Alcatraz "Cal Sweeney" Review

Network television's not a hotbed for original, inventive and creative television. JJ Abrams' series usually were more inventive and creative than your run-of-the-mill network crime or action drama; his last few productions have been more run-of-the-mill than inventive though. Established TV writers advise aspiring writers to write what they know AND to put a new spin on an old story, because pretty much every story's been told and told again AND told again. In other words, everything's familiar now and a series' quality can be judged by how the writers twist the familiar into something new. FOX advertised the hell out of "Cal Sweeney." Okay, I embellished a bit. FOX just made the episode look like a twist on a very old story, but it wasn't, and I think this will be the last time I write about Alcatraz.

"Cal Sweeney" made one aspect of Alcatraz crystal clear: the final scene will be the most interesting part of any episode. The 1960s flashbacks of the prison and the present tense investigation of those old Alcatraz criminals are rote narratives with a mix of semi-compelling and tertiary characters. The adventures of the criminal, Cal Sweeney, did not keep one riveted to the action in the A story. Cal Sweeney's a more sadistic and soulless version of Sawyer, but without the quips and any sort of likeability. Sweeney went from bank to bank, opting against taking anything valuable, killed some folk, and acted generally more violent than he needed to, considering what he went to the banks for.

The flashbacks offered insight into our criminal-of-the-week though. Sweeney ran a laundry business, in which he managed to make significant sums from the inmates unable to pay for their laundry on the day-of. E.B. Tiller, the deputy warden killed in the "Pilot" by Jack Sylvane, wanted a take from Sweeney's business, but Sweeney wouldn't meet the 50% he wanted. Later, the guards ransacked his cell. Sweeney loses his mind when a certain item is missing from his cell. Together with his protégé, they hatch a plan to cater a birthday dinner for Tiller, with the endgame being retrieving the missing item (or something) from Tiller's. The missing item is essential to understanding Cal Sweeney. The missing item is, in fact, a tin box with nothing inside, like just like the character that is sadistic and soulless.

Initially, Cal committed the same crimes that landed him in Alcatraz. Sweeney robbed people of their items in safety deposit boxes, any kind of personal memento. Sweeney in the present took things one step further by visiting a person he robbed and then demanding to know the whole story for why an item's so significant it's hidden in a box inside of a safe. The writers dropped this aspect of the story by the half-way point, though, and shifted into 'police needs to PROTECT the sadistic and soulless criminal.' The shift in tone is noticeable, but it's necessary, because the initial Sweeney story was going nowhere; his behavior's never explained either, though it's suggested the brutal incident with Tiller altered his frame of mind and violent tendencies.

But anyway, Rebecca and Hauser need to protect Sweeney because of their super-secret underground Alcatraz project. Rebecca snuck into the bank Sweeney held hostage to break him out, which is an interesting place to go in a procedural. Perhaps a cop needed to save a criminal in a procedural or two before, but I've never seen it. I felt excited by the fresh direction of the narrative; however, the episode immediately returns to rote procedural narrative. Sweeney puts a gun to Rebecca's head once more and forces her to drive and yada yada until she one-ups the villain by knocking him unconscious by crashing her vehicle. Hauser takes him to Alcatraz where he demands the item Sweeney stole from the bank, which is a key that opens a door to something subterranean and possibly time-travely.

Now, I barely wrote about the three main characters. Rebecca, Diego, and Hauser were given zero character development in the entire episode. I've read interviews with writers, or listened to podcasts, in which they'll obsess over the difficulty of making the audience care about a character who we'll never see again. Well, I'd tell television writers to quit fretting over it, because I'm way more interested in the characters I'll watch every week. The time devoted to the 1960s is worthwhile because one senses answers lie in the past. "Cal Sweeney" introduces a mysterious 'hole.' Dr. Lucy's given a scene in the flashback in which she outlines her work--she planned on re-wiring the memories of the prisoners to change their natures. I suppose one cannot have character development and significant serialized progress in the same episode, even though the greatest genre shows successfully combined both in their episodes; of course, Alcatraz is really just a procedural disguised as serialized fun.

I won't lie: the series could morph into something awesome. The groundwork's being laid, which is the boring part, but I wouldn't be surprised if the series shares more in common with Fringe, eventually, than Criminal Minds. The dominating procedural element needs to disappear for this happen though. I probably won't be around to review it, if it does morph into an awesome show, because this will be my last Alcatraz write-up for a bit. February sweeps begins next week.

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