Alcatraz Recap: Finale, Part Two

Anyone else tired of this guy???

Hello, dearest readers, and welcome to the very last Alcatraz recap of the season…or possibly forever! That’s just part of the show’s MYSTERY!!

Monday night’s finale was a two-parter, and this recap will cover the second half (‘Tommy Mother F-in Madsen’) – if you’d like to check out the recap for part one, you can find it right here.

Here goes nothin’! Thanks for hanging in with me, guys…even if the show has been frustrating at times, it’s been fun to hash it out with you guys.

The first half of the finale did nothing to raise my hopes for this damn show – there were so many missed opportunities, for both the characters and the story, that I’m starting to feel like someone needs to walk into that writers’ room and start some major WHUPPIN’. Perhaps if the show gets picked up for a second season they can start to straighten up their act a little…

The second half of the finale begins with a little time traveling of its own…we see Detective Rebecca Madsen lying on the pavement, holding a bloody wound on her side and whimpering…but we have no idea how she got there.

At least it wasn’t a long fall. OH SNAP, LAST ‘SHORT’ JOKE OF THE SEASON!

The screen goes to black, and the words ’36 HOURS EARLIER’ pop up – I feel like this storytelling device is so overused in television these days, and usually it’s not very effective. (Case AGAINST point: the episode of Breaking Bad that began with the shot of the teddy bear floating in the pool. That was awesome.)

See, the problem is, the folks over at Alcatraz haven’t given me any reason to really care about Rebecca Madsen, so I’m sort of ho-hum seeing her like this. They need to figure out how to give these characters a lot more depth and personality if they want to survive their second season (if it happens).

Anyway. 36 hours earlier, Rebecca is sitting in her Uncle Ray’s bar, chatting with the chief of police. She thinks an organized crime syndicate is behind the prisoners’ reappearances (though she just tells the chief that they’re ‘special fugitives’), and she also thinks that her partner’s murder MUST be tied in to the whole thing, somehow.

The chief has a nasty surprise for Becky – her partner, Will Peters, was being investigated by I.A. (Internal Affairs) at the time of his death – for suspicious payments from Broadway Mutual. And as we know, Broadway Mutual is owned by none other than former Alcatraz inmate (but not returnee) Harlan Simmons. Hm.

Across town, a gentleman we just met in the previous episode – Ghost, another ’63 – has arrived at a psychiatric hospital, demanding entrance. The gal at the front desk is like, uh uh, no way mister scary pants, but when he flashes her an ID card from Broadway Mutual, she quickly buzzes him through the door.

Um, did they make that with a P-Touch?

Ghost, aka Joseph Limerick, really, REALLY wants to be admitted to this private care facility, but the desk gal wants to get his personal information first – who his doctor is, etc etc. Ghost doesn’t have time for all this crap, so he flat out tells her that he’s a returned Alcatraz inmate from 1963 who’s on the run from baddies and needs a place to lie low for a while. Somehow, this works.

Next thing we know, Ghost Joe is going through the admittance process, ending up in a cozy little room all by his lonesome, where he can rest his weary head and examine this little object he had hidden on his person:

THE PRECIOUSSSSSSS!

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Back in good ol’ 1960, guess who was Ghost Joe’s next door cell neighbor?

God damn it.

Boy, those writers sure do have a boner for Tommy Madsen, don’t they? Shouldn’t he just be a series regular at this point? Maybe they can rename the show Tommy Madsen of Alcatraz.

Apparently, Ghost Joe recently made an escape attempt. REALLY recently, since I’m guessing he’s currently shivering from having just been submerged in the ass-cold waters of San Francisco Bay. He says he made it out, but that darn riptide kept throwing him back. So no, Ghost, you didn’t escape.

However, Tommy lets him in on some disturbing knowledge…Joe isn’t being let out of his cell because the official word is that he’s dead. The warden filled out the death certificate and everything, because everyone assumed Joe died before making it to shore. And this is where Joe gets the nickname ‘Ghost.’ Because for all intents and purposes, the dude is dead, yo.

The warden shows up to cart Tommy off to the infirmary for yet another round of bloodletting. Ghost Joe asks him when he can have his inmate number back, but corpses don’t have numbers. So since everyone thinks he’s kicked the can, he can’t have one. So there.

The warden gets Tommy to the infirmary, where he’s promptly strapped down to a table. But today they won’t be taking any blood from Tommy…oh no. Rather, today they’re gonna put some back IN. With some added bonuses, to be sure. And there’s a new El Creepo Doctoro on hand to handle the transfusion.

