Season 1, Episode 11
“I wasn't always like this, you know.”
Since the beginning – which really wasn't all that long ago, I realize – Alcatraz has relied on an oversimplified interpretation of psychology in order to explain the psyches of it's prisoners. I wouldn't call it a reliance on pop psychology – though there certainly are some instances of that – but rather the one cause, one effect model. Something bad or traumatic happens to a '63 either while they are young or while they are locked up, and that's what causes them to act the way that they do. Tonight, the show tried to mix it up by having an inmate suffer lasting effects from both before and during lockup, and in addition to highlighting the show's use of oversimplified characterization, it also ended up just being one giant, muddled mess.
Meet Webb Porter. When he was six, he mother tried to drown him in the tub, which ended up giving him life-long tinnitus, and thanks to flashback, we also know that it gave him this weird, almost fetishistic obsession with hair. That's the “before” effect, which actually gives us two effects, one of which causes Porter to be crazy and kill, and the other of which informs how he kills. (I'm assuming that Porter landed in Alcatraz for murder, because the show didn't specify either way, and that's just usually how these thing go.)
While he's in Alcatraz, Lucy attempts to help cure his tinnitus through music, because apparently that's just the kind of crazy shit they did back in the 60s, before the AMA came in and reinforced the establishment, man. For reasons that are not clear to me, and fly in the face of both basic science and logic, Porter some how is able to transform the ringing in his ears into easier-to-bear musical notes, which in turn transforms him into a musical savant. For whatever reason, this inspires him to try out for the Philharmonic, and every time he is fails (like when he can't sightread), he goes after one of the any number of females that he apparently runs into there, and uses their hair to make a new bow, killing them when it doesn't work out.
Looking over that recap, can you honestly believe that all this would happen? I can't, I just wrote it out. I realize that questioning the logic of show whose premise hinges on the idea of time travel seems like an exercise in futility, but for the most part, the show acts like everything in its world outside of the time travel and conspiracy stuff functions in the same manner that it does in reality, so it's not really out of line to call the show out for writing characters that don't make a damn lick of sense. Now if Porter just killed women in bath tubs and/or cut off their hair because of what his mother did to him, that would play. If he was some sort of musical genius, and that inspired him to kill (say out of some idealistic obsession with music's artistic value) that would work too. Both of these scenarios would be ridiculous and overly simplistic, but at least there would be a throughline the audience could follow.
The problem with introducing two variables into Porter's psyche is that it's a move that plays off of the complex nature of the human brain without actually thinking through what that might mean. Even if these two factors meet in the way that Porter tortures and kills his victim, the episode still plays into the one factor, one outcome line of thinking; the outcomes happen near one another, but it's not like they are intrinsically linked. You could take out one factor and the other would still hold. The human brain is more complex than that, and these if these two factors were to meet up in Porter's brain, the overall effect would probably be more explosive.
And that doesn't even get into explaining why music only serves to make Porter even more dangerous. Wasn't music supposed to be a soothing, helpful tool for him? So why did it make him even more destructive. When compared side-by-side with “Clarence Montgomery”, there does seem to develop this interesting theme about how Alcatraz destroys whatever last remains of humanity it's inmates have, but considering that these two episodes are four apart in production order, that might be giving the show too much credit.
All of that doesn't even get into the law enforcement side of this equation, which likewise tried to changed things up to middling results. For starters, for about half the running time Rebecca et. al. weren't aware of exactly which inmate they were tracking down, and though this was presented as a big obstacle, in reality it didn't change much. The cops still had to track the person down anyways, just as they do every episode, and the only advantage Porter's anonymity seemed to afford him was an extra murder. (And he still didn't wrack up the highest body count!) The second complication was supposed to be that porter shared Lucy's blood type, which made him essential to reviving her and thus HE COULDN'T DIE, but considering that none of '63 have died thus far, was that ever going to be an issue.
Elsewhere, Doc followed Hauser around and learned something that we already knew – mostly that Lucy was moved, because apparently neither he nor Rebecca have cared enough to visit her in the hospital until now – as we learned one new thing that Doc didn't: that Hauser is sick. Whoop dee doo. The same goes for the flashbacks to Hauser and Lucy dating, which did nothing but confirm for us that yes, they dated, and yes, they probably were in love. Glad we got that out of the way.
