Near the conclusion of this week’s Alcatraz episode, “Cal Sweeney,” Rebecca Madsen says to her partner, Dr. Soto, “Four down, a bunch more to go.”  She was talking about the various prisoners that appear conveniently every couple of days, leaving enough time for our heroes to capture or kill each one before another shows up.  Her comment, however, reflects just how I feel about the show.  It’s just a countdown to the revelation of why the hell the prisoners vanished -- this is episode four and there are many more to go.  It’s like a chore, or arduous police work, even with this week’s episode that pulled out some good parts at its ending.

This week’s Monster from Alcatraz was Cal Sweeney, a smooth-talking, handsome bank robber who seduces female bank tellers, so they’ll take him down to the safety deposit boxes for a fuck.  There, he renders them unconscious with some drug and proceeds to kill whatever poor Asian gentleman gets in his way, using one of those cool cattle-killing weapons a la No Country for Old Men.  Which I admit was pretty awesome.

For a mere instant, before the death of a poor Asian gentleman, I thought with this episode we’d get a cool, interesting prisoner -- a prisoner who either never killed or inadvertently killed, making him a bit more sympathetic and complex.  Instead, we get another criminal impossible to relate to.  But, I guess it’s better than a child killer, and I’m pretty sure the criminals in Alcatraz weren’t all that sympathetic, historically.  So, maybe that just comes with the territory.

The show again offered nothing interesting with its formulaic, predictable detective storyline.  There was no real tension, drama or intrigue, even in the big bank hostage situation, when we were supposed to feel anxious that Sweeney may be discovered by other, actual policemen and all hell would break loose.  It didn't and probably never will.  However, after the hostage situation, the interaction between Soto and Hauser, when Hauser was forced to hitch a ride with Soto, was great.  Hauser’s reluctance to talk with Soto is humorous and their conversation was welcome and funny.  It was perhaps one of the few solid moment in an otherwise disappointing episode.

The tone just isn’t dramatic enough. And that’s a primary problem for Alcatraz -- if the drama isn’t there, I’m just impatiently waiting for a resolution.  It seems that I just watch the detective part to waste time in between learning more about the histories of our Alcatraz inmates. 

There was, however, an instance of good drama that came from the present timeline.  Sweeney goes to the home of a middle-class suburbanite to learn the story behind a piece of jewelry he took from the man’s safe deposit box, only to kill him with the cool cattle-killing weapon ala No Country for Old Men.  (In fact, if you take out everything good in No Country for Old Men, except the cool cattle-killing weapon, that’s pretty much the episode.)  The scene was full of mystery and awesome, awesome gore and violence.

What is becoming increasingly irksome about the show’s present timeline is the prisoners’ continued indifference to the fact that they’ve vanished off the face of the earth for 50 years.  They have to know something’s up, or have at least a glimmer of an iota of an intuition that this isn’t the 1960s and some weird shit happened.  But apparently they don’t.  The first prisoner, Jack Sylvane, was actually an awesome introduction to the prisoners, as he struggled with his mission and the meaning of his vanishing.  I thought that would run the course of the show, but it hasn’t.  Perhaps they’ll explain later why none are actually concerned with their sudden disappearance and reappearance half a century in the future.  I’m also trying to figure out how they leave the prison in present time.  I’m guessing they just jump on the tourist ferry with the rest. Who knows?

Although the show was still procedural, formulaic, the ending piled on just a bit more mystery to keep the motors running.  On par with the show’s strategy, apparently, this interesting scene came in the last two minutes of the episode.  Our feature prisoner is called down to visit a mysterious person hidden away in the bowels of the prison.  We finally get to see what those keys are for, when the warden uses two to open the door.  The prisoner looks scared as shit.  Hell, there may actually be a real Monster from Alcatraz hidden in the room, ready to use the prisoners to attack the city.  If that happens, I’ll love the show for its audacity.  

Also, we finally get to see Parminder Nagra again.  But of course not in the present timeline.  Why address that plot thread?  No, no -- getting her shot, throwing her in a coma, then leaving her condition ambiguous with nary an update during the following couple episodes is probably the best way to go about that situation.  No, in this episode we get to see her back in Pastcatraz rubbing elbows at a fancy dinner party with old, rich, white guys who feel superior to things that aren’t old, rich, white guys.  Much like most old, rich white guys in most stories.

Nagra’s character, Dr. Lucy Banerjee, seldom seen, is more mysterious than most of the characters in Alcatraz, save Hauser.  She’s so self-serious, so laconic and dismal that she always appears hiding something, some regret or disgust, about whatever it is she’s doing in Alcatraz, past and present.  The fact that I still have no idea what she’s doing makes her all the more interesting.  The whole dinner scene is actually very well done, reminding me of why I love Parminder Nagra and hate old, rich white guys, as well as why I wish we could just stay back in Pastcatraz for most of the episodes.  Oh well, four down, a bunch more to go.

Something I failed to weave into the review:

• Dr. Soto knows a shit ton about buildings. A real shit ton.  Such as the exact design and placement of their air vents.  That’s how Rebecca broke into the hostage situation to free the Alcatraz inmate.  As fellow FYG writer, Xena pointed out recently, Soto seems to be a walking Wikipedia. I think I’m going to start tracking everything he knows.