Alcatraz Recap: Another Day, Another Mysterious Island

Everyone wants to be the pretty girl at the ball.

Well, the time has finally come, Gasmii. We’ve waded through a myriad of pretenders to the (Lost) throne, from the campy and ultimately un-fulfilling V to the tepid and unfocused The Event, all in the hopes that one day, somehow, we would find a show to fill that gaping hole in our chest where once dwelled the likes of Locke, Sawyer, Charlie, and Ben.

After personally trying virtually every other offering on for size (yes, I did actually watch Persons Unknown and the entire run of the ridiculously silly Harper’s Island), I think we may finally have a contender in Fox’s midseason mystery Alcatraz.

(I’m a big fan of Fringe, too, but I consider that to be more heavily steeped in sci-fi, and therefore more of an heir to the X Files legacy than Lost’s.)

Of course, Alcatraz had a strong set of stats right out of the gate – executive produced by the man himself, J.J. Abrams, it was also co-created by some of the other great minds behind Lost, including Elizabeth Sarnoff and Jack Bender.

And the number one accomplishment was, of course, snagging fan favorite Jorge Garcia – the beloved Hurley – as one of the leads. Well played, Alcatraz. Well played, indeed.

Monday night’s premiere actually featured two episodes – the pilot and episode two, entitled Ernest Cobb – giving the audience the chance to get all of the requisite back story as well as see how the show will be structured. This recap will cover the pilot, and I’ll write up a separate one for episode two. Let’s delve right in, shall we?

The pilot begins on Alcatraz on March 20, 1963 – the date when the notorious prison was supposedly shut down. Two transfer guards arrive via boat, confused as to why they haven’t been met at the dock by the usual duo of prison guards – drawing their guns, they warily enter the seemingly deserted jail.

(Side Note: the creepy music is VERY reminiscent of Lost, probably because the same composer is behind both shows, the awesome Michael Giacchino.)

Sure enough, nobody’s home. Sam Neill’s voiceover informs us that 302 men disappeared that night, never to be seen or heard from again…not ‘til now. Cut to present day Alcatraz, where tourists are doing the usual audio tour/picture snapping/ignoring their children bit. A young girl wanders off, and we hear her scream upon finding a man lying in the fetal position in a darkened cell. Thankfully he’s not dead, as evidenced when a guard wakes his ass up and tells him to get the heck out of Dodge, but he does seem plenty confused.

Leaving the prison, our mystery dude puts on a handsome pea coat that he found God only knows where and heads for the ferry. Before he can board, he’s asked for his ticket – do they really do that? I mean, you’re on freaking Alcatraz island, would they really leave your ass out there if you dropped your ticket in the bathroom? Luckily, mystery hottie just happens to have a return ticket in his pocket, along with some conveniently modern-day cash and what looks like a locker key. He gets on the boat, sneakily swipes someone’s book on Alcatraz history, and looks up…a PICTURE OF HIMSELF!!!

Whoa, I totally look like a younger, smarter Ed Burns!!

(Talk about a twist we could see coming all the way from the mainland!)

Back in 1960, our mystery date – who we now know is named Jack Sylvane, prisoner number 2024 – stands by as his cell is tossed by the prison guards, who declare it to be clean. Associate Warden E.B. Tiller, however, goes in for a second look, and lo and behold, finds what looks to be a small screwdriver. Sylvane says it’s not his, but Tiller tells him tough luck, he’ll be missing out on visiting day anyway.

But I was SO looking forward to my conjugal visit.

Skip back to present day, and Jack stumbles upon a picture of a much older Tiller in his Alcatraz book, which really seems to piss him off. The music swells as Jack looks angrily at the approaching San Francisco skyline, and we just KNOW that the old-fogie version of E.B. Tiller is about to get his ass HANDED to him, yo!!!

You know you love it when an asshole warden gets what’s coming to him.

Back from a commercial break, and the show is still in present day. (I foresee a lot of these time-jumping introductions, by the way.)

A man is being chased across rooftops by what we assume are two cops – a guy and a petite chick with a blonde bob. The guy cop is in the lead, following the baddie in taking a long leap from one building to the next. He doesn’t quite stick the landing, and the baddie quickly turns back to kick at the cop’s hands as he desperately clings to a pipe just below the edge of the roof. The chick shows up in time to thwart the baddie’s attack and chase him off, but sadly she’s not strong enough to pull her partner up, and he soon plummets to his death. The resultant guilt will probably plague the female cop for quite some time to come. Just a wild guess, since it’s not like I’ve EVER seen this sort of thing before.

