Prodigal Son: "Annihilator" Recap
“My boy” count: 1
“Like father like son” count: 1
Spoilers ahead for episode 2.
The episode starts and smash cut (I promise I’ll stop using that phrase soon): 20 YEARS AGO. We revisit Malcolm’s “girl in the box” dream (as the show insists on calling her, even though she is clearly a grown-ass woman). But more is added to the mystery, as we learn the cops never found this box-woman on the night they arrested Dr. Whitly—but Malcolm KNOWS he saw her. So who is she?! Let’s spend this episode in flashbacks trying to figure it out, even though something tells me we’re going to have to wait until at least the midseason finale to find out.
We’re back in the present, and we watch Malcolm (who also goes by “Bright” after changing his name from Whitly to distance himself from his needy dad) rip himself out of his night terror and go about his morning routine that reflects so many of my own: spitting his mouthguard onto the floor, doing yoga, listening to some upbeat jams, taking a fistful of pills.
At WASP-brunch with WASP-mom and totally-not-working-with-their-father WASP-sister (it’s a theory I’m working on, ok?) Malcolm denies visiting his dad and Ainsley gets a call about a quadruple murder. And we’re all left wondering—are we going to hear about every episode’s murders through defo-not-a-serial-killer’s-accomplice Ainsley?
He brings up the girl. No. WOMAN. In the box and his mother (very innocently) vehemently and repeatedly denies she ever existed. Over and over again. She heatedly and passionately denies it, like an innocent person would.
Ok so a family of four rich people are dead (it was only three rich people last episode so we are definitely getting a bigger episode two budget) and one of them, the patriarch Aristos, has his mouth sewn shut. Malcolm awkwardly flirts with my favourite medical examiner MISS MISS MISS TENAKA (she is single and ready to mingle with skinny white dudes, y’all).
Get it, girl.
Malcolm gets a call. Uh oh. It’s daddy. We get the episode’s first and only “my boy” (harrumph) and Martin explains he is allowed to call people now because I said so that’s why. In the pilot, it was the Saudis paying for the upgrades to his cell (???) and in this episode, they don’t bother with a reason why a notorious killer has full access to a telephone. Because he has phone time? Something like that.
Dr. Whitly does his whole proud dad act (imagine he’s Double Rainbow guy and Bright is, well, two rainbows) as he’s watching “Innocent” Ainsey’s report on TV. And then some snakes crawl out of Aristo’s mouth. What an unexpected twist! It’s a good thing Malcolm is an expert black mamba wrangler, and expertly wrangles a black mamba away from the ME in what has to be the least sexy crotch shot ever.
So the profile this week is of a “family annihilator” so I guess we can all go home because Hannibal and Will killed Francis Dolarhyde in the season 3 finale. Wait, no, it’s another guy who kills families. But not cause he has issues with women like Frances, but because he has daddy issues like everyone else.
They look into Aristo’s estranged son. Spoiler: it’s not him. But before they figure that out the kid whips a snake at Malcolm in the comedy highlight of the episode. He then jumps off a building (sad). Other than looking hilarious, the snake-throwing serves to poison Malcolm and he passes out and has another night terror. He recalls his father drugging him after he found the woman in the box, which feels pretty in character for The Surgeon.
A visit to dad’s post-divorce apartment leads to more questions about the woman and more denying the woman ever existed and more of Dr. Whitly wiggling his chains and close up shots of his chains being wiggled ALMOST AS IF THEY WON’T HOLD HIM FOR MUCH LONGER.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Anyway.
They go visit Aristo’s assistant to figure out if he knows if his boss had any other illegitimate children. Turns out he did… the assistant. UH OH. It also turns out the assistant poisoned his whole family and they drop dead around Malcolm and Annie—which is a great twist and would be even better if the show let them all die. But they don’t, because FOX. It turns out Annie has the exact antidote they need in her car and they save everyone and yawn.
In the episode wrap-up chat between Lou Diamond Phillips and Malcolm they talk about whatever and drink scotch. Malcolm gets drunk and Annie takes him home, and so help me god if they’re setting up some lazy-ass will-they-or-won’t-they bullshit I might stop watching. Malcolm and Annie have no chemistry and romance is stupid so let’s keep all the sexual tension between father and son, ok?
Cue the drunken night terrors (I wasn’t kidding when I said they spend the whole episode in flashbacks): Malcolm remembers even more about the woman-in-the-box night. Even though daddy denies drugging him, daddy definitely drugged him so Malcolm goes to visit the good doctor for some… more unanswered questions.
Spoiler: We get a ton more unanswered questions from Dr. Whitly like, “How much time passed after you found her? Days? Weeks? How many other people died? Why can’t you remember?” Like okay. We get it, dad. Box lady is the season’s arc and every narrator is unreliable.
I still think Ainsley is up to something.
Tune in next week for #MyBoyMonday and watch Prodigal Son on at 9pm FOX!