We are now a week away from the two-hour (season? series?) finale of Alcatraz. This weeks episode did not offer answers to any of the shows deepest secrets or questions, but hopefully they are just saving them for the big event next Monday night. Webb Porter (Rami Malek) was our prisoner of the week this round and the main thing we learned from last nights episode is that the violin is a very creepy instrument!
In the present day, we see Webb Porter playing a beautiful tune on the violin when the hair on his bow breaks. Porter drags a woman he’s been holding captive and drowns her in the tub. It seems like he has cut off all of his victims hair to string his bow and she has nothing left so it’s time to drown her. Nikki and Madsen arrive at the scene of the crime and are told that the landlord heard someone playing the violin in the apartment. The team doesn’t recognize anything about the crime but after samples of DNA from under the victims fingernails are tested it is confirmed that the murderer is an Alcatraz inmate because it tested positive for colloidal silver. Hauser sends Porter’s DNA sample to Dr. Beauregard, who discovers it’s a match for Lucy! Unfortunately the team has no idea which inmate is committing the crimes and Porter is left to find another victim. When he shows up at this woman’s house we realize that she knows who he is as they had met before at a party. The conversation with the woman quickly takes a turn for the worse when Webb grabs her throat and tells her he likes her hair. When the team shows up at the crime scene they are told again that someone was playing violin. This leads Madsen and Doc to the music room at Alcatraz to search for clues and end up finding an old violin with the name “Webb Porter” carved into the wood.
Doc and Madsen are going through the victim’s finances and discover that they both went to a fundraiser at the Philharmonic. Hauser also talked to an old friend at a jazz club and finds out that Porter is working as a janitor at the music hall and he obtained the inmates address where he has been living for months! When Team Alcatraz shows up at Porter’s apartment they realize that he is stringing his bows with woman’s hair and figure out that a red head is next. Somehow they manage to find the red-headed victim before it’s too late and she tells the team that Webb is having a performance tonight. Webb is playing another beautiful tune on his violin in front of a packed house of cheering fans, which turns out he is just imagining. His fantasy land is interrupted when Hauser and Madsen bust in and manage to catch him without shooting him in the head!
In flashbacks to 1960 we see Warden James giving Dr. Lucy Sangupta (Parminder Nagra) her next “assignment”. Lucy needs to find a way to introduce Webb Porter, who is currently in the mental ward, back into general population. Lucy realizes that Porter has a constant ringing in his ears that drove him insane. This was caused by his mother attempting to drown him as a little boy. She begins to understand that she needs music to help socialize him and bring him back. Lucy brings Webb to the music room in Alcatraz to learn more about him and asks him to pick an instrument. He picks the violin and immediately shows off his amazing abilities.
When Lucy successfully rehabilitates Webb Porter, he is escorted by the Warden back to general population where he is greeted by a bunch of rowdy inmates. When in his cell he begins to play his violin and the inmates quickly quiet down and listen to him play. Dr. Beauregard observes this and makes a comment to Lucy that Warden James has found “a new toy”, referring to her.
Back in present day, Doc and Madsen are watching some of the old Alcatraz tapes they found in the music room when they spot Lucy among the 1960 staff. They are both shocked and Madsen makes a comment that Lucy might be the key to all of this. Meanwhile, Hauser brings Webb Porter to Dr. Beauregard and Lucy, who Porter seems genuinely worried about. They take Porter’s blood and transfer it to Lucy and patiently wait for something to happen. Webb plays his violin in his cell for everyone in New Alcatraz, and in last couple of seconds of the episode Lucy’s eyes open.
AMANDA’S QUESTIONS: How is everything still in the music room? Wouldn’t they have cleared it out? Can you actually string a violin bow with human hair? Probably not. If Lucy “fixed” Webb Porter, why did he return to 2012 and kill people?
Check out this article on TVGuide! Apparently this past Sunday at WonderCon, executive producers told fans that Crimson Tide star Matt Craven will be introduced in the finale as “the man behind the door.” Whaaaaat?
NEXT WEEK:
Doc and Rebecca close in on a man who may be the key to revealing the secrets behind all the returning criminals. Meanwhile, Hauser makes a discovery beneath the halls of Alcatraz that brings him ever closer to the truth. Then, revealing doors are opened and lives hang in the balance as Rebecca will stop at nothing in pursuit of the man who killed her partner in the all-new special two-hour season finale “Garrett Stillman/Tommy Madsen” episode of ALCATRAZ airing Monday, March 26.
