On this week’s episode of Alcatraz, a man named Johnny McKee shows up in the bay area. This means that not only do the citizens have to worry about running into Occupy protesters and random bouts of police brutality, but they now have to worry about being poisoned.
Stiff Drinks
Hauser checks in the medical process of Lucy, only to find out that she is still in a coma. Beauregard says that he has tried everything that he knows but nothing is working. Thank you for explaining that nothing is working, I couldn’t tell by the fact that she is still in a coma. Hauser is told that it may help if he reads to her, but Hauser wants nothing to do with that New Age mumbo jumbo. The good news is that Lucy’s brain activity shows she is still dreaming, so her mind is still alive.
Out at a “happening bar” in the city, a pushy customer informs the bar tender that it is his friend’s engagement party and that he needs to get them all drunk. The bartender is Johnny McKee, who is was arrested in the 60s for poisoning people. He makes the table a round of drinks that eventually kills all three men. It may seem malicious, but that’s what you get for being rude to your servers. Video of the men dying soon becomes a viral video which alerts the computers in the office. Doc, who is nerding out to some Starcraft, informs Madsen and heads to the bar.
Job Hunting
Madsen, Doc and Hauser (which sounds like a terrible law firm) go to the bar to find out more about McKee. The manager says he hired him two days prior and gives them his application with an address. Madsen and Doc head to the address, only to find it is a fake. Doc then realizes that the address refers to the cell that McKee was in, which coincidentally was next to Jack Sylvane’s. Madsen tells Hauser she needs to talk to Sylvane, and they go through McKees box and find books by Jules Verne, chemistry articles, and a picture of a girl with a burnt face. In other words, normal inmate possessions.
While the team is starting to put the pieces together, McKee finds himself out of a job. He obviously doesn’t know about the current economy and job market. Somehow, he immediately gets a new job as a pool boy. McKee gets to work and is immediately hassled by a male customer. Once again, McKee gets back at him by putting a chemical in the pool water and killing a handful of people. Once again, treating those that serve you is very important.
Looking Backwards
It turns out when McKee was in prison he was told by Cullen, the big guy on campus, that he needed to kill another man for him. McKee gets a shank from his intended victim, and goes back to his cell to poison the tip. He tells Cullen that he plans on killing the man during a movie night, and instead kills Cullen. It looks like McKee isn’t crazy so much that he doesn’t like being bullied.
Back in the present, Madsen learns more about McKee from Sylvane, and also gets wind about a secret room in Alcatraz and her grandfather’s mistreatment. Hauser then ends the interview. Madsen’s veteran police skills tell her that there is nothing suspicious about that. Doc goes to visit his crush Nikki in the morgue and learns that McKee is using more complex chemicals to kill people now than he did in the 50s and 60s. While Doc learns this, McKee is busy making a toxic gas and testing it on mice. I justified this maniac killing rude customers and bullies, but killing innocent mice is going too far!
The Future is Now
The team heads to Chinatown to see if McKee was trying to buy any nightshade and they find an herbalist who helps them out. He gives them an address and they head out to find more. It also turns out that Hauser is fluent in Chinese which really helps. The address leads them to an abandoned high school and they break into the chemistry lab, but McKee is gone. They learn that he is producing Phosgene, which is a noxious gas. On a chalk board they find “the future is now” which obviously means he was referencing the East Bay Tub system and Jules Verne.
That is exactly where McKee is, and he breaks into the conductor’s train and knocks out the driver. He stops the train in the middle of the tunnel and starts to unleash his toxic gas through the air vent system. Luckily, all trains are no monitored by computers so the team learns exactly where he is.
The Taking of McKee 123
The team uses their teleporter to magically get to the train just minutes are finding out where it is.Hauser breaks the glass and people are helped out. McKee makes a run for it and Madsen and Hauser give chase. McKee attacks Madsen, but she fights back and eventually throws McKee onto the tracks where he grabs the third rail and is electrocuted, but still alive. Hauser quietly weeps inside that he didn’t have a chance to shoot anybody for once. Back in the office, Doc tells Madsen that he learn that Ginny, the burnt girl in the picture, was burned with acid, most likely from McKee.
It’s a funny story really. It turns out that Ginny and McKee went on a date and that she took McKee on the roof of a malt shop. There, sweet, clean little McKee got his first kiss, but soon found out that it was all a prank and that people were watching and laughing. One jock then proceeded to throw a cherry bomb at him which blew off his testicles. Fifties bullies were the worst. If they weren’t giving you swirlies they were blowing off your testicles. To get back at her McKee threw acid in Ginny’s face and went on a killing spree. Makes sense.
More inmates are starting to fill in Hauser’s secret prison and details are starting to leak out. I’m still waiting for the team to start asking Hauser the hard questions and get to the bottom of things, but I guess we’ll have to wait.
Chase Gamradt
Contributing Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
