Tag Archives: Alcatraz

‘Alcatraz’ ponders bullies in ‘Johnny McKee’

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Each week, the Fox thriller “Alcatraz” lets loose another former inmate of the island prison into modern-day San Francisco. And more than a few of those inmates, we’ve seen, have had some motivation for their criminal behavior.

Tonight’s episode of the series, “Johnny McKee,” offered the most overt explanation yet for what makes a killer a killer.

As Hauser (Sam Neill), Madsen (Sarah Jones) and Soto (Jorge Garcia) pursue McKee (Adam Rothenberg), a 1950s mass murder who killed with poison and is taking up his old habits in the modern-day, flashbacks show McKee as a man — admittedly unhinged and homicidal — bullied into killing another inmate while in prison.

There’s not a lot of sympathy to be had for McKee, of course. Ultimately he tells prison psychiatrist Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra) — who also made the leap through time along with the inmates and Dr. Milton Beauregard (Leon Rippy) — the motivation for his first mass murder, more than a half-century ago. It’s pretty dire but doesn’t prompt viewers to think, “Yeah, I can totally see why he’s killing dozens of people.”

In the present day, Banerjee has been shot by a sniper and lies in a coma. Hauser, who knew Banerjee when he was a young guard, keeps careful — even loving — watch over the doctor.

The show, which has been struggling in the ratings, continues to tease with overall mythology and secrets. Madsen’s grandfather, an inmate on the loose in the present, is mentioned. There are also sinister overtones to the modern-day prison where Hauser — who we learn has the authority to eliminate viral videos from the Internet if they threaten to reveal the existence of his little project — keeps the recaptured inmates.

I’m still enjoying “Alcatraz,” but I’m increasingly worried that becoming involved in the show’s mythology — and that’s the best part of the show, really; the hunting down of inmates is becoming pretty routine — is going to pay off only in frustration when Fox yanks the show.

Next week’s episode, like an earlier one in which the first guard returned, looks to be interesting. An inmate who was innocent back in the day returns. But is he a killer now? (I’m guessing no.)

 

 

‘Alcatraz’ widens its mystery

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I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Tonight’s “Alcatraz” — the Fox show about how 300 prisoners and guards disappeared from the island prison in 1963, only to reappear in the present without aging a day — took the show in a new direction, and that’s a good thing.

As intriguing as the first few weeks of the show have been, “Alcatraz” threatened to turn into “returning prisoner of the week.” A guy shows up in modern-day San Francisco, commits a crime, the team of investigators recognize him as one of the former prisoners, they track him, catch him and throw him in a creepy modern-day version of the prison, out in the woods somewhere.

In tonight’s episode, “Guy Hastings,” the first returning guard shows up. Hastings is a good guy but initially seems as bad as the escaped prisoners, roughing up and kidnapping investigator Rebecca’s (Sarah Jones) beloved Uncle Ray (the equally beloved character actor Robert Forster).

Thanks to the change-up and an expanded role in the story for Rebecca’s grandfather, an Alcatraz returnee who’s up to something, the episode felt pretty fresh.

And the series benefits immeasurably from the presence of Forster, a veteran of B-movies and cult classics like “Jackie Brown.” It’s startling to see how Forster has aged — gracefully certainly — but his appealing mug and gravelly voice are reassuring as anything on TV right now.

The show has apparently been doing pretty well in the ratings and the producers have recently promised that future episodes will continue to mix things up, deviating from the prisoner of the week stories.

“Alcatraz” still has me hooked.

‘Alcatraz’ developing key mythology?

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True fans don’t have to be reminded, unfortunately, of TV series that loaded up on their own mythology only to disappoint fans before the end.

How bizarre was it that “The X-Files” — once one of my favorites shows — spent several seasons establishing that FBI agent Mulder’s sister had been taken by aliens … only to throw all that out the window with a late-in-the-series revelation that Samantha Mulder was kidnapped by a plain old human killer?

How inexplicable was it that “Lost” — once one of my favorite shows — spent several seasons laying out what seemed to be an intricate backstory for the island and its occupants … only to ignore most of it, explain the rest away and, most mind-bogglingly of all, prove its early Internet critics right by declaring in the final episode that the characters we had grown to love had been hanging out in limbo after all.

So upon watching “Alcatraz” tonight, I found myself hoping that the series’ makers really do have the key to the mystery they’re developing.

If you haven’t watched this show, which aired its fourth installment in three weeks tonight, the basic plot is that more than 300 prisoners and guards disappeared from the island prison of Alcatraz in 1963. They’re reappearing in modern-day San Francisco, they haven’t aged a day and most seem to be on some kind of quest. Not to mention that they’ve returned to their old habits of bank robbery, kidnapping and murder.

Tonight’s episode, “Cal Sweeney,” introduced a bank robber whose objective seems to be an old-fashioned key. It’s the second of these keys that have shown up. Now they’re in the hands of federal investigator Hauser (Sam Neill) running the inmate recovery project.

I’m really hoping there’s some meaning to the keys, just like I’m hoping there’s some meaning to investigator Rebecca Madsen’s (Sarah Jones) discovery that her grandfather was a convict and is now roaming the present.

As for researcher Diego Soto (played by lovable “Lost” grad Jorge Garcia)? I’m just enjoying his amiable presence.

The show is teasing us with several little mysteries, including characters who seem to be represented in both time periods.

