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A young black chef named Clarence Montgomery is sent to Alcatraz after his white girlfriend is found murdered. He maintains his innocence but few believe him. When Warden James offers Clarence an opportunity to become the prison's first "colored" head cook, Clarence is more than a little reluctant. He predicts nothing but trouble to come of it. The Warden doesn't offer him much room to refuse, so Clarence eventually accepts. His first day on the job, he cooks up a delicious feast of smoked ribs and all the fixings, but the white inmates would rather riot than eat his food.
When he shows up in 2012, he goes to fancy country clubs and woos ladies who look like his old girlfriend. He kills them, but seems confused. It's like he's compelled to act out a scene over and over, without understanding why. He seeks refuge with a former inmate and friend named Emmitt, who thinks God must have given the still-young Clarence a second chance. When Rebecca and the rest of the team latch on to the case, they notice some things that don't quite match up with the original murder in 1958. They come to the conclusion that Clarence was innocent of killing his girlfriend, but guilty of the new crimes. They again wonder why the '63s are coming back deadlier than they used to be.
In flashbacks, we see Dr. Beauregard using Lucy's techniques on Clarence, except in reverse. Instead of taking away a traumatic memory, as Lucy wants, Beauregard implants Clarence with the memories of a killer. Both he and the Warden seem to believe that Clarence is actually innocent, which makes it all the more evil of them. But dramatically intriguing, at least.
In the end, the team tracks Clarence to Emmitt's apartment. Clarence, in agony over what he's become and a fear of returning to prison, asks his friend for help. Emmitt grants him this last request and fatally shoots him. It's probably the best episode of the season so far, most likely because Hauser's team gets less screen time than usual. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode opens in a classy country club bar as a handsome young African American man buys a beer. He wanders around a bit, then notices a pretty young lady. She has fair skin and dark hair. She notices him right back. They exchange smiles and then walk out onto the patio together. They flirt (even as he politely calls her "ma'am") and then the thing you know, they've hopped into a golf cart. They veer around the course, laughing it up, then stop someplace nice and deserted. "I got us a house," he says to her. It has a garden and a window in the kitchen, he says. Instead of responding, "That sounds like something an insane person would say five minutes into knowing someone," she tells him he's cute. As they move towards each other for a kiss, images flash across the screen. They are black-and-white crime scene photos of a dead woman with her throat slit, interspersed with bright red splashes of blood. Suddenly, our would-be Romeo is carrying his new lady friend across the golf course. He lays her down near the 13th hole and carefully arranges her arms and legs. Her dress is bloody, as is his shirt. "Oh my God," he whispers, in tears. "Who did this to you?"
Flashback to Alcatraz. A guard moves the inmates towards the mess hall. The white prisoners are allowed to go first, while the black inmates wait against the wall. Several of the white inmates smirk as they walk by. "Colored boys, you're ," the guard says. He singles out Romeo and sends him to the kitchen where Warden James is waiting for him. "Clarence," the Warden greets him. He's been cooking up something at the stove and gives Clarence a spoonful to try. Clarence looks wary as he takes a sip. "Good and tasty, sir," he says when prompted for feedback. The Warden says he values candor and makes Clarence take another taste. "A lick more butter would keep the flour from seizing," Clarence says, "and a softer touch with the whisk." Warden James is impressed. Clarence is confused. The Warden says he wants Clarence to prepare the meal and supervise the kitchen. For everyone. "Last time I cooked for white folks, it ended me up in here," Clarence says. The Warden begs to differ: "I'd say the last time you took your chef's knife to a pretty white girl's throat, it ended you up in here." Warden James tells him to look at as a chance for redemption, but Clarence isn't convinced.
Present. Doc scans news reports at the Hub, checking for possible '63s. He reads everything out loud so that we don't have to pause and read the screen ourselves. He gets a notification about golf course murder. It resembles the 1958 murder of a woman named Ellen Casey. "Is that you, Clarence?" he asks.
