Alcatraz Recap: Finale, Part One

WEEEEEEEEEE!!

Heeeeeeeeeeey GUYS!! Here we are – we’ve made it! The two-part Alcatraz finale aired this past Monday, arming us with a sh*tload of answers and a bevy of new questions – some of which may never be answered, depending on whether or not this damn show gets picked up for a second season or not.

I personally think it will – FOX has thrown a hell of a lot of marketing money at this puppy (their online ‘Legends of Alcatraz’ game is still up and running), and while the same could have been said of the ill-fated Terra Nova, this show is luckily far less expensive to make. Them’s my thoughts. You?

Let’s start our recap engines, shall we? This ‘cap will cover the first episode of the two-parter: ‘Garrett Stillman.’ The finale-finale will be covered in a second recap, so keep your eyes peeled!

Episode 11 ended with dear, comatose Lucy finally opening her peepers, so it’s no surprise that she’s the first person we see in episode 12. And speaking of peepers, she’s making good use of hers, intently watching a video wall featuring some of our favorite Alcatraz returnees.

Sonny, Cobby, Grumpy, and the Beav.

They’re all blathering away at the same time, so it’s difficult to make out what any one convict is saying…but Lucy seems particularly interested in prisoner #2047 – Ernest Cobb. And are we surprised, considering he’s the SOB who’s responsible for her lying around in a hospital bed the entire season?

What a dick.

Emerson Hauser shows up and scolds the newly-healed Lucy for getting back on the horse so quickly – he wants her to rest up and get back to being in love with him, stat. Or however she feels about him now that he’s old enough to be her grandpappy.

For her part, Lucy is perturbed to find that Hauser still hasn’t gotten around to telling the other members of the Justice League that she’s a ’63. So she hops up, determined to remedy this situation as quickly as possible, reminding Hauser of a saying he used when he was young: ‘there’s no time except now.’

She tries to get Dr. B’s permission to get back to work, but he’s loathe to give it – after all, bitch was DYIN’ like 20 minutes ago!!! But she seems to feel completely back to normal, thanks to that transfusion of silver-laced Webb Porter blood, so she’s not gonna listen to the doctor’s advice. She certainly has come back feisty!

And SEXY-FIED!!

Seriously, is it just me, or is she looking a tad more vampish than she was pre-murderer’s blood? I mean, we were so used to seeing her in a suit and glasses, at least here in 2012…I hope that transfusion hasn’t changed her in other, darker ways…

In another part of San Francisco, an armored car guard is eating his lunch when he hears a knock on the door. Assuming it’s a co-worker – he scans the dude’s security badge through a hole in the door – he lets the guy in, and is promptly rewarded with a rifle butt to the face. Yep, this car’s bein’ ROBBED, YO! And the guy in charge, the one with the loose rifle butt, must be our returnee of the week, Garrett Stillman.

I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T WANT ANY GIRL SCOUT COOKIES, NOW GO AWAY!

Stillman and his masked cronies quickly make off with the loot, the armored car, and the security guards’ uniforms.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In the Alcatraz yard in 1960, Garrett Stillman is playing a game of chess with a formidable opponent – himself. So we must be dealing with yet ANOTHER criminal with a remarkably brilliant mind, huh? It’s amazing that none of these dudes was able to escape that pesky island prison.

Stillman’s game is interrupted by Warden James, whose conversations are always rife with innuendo and hidden agendas. They talk chess – the warden likes the complexity of the knight, whereas Stillman favors the bishop – a piece that’s about the end game, the one that lies in wait. He also mentions that the knight has a weakness – predictability. Heh heh. Take that, ya bald prick.

(Because Stillman mentioned his love of the ‘end game,’ I predict that this episode will have a bit of a twist near the end…whenever a criminal mastermind talks about patiently planning for the end game – the bigger picture – things always end up being a little different than they seem.)

The warden wants Stillman to sit in on the upcoming parole board hearings. What could a thief steal from those d-bags, Stillman asks. Instead of answering, the warden simply returns his knight piece and walks away.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! At Alcatraz HQ, Doc and Madsen are preparing for Lucy’s return. And here she comes, accompanied as always by her old flame Emerson. Doc is quick to give her a welcome back hug.

