Grade: C
Alcatraz has set itself up as a villain/returned inmate of the week type series & we’ve established that. The problem with the series though is that everything & everyone is pretty much flat. Each week we are presented with a new returning character that will most likely be seen again in the series in a very much smaller role. These characters are the ones that are usually given the special treatment like this weeks
”Paxton Petty”, a returned inmate & former war vet, while every other character on the series suffers. Thankfully this week Paxton is a character who brings a lot more intrigue even though his actions take on a one note value.
Petty used to blow up people. He was a former land mine specialist in the war & afterwards held a grudge for his treatment when returning so he started blowing people up until his imprisonment in Alcatraz. Upon his return it he goes back to the same old tricks of planting land mines in places. There is of course a method to his madness & it involves a poem & select key locations hidden inside it. This of course leads Emerson to finding Petty & a huge showdown almost happening if it wasn’t for Emerson stepping on a land mine and being trapped there unable to move away. Due to the episodes nature, bombs, Rebecca introduces us to one of her former force friends who is on the bomb squad & a former vet, hello meandering love for
The Hurt Locker. His introduction is all for naught but holds a significant importance which was probably not specifically intended. When Emerson is found this guy is called in to diffuse Petty’s bomb while Petty lays it out that it can’t be done. Of course the guy see’s that it is a pretty well laid out bomb & just when he things he has got it... boom. Of course the series wants you to think that about it. It can’t be cornered or figured out so easily & so early on. What the death really comes off as is what the series is trying to do.
Alcatraz is clearly trying to juggle too much & like this guy it is going to blow up but in terms of a likely cancelation due to low ratings & a very uninteresting & not well-thought-out story. One could always try to argue that it is a JJ Abrams produced series or that these characters have a rhyme or reason one should understand without having anything to relate to. The problem with that is the episode ends with Emerson shooting Petty in the leg for multiple petty reasons that add up to nothing but faux-substance.