I often go mountain climbing sans shirt myself.

Anyway. Cut to the police station, where the female cop – revealed to be our main protagonist, Detective Rebecca “Becky” Madsen – is being figuratively spanked by her lieutenant for refusing to accept a new partner for the past three months. Thank God they found a subtle way to let us know how much time has passed.

Big boss churns out a list of prospective partners, and of course Madsen has a reason for refusing each and every one. Boss man tells her she needs to stop blaming herself, so clearly he’s never seen Cliffhanger, or Speed, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Their meeting is interrupted by a homicide call. Leaving the office, Madsen tells the lieutenant that she’ll make a pick by the end of the day. So chances are something will happen to prevent her doing so, right? Right.

Madsen arrives at the homicide scene, and who’s lying dead on the floor but good ol’ boy E.B. Tiller. I think we can safely assume we already know who killed him, but since Madsen isn’t in on that knowledge, she snoops around for some clues. As she’s examining a photo in a broken frame, another cop tells her that Tiller was a fed – so she instructs everyone to gather as much evidence as they can before they’re ‘tossed’ – since the victim was a federal agent, it’ll be the jurisdiction of the FBI rather than the SFPD.

Unfortunately for Ms. Madsen, no sooner does she utter the word ‘tossed’ then in walks Sam Neill as FBI agent Emerson Hauser, who promptly tells her to get the fuck out (but without the swearing). Madsen goes to leave, but throws back at him, ‘thanks for being a dick about it’ (WITH the swearing). Before she departs, she asks the other cop on the scene to run a search on Mr. Emerson Hauser – and she also swipes the smashed photo.

Reeeaaaaaal sneaky.

Back in some unnamed lab that I guess we’re supposed to assume is at the police headquarters, Detective Madsen finds a fingerprint on the picture frame. She runs it through the database, which turns up the name Jack Sylvane (duh). However, when she tries to access more information on Sylvane, the computer informs her that his file is restricted. Frustrated, she does a Google search and discovers that Sylvane was a prisoner on Alcatraz – where the homicide victim had once been Deputy Warden. CONNECTION!

Both searches bring up a book on Alcatraz written by a Dr. Diego Soto – our beloved Hurley, Jorge Garcia! I’ll do my best to keep calling him Diego and not Hurley, but I make no promises.

Madsen heads off to track down Dr. Diego, who she finds playing video games at a local comic book store. She throws down some intense video game knowledge that totally impresses Diego, even though this chick looks like she’s never been within 50 feet of an Atari. She spews out a convenient history of Dr. Soto for the audience – PhD in criminal justice AND Civil War history, along with authoring not one but FOUR books on Alcatraz – this guy’s gonna be a veritable treasure trove of useful exposition, I can see it now!!

Rebecca shows the photo she stole from the crime scene to Diego, and he recognizes both Tiller and the other man in the picture, Warden Edwin James. She asks him if he did any research on Jack Sylvane, and because this guy must have a memory like a strip of fucking fly paper, he rattles off a bunch of info about Sylvane…he was a WWII vet with the bad luck of robbing a store (to feed his family) that also happened to sell stamps, meaning it functioned as a post office, which resulted in the robbery being upgraded to a federal crime. When another prisoner ‘got frisky’ with him in the shower, Sylvane killed him and got shucked off to Alcatraz.

Diego asks why Madsen is interested in Sylvane, and she tells him that his prints showed up at the scene of Tiller’s death – which Diego says is impossible, as Sylvane died 30 years ago. WHAAAAA?!?

Back in 1960, Jack Sylvane is in solitary confinement in Alcatraz, and he doesn’t look like he’s doing so hot. Tiller shows up and Jack asks him what he said to his wife – instead of answering, Tiller says he made a mistake, Jack isn’t getting sprung today, and leaves him to his cell full of uneaten cheese sandwiches.

Ok, ok, we get it, he’s a wormy bastard.

Zip back to present day San Fran, where a still-young Sylvane shows up at a grimy-looking gym and pays for a day’s access. He goes back to the locker room, where he uses the mysterious key he found in the pocket of his coat to open locker number 8 – which contains a change of clothing and – dun-dun-DUN – a gun. When the unsuspecting desk clerk shows up with his change and a fresh towel, Jack tosses him around like a rag doll and heads out the door.