Uh. She’s there, I promise.

(I also promise I didn’t do that on purpose. I thought I grabbed a better screen shot, but hey, sometimes fate works in mysterious ways.)

Instead of an embrace, Madsen gives Lucy a thick file full of information on the ’63s they’ve nabbed since she decided to take that long-ass nap. Lucy says that she and Hauser owe the dynamic duo an apology, at which point the dour gentleman books it out of the room – not one for saying you’re sorry, eh, Hauser? You should run in the Republican presidential primary. BOO-YA.

Lucy tells Doc and Madsen that it was a mistake to lie to them…but she or Hauser must have already divulged the secret to them, since there’s no moment of, ‘yeah, we already knew about that.’ Or ‘why aren’t you guys acting the least bit surprised?’ A little confusing, but whatever. Point is, everyone knows Lucy’s sitch now.

And now we FINALLY get an answer to something that’s been bugging the living bejesus out of us all season – WHY the hell didn’t Hurley Doc find any mention of Lucy in all his years of research on Alcatraz??? The answer is simple enough – the warden kept a lot of secrets, and apparently, the pretty lady doc was one of them.

Lucy admits to knowing all of the ’63s personally, even Rebecca’s grandfather, Tommy Madsen. She tells them that she did psychological examinations on many of the men, and that her main goal was trying to help them and understand the way they think. Yawn.

Doc asks her what the Jump was like (that’s what he’s calling the reappearances). She tells them, ‘you’d be surprised how fast you can adapt to what a record player looks like.’ (I think she also says ‘or a phone,’ but it’s super hard to make out. Lemme know if you’ve got another option.) She follows up with, ‘what you start to miss is, WHO you used to listen to records with.’ An obvious allusion to Young Hauser, right? But all this record talk is making me think about something else…

‘Think of the island like a record spinning on a turntable…only now, that record is skipping.’ – Daniel Faraday, Lost

So, yeah, more references to time being like a record, only Lucy refers to it as a whole different record player, so maybe the ’63s are from an alternate universe…OY, my aching brain. Now I’m reminded of ANOTHER J.J. Abrams show:

Yes, Fringe, the show that will permanently melt your brain. Did you think I was going to say Felicity?

I love Fringe, by the way. I have a fondness for many shows that don’t get very good ratings.

ANYWAY, back to THIS show…Lucy continues her sad analogy, stating that those people you loved, they went on to live an entire life without you, so that now, even though you’re IN their world, you’re no longer OF their world. Which sort of makes these returnees seem even more like space aliens.

But now it’s time for Lucy to get serious.

Lady glasses = work mode.

She’s impressed with all of the updates Doc has made to the group’s computer search engines, and I’M impressed by the fact that this chick from 1963 seems to know a hell of a lot about computers. Must be a fast learner.

At that very moment, an alert comes in – armored car robbery in broad daylight, guards unharmed, police with no leads…both Lucy and Doc immediately peg it as the work of Garrett Stillman. And yes, Stillman’s IQ was ‘off the charts’ as we guessed.

Lucy also tells the duo that Stillman was a real gamesman, a thief who liked to incorporate a lot of different elements into his crimes – she knows this heist is probably not his ‘end game.’

Across town, Stillman and his crew pull their stolen armored car into an alley, where a green van awaits. They all jump out, and the fellas grab the bags o’ cash and head for the van. Stillman grabs a different bag – this one full of seemingly useless guard uniforms – and gets back in the armored car, telling his cronies that he’ll see them at the pub later. He pulls away…but stops at the end of the alley to watch the crew get in the van and -

Boom.

And if you didn’t see THAT coming from a mile away, you haven’t been watching enough crime movies.

An undetermined amount of time later, the scene is swarming with cops, including Doc and Madsen. We see one crispy dude being taken away on a stretcher – apparently one baddie managed to survive that exploding van situation. Quite the feat.