Comfy? Cozy? Good.

This guy (who the show’s IMDB page only lists as “Mr. K”) is played by actor Matt Craven, who probably looks familiar to you because he’s been in like 800 movies and TV shows. He plays a good baddie, so here’s hoping the show keeps him around if it comes back next year.

Tommy asks Mr. K what he did to this blood that’s being pumped into his arm. Mr. K’s answer is great  – ‘Lots.’ Tommy says he can taste metal, probably all that colloidal silver they squeezed into the mix. He then asks Mr. K if he’s going to die, to which Mr. K replies, ‘Possible.’ Then the new blood makes its way to Tommy’s brain, and it sure doesn’t look like it feels very good in there.

Is he going to turn into a silver Hulk?

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In present day, Tommy Madsen is stealthily breaking into some dude’s home. He clocks the unsuspecting dude, then demands to know where the dude’s wife is. Meanwhile, a little girl – the dude’s daughter – shows up in the background. Luckily, Tommy doesn’t see her, and she goes running off into the woods, hopefully to get help for daddy, but maybe to be raised by wolves.

Tommy instructs the dude to text his wife and tell her to come home right now. And then they’re gonna wait until she shows up. I hope she brings dinner, cuz I’m STARVING.

At quasi-Alcatraz, Doc B is giving Lucy a little check-up. She wants to know if she’ll be able to play the violin, now that Webb Porter’s blood is running through her veins. Doc B laughs this off, but I think this is supposed to be a clue for us that Porter’s blood won’t be creating any adverse side effects in little Lucy.

Lucy asks Dr. Beauregard why silver was put into the inmate’s blood, and why only some of them. Thank God SOMEONE is asking some important questions around here!!! Ridiculous that it’s one of the ’63s themselves. It’s like if the Others went around asking the Losties why there were polar bears on the island.

Doc B has no clue about the silver – remember, he claimed earlier on that he was only in charge of taking the blood out. He had no clue what was being done to it after the fact. Which is probably why they had to come up with this new creepy doctor character.

Both Lucy and Doc B wonder if they can isolate the silver in her blood, presumably so they can remove it from her, now that it’s done its job. Doc B’s gonna check into it.

In another part of quasi-Alcatraz, Emerson Hauser is viewing the tape of Lucy’s recent interview with Ernest Cobb, the one where he tells her that as long as she’s alive she’ll always be a target. Just then, Lucy pops in. Hauser wants to put her somewhere safe, but she doesn’t seem down with this idea – she wants to be in the center of the action. P.O.’d, she starts to leave the room, but then Hauser gets a text – there’s been a possible ID of Tommy Madsen. Sigh. Who HASN’T seen this guy???

The whole Justice League ends up at the police department, where that dude’s little girl has been brought in, scared shitless and unable to remember her last name or address. This kid’s gonna need some major therapy until she’s at least 27.

Child Actors from Low-Rated Television Series Anonymous

Rebecca has an idea – maybe Doc should do some drarw-wings for the little girl, in the hopes of taking her mind off of her recent trauma. Lucy has an even better idea – have Doc leave an obvious part of his picture out, so that the girl is encouraged to fill it in. Which she does.

Thank God, cuz blind cats freak me the fuck out.

Seriously. Once when I was a kid, I picked up a stray cat that showed up at my house, only to discover that it had a big, gaping, goopy hole where its left eye should’ve been. I’m an animal lover, but I’ll freely admit that I threw that cat away from me like it was on fire. Which is probably was. With some disease. And that’s why I’M in therapy.

Once the little girl draws in some eyeballs for poor blind kitty, she tells the dynamic duo that cats can see in the dark. Madsen asks her what this cat sees, and the girl says that it sees daddy fighting with another man. Bingo! Good thing Doc happened to draw a cat and not a mole or a bat.

The little girl ID’s Tommy Madsen as the guy who punched her daddy.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Tommy wakes up from his transfusion…only he’s not in Kansas on Alcatraz anymore.

Only the swankiest prisoners get to wake up in Nob Hill.

He’s confused, obviously. Warden James shows up with a tray full of food, which throws Tommy even further out of whack. He wants to know if he’s dead, if this is heaven. Though why he thinks the warden would show up in his version of heaven, your guess is as good as mine.