Detective Madsen is visiting a bar – but not to worry, even though she orders a stiff drink, she’s really there to see her Uncle Ray Archer (the always superb Robert Forster), who just happens to have been a guard on Alcatraz back in the dizzy. He tells Madsen that Tiller was a real ball-breaker, something we already gathered, and left before the prison was shut down. Diego shows up and is a little in awe of Archer, who he named a comic book character after. Madsen admits that Ray isn’t her real uncle, but a family friend who raised her after her parents died. More on this mystery later, I assume.

She also tells Diego that her grandfather was a guard as well – Tommy Madsen, Uncle Ray’s best friend. Diego and Ray share an uncomfortable look, and we get the crystal clear feeling that there is a little more to the story of Tommy Madsen.

Diego has dug up both the transfer papers for Jack Sylvane – signed by none other than Robert Kennedy – and his death certificate. Ray, realizing that Tiller’s case is a federal one, tells Rebecca to stay out of it, walk away. Yep, something hinky is definitely going on in the Ray/Tommy back story.

Secretive ol’ Uncle Ray.

Dr. Soto tells Madsen that his parents are super smart professors at Stanford who like to tell him what to do…but that smart doesn’t always make you happy, so he usually does the opposite of what they say. Pleased that someone is encouraging her to break the rules, Rebecca asks him what he thinks happened to Tiller. Not being a detective, he doesn’t have a clue, but he does chime in with the useful information that the last time he was on Alcatraz, he just happened to see a room full of mysterious files and boxes – so the two of them agree to meet up in the morning  to take the ferry out to the island and investigate.

On the boat, Madsen wonders about Sylvane, stating that he was a thief, not a killer. Diego, adding fuel to the fire, asks why Sylvane – if he’s alive after all – would’ve waited all these years to kill Tiller. When they arrive at the island, they sneak into a closed-off area – the barracks, where the guards lived with their families. Oh good – families! So maybe there will be a chance to bring a WOMAN back at some point after all, since all of the prisoners and guards would have been dudes…I had been wondering about that.

The duo reaches the locked file room, and Rebecca immediately sets to work picking the old-school lock. Diego states that she’s a little young to be a detective and that she must have a cool origin story (spoken just like the comic book nerd he is!). Madsen’s story is that she was raised by a cop who would bring his work home, and that she would look the cases over and occasionally help him solve a few. This doesn’t really explain how she made detective at such a young age, since prior experience as an 8-year-old doesn’t really count on a resume, but it seems to be enough to appease Diego for now.

They enter the storeroom, which is filled with piles of old inmate files and boxes of their belongings – and then the lights go out. A gas canister is thrown into the room, and both Diego and Madsen promptly pass out.

Whenever I black out, I make sure to fall really carefully onto my arm, with just the right amount of lighting on my face, too.

The first thing Madsen hears as she begins to wake up are two voices – a man and a woman – Man: ‘This is a mistake.” Woman: “She found us, and she won’t stop until she finds HIM. We need her.” Gradually, Madsen’s grogginess wears off, the blurriness abates, and we see that the two talkers are Emerson Hauser and Bend it Like Beckham herself, Parminder Nagra. And in a voice full of hidden meaning, Hauser says, “Detective Madsen – welcome to Jurassic Park Alcatraz.”

The REAL secret of Alcatraz.

Diego wakes up as well and asks where they are, to which Rebecca replies, ‘Alcatraz.’ Dr. Soto says, ‘they’ve done some redecorating,’ which is an understatement, considering they are in what looks to be an extremely high-tech lab with a ton of computer equipment and shiny steel shelving lying around.

‘Bend It’ introduces herself as Lucy Banerjee, and she praises Madsen’s ‘bold and effective’ move of stealing the fingerprint-laden photograph from Tiller’s home, even though that’s a move that I’m fairly certain should be landing her in a whole heap of trouble with the feds.

Madsen asks Hauser why there’s no record of him at the FBI, and he tells her that he runs a secret division concerning criminals who are of particular interest to our government – meaning, I guess, the ones who magically disappear from their cells only to pop up and start offing people decades later.