The dynamic duo are confused – why would Stillman take the guards’ uniforms but leave them alive, and then kill his crew and incinerate all of the stolen cash?? I’ll whisper two little words into your ears, Gasmii…END GAME. Doc guesses that maybe what Stillman was REALLY after was the armored car itself.

Later, at the offices of Bynum Security – the company that owns those armored cars – Doc and Madsen find out that this isn’t the first car that’s been stolen – they’ve lost two in the past month. Sounds like a crappy security firm to me. One of the guards from the armored car ID’s Stillman as the culprit, but tells the gang that his uniform was the real deal – the badge passed his scanner, remember?

Madsen asks about the badges – they’ve got a code that’s impossible to fake, and they’re changed at the beginning of every month. Just then, she gets a call – that crispy guy did indeed survive, so she and Doc head off to interrogate him – but not before she instructs the security guy to change the badge codes immediately, and send her a list of all of their clients ASAP.

At Alcatraz HQ, Lucy and Emerson have a little dicker over Ms. Rebecca Madsen – Hauser doesn’t like that she makes everything personal, but Lucy thinks he doesn’t like the fact that Madsen doesn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Ooh, I think that was meant as a dig at YOU, Agent Gun Crazy!

Lucy tells Hauser that he was just like Rebecca once, but I sorta don’t get that – Young Hauser was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but that ain’t nothin’ like our Detective Madsen…she’s far more similar to present-day dour Hauser, don’t you agree? Sure, she might be a little bit more innocent/naive, but she’s certainly not running around making googly eyes at some attractive doctor. Oh snap.

One of the science nerds from the lab shows up – I guess his name is Art, but I’m gonna go ahead and re-name him.

SpongeBob SquareHead.

Ol’ SpongeBob has found something on the scanners – an empty space beneath the lighthouse. Lucy confirms that there used to be tunnels over there, accompanied by a Civil War-era bulkhead. That’s not showing up on Spongie’s blueprints, but Hauser instructs him to find it anyway.

At the hospital, Crispy Guy looks remarkably well for someone who was toasted in a gigantic campfire earlier in the day.

He’s like a human s’more.

Crispy tells Doc and Madsen how Stillman got his hands on that honest-to-gosh REAL guard uniform that he used during the heist – he made up a fake contest and told a Bynum guard that he won, and then sent him packing to the Caribbean for two weeks…leaving Stillman plenty of time to break into his place and swipe his uniform. Smarty!

He also informs them that Garrett got his guns from some mysterious boss guy. Doc and Madsen confer…could this be the same mystery guy who gave a bunch of the other returnees their weapons and marching orders? So now they’re all about catching Stillman’s handler, since he’ll likely be tied in to the bigger mystery.

Over at some abandoned warehouse, Stillman pulls up in his armored car – and we see two others just like it in the background. Hm. There’s also an old Airstream trailer sitting nearby, and Stillman heads right for it. Are we about to meet our Mystery Date??

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Stillman is sitting in on the parole board hearings in 1960, just as the warden requested. And who’s up first on the chopping block? Why, it’s none other than Taylor Lautner-guy!!! I thought we’d seen the last of him, but it looks like he’s got a bigger role to play than I ever would have guessed.

Ok, he’s more like if Taylor Lautner and Matt Damon had a baby.

His real name is Harlan Simmons, and he’s eager to get a pass from the parole board suits. Unfortunately for him, Deputy Warden E.B. Tiller isn’t so keen to let him go – after all, Harlan provides quite a lucrative side business for Tiller, who gets a big chunk of Simmons’ black market earnings. Looks like Harlan’s not getting off this island anytime soon.

Later, once everyone else has left the room, Stillman and Warden James have themselves a little sit-down. See, Harlan Simmons won’t be up for parole again until 1965, and the warden wants him off the island before that…does that sound to anyone else like an admission that the warden knows exactly what’s coming in 1963? And for some reason, he doesn’t want Harlan there for the ‘Jump’ – considering the warden showed him something in that secret dungeon room, I’m guessing he’s planning on using Simmons as a sort of agent on the outside.