Tommy is ecstatic to have survived the night – the warden tells him that he should be a nickel, what with all the silver they pumped into his veins. Tommy says he feels great, and he sure does look hella amped.

He wants to know what the silver was for. The warden says protection – this is gonna be one of those ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ type of deals. Talk about a deal with the devil.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In 2012, Tommy Madsen is waiting for that dude’s wife to show up, and when she does, he wastes no time in pointing a gun at her face and telling her to come with him. Unfortunately for Tommy, he didn’t tie the husband up very well, because he appears half-trussed on the stairs above and starts firing his own gun at the blonde intruder. Tommy returns fire.

DON’T JUST COVER YOUR EARS, LADY!!!

Seriously. Get the f*ck down on the ground.

The husband takes a bullet to the shoulder, and Tommy grabs the wife and takes off.

Back at the police station, Doc and Rebecca get the little girl to give them her address using the same methods as they did with the cat – a picture of a house with no number. The girl mumbles an address, and the gang is off and running.

They show up at the girl’s house and find the girl’s father, bloody but alive. He tells them that Tommy came for his wife, and that they only left ten minutes prior. He’s pretty sure he shot Tommy during their OK Corral sequence.

Looks like the dude is right, because elsewhere in the city, Tommy is forcing the dude’s wife to sew up his wound. She tells him he needs a real doctor, but he tells her not to worry – it’ll heal. He also asks her how old she thinks he is, but she’s not really in the mood to play a carnival guessing game.

Guess Your Age and Win Some Crap!

Wait a second. This makes it sound like Tommy considers himself to be the age he would have been in 2012, had the inmates not all disappeared back in 1963. Which would make him around 80-ish, yes? Sooooo…is it possible that Tommy Madsen DIDN’T DISAPPEAR with the rest of the ’63s? Is it possible that Tommy Madsen, like Harlan Simmons, wasn’t even on the island when The Event took place? Is it possible that Tommy Madsen IS ACTUALLY 80 YEARS OLD, BECAUSE HE NEVER WENT ANYWHERE???

(and all that silver keeps him young and fit, of course)

Ok. Across town at an airfield, Hauser climbs aboard a swanky private jet to have a little tete-a-tete with some high-ranking military dude.

What, was R. Lee Ermey already booked?

Hauser tells this dude that he needs a meeting with the elusive Harlan SImmons – stat. He also mentions that Tommy Madsen is ‘active again,’ and has a particular interest in Mr. Simmons – Hauser wants to know why.

All of this ‘active again’ stuff lends credence to my theory, don’t you think? That Tommy’s been around this whole time? Anyway.

Camo Pants wants to know if this means the warden is back – INTERESTING! So a lot more people than just Hauser know what’s going on with these returnees, eh? Camo tells Hauser that getting to Simmons is ‘above his pay grade.’ Hauser remarks that the only person above Camo’s pay grade is the President himself. But Camo tells him that even the POTUS can’t get him in touch with Harlan Simmons. Jeez. This guy Harlan must have money pouring out of his asshole.

Camo has some documents for Hauser – a fake passport for Lucy. He also offers to let her hitch a ride to Paraguay on an upcoming mission – Hauser says that’s difficult for him, considering what happened last time. So Hauser’s not welcome in Paraguay. Good to know…I guess? Makes you wonder about what stuff Hauser was working on before all of this Alcatraz stuff started going down.

Hauser tells Camo that he wants to go with Lucy, just long enough to get her settled in. Camo tells him that he’s gotta brief his team – and that’s an order, chum. Does this mean that Hauser’s FINALLY gonna give Rebecca and Doc some freaking information????

At Alcatraz HQ, Lucy, Doc, and Rebecca are digging up some background on the kidnapped wife.

Teri Polo?

Seems the wife works at McAllister Psychiatric Hospital – this sets off some warning bells for us in the audience, but the gang doesn’t make the connection right away.

Rebecca gives Doc and Lucy the lowdown on her dead partner, and how he was on the take from Broadway Mutual (Harlan’s company) – maybe that’s why Tommy wanted him dead.

Hauser shows up, and he’s ready to start divulging some major intel. Doc and Madsen can hardly believe it. Hauser invites them to join him in his mysterious lab room, the one that’s always locked and contains all manner of science geeks.

This isn’t intimidating in the least.

The first thing Hauser has to show the duo is those two fat, silver keys that he’s been studying. Rebecca is floored – there are TWO keys? She only knew about the one from Cal Sweeney, after all – she had no clue about the Jack Sylvane version.

