It’s been a minute since this mediocre procedural, serial killing show was on the air, but now Prodigal Son is back and I watched the second season premiere with some trepidation. During the first season run I know I made my feelings clear about how I felt let down by all the potential this show had to offer. No, at this point I’m not expecting it to be the next Hannibal, but just give me something!
Anyways, the second season picks up a little while after we witnessed Ainsley stab Endicott to death, which is good. This way the show was able to distance themselves from COVID (thank goodness), and show us some cool flashbacks about what actually happened after that moment. Turns out, Ainsely sort of blacked out in that moment. We see her come to with blood spattered all over her face and asking Malcolm what just happened in an increasingly panicked frenzy. Malcolm is a good bother and tells her that he did it. Then Malcolm did what he probably never thought he’d do, and that was call his father to ask how to dismember and get rid of a body. Talk about father-son bonding!
That seemed to scar Malcolm in a new way though, because he hadn’t spoken to Martin since that night. Martin however, now gets to go back to his cushy cell because he stopped the spread of COVID at Rikers. Not everything is as it once was for him though, as he’s got a new roommate who can’t really seem to communicate. After some light electrocution though, he is, and is moved out of Martin’s cell. Not sure if that guy is coming back at some point in the season, but his presence seemed pretty unnecessary. On the other end of the parenthood spectrum, Jessica doesn’t really have much going on except to stoke her growing feelings and flirtations towards a healing Gil (he was stabbed pretty darn good by Endicott).
As far as the crime of the week goes, Dani, JT (acting captain in Gil’s place), Edrisa, and Malcolm are on the lookout for a man who’s all about serving justice. Someone gets very precisely decapitated, while someone else gets sealed behind a wall. Malcolm becomes particularly unhinged in that scene. I mean, he tampers with the crime scene by putting on gloves that the culprit may have worn and starts swinging a nail gun around. Dani is rightfully worried. With those two crimes, Malcolm is able to deduce that the killer is an executioner who wrongfully put someone to death. In a final showdown that man also thinks Malcolm has wronged the young man’s sister, but that was all part of the ruse. Luckily, Malcolm’s weird obsession with weapons saves him this time.
Even though the show decided to skip past COVID, they’d be stupid to ignore the Black Lives Matter movement, and they didn’t! Dani expresses how she’s trying to navigate being a black woman who is also a cop, while JT gets held up and choked by the cops while they were trying to catch the real killer. JT fought back a little bit and is obviously scared about what this all means for him, but with Gil back, the rest of the team reassures him that they will be there for him. I hope that’s not all there is to this matter, especially for a show that has black police officers, this shouldn’t be a one and done occurrence. I’ll be eager to see how they address the subject in the episodes to come.
By far my favorite part of the episode was at the end when Malcolm goes to visit Martin. They talk about what Malcolm did to Endicott, and even though he didn’t actually kill him, he basically did everything else. Martin gets a great monologue trying to plant the seed that they are perhaps more alike then Malcolm thought. He asks Malcolm if the act thrilled him, especially operating on the opposite side of the law. I know Ainsley is still in the mix to become a serial killer, but there would be something so satisfying in seeing Malcolm unravel every defense he’s built for himself and become a killer. Here’s hoping they deliver at least that this season!