So what the warden wants Stillman to do is steal Harlan’s negative parole papers and replace them with a more ‘positive’ version. In return, the warden will let him have Harlan’s lucrative contraband business, once he’s off the island. The parole board will be on Alcatraz for just three more hours – they’re having lunch at the warden’s house before leaving, so Stillman’s gotta hurry his ass up if he’s gonna come up with a plan to switch those papers.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! We’re back at the present-day warehouse, where Stillman is entering that silver trailer…and his mystery boss is none other than Tommy Madsen.

“GASP! I did NOT see that coming,” says no one in the audience.

Back over to Alcatraz HQ, where Detective Madsen is going through Garrett Stillman’s box of possessions, which doesn’t seem to contain any clues. Good, because that method was getting a wee bit too convenient for my taste. Lucy shows up and tells Madsen that she can ask her anything she wants, anything at all.

Here’s a list of the things Madsen COULD have asked:

-Where was Hauser keeping you all this time?

-What has he done with the other ’63s?

-Where did you wake up when you returned?

-Do you feel like the same person you were in 1963?

-How was Hauser in the sack?

But of course, Madsen doesn’t ask any of these questions…instead, she goes with the FAR more interesting query of: ‘What was my grandfather like?’ …Seriously? With all of the information Lucy might have hidden in her pretty little time-warped head, THAT’S the question at the forefront of your mind?!? Jeesh. This mystery is NEVER gonna be solved.

Charming, manipulative, ruthless, relentless, and patient – these are the words Lucy uses to describe Tommy Madsen. She also mentions that he could peel apples in a single strip, and since that’s exactly what he was doing in that silver trailer, I’m guessing that tidbit will come in handy shortly.

Rebecca tells Lucy that one guard has come back – Guy Hastings – and that he went after her Uncle Ray in an attempt to get to Tommy. Lucy admits that she and Hauser think Tommy must be important to this whole larger mystery, but they don’t know how or why. The only thing she does know is that they took a lot of blood from Tommy back in the day.

Then she mentions Emerson, and Rebecca FINALLY gets the hint – oooooohhhhh, so you two were an item back in the dizzy, eh? Guess that’s why she didn’t ask that ‘in the sack’ question, so I’ll give her a pass on that one.

Madsen is amazed to hear that Hauser used to be a much different person…talkative, caring, even – dare we say it? – ROMANTIC. She seems kinda skeeved out. Not sure why, cuz I think Sam Neill’s a pretty good-looking dude for his age. Then she makes another realization…all this time, Hauser hasn’t been searching for the missing inmates – he was looking for Lucy. Awwwww.

I don’t blame him, she’s pretty foxy.

(At this point, my husband and I had a little discussion of our own…if he wasn’t really after the prisoners, then why is he still hell-bent on hunting them down, now that he has his beloved Lucy back? My theory is, he found Lucy…but since everything is different between them, he still feels like he’s missing something, and therefore he can’t stop searching. It’s like if he can track down all of the ’63s, and figure out the bigger mystery, then somehow he can make everything okay again between him and his sweetie. He can fix things. OR he’s just been doing this for so long that he can’t let go. One of the two, maybe both.)

Just then, Doc calls out from the next room – he’s made a big discovery. One of Bynum Security’s biggest clients is a company called Broadway Mutual – a company that just happens to be owned by a former Alcatraz inmate. One Harlan Simmons, to be exact. Dun-dun-DUNNNNNNNN!!!

Apparently Harlan Simmons is a famous billionaire who hasn’t been seen in public since the ’70s – a recluse and a financial genius. Could any of this be the result of whatever it was the warden showed him in that dungeon room??? Did the warden have a way to see the future or something? Was there a Sports Almanac and a DeLorean in there?

Because of this info, the gang thinks that Stillman must be after Harlan’s cash for some reason…

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In the Alcatraz mess hall, Garrett Stillman is having a pow-wow with three recruits who look like a real gang of goons.

They’re just excited to have a cool kid sitting at their lunch table.