Clarence shows up on his old friend Emmitt's doorstep. "I didn't know where else to go," he says. "They told me you had died at Lompoc," Emmitt says. He gets a good look at Clarence and notices he hasn't changed. Time has not been as kind to Emmitt, who is wheelchair-bound, with a bald head and grizzled beard. His apartment is small, dark and cluttered. "How can you be the same?" Emmitt asks. "I'm not the same," Clarence says. He opens his coat and shows Emmitt his bloody shirt. When Clarence says he killed a girl, Emmitt doesn't believe him. "You never killed anyone," he says. "You were innocent." He makes the sign of the cross and pours them some whiskey. Clarence tells him about Alcatraz, that it hasn't been 50 years for him and the people came to his cell every night to take blood. "They messed with my head," he says. "You think you know who you are, but they push you and they twist you until something in you snaps." Emmitt again reminds him of his innocence, but Clarence, distraught, insists he's not innocent anymore. Cue the intro.
1960. Lucy has a meeting with Clarence. "I understand you're the very first colored man to work at an all-white country club," she says. "See where that ended me up?" he asks. He sees her as someone who should understand what it's like to work around white people. "When people like me and you spend enough time around them, we end up getting the pointy end of the stick." Lucy gets back to the issue at hand, which is the murder of Clarence's white girlfriend. "Isn't that why you're here?" she asks. He sounds more tired than cynical when he wonders why she's asking him if she already knows. Their meeting ends with him saying, "I can only be what they want me to be."
Present. Hauser meets the rest of the team at the golf course, where the dead woman's body is still being photographed. Rebecca and Doc catch him up on their possible '63, Clarence Montgomery. The new victim has been posed just like Clarence's dead girlfriend. Rebecca talks to the victim's distraught friend, who didn't see anything or anyone, so it's kind of a waste of time. "We need a positive ID," Hauser says. "We can't be wrong about this." Or what? What could be the worst that happens? They end up accidentally solving a non-Alcatraz case?
1960. Clarence gets a shave from the prison barber while a young Emmitt watches. Clarence says he has a bad feeling about the warden's offer, but Emmitt encourages him to take it. "A Negro taking over meals at the world's most famous federal prison? That's an inspiration, and a symbol of progress to a lot of folks!" Clarence scoffs. "I don't wanna be no symbol, Emmitt." Emmitt sees it as a chance for Clarence to be his own man, but Clarence again echoes his earlier sentiment. "I can only be what they want me to be." Deputy Tiller saunters in just then. It's like he sensed a gaping lack of dickishness and felt compelled to fill it. He taunts them about Clarence's new promotion and about the Warden's plan to convert them. He takes the straight razor from the barber and finishes shaving Clarence himself. What is it with Tiller and shaving?
Morgue, present day. Rebecca and Doc drop by to ask Nikki about the case. They show her photos of the first murder in 1958. The cuts are different. The first one is jagged, the new one is clean, showing no hesitation. Nikki suggests it's not the same killer. One victim was killed by a right-handed person, the other by a leftie. To demonstrate the different cuts, she takes Doc's hands and guides them over her own throat. Doc's going to write about that in his diary tonight.
Doc and Rebecca return to the hub. Hauser, thinking that they're dealing with two different killers, is eager to hand the case back to the cops. Rebecca talks him into giving them 12 hours, and then sorts through a box Clarence's prison belongings. He had prescriptions for vitamin B6 and penicillin, a cache of delicious recipes, and an article with Emmitt's name conveniently circled. Doc immediately knows who it is. "Small-time Harlem gangster, released in '61, a big player in the Black Panther Party," he recites from memory.
They head to Emmitt's apartment for a chat. Rebecca, seeing his wheelchair, asks him if he was in the war. He says he was -- but it's not the war she's thinking of. He talks about joining up with Bobby Seale and cops shooting him in the back. Rebecca brings the topic around to Clarence. Clarence and his girlfriend were planning to run away together the night she died, Emmitt tells them. He insists his friend was innocent. Rebecca asks whether Clarence was right or left-handed, but Emmitt doesn't remember. Nikki calls just as Rebecca and Doc head out to the street. There was a hair on the victim from an African-American male, Nikki says. The world's fastest DNA test shows that he has Wilson's disease, which causes a buildup of copper in the body. (Colloidal silver in some of the inmates and now copper? Related or coincidence?) "Patients can't even move or think coherently without proper treatment," she says. The treatment? Penicillamine and B6. Back in the day, they would have used plain old penicillin.