The duo want to know what these keys are for, and Hauser opens right up and tells them – they open a mysterious door in the dungeons, one that had been hidden until very recently. But the door still can’t be opened, as it requires a third key that has yet to be found.

Hauser also tells them that this door is called the Warden’s Door, since those keys were once his. His suspicion is that Tommy Madsen is working for Warden James, and that the warden is the one behind all of this nonsense.

Doc spies a weird machine in the corner and wants to know what it is. Hauser and SpongeBob SquareHead tell him that it measures seismic activity, that there is a theory that the Jump was caused by a shift in tectonic plates. Which I guess would make San Francisco an obvious focal point, since it lies on a fault line and all.

Interesting to note: SpongeBob also throws out a couple of other possible names for the Jump…was it time dilation? Quantum tunneling? Cryogenics? All theories that have been thrown around on the internet – but we’re not gonna find out what it truly is quite yet.

Emerson tells the duo that he’s giving them this information now because he has to go away for a week, to stash Lucy away in a safe hiding place. Oops – looks like Lucy just happened to walk into the room in time to catch that last bit, and she is NOT pleased.

She does, however, have information for the team – she’s discovered that connection they were looking for regarding the kidnapped wife. The hospital she works for is owned by none other than Broadway Mutual. Also, her retinal scan was just activated at the hospital – so she’s there RIGHT NOW.

Speaking of which…at the hospital, Kidnapped Wife is being escorted through the halls by Tommy Madsen. Looking for Ghost, I presume?

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! The warden and Tommy Madsen are sitting down to lunch at a quaint Italian restaurant. Warden James had asked Madsen to name his price (for what, exactly??), and this is what he wanted – a cannoli and a glass of “I-talian red.” It also just so happens to be the restaurant where he met his wife.

Cannoli, fava beans, and a nice Chianti.

Warden James says, ‘consider me a genie, and I can grant you one perfect day – what do you want most in the world right now?’ Tommy looks longingly at a family sitting at a nearby table. The warden gets the point.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! Tommy Madsen shoves the Kidnapped Wife into the room of…well, who knows, cuz the guy ain’t there. Madsen starts frantically searching for something, tearing out drawers, throwing stuff around. Just then, the room’s occupant comes back – yep, it’s Ghost all right. And he doesn’t look too pleased to see Tommy.

AW SHIT WHAT?

Tommy asks Ghost where the key is, and Ghost takes off running. Tommy is quick to pursue, dragging the lady doc along for the ride.

At quasi-Alcatraz, Lucy wants to know how Dr. B is doing on that whole taking-the-silver-out-of-the-blood thing. He tells her that the silver sends out a frequency, almost like a homing signal. HMMMMMMM.

The easier to track you with, my dear.

Bad news – the doc can’t separate the silver from the blood stream, so Lucy’s always gonna have that Murder Red in her system. The doc wants to know if Lucy’s gonna go off with Hauser to wherever he wants to stash her, and it seems she feels obligated to do so, even though Hauser isn’t the man she fell in love with. Part of him is missing. Not sure when she became such bosom pals with the creepy Dr. Beauregard – they’re like girls sharing secrets at a slumber party all of the sudden.

Look at me, I’m Doc-tor B!

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! We now see exactly what it was that Tommy wanted from the warden – a glimpse of his young son, whom he hasn’t seen in three years. That’s Rebecca’s daddy, for those of you keeping score.

A whole new meaning for ‘Baby Daddy.’

Tommy tries to talk to little Van, who looks up at him fearfully, then quickly runs away inside his house. Is there a specific reason Van is scared of daddy, or has he just been trained really, really well not to talk to strangers? Tommy is heartbroken.

But he quickly pulls himself together, and marches back to the warden with a steely look in his eyes. ‘I know what I want from you,’ he tells Warden James harshly. And thus begins the realm of Evil Tommy Madsen, ladies and germs.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! At the psychiatric hospital, Ghost is full-on sprinting in an attempt to avoid the clutches of Evil Tommy Madsen. Unfortunately for him, he sprints right into a locked door at the end of a dead-end hallway – d’oh. He tells Tommy that he doesn’t have ‘it’ (meaning the key, we assume)…he then says, ‘he’ll kill me.’ Tommy tells Ghost that he’ll keep him safe from Harlan Simmons – so now a big chunk of the picture falls into place.

