‘Prodigal Son’ Season 1, Episode 3 ‘Fear Response’ Review: Submission

The secrets are pouring out one by one from the Whitly family on the Prodigal Son and I am freaking loving it. Despite Bellamy Young and Michael Sheen’s dynamic still being a little rough around the edges, their parts of the family talk are quite fascinating given the secrets lying underneath. It makes it all the more interesting to see how the whole family will drown in them once these secrets come to the light.

As excited as I am for them to just wrench Pandora’s box open though, tonight’s episode titled “Fear Response” seems to have missed it’s landing by a mile. The past two episodes of the Prodigal Son had built just the right momentum for this episode. But, the narrative isn’t as solid as I expected. It somehow missed tying into the depth of its topic. But, maybe, hopefully, the next episode will delve more into it.

In this episode of the Prodigal Son, Malcolm (Tom Payne) and the team are racing to find a schizophrenic killer whose ailment has been triggered by off the book experiments. While tracking him down, Malcolm deals with his own declining mental health. On the other hand, Jessica Whitly (Bellamy Young) has decided to take matters into her own hands to prevent her son from seeing his father again.

The Broken Promise

In the past, Jessica was ever the faithful wife visiting Dr. Whitly every now and again. But, it all had to come to a stop. Jessica’s promise is that none of them will ever come back to see him. Receiving this news, Dr. Whitly drops all pretenses and allows his nasty side to show as he throws some demeaning comments at Jessica. The creepy thing is his parting statement to her. “Oh, you knew what I was. You’ll be back.”

Eric Liebowitz/FOX

In the present day, the night terrors are continuing to get worse for Malcolm. Just when his mother comes to visit early one morning, Malcolm breaks off one of his restraints in his sleep and launches himself at the window beside his bed. The other one held on though so he didn’t complete his plummet to the street below. Once inside, Jessica begs her son to stop seeing Dr. Whitly. But, Malcolm refuses to back down until he has his answers.

Recognizing the increasing decline of his mental health, Malcolm goes back to his childhood psychiatrist Dr. Gabriel Le Deux (Charlayne Woodard). However, Dr. Le Deux immediately catches on and recognizes he’s been seeing his father. And she firmly advises him to stay away as humanly possible for the sake of his mind. Before they could discuss it further, Malcolm is called on a case.

The Missing Brain

Out in the park, the police find the body of Dr. Holton. He had injuries signifying he was bound. But, it’s his eyes that were all just white that called attention. As Dr. Edrisa Tanaka (Keiko Agena) further investigates, she finds that a portion of the skull has been cut clean through. When she tugs on the hair to reveal the skull, they find that Dr. Holton’s brain is missing. They also find a letter of gibberish inserted in Dr. Holton’s shirt. This leads Malcolm to conclude that the killer must’ve had progressive schizophrenia.

David Giesbrecht/FOX

At the precinct, Dr. Edrisa finds that the real cause of death was a cardiac arrest, not the skull cutting. Just then, Dani (Aurora Perrineau) arrives with the info that Dr. Holton was working with Dr. Elaine Brown (Sakina Jaffrey). Hearing this, Malcolm lights up. It turns out, he’s a fan. Before they could check her out though, Dr. Whitly calls Malcolm. In his conniving way, he helps Malcolm figure out that the killer must’ve been using fear to kill his victims. What Malcolm doesn’t notice is that Gil (Lou Diamond Phillips) has seen his tremors after the call.

The Experimenter

On their visit to Dr. Brown, they find out from her colleague Dr. Carl Mitchell (Frank Wood) that one of Holton’s students, Alice Downey, committed suicide three months prior. And as it turns out, the university received another gibberish letter after Alice’s suicide much like the one they found with Holton. They also find out that Dr. Brown was conducting off-the-books experiments with grad students. They dose themselves with LSD and she measures the psychedelics effects on their fear responses.

Barbara Nitke/ FOX

Suddenly, they receive a call from Dr. Mitchell. But, before he could reveal anything, he grows weak. Apparently, the killer has laced his coffee with something. The team immediately rushes out and they get to the university in time to find Dr. Mitchell bound on the rooftop and high as hell. While Dani and JT (Frank Harts) chase the killer, Malcolm tries to calm down Dr. Mitchell. But, the man grabs Malcolm and points a weapon to his throat. To free himself, Malcolm elbows the guy and sends him over the ledge without a thought. Fortunately, there was a balcony below to catch his fall.

At the precinct, Dr. Edrisa discovers that both victims were dosed with LSD 50 times more than the usual dosage which can cause extreme fear and panic that can lead to cardiac arrest. Finally noticing the pattern, Malcolm realizes that the killer must’ve been someone harmed by Dr. Brown’s experiments. And he’s on the hunt to rid the world of the people who made his mind that way.

The Fear in the Subconscious

While the team heads out to Dr. Brown, Jessica pays Gil a visit. She accuses him of dragging Malcolm back into all this. But, Gil fires back mysteriously saying that it was Jessica who fed him to Dr. Whitly in the first place. Jessica admits to it but, Gil can’t do anything about it. As he says, Malcolm Bright does what Malcolm Bright wants to do and they can’t control it.

Eric Liebowitz/FOX

Meanwhile, Dr. Brown admits to her misdeeds. Seeing the letters, she recognizes it as Dominic Render’s, one of her former students. While everyone emerged out of the experiments mostly unharmed, the drugs triggered paranoid schizophrenia in Dominic. Later that night, JT stands guard while Malcolm presents some questions about his own mental state to Dr. Brown. Concerning his repressed memories, Dr. Brown indirectly advises him that maybe the scent of chloroform can pull those memories back to the surface.  She also tells him that maybe his memories are blocked because it’s attached to something he’s subconsciously afraid of. And the only way to access that fear is to face it.

Let the Fear Consume You

During the conversation, Bright notices the African mask on a mantle. Suddenly, he realizes he’s seen it somewhere. Putting the wonky lines in the letter together, Bright forms the image of the mask and realizes that the killer plans to kill Dr. Brown there and he’s already in the house. At the same time, Dr. Brown also starts to feel weird as she has already been dosed with LSD.

David Giesbrecht/FOX

When the lights close down, Malcolm takes a fireplace poker and circles the house. He finds Dominic upstairs. And after a brief struggle, Dominic pins down Malcolm. Before he could drive his knife down, a loud shot echoes and Dominic falls. Malcolm sits up to see Dr. Brown holding a shotgun just as JT bursts into the house. Immediately, Malcolm starts talking urging Dr. Brown to face her fear and succumb to it. Somewhere in her high, Dr. Brown gives in and she drops the gun.

Meanwhile, after much hesitance, Jessica pays a visit to her ex-husband. And as it turns out, she might just be as fucked up as her him. In the midst of her begging for Dr. Whitly to leave Malcolm alone, Jessica starts blaming Dr. Whitly for what happened to the kids. This sets off something in Dr. Whitly and he reminds her that he was there and he’s sure he’s not the only one to blame for the kids.

Later that night, Malcolm takes some chloroform and puts a few drops of it to his pillow. And it did pull up those blocked memories. As it turns out, Malcolm did come back to the box after he was drugged. It isn’t clear exactly when. But, someone stops him, insisting he never speaks about the girl again because he doesn’t know what his father is capable of. It’s no one else but his mother.

Prodigal Son continues Monday, October 14th, with “Designer Complicity” at 9/8c on Fox.