‘Prodigal Son’: How to Get Away With Murder? (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 2, Episode 8 of Prodigal Son, “Ouroboros.”]
It’s hard to decide what’s most delightful in the April 13 episode of Prodigal Son, as the Fox thriller returns from hiatus with one of its best episodes yet.
Is it Alan Cumming commanding every room as Europol agent Simon Hoxley? The fact that Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) cutting off a person’s thumb and storing it in his fridge to unlock a cell phone is normal behavior for a Whitly? Whatever twisted game serial killer Martin (Michael Sheen) and Dr. Capshaw (Catherine Zeta-Jones) are playing in Claremont Psychiatric? We’ll go with all of the above.
And Then There Were …
The weakest part of the episode is, to be honest, the case. It just can’t hold our attention. A quick recap: After Ainsley (Halston Sage) kills Nicholas Endicott (Dermot Mulroney), her brother (and profiler) Malcolm uses the criminal’s own courier network to dispose of his body. “Seemed like the most elegant solution,” he explains.
Those in that network are killed off one by one until only Malcolm and one other remain. Yes, that other person — who picked up the suitcases with the body parts inside from Malcolm — is the killer (fortunately for Malcolm, his secret will die with her.)
But what is fun is everything surrounding the case involving Simon Hoxley, who’s there investigating a potential connection to Endicott’s murder. He throws a couple of pointed looks Malcolm’s way (the courier chain moves “drugs, guns, and perhaps, a particularly gruesome dead body,” Hoxley says). Dani (Aurora Perrineau) and JT (Frank Harts) wonder if Malcolm needs his own moniker with Simon “The Mind Sleuth” Hoxley around. Some of their suggestions: “Brain Hacker,” “Professor Profile,” and “Captain Crimefighter.”
Malcolm tries to distract from his odd behavior by focusing on the case…and asking if a dead body is a victim. “The dead man? Yes. Good catch,” Hoxley says.
But perhaps the best part, as the killer targets the two profilers, is Hoxley quipping, “I’m going to be killed by a millennial, what a twist,” then bemoaning after getting shot, “I can’t die in Brooklyn.”
Phil Caruso/FOX
Simon Hoxley vs. America’s Favorite Murderous Family
With Hoxley in New York, the Whitlys become concerned he’ll figure out what really happened to Endicott. With Malcolm’s goal to reach that other person in the courier chain first (before figuring out she’s the killer), he tries to stay one step ahead of his team. That means finding a victim first and, to gain access to his phone and the name of the next link in the chain, cutting off his thumb. No, it does not mean having his dad escape Claremont and kill the Europol agent with the perfect track record, conviction rate, and teeth “for a Brit,” even though Martin does offer.
Malcolm and Ainsley’s mother Jessica (Bellamy Young) does slip when Hoxley stops by to speak with her and points a finger her way. “How did a clever woman like you get entangled with so many homicidal men?” he wonders. “You must’ve been furious when your latest paramour turned out to be a murderous thug. Jessica Whitly played for a fool, yet again.”
After she poses what should be a ridiculous suggestion — she lured Nicholas to her home and killed him there — Hoxley notes she’s replaced a rug. Quick, time for a family meeting!
Phil Caruso/FOX
“I for one think we’ve done a pretty good job in regards to this murder,” Ainsley declares. It could be worse?
All they can do is stick together and stop talking to Hoxley. The only problem? Martin. He doesn’t give Hoxley anything — though the Mind Sleuth does seem to see a glimmer of paternal pride and deduces Malcolm killed Nicholas — but their conversation, especially once Dr. Capshaw intervenes, is so, so much fun that we’re sad when it’s over. What’s better: Hoxley calling Martin’s story “the fat” he needed to trim or Martin noting the agent’s book was made into a TV movie?
When Hoxley goes to Malcolm’s and point-blank accuses him of the murder, Malcolm easily deflects: He doesn’t have a motive. He also knows why Hoxley is so desperate to solve this: to save his reputation. He helps the Europol agent do just that. After the blame for Endicott’s murder is placed on the same person who killed everyone in the courier chain, Malcolm gives Hoxley all the credit. He even scores him a primetime spot on the news: Ainsley interviewing him about his next book, The Ouroboros Murders.
Phil Caruso/FOX
“What was it like to finally catch the woman that murdered Nicholas Endicott?” she even asks him. Oh, if Hoxley only knew. It really is too bad that he’s leaving (hopefully for now). His interactions with everyone were so entertaining we want to see many more (and it’s too bad he didn’t meet Keiko Agena’s Dr. Edrisa Tanaka).
And with that, the Whitlys toast to getting away with murder and keeping it in the family. But did they get away with it?
Who’s in Charge?
For Martin, his time working in the infirmary is “a soothing, tingly balm on the psyche.” He even fondly reminisces about being in a medical setting…especially with the blood. He is a serial killer, what would you expect?
And after Dr. Capshaw refuses his help with a patient, who dies, Martin offers his condolences. She scoffs, but he reminds her he was once a doctor, too, and he never killed anyone on his operating table. “Church and state, Dr. Capshaw. Never mix business and pleasure,” he says. Separating the two, he adds, may have been “my particular brand of madness.”
He then asks how she ended up at Claremont since she’s “better than this place.”
Phil Caruso/FOX
“They told me you’d do this,” she says. “Lure me in, manipulate me. It’s not happening, Whitly. I’m in charge.”
And we see just that when she goes to his cell in the middle of the night — sending his guard Mr. David (Esau Pritchett) away — to collect the suture scissors she knows he swiped when she was distracted with a patient earlier. “I’m doing you a favor, Whitly. You’re caught with those scissors, 14 days in isolation,” she says. “Neither of us wants that, do we?”
“Good boy,” she tells him when he holds them out to her…then she takes his hand and pulls him in. They kiss (!) and as she walks away, he has to be even more intrigued than he was before. We certainly are.
Prodigal Son, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox
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