In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
5,000,000 things happened in this episode. It's difficult to judge yet if they were interesting or relevant. Some of them may have actually happened in the episode. It's hard to sort things out when they insist on showing two episodes in one night. Time compression is hell on Alcatraz inmates and recappers alike.
1960: Warden James and some unknown scientist give Tommy back his blood, having added silver and other mysterious things to it. He survives the process and the Warden takes him on a nice day out and about Nob Hill. This isn't out of the kindness of his heart, mind you, but because Dr. Scientist is testing out how well Tommy can be tracked by the silver in his blood. Even with 1960 technology, they can pinpoint his exact locations. We also get some of the backstory on "Ghost" from the episode, who earned his nickname by being declared officially dead during a failed escape attempt. (The island kept pulling him back. Sounds familiar.) Tommy, realizing he's hopelessly under the Warden's thumb, shoos brother Ray from Alcatraz.
2012: Looking for protection, Ghost checks himself into a mental institution. Tommy kidnaps a doctor and coerces her to get him inside. Ghost decides to kill himself rather than hand over the key. Before Tommy can search him for it, Rebecca and the team show up. There's a pretty awesome car chase that ends with Rebecca catching Tommy. Her victory is brief, though, because then he stabs her in the gut. Meanwhile, Doc has found the key, but he chooses to stay with Rebecca in the hospital rather than find out what's beyond that secret door. It's a good thing, too, because it's kind of a letdown. Hauser finds clunky old computers, a tracking map and Dr. Scientist. He's groggy, but otherwise fine, and definitely not the mutated mole-man this recapper was hoping for.
Other stuff: Hauser is desperate to get Lucy to safety, fearing she'll be tracked/killed. There's some kind of military tie-in to the whole thing. Pipsqueak Harlan is somehow at the heart of everything and the Warden (or somebody) is really pissed at him. Oh and Rebecca maybe sort of dies at the end. Stay tuned for the full weecap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's a sunny day in San Francisco when Rebecca finds herself lying in the street, hands clutched to a bloody wound in her abdomen while the husk of a flipped car burns behind her. She's in agony, but all I can think is, "That top she's wearing is a very pretty shade of blue." And such a nice change from her Peter Pan outfits.
Let's go back in time 36 hours earlier to when Rebecca meets her former boss at Ray's bar. She's wearing the same shirt. That's a long time to wear a shirt. Anyway, she wants to know about her partner. She thinks his murderer knew him. Her old boss admits that her partner was being investigated by Internal Affairs. He was getting "suspicious payments" from none other than Broadway Mutual.
Meanwhile, that Ghost guy from the last episode is trying to get himself checked into a psychiatric hospital. The lady at the desk ignores him until he holds up his insurance card from Broadway Mutual. His name is Joseph Limerick. That is a great name. "I'm an Alcatraz inmate from 1963," he says. "There are some bad, bad people chasing me and I need a quiet place to lay low." Yeah, like using his insurance card from where he's employed by those people won't get him found out. As he gets settled into his room, his takes some time to study his ill-gotten key.
1960. Joe Limerick sits huddled in his cell, wrapped in a blanket and blowing into his hands for warmth. Tommy Madsen in the cell whispers to him. "Hey, Joe, is it true you tried to escape?" he asks. "I did," Joe says. "The riptide kept tossing me back." Tommy says he heard that the warden filled out a death certificate for Joe and declared him officially dead. "Guess that makes you a ghost." Now Warden James comes with two guards to take Tommy to the infirmary. They strap him down. Tommy's afraid they're taking more blood from him, but Warden James says they're giving it back to him. A new guy -- silver-haired with birdlike features -- hooks up an IV with a bottle of Tommy's blood. He inserts the needle into Tommy's wrist. "What have you done to it?" Tommy asks. "Lots," the new doctor says. Tommy shakes and strains as the blood transfuses back into his body. He says he can taste metal. Warden James watches with perhaps some discomfort.
Present day. Tommy breaks into a house through the back door. (Seriously, folks, don't have windows near your locks.) It's night and the house is quiet except for a TV on low volume. Tommy finds a man snoozing in the living room and smacks him in the face. He aims a gun at the man. "Where's your wife?" he asks. "Not here," the man says. The man's little girl sees this scary scene and quietly flees from the house. Tommy tells the man to text his wife. Cue the intro. This may be the last time we have to hear it!