A catering van pulls up outside a country club. Clarence gets out and tells some club worker how to reheat the food, then grabs a nice jacket from the front seat. Wouldn't the club have its own chefs?
Flashback. It's Clarence's first day in the kitchen. The menu promises Annie May's Smoked Pork ribs, peas & carrots, back eyed peas, biscuits and Goldie's Carolina Tea Cakes. Clarence is hard at work, saucing up a tray of ribs, when Warden James helps himself to a sample. He makes appreciative noises. "If we were in private, you would see my true intentions with this bone." Dirty! Clarence beams and thanks the Warden for the new job. "Mark the day, son," says Warden James. "Your new future has begun." Later, in retrospect, this will sound so much more ominous.
Warden James heads out into the mess hall, which is divided down racial lines and separated by both a physical and metaphorical gulf. The inmates sit politely, their plates of food untouched. Clarence stands at the service window, eager to see how his cooking is received. The Warden tries to explain to them the concept of parley, of sitting down with one's enemies and being civilized. "Bon appétit," he says as a signal for them to start eating. The black inmates tuck in, but the white inmates shove their trays aside. Warden James tries again: "I said, 'Bon appétit,' you sons of bitches." Heh. The men begin shouting their protests. "Rome wasn't built in a day," Tiller says, having watched quietly from the sidelines. Warden James skedaddles, leaving Tiller to deal with the stink that's about to erupt. The men start throwing food, then punches. White inmates grab Clarence and proceed to beat him savagely. Tear gas flows from the overhead canisters.
Present. Clarence orders a beer at the country club bar. It's apparently host to a wedding reception. Clarence catches sight of a TV across the room. Violent images flash across the screen, along with the world "guilty" like an accusation. He looks disconcerted for a moment. An attractive young lady -- another of the fair-skinned, dark-haired variety -- walks up to him. They smile and chat and he invites her for a walk. Ladies, I don't care how good-looking a guy is: don't go on a secluded walk with him a hot minute after you've met him.
The we see of this young lady, it's the morning and she's being wheeled away in a body bag. The A-Team shows up to wonder why Clarence has started killing when he was innocent of the original crime. The Chief of Police asks Hauser to meet with him later. Hey, whatever it takes to get him out of the scene. Rebecca and Doc wander off and notice the catering van. He just left that there all night? They take a look at the menu. Annie May's smoked pork ribs make another appearance. Has Clarence been back long enough to work his recipes into a wedding menu? Those things are decided pretty well in advance. I'm thinking too much again.
Flashback. A guard pulls Clarence from his cell, punches him for good measure, and then escorts him downstairs. They pass through the Broadway cell block along the way so that Clarence can endure the shouts and slurs of white inmates. In a dank basement I don't think we've seen before, guards strap Clarence into a chair. Dr. Beauregard injects him with something. He turns on a film projector and tapes Clarence's eyelids open. "If it works in one direction," Beauregard says, "I don't see why it can't work in reverse." He zaps Clarence with 60 volts of electricity while gory images flash across the screen. Some appear to be of his dead girlfriend, others of random acts of violence and mutilation. "Enjoy the movie," Beauregard says.
Present. Rebecca and Doc head to the caterer. Clarence sees them from the kitchen and bolts. Rebecca chases after him, but loses him outside.
