him to the roof of the gym, kissed him, got him naked, and then turned on the lights. The football team was there, laughing at him. They threw firecrackers at him, one of which blew off his testicles. "I can help you with that memory," Lucy says. "I can make it go away." Either she didn't succeed or someone else came along later and gave him back the memory. McKee tearfully admits it's all true and that he burned Ginny with acid. "You asked me what I dream about? I dream about her face."
Woodsy Prison. Hauser drops in to visit Lucy, but Jack asks to see him first. He gives back the photo of his wife. "I'm done staring at pictures of dead people, thinking about a life I'm never gonna have." You know what he does have, though? A tight T-shirt. Woof. Jack says he doesn't dream anymore. He means it in the literal sense as well as the figurative. Finally, Hauser goes to Lucy. He picks up The Carpetbaggers, amused when the dust jacket comes off and reveals the real book underneath. It's The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Because love changes people as well as gods, he begins to read to her.
Tippi Blevins disappeared from prison 50 years ago and then mysteriously reappeared to write about this show. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.
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