Woodsy prison. Dr. Beauregard examines Lucy. She wonders why some of the prisoners got silver and some didn't, and what it's for. Dr. Beauregard doesn't know, and had always assumed she knew. He's working on a way to isolate the silver from the blood. After the exam, Lucy finds Hauser in another room, watching the tape of her interview with Ernest Cobb. He's just seen the part where Cobb says she's a target. "No one's safe as long as they keep coming back," Lucy says. "Still, we need to limit your exposure," Hauser says. Lucy scoffs and suggests he just keep her in a cell. Before he can come up with a retort, he gets a message from Rebecca. They have a lead on Tommy Madsen.
Everyone heads over to a local police precinct where the little girl was taken by a good Samaritan. Even though she's in shock and hasn't said a word, they've somehow figured out that something happened in her house. "She ran away from this man," Hauser says, holding up a sketch that looks like either Tommy Madsen or Frankenstein's monster. You could serve tea off the top of his head. Since the girl hasn't spoken, they don't know her name or address. (They wave away her ability to identify Tommy by saying the sketch artist used "a catalog of common faces." They also probably used magic, since the child only saw Tommy from the back and in the dark and only for a split second.) Rebecca and Doc go in to talk to the little girl. Doc gets her to open up by drawing a picture of a cat and asking her to color it in.
Flashback. Tommy wakes up in a nice hotel with a sweet view of the Bay. Before he can take time to enjoy it, Warden James comes in with room service. "Breakfast?" Tommy is freaking out. "Am I dead?" Warden James confirms that he's alive and well. "Son, you should be a nickel with the amount of silver coursing through your veins!" Even when nickels still had silver in them, it wasn't very much. Tommy notices that he feels pretty great. "What's it for?" he asks. "Potential," Warden James answers. "The great things I can do for you... the great things you can do for me." The Warden invites him to go on a walk. But... the breakfast will get cold!
Present. Tommy waits in the little girl's house. Her dad, tied up, gets himself free and retrieves a gun from under the bed. The girl's mother walks in. Tommy meets her at the door. "Georgia, get down!" her husband says, shooting from the top of the stairs. Shots are exchanged. Tommy grabs the woman.
Rebecca, having now gotten an address out of the little girl, shows up with Hauser and assorted cops. They find the dad at the top of the stairs, wounded but alive.
Tommy's been wounded, too. He's in a bathroom somewhere while Georgia stitches up a gash in his leg with what looks like dental floss. Mm, minty fresh. She cries, but manages to do a fine job. "You're going to have to see a real doctor," she says. "Nah, just stitch it up," he tells her. "Trust me, it'll heal."
Dawn, the day. Hauser meets with a military guy in a spiffy little private plane somewhere. They shake hands and greet each other like they're maybe friends, or maybe used to be. I can't tell the guy's rank from his camo, but given that he's using he must be pretty important to be using a private plane as an office. That, or he thinks he's Oliver Queen on Smallville. Hauser asks the guy to get him a meeting with Harlan Simmons and explains about Tommy Madsen. "Does this mean the Warden is back?" Mr. Military asks. Hauser promises to ask Tommy just that, but Mr. Military can't get him an audience with Harlan. He hands over an envelope - "The documents you requested." They're new IDs and passports for Lucy. Mr. Military offers to get Lucy to Paraguay under the guise of working on some aquifer project. He also orders Hauser to brief his team. Thank you.
Hub. Lucy, Rebecca and Doc try to connect the dots. Somehow, everything keeps coming back to Harlan and they don't know why. Hauser shows up with the answers and brings them into the sub-hub, or, as an awed Doc calls it, "the Batcave behind the Batcave." Hauser shows them the two big keys and tells them about the "old Civil War dungeons" they're digging out under the lighthouse. They need a third key to open the door they've uncovered. Nothing else will apparently open the door. Have they tried lasers? I bet lasers would open it. "The keys belonged to the warden," Hauser says. "Warden James?" Doc asks. No, some other warden who's never been mentioned. Duh. Hauser says Tommy Madsen may be working for Warden James. Apropos of nothing, I find Sam Neill's acting choices to be uncomfortably of the David Caruso variety. All the odd head angles and stiff-necked posing. Maybe he needs a chiropractor.