Flashback. Clarence is now on laundry duty. Tiller comes in to rub a meat tenderizer in his wounds. "Can't say I didn't warn you," Tiller says. "This prison isn't ready for a cook like you." Clarence keeps working and tries to ignore him, but Tiller really insists on showing his ass. "You people just don't realize what you are." Clarence finally looks at him. "You people?" he echoes. Tiller clarifies. He's not talking about "coloreds" but about criminals. Clarence tries to hold onto his last shred of innocence, but Tiller insists he killed his girlfriend. "Now get back to work, son." With that, Tiller departs to submit his application for the Asshole of the Year award. A prisoner comes in to pick up his laundry. It's that chatty guy who so infuriated Ernest Cobb a few episodes back. He's just as chatty now. Clarence picks up a box cutter (would they really let prisoners have access to those?) and slits the poor guy's throat right when he's in the middle of complimenting Clarence's cooking. (He sneaked a taste in the middle of the fight.) Oh, Clarence -- you're supposed to kill your critics, not your fans! Clarence looks confused as Chatty Cathy drops to the floor. He sees flashes from the torture reel and begins to pose his still-twitching victim's body.
Present. Doc and Rebecca go to Nikki and ask her to track Clarence's prescriptions. It's a good thing that whoever took him in '63 didn't give him magic healing abilities like they did with some of the other prisoners. She tracks the prescriptions to Emmitt. "Thanks, Nikki, I owe you a drink," Rebecca says. "Yeah, me, too," Doc says. "How about tomorrow?" Nikki asks. Did the hot girl just ask him out? Why, yes. Yes, she did! Doc is confused, leading Rebecca to mutter an exasperated, "Oh, my God." Heh.
The A-Team knock Emmitt's door. Rebecca hears a shotgun cocking inside. "Doc, get back!" she shouts. They all take cover. Emmitt blasts a hole through the door. At first I laughed because she didn't also warn Hauser, but it's probably just because she figures he already knows what to do. Emmitt shoots the door again. No way he's getting his deposit back now. Hauser slips out the fire exit and makes his way around to the other side of Emmitt's apartment. Rebecca tells Emmitt that she knows Clarence was innocent in 1958, but Emmitt's not budging. "The Lord gave Clarence a second chance," he says. "You ain't taking that chance from him!" He shoots again and again. Doc shouts to him that Clarence is killing women.
Hauser makes his way to the landing outside the bedroom window. Clarence sits inside, looking miserable. Hauser tries to convince him to come out. "I know you were innocent," he says. "Not anymore," Clarence says. "I killed those girls on the golf course." Clarence goes into the living room, tells his friend the same thing. "I can't stop myself," he adds. He begs his friend for help. "Don't let them take me back in." Emmitt looks at him for a long time, and then shoots him in the chest just as Rebecca kicks in the Swiss cheese of his front door. Emmitt surrenders without a fight.
Park. Hauser meets with the Chief of Police. "My boys are getting ruffled," he says. "They don't take kindly to all these usurpations." To smooth things over, Hauser gives him a file with information about Ellen Casey's true murderer. The mugshot shows an older white man.
Back at the Hub, Rebecca and Doc watch the chief's press conference. They wonder what turned Clarence into a murderer. Doc mentions some weird experiments being done in the prisons back then. He didn't think they were being conducted at Alcatraz... until now.
Flashback. Lucy has another meeting with Clarence. She shows him pictures of Ellen's posed body and one of the recently deceased Chatty. Lucy says he can't move past his trauma. "You're forced to repeat it, like a skipping record," she says. "Your record is stuck at the moment you killed Ellen Casey." He denies killing her. Lucy says she wants to help him, offers to take the memories away, but Clarence doesn't think he can be stopped now. He looks like he's going to cry.
Dr. Beauregard and Warden James watch from the room over. "Clarence Montgomery, the only innocent lamb in our pasture," the Warden says. "Not anymore," Beauregard reminds him. Apparently the Warden asked Beauregard to conduct the experiment, but he's still not giving the good doctor much to go on. Beauregard wants to know what's being done to the blood between the time he takes it from the inmates and puts it back in. "I don't do anything to it, Milton," Warden James says. "What kind of warden would I be if I kept secrets from my staff?" Beauregard looks like he doesn't believe him, but he doesn't press the issue. He wants to survive to the end of the season, at least.
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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