Looks like our two warring factions are Warden James and Tommy Madsen vs. Harlan Simmons and his crew – both sides are trying desperately to get those three keys, presumably to get at whatever is behind that vault-like door in the dungeons of Alcatraz. Most of our returnees would seem to be on the ‘side’ of the warden – certainly Garrett Stillman and Tommy Madsen, anyway. It’s less clear about the other returnees – some of them simply seem to be out for themselves, murdering people for the hell of it, and even the ones who are clearly connected to the bigger mystery – Jack Sylvane and Cal Sweeney, for instance, who both went after hidden keys – aren’t clearly on one side or the other – we don’t know who the person pulling their strings is…yet.

I’d say the only ’63 who seems to be obviously on the side of Harlan Simmons (other than Ghost, of course) is Guy Hastings, the returned guard, since he came back searching for Tommy…and it didn’t seem as though he wanted to find him to give him a big ol’ hug, either.

What are your thoughts? Who’s working for whom? And where do Lucy and Dr. B fall? Somewhere in the middle? Are they the warden’s agents as well, or do they straddle some sort of neutral ground?

Back in the psych ward, Tommy tells Ghost that he’s not gonna ask for the key again. Ghost says he knows that…and then turns around and throws himself through the giant window at the end of the hall, plummeting to his death several stories below.

I REGRET NOTHIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG!

Our Justice League comes roaring up, just in time to see Ghost splattered all over the sidewalk. Rebecca gets out of her car and looks up, meeting the eyes of her grandfather as he surveys the grisly scene below.

Ghost go splat.

Hauser shouts for the exits of the building to be secured, and he and Rebecca go running into the hospital to try to catch the elusive Mr. Madsen. Heading up to the floor that Ghost leaped to his death from, Rebecca encounters the Kidnapped Wife, who seems shaken but otherwise totally fine. Lame. She tells Becky that Tommy escaped down a nearby trash (or laundry) chute. Rebecca asks her where it leads.

Admit it, you were sorta hoping for this.

But no, the chute leads to the parking garage. Ho hum. Tommy breaks into a nearby car, hot-wires it, and manages to race out of the garage JUST as the doors as closing.

Well THAT was timed exceedingly well.

Hey wait – you notice that little running figure off to the side? Rebecca Madsen, of course, who – though she did not take a trip down the chute like her grandpa Tommy (which had to take balls, I must say) – managed to run down several flights of stairs and outside fast enough to emerge RIGHT BEHIND TOMMY. Yes, it took him a few seconds to hot-wire the car, and yes, it took a few moments for him to drive around the garage to the exit, but still – girlfriend is like SUPER speedy.

She flags down a passing Mustang with her gun and orders the driver out – ‘man, are you kiddin’ me, I just bought this thing!’ he whines. Nice product placement, by the way, Ford. Not obvious in the slightest. (Though not NEARLY as bad as the ‘blue Nissan Versa’ from the first (and only worthwhile) season of Heroes. Gag me.) She jumps into the bright blue Mustang and squeals off in pursuit of Tommy.

Commercial break, then we’re back in 1960 on Alcatraz Island, where Tommy is waiting in a holding area. It appears he’s been waiting for his brother Young Ray Archer, who’s a little confused – he thought Tommy said the warden wanted to see him.

Nah, I just wanted a double cheeseburger and fries, think you can rustle some up for me, home slice?

Tommy wants Ray to leave Alcatraz. Ray is stunned – he just got here, and he’s not planning on leaving the island without his beloved brother. Tommy doesn’t want to hear it – he’s even got adoption papers already drawn up so that Ray can take custody of little Van Madsen.

Ray is extremely upset – he’s finally in good with the warden, and he’s absolutely sure there’s a way to get Tommy out of this place. But Tommy has a rude awakening for poor Ray. He tells him that he DID kill his wife, stuck a gun in her mouth, pulled the trigger, the whole nine yards. Even better, little Van was right there watching and got sprayed with his mother’s blood. No wonder the kid ran screaming (well, almost) at the very sight of his terrifying father.

This is huge, and it’s clear that Ray doesn’t quite buy it – and neither do I. It could very well be true, but it seems to me that it’s just a ploy by Tommy in an effort to convince Ray to leave him behind. But who knows – maybe he really did kill her. Will we ever find out???

Turns out Tommy has some other documents ready for Ray as well – walking papers. Yep, he’s officially been fired from Alcatraz. Boy, he sure wasn’t there very long – it’s surprising that Doc even had a mention of him in his book, since he couldn’t have been there for more than a few months.