Anyway, Doc notices a doohickey in the corner of the room that measures "thermal and seismic activity." Warren pipes up to explain their theory: "The jump was caused by a geothermal event, possibly a tectonic plate slippage." Doc is tickled that they call it a jump, too. Warren explains they sometimes also call it "time dilation" and "quantum tunneling" and "mysterious plot element not yet figured out by the writers, either." In other words, nobody really knows. Hauser's finally telling them all this because he has to go away for a while, so he can take Lucy somewhere safe. This is news to an unhappy Lucy, who's just walked into the room. She has news of her own: The retinal scanner at the hospital where Georgia works was just activated. Also, the hospital is owned by Broadway Mutual. Wouldn't it have been nice if they'd dropped hints about Broadway Mutual all season long? Kind of like with Doctor Who and that whole "Bad Wolf" thing.
While Tommy marches Georgia through the hospital, we flash back to 1960. Tommy and Warden James enjoy lunch at a little Italian restaurant. "I feel like I've been painted into a Norman Rockwell tableau," the Warden grumps. "I ask you to name your price and you request a cannoli and a glass of Italian red." Dude, if it's an amaretto chocolate cannoli, that'd be my price, too. Tommy recalls meeting his wife at this very restaurant. He sounds very sweet about the whole thing. The Warden offers to grant him a perfect day. Whatever he wants most in the world. Tommy watches a family eating across the room and knows what he wants.
Present. Tommy barges into Ghost's room. Nobody's there, so Tommy starts rifling through things, looking for the key. Ghost comes in a few moments later, sees Tommy and pales as to make his nickname seem all the more appropriate. He bolts, and Tommy follows after him, dragging Georgia along.
Woodsy prison. Dr. Beauregard shows Lucy his latest findings. "The silver emits a frequency," he says. "Problem is, I can't separate it. The silver attaches itself to the platelets and becomes one in the same." That's dumb for reasons a mere weecap doesn't have time to cover. Lucy realizes that since she'll always have the silver, she can always be tracked. She and Dr. Beauregard have a sad conversation about whether or not Lucy will go with Hauser. Dr. Beauregard proves more insightful than his curmudgeonly exterior would indicate. He wonders if Lucy feels obligated to go. Hauser waited 50 years for her. "He's not the same man I fell in love with," she says. "Part of him is missing." Show needs more of these moments. These two were so at odds in 1960, and yet they have the keenest rapport in 2012.
1960. Warden James brings Tommy to a somewhat dilapidated house in Oakland. A little boy plays in the front yard. It's Tommy's young song, whom he hasn't seen in three years. Alas, when he goes to talk to his son, the boy takes one look at him and runs into the house. It doesn't take 50 years to grow apart from someone. Tommy sniffs back tears. Even the Warden looks sad for him. Tommy gathers himself up and goes back to the Warden. "I know what I want from you."
Present. Ghost runs until he has nowhere to go. Tommy pulls a gun on him. "I don't have it," Ghost says. Tommy doesn't believe him, so Ghost tries a different tack: "He'll kill me." Tommy promises to protect him from Harlan, but Ghost doesn't see any way out of this mess. He turns and hurls himself through the nearest window. What flimsy glass. Even though he appears to have fallen from the second floor, the impact kills him up pretty good. Rebecca drives up just in time to see Tommy looking down from the shattered remains of the window.
She chases after him, through the building and into the parking garage. Tommy hot-wires a Dodge Charger and speeds past Rebecca. Luckily, a pretty blue Mustang happens by and she commandeers it from some poor fool who's about to have to fill out a lot of insurance forms.
Before the exciting car chase can get underway, the show cuts to commercials. Then it starts again with a flashback. Way to kill the momentum, show. Back in Alcatraz, Tommy meets with his brother Ray. He wants Ray to leave Alcatraz and adopt his son. He's already got the papers drawn up, no doubt thanks to Warden James. Ray protests. He hasn't given up on getting Tommy out of prison. "I killed her," Tommy says, speaking of his wife. "I waited for her to come home, and I stuck a gun in her mouth, and I pulled the trigger. The kid got sprayed with her blood." Whether he's telling the truth or not is a mystery. It might be like when a guy raises a little bear, and then he has to set the bear free, so he has to scare the bear away so that it never trusts human beings again. Ray still wants to help him, so Tommy bangs his fist into a table and roars at him to go. Go, little bear! Go, and never get too close to humans again!
Present. Finally, the car chase! In a scene that evokes the famous chase scene from Bullitt, Rebecca and Tommy peel through the streets of San Francisco. Lots of vrooming and hot cars and smoke spewing from tires as they grab onto pavement for traction.