These temporary co-conspirators have been enlisted to help Stillman in his plan to switch those pesky parole board papers. Glasses is in charge of forging the fake form, including those hard-to-replicate signatures. During his janitorial rounds, Cheekbones (not pictured above), has to swipe the discarded carbon from the parole papers, which Glasses can use to copy the signatures from.

Bug-Eyes wants to know what his job is. Stillman tells him that since he’s on steward’s duty at the warden’s house for his lunch with the parole board attendees, his job is simple – just let Stillman into the house when the time is right, so that he can switch out the papers. Easy peasy.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In 2012, the dynamic duo have made their way to Broadway Mutual, where a helpful employee tells them there’s no money at their establishment – Harlan Simmons’ billions are a series of 1′s and 0′s in banks around the globe. The vault at Broadway Mutual contains nothing but a bunch of files and the like.

Madsen is confused – if there’s no cash here, then why do they have such a big contract with Bynum Security and its squadron of armored cars? The once-friendly employee immediately puts his guard up.

Mm hm.

Sassy McSasserpants doesn’t seem to have an answer for them. Doc threatens to go straight to the man himself – Harlan Simmons – but Mr. Sass tells them they’d have a better chance of getting an audience with God. That’s probably exaggerating a teensy bit, but whatever – they’re not gonna get anywhere with this guy.

The duo leaves, wondering what it is that Simmons/Broadway Mutual has that Garrett Stillman wants so badly. As they exit, we see Mr. Sass in the background, quickly typing into his phone…seems he’s sending an email to Bynum Security, asking for an emergency pickup at Pacific Bank and Trust.

Unfortunately for Mr. Sass, the email is intercepted by none other than Garrett Stillman and Co., who see that this emergency pickup for package 2284 is tagged with ‘security concerns’ – so they know this is exactly the package they’re looking to swipe. (FYI, 2284 does not correspond to any inmate’s prison number, at least none that we’ve seen at this point.)

Meanwhile, over on Alcatraz Island, Hauser and SpongeBob are checking out the area underneath the lighthouse. When Spongie uses the thermal imaging on his iPad (Doc has one that he shows off a lot, too, so it must be product placement), an open space is revealed behind the wall. Hauser instructs him to get to work knocking that wall down, stat.

I bet that app cost, like, three hundred bucks.

Our Justice League is at HQ, looking over the Bynum Security logs. Looks like they move a mysterious package for Broadway Mutual once a month, every month – something Harlan Simmons doesn’t want kept in one place for too long. The next scheduled pickup isn’t until next week, but the gang figures out that Broadway, knowing they’re a possible target, has moved the pickup to RIGHT NOW. So Doc, Madsen, and Hauser run off to Pacific Bank and Trust (the pickup location), leaving Lucy behind to get back to work interviewing the captured ’63s – particularly Cobb.

Hauser doesn’t want to leave her to do this by herself, but she’s a tough chick – she’d rather do it on her own. I hope that doesn’t mean she’s gonna haul off and shoot the dude. She admonishes Hauser as he leaves: ‘try not to shoot anyone if you can possibly help it.’ He fires back saucily, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ It’s a cute moment, and it’s nice to see them have a bit of repartee.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Garrett Stillman shows up at the warden’s house just as lunch is finishing up. Bug-Eyes is panicked – why did he show up so late? The warden knows exactly who the stewards are – but of course, Stillman is well aware of that, and he also knows the warden won’t raise the alarm when he catches sight of the new addition to the staff.

Stillman makes his way to the dining room, hanging out long enough to make sure the warden has noticed his presence. Unfortunately, so does Deputy Warden Tiller, whose hackles are immediately raised. You see, Tiller ALSO knows exactly who is supposed to be pulling steward’s duty today, and Stillman ain’t one of them.

The warden and his guests make their way to the front hall, where a locked briefcase sits – and Stillman is standing off to the side. He slips away unnoticed…except for Tiller, of course, who definitely looks like a hound who’s caught the scent of something big.

Stillman heads for the kitchen, whispering to Bug-Eyes as he passes, ‘It’s done, I made the switch.’ Before he can exit stage left, however, Tiller comes barging in after him, wanting to know why the heck he’s pretending to be a steward.