Tommy tells Ray he can’t look at his face anymore, then screams at him to GO!!! This finally breaks poor Ray, and he grabs up the paperwork from Tommy and heads out the door to meet the ferry that’s waiting to take him back to the mainland. He has one last thing to say to Tommy: ‘You’ll never see your son again.’

Once he’s gone, Tommy stands and turns to look at the one-way mirror in the room, and of course, we have a pretty good guess who’s standing on the other side.

A Warden James hologram.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In 2012, Tommy Madsen pulls his stolen car up to a red light – and who pulls up right behind him but Rebecca in her bright blue Mustang. He revs his engine, and a 43-minute homage to the San Francisco car chase from the movie Bullitt ensues.

Okay, okay, it’s not really 43 minutes, but it kinda feels like it. Anyway.

Back at the hospital, Lucy has shown up – Hauser’s not happy about her presence here, but what’s he gonna do? Doc has a moment of confusion – how can this mushy dead guy be Joe Limerick, who supposedly died in an escape attempt back in 1960?? Well, however the mix-up happened, clearly this dude was indeed Joe, and he sure is dead now.

The Kidnapped Wife tells them about the key Ghost supposedly had, and Hauser leans down to frisk the stiff in an attempt to find it.

Hey man, you get your kicks wherever you can, right?

Hauser searches, but no key. Doc tells them that inmates used to sew things into their cuffs to hide them from the guards…he bends down, inspects Mushy’s pant cuffs, and sure enough – voila! A key!

Yeah, yeah, here it is, whatever.

Hauser moves to take it, but Doc has other plans. He wants to find Rebecca first, then they can all go open that mysterious door together. He walks away, and Hauser is so panicked about losing sight of that damn key that he actually PULLS HIS GUN on Doc!!!

Um, aren’t we overreacting just a wee bit??

I guess that’s what Lucy meant when she kept referring to how trigger-happy Emerson is – damn bro, Doc’s on YOUR side, man!!! Luckily he doesn’t shoot. Doc climbs into Rebecca’s abandoned car and drives away to hunt her down.

Meanwhile, that darn car chase is still going on. And on. And on. Until finally, Rebecca manages to side-swipe Tommy’s car at just the right angle to send it cartwheeling down a hill.

Good thing there happens to be zero pedestrians around here.

The car finally skids to a stop, on its roof with a fire licking at its underbelly. Rebecca comes running up, and she pulls Tommy out of the vehicle just in time – they race to safety as the car explodes into a fireball behind them.

They sure do like to blow shit up on this show.

Rebecca wastes no time in training her gun sights on Tommy Madsen. He tells her she doesn’t need the gun because they’re blood, but she says that doesn’t make them family – she doesn’t know him. He asks if she wants to know why he killed her partner, then tells her that the partner was being paid to keep his eye on Rebecca, in an attempt to get to Tommy himself. I think he’s trying to convince her that he truly cares about her.

I’d say anything to get a gun out of my face, too.

She wants to know why Harlan Simmons is involved in all of this – Tommy tells her it’s because he broke a promise to Warden James. Hm…what promise could this be? I’m guessing that however Harlan made his billions, it had something to do with the warden or what he was shown in that dungeon room, because that would make him indebted to the old bastard. Then in return, he was probably supposed to help the warden out once he reappeared in the future or whatever, but instead of doing that, he disappeared, dropping out of society and the public eye to the point that not even the President of the United States can find him.

So Harlan Simmons is running scared (shitless) from Warden James, Tommy Madsen, and the whole lot of them. And since he went into hiding way back in the ’70s, he had to have seen this coming for quite some time. Is it possible that Harlan, too, had some silver injections? And therefore looks mysteriously young for his age? I doubt it, because we never saw him in the infirmary, or even mentioning blood transfusions, but it would be a cool revelation. I think Harlan was more of an errand boy for the warden, opposed to silver-infused Tommy Madsen, who is definitely a soldier.

Tommy asks what Rebecca will do if he doesn’t agree to go with her into custody, and she calmly responds that she’ll shoot his ass. Nice. He asks her what her parents were like, in another obvious attempt to distract her and throw her for a loop – she’s not taking the bait, at least not until he brings up their death. ‘Did Ray tell you what happened to them?’ Tommy inquires. Rebecca’s confused – didn’t they die in a car crash? I guess Tommy’s insinuating that it was instead something far more devious, something that likely involved Harlan Simmons. But we’ll never know, at least for right now, because instead of giving her more information, Tommy suddenly pulls out a wicked looking knife and stabs Becky in the side.

