Welcome back to The Rock, Ladies & Gents!
This week’s episode of Alcatraz begins with a handsome man in a spiffy suit entering a bank in present day. Handsome man who we now know as Cal Sweeney heads to the safety deposit boxes with Amanda the bank teller. Cal and Amanda start getting hot and heavy until he drugs her and starts breaking into the safety deposit boxes with one of those weird air gun things they used in No Country For Old Men. Cal empties out the contents of the boxes into his briefcase and finds the “Heart of the Ocean” necklace from Titanic just as someone enters the room. Cal kills the poor guy with the air gun and the hunt is on.
Back in 1963 at Alcatraz – we discover that Cal ran the contraband smuggling business at the prison. While Cal is teaching a new young protege Harlan the business he finds out that Deputy Warden Tiller is tossing his cell and apparently something very important to Cal is missing. Sweeney interrupts Tiller’s shave and demands the return of a metal box from his cell. Tiller then demands a chunk of Sweeney’s operation which he refuses. Things don’t go so well after this. In order for Cal to get closer to Tiller he manages to get work duty at the Warden’s house on the night they are celebrating Tiller’s birthday. Attendees at the party included Tiller, his disabled sister, Warden, Lucy and Dr. Beauregard. There was a discussion at the table where Lucy talked about how people are wired by their memories. Lucy was studying ways to remove traumatic memories in an effort to correct inmates behavior and be able to restore them into society. This is probably something that will have more importance at a later date. The clever protege spills coffee on Tiller’s lap causing him to head the restroom to clean up. Once again Sweeney confronts Tiller agreeing to give him a cut of the money. After Tiller continues to deny having the missing box, Sweeney attacks him and tries to drown Tiller in the toilet (gross). Tiller ends up stabbing him in the leg with his new fountain pen which ended up being a way better gift then originally thought. Turns out Harlan, the protege was the one that had the box all along. He made it look like Tiller took it so Sweeney would attack him and head to the hole. This way Sweeney could have the smuggling business all to himself. Clever kid.
Back in present day Madsen and Doc are hot on the heels of Cal and track him to the next bank. Unfortunately they were too late as the alarm was hit and the place is surrounded by local police. Since Hauser can’t let the SFPD catch a guy who supposedly died 50 years ago, he tells Madsen to get in the bank and break Cal out, which she does. As Madsen and Sweeney drive away she asks him what he took and he shows her a small velvet bag, but he says he doesn’t know what’s inside. Sweeney pulls a gun on her, but she notices Cal isn’t wearing a seatball (smart girl) and purposely crashes her car to get him into Hauser’s custody. It turns out that the bag contained a large key that matched the one that Frank Sylvane stole in the first episode. HMMMM Mystery Key #2!
Back at the office, Hauser takes the key to a group of scientists who seemed to be constantly standing around doing nothing until a key needs to be analyzed. One of the scientists says that they key is laser cut but there is no way laser cut keys were around when Alcatraz was in business. Our final flashback to 1963 shows shows Warden James taking Harlan into a basement and using the two keys from Sylvane and Sweeney (plus one other key) to open up a secret vault. The Warden tells Harlan that he’s caught the eye of a certain underground resident (SMOKE MONSTER!) who wants to meet him. Harlan looks pretty terrified when he looks into the open door, but the warden assures him that his future just got a lot brighter and leads him in.
AMANDA’S QUESTIONS:
Who is the underground resident? What’s behind the secret door? Who has the third key? Why did Cal steal the key?
OR were the keys given to them? So many questions!