But if those keys mean something now … they damn well better mean something later.

Or Samantha Mulder’s ghost just might step out of that flying saucer and open up a can of suspension of disbelief.

‘Alcatraz,’ ‘Justified’ have strong second weeks

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What a fun feeling when two TV shows — one a returning favorite in its third season, the other brand new out of the box — start off strong.

I’m playing catch-up here, but I wanted to mention this week’s installments of “Justified,” airing Tuesdays on FX, and “Alcatraz,” airing Mondays on Fox.

In the second week of it’s third season, “Justified” continues the compelling story of Kentucky’s small-time crooks and the federal marshals who must deal with them, particularly Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) and Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) respectively.

In Tuesday night’s episode, Givens was reunited with an old partner — and an old flame, from the sexual tension on display — named Karen Goodall. The inside joke here is that Goodall is actually Karen Sisco, a federal deputy previously played in the movie “Out of Sight” by Jennifer Lopez and — in a TV series a few years back — Carla Gugino. Like “Justified,” Sisco’s stories are drawn from the works of author Elmore Leonard.

Gugino returns to the character in “Justified” — she’s apparently signed for a few episodes — and it’s fun watching her and Olyphant kind of circling each other, particularly since Goodall/Sisco returns just as Givens is about to settle down with his ex-wife, Winona.

Tuesday’s episode — dealing with the murder of another marshal — wasn’t as strong as last week’s season premiere. But you can’t beat any show that features Olyphant, Gugino, Nick Searcy as Chief Deputy Art Mullen and Goggins.

There’s also a good introduction of Mykelti Williamson as a new character, a bad guy who is as menacing as he is folksy.

As for “Alcatraz,” I think this week’s episode, “Kit Nelson,” was my favorite so far.

If you haven’t seen “Alcatraz,” the show’s mythology is that, in 1963, the San Francisco island prison wasn’t shut down because all the prisoners were transferred. No, it was shut down because 300 prisoners and guards disappeared.

Now, a half-century later, those prisoners are reappearing, and a crew of cops and experts is pursuing them. Sam Neill, Sarah Jones and Jorge Garcia make up the solid cast of investigators.

This week’s show teased us with a little more mythology of the show. Remember Dr. Beauregard, the unseen medical officer of the modern-day prison in which Neill’s character is lodging recovered prisoners? This week’s episode revealed that Beauregard is not only Neill’s medical shaman in the present but was also the sinister doctor at the prison in the 1960s. And he hasn’t aged a day.

That little revelation, plus the beginning of a mystery involving Jones’ grandfather — a convict on the loose in modern San Francisco — and tidbits about the traumatic past of Garcia’s character are enough to allay my worries that the show might too easily fall into the “escaped prisoner of the week” trap.

And since the show is from “Lost” producer J.J. Abrams, I had to laugh when, out of nowhere, the show introduced a hatch in the middle of the woods from which a kidnapped boy escaped.

I’m not surprised to be enjoying “Justified” this much. I am a little surprised — pleasantly surprised — to be digging “Alcatraz” so much.

 

‘Alcatraz’ a breakout hit? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)

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So this is what we knew about “Alcatraz” going into tonight’s premiere:

It’s a new Fox show from producer J.J. Abrams (“Lost,” the new “Star Trek” movie series).

It stars Jorge Garcia, who played lovable Hurley from “Lost,” and also stars Sam Neill and Sarah Jones.

It’s about a generations-spanning mystery and coverup: The 300-plus inmates and guards at Alcatraz, the island prison off San Francisco, didn’t get transferred when the prison was shut down in 1963. They all … disappeared.

And now they’re coming back.

Here’s what we know after seeing the first two hours:

Not a lot more.

“Alcatraz” might — just might — be the kind of show that I’ll watch every week for years, like “Lost.” It might be the kind of show I’ll wish I had watched every week, like “Fringe.” There’s enough sci-fi goodness, enough mystery, enough conspiracy and enough likable characters to make me give it a try for a while longer.

Jones plays a cop who gets drawn into the Alcatraz mystery when one of the long-missing prisoners shows up, not a day older, on the streets of San Francisco and begins killing people. Garcia is the author of several books about the prison and its history who, needless to say, didn’t know about the mystery and coverup.

Neill is … kind of a mystery, and maybe the best one about the show so far. He’s now a government agent, but back in 1963 he was a young cop who discovered the island prison was empty. In the years since, he’s been waiting, apparently, for the inmates to begin reappearing. So far he’s mum on just what he knows and how he knows it. A conspiracy is pretty well indicated: The prisoners, as they start showing up, have been outfitted with money and guns and in some cases given missions, including, in one case, the recovery of a mysterious key.

Neill’s character is also interesting because we can’t quite tell yet if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. When he head-butts one recovered prisoner and shoots another in the hand, the actions seem somewhat gratuitous if not a little uncalled for.

But when he lodges the recovered inmates in a new, middle-of-nowhere prison that replicates, in gleaming style, the old Alcatraz, he seems pretty keen on torturing them.

“We’ll see how you enjoy a visit from … Dr. Beauregard,” Neill says, or something like that, smiling slightly.

Okay, makers of “Alcatraz.” I’m in for a bit longer, for several reasons, including the appeal of Garcia and Jones as an unorthodox crime-solving team, the mystery of Neill’s character and the intriguing premise.