Weasels can always smell a rat.

Speaking of rats, before Stillman can say a word, Bug-Eyes pipes right up: ‘He did it! He stole the parole papers from that briefcase! I didn’t have anything to do with it! I was too busy making wee-wee in my panties!’ Or something like that.

YOU RAT BASTARD.

Tiller reaches into Stillman’s jacket and pulls out the stolen parole board envelope. He and Stillman glare at each other for a bit, and then -

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Stillman and his crew pull their armored car up to the alley entrance of Pacific Bank and Trust. Pretending like everything is hunky-dory, they stroll to the door, but the guard on duty scans Stillman’s badge and finds that it’s invalid (thanks to Bynum switching their codes as Madsen recommended). Stillman quickly pulls a gun on the guard and says, ‘change of plans’ before cold-cocking the dude.

Just a wee bit later, police cars come careening into the alleyway, where the guard is now trussed up – he tells them that Stillman and his gang JUST took off with the mysterious package. Madsen happens to spy the armored car just before it turns out of sight, and the chase is on.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! On the Alcatraz dock, Tiller is conferring with the head of the parole board, who’s about to leave on the ferry. Seems Tiller is letting him know about the envelope switch, as he hands the guy the envelope he took from Stillman’s jacket. The parole board officer takes it, and hands back the envelope that’s in his briefcase in return. Warden James, watching from afar, looks none too pleased by this turn of events.

I bet he’s thinking, ‘that GD pasty-ass weasel.’

Once the ferry sets sail, the warden approaches his underling. He wonders why Tiller has asked him to come down here to the dock – and Tiller smugly shows the warden the envelope he just procured. Seems he just kept a man from being wrongly paroled. Warden James does a pretty shitty job of acting pleased about Tiller’s catch, and heads off to escort Garrett Stillman to the Hole.

Once there, the warden confronts him – how could you let me down like that, you incompetent boob? Stillman just smirks and tells the warden to check his envelope. When he does, he sees a bright red ‘REQUEST DENIED’ stamp across the page – these were the real parole board papers!

It seems that Garrett Stillman, knowing full well that briefcase had an un-pickable lock, only pretended that he switched the envelopes, knowing full well that Tiller would do EXACTLY what he did – make himself a pawn in Garrett’s game. So it was actually TILLER that switched those papers, unbeknownst to himself – in his attempt to right the situation, he actually made the switch FOR Stillman. HaHA!!

(I must admit I predicted this was the case when I first saw Tiller eyeballing Stillman at the warden’s house, but the way it played out was pretty great.)

The warden wants to know how Stillman predicted Tiller’s moves so well – predictability, Stillman replies. Just like that knight piece the warden so favors, eh? He also knew that Bug-Eyes would rat him out, which is exactly why he was chosen. This guy is one smart cookie. Wonder why the warden didn’t want HIM to be his agent on the outside…maybe he’s a little too smart for that.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Doc, Madsen, and Hauser pull into the parking garage that Stillman’s armored car disappeared into. As Hauser and Madsen head off in search of the car, Doc makes a different conclusion – maybe Stillman was trying to get rid of that armored truck, in which case, he’d have a getaway vehicle parked somewhere nearby. Sure enough, WHAMMY – Doc immediately stumbles upon a hot-wired SUV.

He looks like he’s back working at Mr. Cluck’s drive-thru.

Hauser and Madsen spy not one but all three stolen armored cars, just before they all take off in different directions. Aw shit, they think Stillman’s pulling an Italian Job and using the other cars as decoys! Guess it’s lucky for them that Doc figured out the real deal-io.

Before they can go sprinting off after the armored cars, Doc lets them know that Stillman just took off in a different vehicle – Madsen wants to know why he didn’t call her and tell her that sooner. Doc says he would’ve, only then Stillman wouldn’t be driving around right now with a GPS tracker in his back seat. Aaaahhhh – he put his cell phone in the SUV! For the first time ever, Hauser looks pleased as punch with the Doc-meister.

Approval from the Almighty Grizzle.