Diego is amazed that Emerson has apparently built the Batcave underneath Alcatraz prison. Then Detective Madsen asks about a picture of an old guy on one of the many computer screens in the room, which Lucy informs her is a picture of what Sylvane SHOULD look like now. But when Emerson instructs Lucy to play a surveillance video, which shows Tiller being followed by none other than Jack Sylvane, it’s clear to everyone that he looks nothing like the progressed-age photo.

Lucy admits to Diego and Rebecca that Sylvane’s records had been forged, that in reality he disappeared from Alcatraz in 1963. But of course, that still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t look like any octogenarians I know. Lucy and Emerson talk in cryptic circles around the subject for a bit before a phone rings – a red phone, of course.

Nice job on that Batcave call, Hurley.

Emerson reveals that the call was about an Alcatraz uniform being found at the scene of a crime – Madsen wants to tag along, telling him that because he gassed them, he owes them one. He relents, reminding her to bring her lunch box. Yowch.

One clanking jail cell door noise later, and we’re back in the ’60s. I guess that’s gonna be the substitute for our familiar plane engine segue from Lost, eh? Fine by me. The more things that remind me of my favorite show of all time, the better.

Jack Sylvane is handcuffed to a hospital bed in Alcatraz, where a creeptastic doctor who looks a little too much like Dr. Giggles is siphoning a shit-ton of blood out of his arm.

Coincidence?

Of course, we don’t know what all that blood is for, but we can hazard a guess that it’s got something to do with whatever experiment led to Jack’s disappearance and reemergence as a cold-blooded killer 30 years later.

A voice pipes up from behind a curtain – another inmate, one whose face remains obscured throughout the conversation that follows. He tells Jack that this place is nothing compared to what’s below. Jack thinks he’s referring to the Hole, but the other inmate – who says he’s number 2002 – says he’s talking about what’s UNDERNEATH the Hole. Another reference to a mysterious experiment, perhaps a lab? Hm…

Sylvane says that he missed seeing his wife today for visitation due to this blood-letting, and 2002 tells him he’s better off. This pisses Jack off, and he tells 2002 that he doesn’t trust him. Then 2002 gets all quiet and intense and says that something terrible is gonna happen here at Alcatraz. Spooky!

Cell door noise, and we’re popped back into present day, where Hauser, Diego, and Rebecca are looking over the crime scene at the grimy gym locker room. The prison uniform was indeed Jack’s – number 2024. The desk clerk identifies Jack’s picture and confirms that he’s the guy that roughed him up. When they ask for security camera footage, he tells them that nothing has worked here since, like, 1975. He did, however, happen to recover from his beating quickly enough to run outside and write down the license plate number of the cab that Sylvane took off in. Guess this stoner clerk dude is a little more competent than he seems.

Cut to elsewhere in San Fran, where Sylvane is approaching a VERY nice home with the name ‘B. Flynn’ on the mailbox. Just then, a squad car pulls up. Two cops jump out and tell Sylvane to put his hands up. Instead, he opens fire on them, shooting both cops in quick succession. Damn, yo. He ain’t kidding around.

Inside the house, B. Flynn looks up from his desk at the sound of gunfire. He looks concerned, but not as much as he does once he realizes a man with a gun has somehow gotten into his home.

This is the ‘I just crapped myself’ look.

Jack asks if he is Barkley Flynn. Really? Barkley? I bet this dude had a rough childhood. BARKLEY makes a run for his desk (presumably for a weapon), but Jack is too quick for him and manages to slam his hand in a drawer…ow-ies. He tells Flynn to open his safe, which he quickly does. Flynn offers a wad of cash, but Sylvane says he wants the bag – the soft, black bag. I wonder if the fact that it’s soft is important, because that seems like such an odd choice of wording – not to mention kind of icky sounding.

Inside the safe…cash, passport, and a balled-up York peppermint patty wrapper.

Barkley is quick to comply, and Jack shakes a large silver key out of the soft, black bag. Barkley says, ‘that’s it…that’s what you came for,’ but it almost sounds like a question – is it possible that this man had something in his safe that he wasn’t aware of? It certainly seemed as if he didn’t know what Sylvane was talking about when he asked for a bag. Interesting. Of course, Jack shoots his ass anyway.

Our dynamic trio arrives to find that one of the cops that Jack shot is still alive. They call an ambulance before heading inside B. Flynn’s home, only to find him dead in a pool of blood. Rebecca wonders why Jack would kill this man, and Emerson states that even if Jack didn’t know him, there could be plenty of other people who wanted Barkley dead. Rebecca wants to know if Emerson is implying that someone told Jack to commit this crime – Emerson says he’s not implying it, he’s saying it. Touche.

