The episode opens with Rebecca Madsen lying on a road, holding a wound on right side of her stomach, in agonising pain. In the background, an overturned car is on fire.
36 hours earlier she it at her uncle Ray's bar, talking with her old police captain. She tells him that the new task force she is on is investigating a crime syndicate, which they believe the man who killed her partner, Will Peters, is apart of. She tells him she thinks the murder she personal, and that perhaps Tommy knew Will, and asks him whether or not there was anything that wasn't in Will's police file. Her captain tells her Will was the subject of an investigation at the time of his death, as he was receiving suspicious payments from Broadway Mutual, billionaire ex-con Harlan Simmons company and that it was never determined whether or not he was receiving bribe money.
A stressed Joe Limerick enters a secure lobby of a psychiatric hospital and bangs on the window of the reception desk. The receptionist doesn't let him in until he holds up a Broadway Mutual ID card. When he enters he tells her that he is a prisoner from Alcatraz returned from 1960, and that some bad people are after him and he needs a place to lay low. As he settles in, he tells the staff his story, until he is alone in his room where he pulls out a key.
Back on Alcatraz in 1960, Tommy Madsen talks to Joe Limirick through his cell. Joe has just been returned there after an escape attempt, and is soaking wet, wrapped in a blanket. Tommy tells Joe that the warden signed his death warrant stating he died trying to escape. Warden James arrives and removes Tommy from his cell. He takes him to the infirmary and Tommy asks him if he will be taking more blood, to which he replies this time they will be giving his blood back, and a man starts the blood transfusion as Tommy screams in pain.
Back in 2012, Tommy breaks into a man's house and confronts him while he is sleeping on the couch. Tommy asks him where his wife is, when he says he doesn't know, Tommy tells him to text her to come home, and they they are going to wait for her. Meanwhile, the man's young daughter, having seen Tommy threaten her father runs into the backyard and into the woods.
On Alcatraz, Dr. Beauregard takes Lucy's blood-pressure. She's asks him why some of the returned prisoners on Alcatraz have silver in their blood why others don't, to which he replies that he doesn't know, and thought that she would have a better chance at knowing them him. She asks him if he thinks they can isolate the silver in the blood, and he tells her he has already started his investigation into it and will let her know.
Hauser watches the recording of Lucy's interview with Ernest Cobb, where he informed her that as long as she is alive she is still her target. Lucy walks in on him and he tells her that they need to limit her exposure before he receives a message telling him they've got a possible ID on Tommy Madsen.
They arrive at the police station where the little girl whose father was attacked has identified Tommy Madsen, but is in shock after the events, and cannot tell the police where she lives or her last name. Rebecca and Soto try to get the information by drawing a picture of a cat, and leaving out the eyes. When Rebecca asks her what the cat sees, she tells them her father was fighting with Tommy.
Back in 1960, Tommy awakens after his blood-transfusion in Nob Hill, San Francisco. Warden James arrives and tells Tommy that he can do a lot of things for him and vice-versa. Tommy tells him that he feels great, and the warden suggests they go for a walk.
In 2012, Tommy awaits the arrival of the mans wife. Upstairs, the man frees himself from his binds and retrieves a pistol hidden under his bed. His wife arrives home and Tommy confronts her with a gun at the front door, but the man, Michael, shoots him from the stairs and Tommy whips around and returns fire, shooting him in the shoulder.
At the police station the girl gives Rebecca and Soto her address. They arrive on the scene and an injured Michael tells them Tommy took his wife about ten minutes earlier.
In a public bathroom, Tommy makes Michael's wife sew up the bullet wound in his leg. She tells him he'll need to see a real doctor, to which he replies that he will heal just fine.
In a plane on an airstrip Hauser meets with a man in an army uniform. Hauser asks the man to get him in touch with Harlan Simmons, telling him Tommy Madsen is active again, and that he has a peculiar interest in Simmons and Hauser needs to know why. The man asks Hauser if this means Warden James is back, to which Hauser replies that'll be the first question he asks Madsen when he catches him. The man tells Hauser he doesn't have the authority to get in contact with Simmons, but that he has the papers Hauser asked for: a passport for Lucy. Hauser reveals he plans to take her to Paraguay in an attempt to protect her, but that he'll need to go with her and help her settle in. The man then tells Hauser before he does this he must brief his team.
At Alcatraz Lucy, Soto and Rebecca investigate Michael's wife, Georga Bradley, and what Tommy might possibly want with her. Rebecca wonders why the 63's are fighting each other. Hauser arrives, and lets Rebecca and Soto follow him into his secret meeting room, where one of his associates is waiting. Hauser reveals he believes Tommy is after a third key that opens a secret compartment under Alcatraz, and that he thinks Warden James might be behind everything. He also reveals why he's telling them now, because he plans to take Lucy to Paraguay, Lucy overhears this and tells them she's found the link between Georga and Broadway Mutual she works at the psychiatric hospital owned by the company, and the computer has picked up that she has just arrived there.
In 1960, Warden James and Tommy Madsen sit at a North Beach restaurant. The warden asks Tommy if he could have one thing in the entire world, what would it be?
At the psychiatric hospital Tommy uses Georga to break into Joe's room, he trashes the place searching for something, and Joe arrives. Tommy asks Joe for the key, and Joe swears he doesn't have it, and a chase ensues.
Back at Alcatraz, Dr. Beauregard informs Lucy that the silver can't be isolated from the blood stream, and that it will be in her forever. Beauregard asks her if she will go to Paraguay, and states she probably feels obligated too, after Hauser spent 50 years looking for her, to which Lucy replies that she feels a lot of things, including the fact that Hauser is no longer the same man he once was.