It’s merely a flesh wound.

Tommy runs off, steals Becky’s stolen Mustang, and flees the scene, leaving his wounded granddaughter to bleed out onto the pavement. Luckily for her, Doc pulls up at that very moment to save the day.

She’s rushed to the hospital, where doctors work on her frantically. The gang’s all here – Doc, Hauser, and Lucy. Hauser tries to use this as a reason for shuffling Lucy off into hiding, but she thinks it’s the very reason she should stay. She doesn’t want Hauser to pack her off to some far-away land while he stays in San Francisco to finish his life’s work without her.

Hauser tells Lucy that he’s lost her twice already (once in 1963, once when she almost died after being shot by Ernest Cobb) and that it won’t happen again. In turn, she tells HIM that they’ve already survived a 50-year time slippage and a bullet to the heart – what could possibly come between them now? It’s sweet and kind of depressing, but I’m glad we’re getting at least a LITTLE personal life with some of these characters. It’s nice to know they have feelings and a heart.

Totally thought they were gonna start making out.

Just then, Uncle Ray bursts in, wanting to know who did this to his darling Becky. Hauser tells him it was his brother, good ol’ Tommy Madsen. Ray is furious – he told Hauser that something like this would happen, and he yells for Hauser to get the f*ck out of Dodge. Hauser and Lucy leave, but not before Ray makes a realization – hey, she’s one of THEM! So now Ray knows that Lucy, a ’63 herself, is on the dream team.

As Hauser is on his way out the door, Doc hands him Ghost’s key – he no longer has any interest in whatever lies behind the Warden’s Door. Becky is far more important. Hauser shrugs, takes the key, and leaves with Lucy. Man, Hauser’s on everyone’s shit list right now.

Back on the Rock, Hauser and Lucy waste no time in getting down to the dungeons to try out that new key in the third keyhole. Sure enough, it works…and for the first time, we’re gonna see what lies behind that freaking door. !!!!!

At first, all is darkness, but then Hauser finds an electrical switch. He throws it, and the room is slowly illuminated. There are some strange machines covered by drop cloths, and a map of the United States on the back wall.

Um…that’s it?

Lucy inspects the map more closely as Hauser lifts the plastic sheeting off of the machines. Seems there are quite a few numbered pegs stuck into the map, and as she tentatively touches one of them, they all light up for a brief moment.

That’s the biggest Lite Brite I’ve ever seen.

Lucy has a realization – those numbers correspond to inmate numbers! So these pegs were a way of tracking Alcatraz prisoners…probably by utilizing the silver in their bloodstreams. So perhaps these pegs represent where the prisoners were expected to pop back into existence…and as Hauser says, ‘it’s not just San Francisco. They’re EVERYWHERE.’ DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!!

(If the show does come back for a second season, this gives the staff a convenient way to broaden the scope of the show and take the action outside of San Fran, which could be very nice indeed.)

And it makes sense that not all of the prisoners would show up in San Francisco, right? I mean, they couldn’t have ALL been from the area – that would be a little too easy. And since they seem to be popping back up in places that had meaning to them (we assume), it makes sense that some of them would show up in Texas, or Michigan, or at the World’s Largest Rocking Chair.

Yes, sadly, that exists.

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! A newly recruited Tommy Madsen shows up at that very same dungeon room, only it looks a lot newer and cleaner, being that it’s 50 years earlier. The warden has a chat with the other fellow in the room – that very same Mr. K that experimented with Tommy’s blood.

Make sure you guys turn off at least five of those lights when you leave, ok?

Mr. K shows a printout to the warden – it’s a list of addresses, and it just so happens to be the exact locations that the warden traveled to earlier that day with Tommy Madsen. So yes, they can indeed track these prisoners by using the silver in their blood…and track them pretty precisely, at that.

The warden tells Mr. K that all of his best intentions are nothing without Mr. K’s science, that they hold no water. ‘Water,’ replies Mr. K, ‘the elixir of life.’ That sounded a little too specific to be a random line. What do you think he means? Will water have something to do with how these people disappeared and reappeared 50 years later?