Garrett Stillman makes it back to that silver trailer in the abandoned warehouse, where he succeeds in popping open the locked box that he just stole, to find…

ANOTHER G-D KEY?!?

If memory serves, when the warden used those two other keys on the vault door in the dungeons, it popped open a third lock – so this must be the key for that one, right? Wonder why it’s so different from the other two – do you think their mechanism was installed over top of that older lock in order to keep the door even safer?

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Harlan Simmons stands on the Alcatraz dock, ready to head back into San Francisco as a free man. Warden James comes to see him off personally, and he gives him a small scrap of paper – the phone number of a friend. A friend who will help Harlan find his feet back in the real world…a friend who will know how to put Harlan in touch with the warden ‘when the time is right.’ Then the warden winks at him.

Uh, sir, I’m flattered, buuuuuuut…

Harlan seems to understand what the warden is talking about, but he sure doesn’t look very happy about it. Is he referring to them meeting up in the future, perhaps? As Harlan’s ferry pulls away, the warden takes from his coat pocket…the very same key that Stillman just stole in 2012.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Stillman is still examining that key when the trailer door opens – but it’s not Tommy Madsen, or even the Justice League – it’s some totally new guy that Stillman calls Ghost.

I was hoping for a direwolf.

Ghost tells Stillman that he wasn’t supposed to open that box. He wants the key, but Garrett tells him that he didn’t steal it for HIM, so he’s not giving it to HIM. So Ghost shoots him in the head. That’s one way to end an argument.

Now the Justice League shows up, to find Garrett Stillman dead with a hole in his forehead. Madsen also notices something else – an apple peel on the floor, one that’s been peeled entirely in one long piece. Ah yes, the apple peel clue. Now she knows that her grandfather must be involved here, somehow.

Doc, who was left behind in the car with the windows cracked, is the only one who sees a new vehicle pull in. It’s dark, so he can’t quite make out who the driver is (though we can tell it’s Tommy Madsen). Just when Doc is almost able to see who it is, the driver flicks his high beams on and roars away. He calls out for Rebecca, and she and Hauser come running just in time to see the vehicle racing away.

Hauser gets a text from the science geeks, telling him to come quick because they found something exciting. Leaving the dynamic duo behind, Hauser heads straight to the Rock.

Once there, SpongeBob quickly leads him to the basement, where they’ve uncovered a giant metal door behind that wall they knocked down – the Warden’s Door, Hauser calls it. We certainly recognize it as such – it’s the very same door that the warden took Harlan Simmons to once upon a time. The mystery door!

What’s behind door number two, Monty?

Hauser wastes no time in pulling those two recovered keys from his pocket and fitting them into the locks on the door – CLINK. They work…and that third lock pops open. Hauser is stymied.

Over at quasi-Alcatraz, Lucy is interviewing Cobb – I totally forgot this was going on, did you? She wants to know why he shot her – and he tells her that she was a target.  WHAAAAA? I thought she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time – I figured he just shot whichever member of the team happened to open that window. Guess not, cuz Cobb tells Lucy that he didn’t want to kill any of the other members of the team – JUST HER.

Once again, she wants to know why. So Cobb tells her – as long as you’re alive, you’ll always be a target. INTERESTING!!! Who do you think wants Lucy dead, and why? Must have something to do with covering up the secrets of Alcatraz, right? Maybe Lucy knows more than she thinks she does.

At HQ, Doc and Madsen are going through pictures from a traffic camera near that abandoned warehouse where Stillman was shot, trying to find a photo of whoever that mystery driver was…and of course, they see that it was none other than Tommy Madsen. He must have been Garrett Stillman’s handler! But I sure hope they don’t think that he’s the one who killed him, because why the hell would he then come right back to the scene of the crime? Doesn’t make any sense.

Well, that’s the end of episode one of the finale, gang! Feel free to list any thoughts in the comments section, but I imagine most people will wait until the final recap to throw out their ideas…come back in a day or two and it’ll be up!

Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to get caught up on any previous recaps, you can find them all here. See you VERY soon!

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