Review: ALCATRAZ 1.3 - Kit Nelson

So, how many prisoners escaped from Alcatraz in 1963? 302 I believe the number was, right? If that’s the case and this show continues in its current form then we may be waiting a while on the conclusion. I raved about Alcatraz following its pilot episode, I thought it looked really great. Then came “Ernest Cobb” to follow, there I was unimpressed and now “Kit Nelson” an episode where I can only say that I was bored but, I do feel that it could have been handled a lot better if they got the kidnap story right.

This episode featured the return of Kit Nelson (Michael Eklund), a loner child killer who killed his brother when he was younger, got a kick out of that and went on to kill again when he was an adult. Nelson leaves a chrysanthemum by the bed of his victims, he has been posing as a worker from a local DIY store doing work on a house stalking his next victim. He took the boy, and Doc was the first person to hear the info after the Amber warning came over the radio, he connected the dots thanks to the flower left behind at the scene.

Although the episode didn’t blow me away in any way shape or form, I did find this the most interesting story yet. Thanks largely to the performance of Michael Eklund who was both chilling and convincing, if I had one gripe in relation to the story I would say that it could have been drawn out longer, instead we got a fast paced one episode resolve to something like AMC’s The Killing. I think the show may get pretty predictable if this is all that happens every week, here for instance you could probably have guessed that Kit Nelson was not going to kill the kid but, if all we get every week is a new returning
prisoner from 1963 who seems to fit in perfectly fine in the modern day, who is then returned to prison by the obvious liar Emerson Hauser then Alcatraz could loose peoples interest and quick.

What worked best for me this week other than the Kit Nelson present day story line was the flashbacks to 1960, in particular two scenes the first where the guards turned a blind eye to the fact that Kit was about to be beaten to an inch of his life, the best though, the scene between Kit and Warden Edwin James (Jonny Coyne) where they locked him in the dark room and the Warden gave him the time of four matches to admit to killing his brother, very good, more of this please.

We need to know more about the people playing the main characters, don’t we? We did learn a little about Doc during this episode, finding out that he was kidnapped as an 11 year old kid, explaining why he felt so emotionally attached to this weeks story. The story of Detective Madsen (Sarah Jones) or Emerson Hauser is yet to be explained along with Lucy (Parminder Nagra), Is it obvious what those stories will be though? Detective Madsen is no doubt going to see the story with her grandfather expand, so far he is the only former Alcatraz inmate who has not been caught, Emerson Hauser is clearly well in on what ever is going on and then you have Lucy, we already know that she was at Alcatraz in 1963, she was the nurse. In the present day she hasn’t aged a bit.

I wouldn’t say that I didn’t enjoy Alcatraz this week, nor have I disliked any other week but there is definitely room for it to get more Interesting, I will still be watching next weeks (This weeks, I am week behind Remember?) “Cal Sweeney” and probably the rest of the season, how about you guys, what are your thoughts on Alcatraz so far?