The episode ends with Lucy waking up, and though this is positioned as a big event, I have a hard time caring. Remember that Lucy went into a coma in the second episode, which is when we also learned that she was herself a '63, and though Rebecca and Doc are now in on that secret as well, it's not like her conscious state is going to change anything. Based on what we've seen, Lucy was kept just as in the dark about the secret of Alcatraz as Hauser was, and so unless next week provides some important yet illogical reveal, nothing's going to change. That was a cliffhanger that actually means nothing, and those are always the worst kind.
Next Week: The last two episodes of the season answer all the questions. (More likely: one hour answers all the questions, and the one before it just kind of sits there.)
While he's in Alcatraz, Lucy attempts to help cure his tinnitus through music, because apparently that's just the kind of crazy shit they did back in the 60s, before the AMA came in and reinforced the establishment, man. For reasons that are not clear to me, and fly in the face of both basic science and logic, Porter some how is able to transform the ringing in his ears into easier-to-bear musical notes, which in turn transforms him into a musical savant. For whatever reason, this inspires him to try out for the Philharmonic, and every time he is fails (like when he can't sightread), he goes after one of the any number of females that he apparently runs into there, and uses their hair to make a new bow, killing them when it doesn't work out.
Looking over that recap, can you honestly believe that all this would happen? I can't, I just wrote it out. I realize that questioning the logic of show whose premise hinges on the idea of time travel seems like an exercise in futility, but for the most part, the show acts like everything in its world outside of the time travel and conspiracy stuff functions in the same manner that it does in reality, so it's not really out of line to call the show out for writing characters that don't make a damn lick of sense. Now if Porter just killed women in bath tubs and/or cut off their hair because of what his mother did to him, that would play. If he was some sort of musical genius, and that inspired him to kill (say out of some idealistic obsession with music's artistic value) that would work too. Both of these scenarios would be ridiculous and overly simplistic, but at least there would be a throughline the audience could follow.
The problem with introducing two variables into Porter's psyche is that it's a move that plays off of the complex nature of the human brain without actually thinking through what that might mean. Even if these two factors meet in the way that Porter tortures and kills his victim, the episode still plays into the one factor, one outcome line of thinking; the outcomes happen near one another, but it's not like they are intrinsically linked. You could take out one factor and the other would still hold. The human brain is more complex than that, and these if these two factors were to meet up in Porter's brain, the overall effect would probably be more explosive.
And that doesn't even get into explaining why music only serves to make Porter even more dangerous. Wasn't music supposed to be a soothing, helpful tool for him? So why did it make him even more destructive. When compared side-by-side with “Clarence Montgomery”, there does seem to develop this interesting theme about how Alcatraz destroys whatever last remains of humanity it's inmates have, but considering that these two episodes are four apart in production order, that might be giving the show too much credit.
All of that doesn't even get into the law enforcement side of this equation, which likewise tried to changed things up to middling results. For starters, for about half the running time Rebecca et. al. weren't aware of exactly which inmate they were tracking down, and though this was presented as a big obstacle, in reality it didn't change much. The cops still had to track the person down anyways, just as they do every episode, and the only advantage Porter's anonymity seemed to afford him was an extra murder. (And he still didn't wrack up the highest body count!) The second complication was supposed to be that porter shared Lucy's blood type, which made him essential to reviving her and thus HE COULDN'T DIE, but considering that none of '63 have died thus far, was that ever going to be an issue.
Elsewhere, Doc followed Hauser around and learned something that we already knew – mostly that Lucy was moved, because apparently neither he nor Rebecca have cared enough to visit her in the hospital until now – as we learned one new thing that Doc didn't: that Hauser is sick. Whoop dee doo. The same goes for the flashbacks to Hauser and Lucy dating, which did nothing but confirm for us that yes, they dated, and yes, they probably were in love. Glad we got that out of the way.
The episode ends with Lucy waking up, and though this is positioned as a big event, I have a hard time caring. Remember that Lucy went into a coma in the second episode, which is when we also learned that she was herself a '63, and though Rebecca and Doc are now in on that secret as well, it's not like her conscious state is going to change anything. Based on what we've seen, Lucy was kept just as in the dark about the secret of Alcatraz as Hauser was, and so unless next week provides some important yet illogical reveal, nothing's going to change. That was a cliffhanger that actually means nothing, and those are always the worst kind.
Next Week: The last two episodes of the season answer all the questions. (More likely: one hour answers all the questions, and the one before it just kind of sits there.)
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