Alcatraz recap: Cracking the Secrets of the Rock

This week’s episode of Alcatraz had less to do with the psyche of “the killer-of-the-week” and more to do with teasing the mystery of the reappearance of the so-called ’63s — which was definitely for the best. Even though the show has competently engaged us during these serial killer-centric last two episodes, let’s face facts: There are plenty of shows about snipers and child-killers, but there is a comparative dearth of programming entailing time-traveling prison inmates.

Speaking of time bandits, this week’s inmate was bank robber Cal Sweeney, an unsettling specimen of Aryan race pulchritude who favored using an airgun as his weapon. (A little No Country for Old Men flavor! Okay, a lot of No Country for Old Men flavor.) A veteran of Alcatraz, Sweeney was suddenly on the loose in 2012 San Fran and up to his old tricks: using his good looks (and hokey winks) to seduce lonely bank tellers, drug them, and then empty out the bank’s safety deposit boxes.

But unlike most bank robbers, Sweeney did something unusual after his first job in present day: He showed up at the house of one of his robbery-victims and demanded to know the story behind the bejeweled necklace he had just lifted from the man’s safety deposit box. When the befuddled man realized something wasn’t quite right, he was punished with an airgun to the hand and face. Grisly.

Some slick but inexpedient detective work brought Det. Madsen and Doc Soto to the house just in time to unveil the poor guy’s bloody, mangled corpse to his shocked wife. Police work! Well, she’s young and he’s new… they have time to learn.

Thanks to a ’60s flashback, we learned that Sweeney was the leading Baron of Bartering at Alcatraz, controlling the flow of cigarettes on the Rock. He even had a dippy, fresh-faced protege to hang on his every jaded bit of advice. But Alcatraz wasn’t big enough for two bosses, and to put Sweeney in his place, Deputy Warden Tiller “tossed his cell” and stole a hidden tin box that apparently meant a lot to Sweeney.

Intent on getting his box back, Sweeney finagled his way into an “extracurricular” activity for inmates: serving drinks and food at Tiller’s birthday party. Apparently the salary of an Alcatraz warden wasn’t substantial enough to pay for less-murderous servers.

NEXT: The unexpected time-hopping guest at E.B. Tiller’s birthday party

Felonious waitstaff aside, there was another curiosity at the birthday dinner: Dr. Lucy Sengupta (who is the comatose Lucy Banerjee in 2012) was present at the 1960 fete. Over dinner, Lucy explained her belief that a criminal’s maladjusted behavior was often due to a traumatic memory from their past, and she was hopeful that she could alter criminals’ minds and thereby rehabilitate them (tests on rats had proved promising, but don’t they always?).

Clearly, these tests with memory tampering and brain rewiring will help explain what the ‘63s are doing in the present day. What isn’t clear is how much Lucy has to do with “the final product,” as it were. Considering that she seemed disdainful of her jaded colleagues and genuinely interested in criminal reform (at least during this scene), it seems possible that her work was eventually hijacked by less-altruistic people. And if that’s the case, how much does 2012 Lucy Banerjee know about Lucy Sengupta’s work in the 1960s? As a time-jumper herself, could her memory be tampered with as well?

Long-gestating questions aside, the birthday party also revealed that Warden James has a trite poetic side. Explaining his birthday present to Tiller, he went into that whole “the pen is mightier than the sword” rigamarole (although he might have merely been justifying why he was passing off a lousy BIC as a gift).

As fate (i.e., TV writing) would have it, however, the warden’s words were proved oddly prescient when Tiller fended off Sweeney by stabbing the con in the knee with his birthday pen (thus foiling Sweeney’s attempt to regain his beloved tin box… though he did manage to give the deputy warden a swirlie, so that has to count for something).

Back in present day, Madsen and Soto had managed to pinpoint the next bank Sweeney would hit, but just as always, they were too late: Sweeney got wise and took hostages before they nabbed him. That did not please Emerson Hauser, who was less-concerned with alleviating the hostage situation than he was with quietly getting a time-traveling inmate out of the limelight.

While Hauser ran interference with the local PD, Madsen managed to sneak in and whisk Sweeney out of the bank before he killed any hostages — but as she had entered unarmed (this is the second time she’s put down her gun and approached on of these inmates) Sweeney took her hostage as she drove him away (in disguise) from the disorganized crime scene.

Fortunately for Madsen, she had the home field (home century?) advantage; knowing he wasn’t aware of seat belts, she crashed her car, bloodying him up but emerging unscathed herself (always buckle up!). More importantly, Sweeney had given her an important clue that Hauser never would have allowed: Sweeney’s final bank hit had been chosen in order to acquire another one of those mysterious keys (we saw the first when Jack Sylvane killed that guy in the pilot).

Before he took a non-fatal face-dive into Madsen’s dashboard, Sweeney even revealed to Madsen that “they didn’t want me to tell” anyone about what he was doing and why — but before he could continue, a sort of mental barrier seemed to keep him from saying anything further.

NEXT: The other-other extra-secret room below Alcatraz

Back at the Rock, Hauser patted Madsen on her pretty head and told her he’d let her know what that key was all about one of these days. While Madsen and Soto remained in the dark, we lucky viewers watched as Hauser entered an even-more-secret part of the secret basement complex of Alcatraz.

Surprise! It was a room filled with shaggy nerds, less of the comic book variety and more of the sketch comedy/graduate school breeding. Handing over the key, Hauser told them to figure out where it goes, and to analyze it for clues about how the “jump” happens.

The final flashback to the ‘60s had one more reveal: we saw Warden James using the two keys to open a musty-looking vault under the prison. Something pretty sinister must have been in there, because the kid he shoved in (the former protege of Sweeney) didn’t look too excited. My guess is that it’s a rancor, but I could be wrong.

Also worth mentioning:

Shyamalan twist! Sweeney’s protege was playing him for a sucker (file that under “too much else was happening for me to care”). Also, Sweeney’s precious box was empty the whole time. It was just a childhood relic from his fire-consumed family. Which is sort of sweet, in an Alcatraz sort of fashion. But it still leaves me wondering why he was so fixated on that sapphire necklace.

Doc Soto explained that he earned his four PhDs just to please his parents, who still disapprove of his comic book-fixation. Maybe a fifth PhD will finally do the trick?

What did you think of the episode? Are you glad we’re learning more about the Alcatraz enigma, or did you prefer the serial killer-centric plots? And what do you think is Lucy’s deal?