Prodigal Son: "Fear Response" Recap

“My boy” count: fucking ZERO

Spoilers ahead for episode 3.

Alright we have a lot to unpack this episode so let’s dive right in. Or dive right out the window. Like Malcolm did at the beginning of this episode. When he was having a night terror and his restraints pulled out of the wall and he smashed through a window.

(Foreshadowing, thy name is this scene).

That face when your leash is a main character.

Anyway. I promise we’ll get back to the window jumping but until then:

FLASHBACK. It’s 1998 and WASP-mom is visiting The Surgeon in prison. She tells him things that are definitely true like, “You are going to be in a cage for the rest of your life,” and, “No one in our family will ever visit you.” This has about as much weight to it as a New Years’ resolution.

PRESENT DAY. The aforementioned window-smashing-through. I rewound this twice (okay three times). A night terror has Malcolm thrashing around in his bed. The camera closes in on the anchor holding his restraint to the wall (ya know, like how it does when we zoom in on Martin’s wiggling cuffs). Bright goes crashing through his window, covered in broken glass, looking ever so casually bewildered as he dangles from his wrist. I highly recommend this moment as a Halloween costume, if you can figure out how to pull it off and you have cool friends who will GET IT.

The flashbacks in this episode give us more backstory about momma WASP (Jessica, to refresh your memory) and her relationship with her ex-husband and children. It’s the first time we actually get to see any character development beyond her one-dimensional, “Pip pip, oh darling get the gin haha piiiiills,” bullshit—which is refreshing. Imagine. A female character with more dimension that... uh… a box.

Jessica confronts Martin in his modern-day, Saudi-funded “cell” and becomes the “Never talk to me or my son ever again” meme. While this is happening, Malcolm is getting comfy with his old child psychologist because he’s quirky and he has some shit to work out from his childhood I guess. The psychologist mentions his problem have always been based in fear. Oh, and she tells him to says stay the fuck away from his dad, which is just sound advice.

Onto police business! Another body has been found—with Innocent Ainsley reporting (of course), and Martin watching the report (of course). Hi, here’s another theory: This is how she’s communicating with her father. I mean this show stole enough from RED DRAGON, why not “killer and killer communicating in code through the news”, too?

Guys, I’ve put more thought into this show than the people who made it.

So the corpse. We’ve all watched HANNIBAL, right? Oh, wait, you didn’t and that’s why it got cancelled? Well, ok, you’re the problem. Anyway, go back to the episode “Hassun” in season two and watch it. It features an incredibly on-the-nose murder, where Hannibal kills the judge presiding over Will’s trial by removing his brain because DUH he’s a dumb-dumb, no-brain idiot. That’s almost literally what happens in this episode of PRODIGAL SON. But instead it’s a psychologist who forced his patients to do LSD. And he has a note pinned to him. 

Is this just a HANNIBAL recap blog at this point? I wish.

So, after watching his daughter (and lol total accomplice) Ainsley’s report on TV, dad calls son. Son points out he’s getting tired of dad’s phone privileges. I think we all are, son.

Dr. Whitley reminds his boy that the psychologist murdered was an associate of another doctor that, when Malcolm was younger, they studied together. (Foreshadowing, thy name is this scene, too). 

Emotional support cop Annie and Malcolm visit the doctor. Her name is Dr. Brown. Blah blah she denies it but she’s totally been drugging people with LSD.

We smash cut back to Jessica, who confronts her totally guiltless daughter Ainsley about Malcolm visiting Martin. And this, dear readers, is where they essentially cement my theory about the prodigal daughter as 100% true. She’s angry with her mother because she was forbidden from visiting her father when she was a child. She’s ANGRY. And says, I swear she says, “I never knew Dr. Martin Whitly. All I know is what you want me to know. Maybe that’s not enough.” HOO BOY. She might not have ever known Dr. Martin Whitly but hey I bet she knows THE SURGEON really, really well. I swear, it’s her. I swear.

Who, me?

Anyway. In another boring-because-I-already-kinda-saw-it-on-HANNIBAL murder,  it’s an old patient killing the doctors who messed his brain up with LSD. He now lives in fear, you see. Like Malcolm, you see. Get it? Do you get it yet? Malcolm IS the LSD guy. And the brainless doctor? That’s Martin. Wanna know how I know? Because Martin’s been orchestrating all of these murders from prison to keep his son in his life and to prove they’re the same. Is this like totally obvious to anyone else? Is this a hot take? Please let me know.

So we get another scene where Malcolm is being held at knifepoint. We get another Malcolm-is-near-death experience. We get a couple of high af psychologists. We also get a flashback of Jessica visiting Martin in prison and him being all, “Girl you stayed ‘cause of the money, you knew who I was.” We get a scene of Malcolm talking to his psychologist and she tells him to smell some chloroform because it could unlock more episode-appropriate memories.

Ok, now for the second-best part of the episode after Malcolm yeeting himself out of the window. WASPica goes to visit her estranged husband in prison, and they have a moment. Now, we know Michel Sheen has actual buckets of charm he can dump all over an audience if he wants, no one can deny that. Here, we finally get some of it—and it brings out some real humanity in Jessica.

We see her as a mother, desperate to keep her children safe. We see her as a wife, mourning the loss of her husband. We see her as the traumatized, desperate abuse victim she tries to hide with gin and pills. She’s earnest, for the first time, and a little bit more of Dr. Whitly’s “big lug who loves his son” persona is chipped away.

Another theory: Dr. Whitly’s chains are broken because of sexual tension.

At home, Malcolm is ready to do his chloroform sniff test. And guess what? For the second time in two episodes, we end on a Jessica-themed cliff hanger. In 1998, he sees his mom pull him away from the box (ya know, the one where the woman was kept) and she tells him, “Never speak of her again. You don’t know what your father is capable of.” And like, people on the internet are all like, ooooh she’s involved. But I’m sitting here like, have ya’ll never seen a true crime documentary? She’s a victim too, ya goofs. She’s terrified. Leave Jessica alone, is what I’m saying.

But I guess we won’t know until next #MyBoyMonday, when PRODIGAL SON airs at 9/8c on Fox.