Diego runs in with some news…he’s found out that Jack’s wife remarried, and that the guy she married was…Jack’s brother. What a whore bitch. I mean seriously, only a raging whore bitch would leave her husband to rot in prison and run off to marry his brother, am I right?

Anyway, the whore bitch is dead, but the brother is still alive, so Diego and Madsen figure maybe Jack will be heading his way. Luckily for them, Emerson has been on what must be a VERY important phone call throughout this entire exchange, so they run off before he can ruin all of their fun. Besides, he’s not giving them all of HIS information, so why should they give him theirs?

Other than that whole ‘chain of command’ thing.

We hear a knock, and the door of a house opens to reveal…Jack Sylvane. He’s looking for Alan Sylvane – the man who answered the door tells him that he’s Alan Jr., he must be looking for his father, Alan Sr. He runs off to fetch his dad, leaving Jack to wander through the living room looking at family photos, which must really get him P.O.’d since they’re all of his ex-wife canoodling with his brother. And this, of course, means that Alan Jr. was his ex-wife’s kid. Man, this guy’s life just keeps getting WORSE.

Cell door time! Back in 1960, poor Jack is finally getting his much-delayed visitation with his whore bitch wife, who tells him that his brother Alan says hello. WHORE BITCH!!! She says she needs to ask Jack for something, which he is all too happy to oblige, until he realizes from the look on her face that what she wants is a divorce. Not surprisingly, he screams ‘NO!’ and proceeds to forcefully rearrange the furniture in his immediate vicinity. The guards, of course, take him away as whore bitch cries.

PRESENT DAY. Whew, this is exhausting. Alan Jr. comes back into the living room and sees Jack examining a photo of his mother – he tells Jack that she died four years ago, and Jack tells him that he has her eyes. Just then, Alan Sr. enters the room – and he knows EXACTLY who this mysterious visitor is, though he’s shocked to see Jack looking so spry (and alive, to boot).

Alan Sr. asks Jack what happened to him, and Jack replies that his brother married his wife, and nothing that happened after that matters. Alan Jr. looks suitably confused as shit. Jack pulls out his gun.

Cut to the front door, which Rebecca kicks in – but unfortunately it’s several minutes later and Jack is long gone. Alan Jr. is tied up – once they remove his gag, he tells them that some guy named Jack took off with his dad, saying that he wanted to find his wife. And since we know she’s dead, well, there’s only one logical place he could be headed.

Cue the sad music and a shot of a rainy cemetery!

Appropriately haunting!

Jack is standing in front of his ex-wife’s grave – it seems the whore bitch’s name was Sonya. He tells her that he doesn’t blame her, that all he has is love in his heart for her. This guy is WAY more forgiving than any dude in his situation has a right to be. Also, I can’t tell if he’s supposed to be a bad guy or not – it seems that he was the victim back in the ’60s, but nowadays he’s running around shooting people and tossing stoner kids into lockers…is there some sort of Manchurian Candidate B.S. goin’ down here?

Madsen shows up, gun drawn. She tells him to give her his gun, that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. He says, ‘I killed Tiller out of hate,’ so she asks him why he killed Flynn. Eyes averted, Jack says he only did what they told him to do. They??? Another hint to a mysterious organization performing a grand experiment?

Madsen asks Sylvane where he’s been, what happened to him, but – looking utterly forlorn – he just tells her to shoot him. In the meantime, SWAT-style men with scoped guns are fast approaching. Jack once again tells Madsen to kill him, that it’s what he wants – and then he raises his gun and aims at her, causing one of the SWAT dudes to fire, hitting Jack in the shoulder.

Emerson shows up before Rebecca can question Jack any further and quickly leads him away. Jack shouts back over his shoulder, ‘you should’ve killed me!’ and we’re left to wonder what other evil things he might be instructed to do in the future.

Back in the Batcave, Detective Madsen returns the stolen photograph of Tiller to Hauser and asks him what’s become of Jack Sylvane. Hauser tells her that Jack’s in prison, and Lucy adds on that he’s now got a new name and a nice long life sentence. I guess that whole ‘jury of your peers’ thing doesn’t count if you’re a convict who mysteriously disappeared for several decades before showing back up without having aged a day but with what appears to be a massive chip on your shoulder.