Tommy asks Mr. K how he knew that Tommy would survive the blood transfusion. Mr. K tells him that he’s been watching him since 1952, when Tommy was in the Korean War. Warden James then tells Tommy that this room represents his future, that he’s going to be their ‘advance man.’

Both the warden and Mr K want to make sure their agreement with Tommy still stands. He says of course – and then Mr. K says, ‘what if I told you that three years from now, you’ll be out in the world?’ ‘Free?’ Tommy wants to know. The other two men merely smirk, which I take to mean that while Tommy will technically be free – that is, out of prison – he’ll never be released from the bonds that tie him to his duties.

So the warden and this Mr. K clearly have a plan that’s already being put into action – they already know exactly when the Jump will happen, anyway, and are initiating certain crucial actions like sending Harlan Simmons back out into the world, and filling Tommy Madsen’s blood with nickel shavings. The main question remains: how did they manage the Jump???

CLANK-RATTLE-SLAM! In the 2012 Control Room, Hauser and Lucy hear a noise. Hauser draws his weapon and they investigate, coming across this in a dark corner behind a wall:

Special K.

Yes, it’s Mr. K himself, surrounded by a bunch of cans of food – what this means, who knows? Maybe he was locked into this room before the Jump and had these cans as supplies. Or maybe he woke up before now and was eating this stuff to survive…but his clothes look pretty clean, so I would guess that he just now ‘woke up’ or ‘reappeared.’

He mistakes Hauser momentarily for Tommy Madsen. He struggles to put his glasses on and asks what year it is. When Hauser tells him ’2012,’ the guy just starts to laugh maniacally. It’s hard to tell whether or not it’s happy laughter, but it certainly sounds like he’s bat-shit cray-cray.

Good times, man, GOOD TIMES.

Back at the hospital, the doctors are still scurrying around Rebecca’s inert form. They get out the paddles, which can’t mean anything good…next thing you know, you can hear the sound of her heart monitor flatline. Yikes.

The doctors stop scurrying, and one says, ‘note the time.’ Wait, WHA? She’s dead?? Seriously? I mean, I sort of don’t give a rat’s ass, but really? No way.

Way.

And that’s how our first season ends, ladies and gents. Whooooo!!

Thoughts? First and foremost, I certainly don’t believe that Rebecca’s gone for good. There will be some miracle solution that brings her back to life…or maybe there’s something about that special Madsen blood that will revive her. Or maybe they’ll somehow get a load of Tommy’s silverized blood into her veins. In any case, I really don’t think they’d kill her off, even though a lot of people aren’t crazy about her. Cuz then they’d have to kick Doc off the show, too – he’s not well connected enough to Hauser and Lucy for it to make sense for him to stay if Rebecca’s dead.

So now we’re fairly certain that the warden and Mr. K were the masterminds behind the Jump – but we still don’t know exactly what that entailed, nor why they did it in the first place. Any ideas on their master plan? This may be totally cuckoo, but I have a sneaking suspicion that all of that Civil War gold has something to do with it – even if they just gave it to Harlan Simmons way back when.

They obviously wanted to experiment with their very own ‘super soldiers,’ but for what purpose? And why is the warden so adamant about getting those damn keys back in 2012? Is it because he knows that Mr. K will come back in that room? Or better yet, will the warden himself come back in that room? We don’t know for sure that he’s back yet – perhaps he left marching orders for Tommy Madsen and Co. before he winked out of existence.

And I still believe it’s possibly that Tommy Madsen himself never went anywhere – that he has been around since 1963, holed up in San Francisco somewhere, awaiting the right time to strike. Oh, and not aging, of course. Then again, why would he not make contact with Ray Archer sooner? After all, when he first shows up to Ray’s bar (in a flashback scene), Ray is shocked to see him, and amazed at how young he looks.

At the very least, Tommy must have been the first one back, since the warden called him the ‘advance man.’ And why is Lucy such a target – and for whom? Who wants her dead – Harlan, or Warden James? What does she know that’s so dangerous? And why aren’t they going after Dr. Beauregard, too? And why doesn’t Dr. Beauregard throw a giant hissy fit that Lucy is allowed to go traipsing around outside in 2012 while he’s locked up with the rest of the ’63s?

Well, I’ll leave you with that, dear readers. Please use the comment section to voice your opinions, thoughts, theories, etc, and I look forward to continuing the conversation! It’s been fun watching with y’all…see you next year…MAYBE!

Mwah!! And if you’d like to get caught up with past recaps from the season, you can read them all right here. Thanks!

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