In 1960, Warden James takes Tommy to see his son, who is playing in his front garden. Tommy speaks to him, but the boy doesn't know him and runs inside, afraid. Tommy returns to the warden and tells him that he knows what he wants from him.
At the psychiatric hospital Tommy corners Joe, telling him he can protect him from Harlan Simmons if he hands over the keys. Joe tells Tommy he can't and he jumps out a window, committing suicide. At that moment, Rebecca, Hauser and Soto arrive. Rebecca goes into the hospital and finds Georga who tells her that Tommy has gone down the garbage chute, into the parking garage under the hospital. He breaks into a car and escapes, while Rebecca commandeers a civilian's car to pursue him.
Back at Alcatraz in 1960, Ray enters an interrogation room, where Tommy sits waiting for him. Tommy tells Ray he needs him to leave Alcatraz, and gives him an envelope containing adoption papers for his son, Ben. Ray refuses, and Tommy tells Ray how he killed his wife. He tells him his termination papers are also in the envelope. Ray leaves, and Tommy turns to the double sided mirror in the room, and Warden James is seen standing on the otherside.
As Rebecca continues to chase Tommy through the streets of San Francisco, Hauser pats down Joe's corpse in search of the key. Soto finds it on him however, and Hauser demands the key, but Soto says he's not giving the key to Hauser until they find Rebecca and open the door in Alcatraz together. Hauser pulls a gun on him as he enters his car, but Lucy stops him.
Rebecca catches up to Tommy and clips the back of his car, which flips over several times. She gets out of hers and pulls him from the wreckage before his car explodes. Tommy reveals he killed Will Peters, her partner, because he was being paid by Simmons to keep eyes on Rebecca to get to Tommy and the other 63's. He also tells her that Harlan broke a promise to Warden James, causing all this inmate warfare. He asks her if Ray really told her how her parents died, before taking her by surprise and stabbing her in the stomach. He flees in the car Rebecca commandeered, and seconds later Soto arrives.
At the hospital, doctors start surgery on Rebecca. In the waiting room, Hauser tellsLucy this is why he needs to take her away, and she says its precisely why she can't leave, and that together they'll be able to figure everything out. Ray arrives and Hauser tells him it was Tommy that stabbed Rebecca. Angry that Hauser pulled Rebecca into the 63 project, he demands that he and Lucy leave. As they do so Soto gives Hauser the key. Hauser tells him he can come and open the door with them, but he declines, saying Rebecca is more important.
Hauser and Lucy return to Alcatraz and open the door. Inside they find old technology, two switch boards, and a map of the U.S. Hauser turns on the power and the equipment turns on. Lucy touches a pin on the map of the U.S. and the dots on the map start to light up. Lucy states that the pins represent where Alcatraz inmates would return home. They the board was used to mark where prisoners would go once they left Alcatraz.
In the same room in 1960, the doctor that performed the blood-transfusion on Tommy tells Warden James he successfully tracked everywhere they went that day.The two men turn to Tommy asking him if he's willing to be their advanced man. He tells them he guesses he doesn't have a choice having life in prison, to which the doctor replies he could be out of Alcatraz in three years.
Back in 2012, Hauser and Lucy hear a noise somewhere else in the room. They go to investigate and find a man lying on the floor; the doctor from 1960. He asks them what year it is. They tell him and he bursts into uncontrollable laughter.
At the hospital, Rebecca flatlines, and the doctors call her time of death.
Overall, the episode left much to be desired, especially now that Fox has decided not to re-new for a second season. For majority of this season
Alcatraz and perfectly balanced it's procedural elements while carefully continuing to build a serialised mythology as the show progressed. Unfortunately, this week, it was pure mythology building, and the episode titled
Tommy Madsen was not so much about Rebecca's grandfather and his crime, but rather told the story of Warden James beginning to incorporate Tommy into his grand scheme. Another reason this caused a problem with me is that each week we've been treated with another entrancing criminal, some more entertaining than others, but nonetheless always enigmatic and captivating. Tommy himself possessed these characteristics earlier in the season, back when he seemed to be pulling the strings and manipulating other inmates on Alcatraz, but in this episode he was but a very boring pawn in Warden James' game.
The revelations one generally awaits in series finals were also disappointing. Most of them seemed to be within the context of the show, Rebecca and Soto were finally allowed into Hauser's secret room in Alcatraz, and he and his scientist friend told them their theories, but nothing all that substantial. Lucy discovered the silver in her blood cannot be removed. So? Rebecca also finally discovered why her partner, Will Peters, was targeted by Tommy in the pilot. But that happened in the pilot, and we're not so much concerned with discovering answers to things that happened back then.
We did however discover what the keys opened, but nothing inside was all that revolutionary. Basically, the silver injected into the prisoners bloodstream allows them to be tracked by Warden James. That's handy, but surely the silver has to serve some other purpose as well, right? Not only that, but the warden's blood-transfusion doctor seemed to have jumped there. Yay, another mysterious person who won't provide any insight whatsoever into what is happening.
The biggest shock of the episode, Rebecca's death, was also annoyingly pre-empted by having her sporting a wound at the beginning of the episode and then winding back the clock. I understand that you need a way to hook viewers, but I would have been much more surprised by Rebecca's stabbing if the sequence of events had occurred in a normal timeline.
It's a pity, I thought Alcatraz was one of the few shows that balanced its procedural and serialised mythology elements effortlessly from the get go. Oh well. I hope one day the creator at least tells us what she had planned to happen.
Rating: 3/5