Emerson also tells the gang that Jack’s brother won’t be a problem, no further explanation. Hm. Madsen then says that she looked into Barkley Flynn, who had absolutely no ties to Alcatraz or Sylvane, but Emerson tells her to forget about him.

Then Lucy and Emerson drop their bombshell…they’re on the lookout for the NEXT victim…because Jack Sylvane was only the beginning. Dun-dun-DUNNNNNN!!! Of course, we the audience knew this was coming, since it’d be a pretty dull show if they’ve already caught the bad guy.

Rebecca realizes that Emerson knew this was going to happen, that that’s why he and Lucy are stationed underneath the prison – they were waiting for prisoners to start popping up. Emerson says he’s been waiting a long, long time. He then takes Diego and Rebecca back to a closed room, inside of which are walls covered with pictures of men – men he terms ‘the ’63′s’ – the men who disappeared on Alcatraz back in 1963. There were 256 prisoners and 46 guards who went missing. All of their pictures grace the walls of this room.

Hauser tells them that the prison closed due to rising costs on March 21, 1963, and that all of the inmates were transferred…only that’s not what really happened. As we know, they all disappeared. A quick cutback to 1963 reveals something we DIDN’T know, however – the two guards from the very beginning of the show? The ones who got to Alcatraz only to discover that everyone was gone? Well…the younger of the two was none other than a fledgling guard by the name of Emerson Hauser. Which of course explains his drive all of these years to find out what happened that night.

Even as a young guy, he could bore his eyeballs into your soul.

But the show’s not done throwing surprises at us just yet…back in present day, Rebecca is staring at a very particular photo…a mugshot of prisoner number 2002, a gentleman by the name of…Thomas Madsen. So her grandfather wasn’t a guard at Alcatraz as she’d been told – he was a prisoner. And not ONLY that – a very familiar looking prisoner.

Have you seen me, avid viewer?

It’s the suspect that Madsen was chasing way back at the start of the show – the one who tried to kill her partner (well, and sort of succeeded at doing so after the fact). Whoa. I suspected a lot of things during this show, but I NEVER saw this one coming…Madsen’s grandfather was the dude responsible for her partner’s death!!! That is MESSED UP.

Also – something which wasn’t pointed out on the show…did you take a careful look at his number? 2002 – he’s the same prisoner who was hidden behind the curtain in the infirmary, chatting up Sylvane back in 1960, the one who seemed to know that something bad was going down on Alcatraz. INTRIGUING!!!

Madsen thinks that this means that Hauser wanted her in on this case all along, but he says that’s absolutely not the case – she’s too young and impetuous for his taste, and if she wants to stay she needs to prove every day that she can handle these cases.

She wants in. He hands her her transfer papers and tells her that she has to keep everything under wraps – it would be dangerous for anyone to know the ‘haps. Madsen says she needs a partner, indicating Diego – Hauser and Soto are both surprised, as are we, since generally a civilian with no experience isn’t partnered up with a detective working for the FBI, even if he DOES know a hell of a lot about the subject matter. But of course he accepts, and Hauser says good, because he wouldn’t want to have to kill him. Heh heh.

Madsen says, ‘we need to find these ’63′s.’ Hauser corrects, ‘more than that, we need to find out who took them.’ And just like that, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got the series-spanning story arc all tied up in a super intriguing package!

One last scene for the pilot episode…a handcuffed Sylvane is walking through the woods with Hauser. Jack tells Emerson that he knows him, but Emerson says that’s news to him. Either one of them is mistaken (or lying), or the writers haven’t quite yet figured out just how Emerson is going to play into the bigger mystery of what happened to the inmates.

They head for a mysterious, decrepit-looking concrete building hidden deep in the woods. This doesn’t remind me of anything. Nothing at all.

Emerson keys in a code and they enter the building. Stepping off of what appears to be an elevator, they walk into…a bright and shiny (but windowless) modern day version of Alcatraz. Jack is thrown into a cell, and Emerson tells him not to worry, as he won’t be alone for long.

Well, that’s the pilot, folks! What did you think? I really dug it – it feels like a far bigger mystery than what most shows are comfortable delving in to. The main actress isn’t my faves, but I’m hoping she’ll grow on me – but you can’t go wrong with Hurley and Sam Neill. All righty…in another day or so we’ll have the recap up for episode #2 – see you then!