Hospital. Georgia tells Hauser about Tommy looking for a key. Her daughter is brought to her, right there at the crime scene, which doesn't seem wise, but whatever. Hauser digs through dead Ghost's pockets and comes up empty-handed. Doc conducts a second search and finds the key sewn into the cuff of Ghost's pants. "Give it to me," Hauser says. "No," Doc says. "I'm gonna find Rebecca and then we'll all go." Hauser pulls a gun on Doc. Lucy stays his hand. Doc ignores him and gets into Rebecca's car.
Back to Tommy and Rebecca's chase scene. More vrooming up and down hills. Tires squealing. Rebecca rams her borrowed Mustang into the Dodge twice. The Dodge flips multiple times and comes to a fiery rest on a deserted street. Rebecca rushes over to pull Tommy from the wreckage just before the whole thing explodes. She aims her gun at him. He tries the "we're family" angle, but gets nowhere. "You wanna know why I killed your partner?" he tries. "He was being paid to keep eyes on you." Harlan wanted to get to Tommy and the other inmates. Tommy explains that Harlan broke a promise to Warden James. Rebecca orders Tommy to turn around, which he reluctantly does, but then he starts talking about her parents. "Did Ray tell you what happened to them? How they really died?" While Rebecca processes that, Tommy pulls out a knife and stabs her in the gut with it. He lowers her gently to the ground, whispering, "Sh, sh, sh." While she writhes in agony, he drives off in her borrowed Mustang. He must not want her dead, because he declines to turn her into a human speed bump as he makes his escape. Doc drives up and runs over to her, shouting her name.
In the scene, Rebecca is wheeled into the ER. Doc, Hauser and Lucy pace in the waiting room. "This is why I need to take you away," Hauser says. "And exactly why I can't leave," Lucy retorts. Hauser is adamant about not losing her again. Lucy points out they've already survived 50 years and a bullet to the heart. "What could possibly come between us?" Death? Hauser's probably inching up on his average life expectancy. Ray joins them in the waiting room and angrily orders Hauser out. After a moment, he recognizes Lucy. "You're one of them!" As Lucy and Hauser leave, Doc hands over the key. Hauser invites him to come, but Doc thinks it's more important to stay with Rebecca.
Lighthouse. Hauser and Lucy finally get to open the door and find what looks like the 1960s version of their fancy hub. There are clunky computer stations, but most importantly there's a map of the country with little Lite-Brite push-pins. Each pin bears the number of an inmate. Lucy thinks they're the projected return locations for each inmate. There are pins all over the country.
1960. Dr. Scientist is arranging some push-pins in the lighthouse hub when Warden James and Tommy return from their boys' day out. Dr. Scientist shows them a list detailing all of Tommy's whereabouts for the day. "We can track them," he says. "You can track them," Warden James corrects him. "Me without you and your science... All my best intentions carry no water." They smile at each other. "Water, elixir of life," Dr. Scientist says. Tommy's thinking, "Oh, crap, there's two of them!" He's freaking out a little bit and freaks out a little more when Dr. Scientist confesses he's been watching Tommy since 1952. "You were in Korea, too?" Tommy asks. Dr. Scientist says nothing. Warden James calls Tommy their "advance man" and Dr. Scientist tells him he'll be out in three years. Tommy's like, "Free?" They scoff.
Present day. Still poking around the lighthouse hub, Lucy and Hauser hear a clank behind them. When they go to investigate, they find Dr. Scientist curled up in the corner, mumbling to himself. Empty food cans lie scattered around him. Has he been there all this time, subsisting on corn and beans? He looks to be the same age. "What year is it?" he asks. "It's 2012," Hauser tells him. Dr. Scientist laughs and laughs like he's done gone crazy or is well on his way.
Hospital. Doctors are still working on Rebecca. Her heart stops. They do chest compressions, zap her with the defibrillator, nothing works. They don't try for long, though, because the episode is almost over. Someone calls her time of death as the heart monitor's flatline tone carries us into the end of the season.
So. Overall, a frustrating season. A lot of potential, largely unmet. A few questions answered, many not. Why bring back inmates that they couldn't track? (Since not all of them had the silver.) Why prep Tommy three years ahead of his departure date? Who's running the modern-day operation? The past operation? Why was Hauser so secretive when he just ended up having to spill the beans anyway? What makes Tommy's blood so special? Most importantly of all, why did they include Santiago Cabrera in the show's promotional materials when he showed up for all of ten seconds on the premiere?
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.