Paxton Petty

This week's new Alcatraz episode felt like a good tack in the right direction for the show. The episode did a great job of balancing stand-alone elements with the ongoing story arc, balancing character moments with a contained mystery-of-the-week.

The back story of Dr. Banerjee (and by extension, of Hauser) was the most satisfying part of the episode. We got to see the doctor working in the 1960s, very clearly ahead of her time, and able by episode's end to earn the respect of the prison staff -- which to this point had been portrayed as the most impenetrable of boys' clubs. We also got the hint of a budding romance between her and Hauser, providing greater context for his reaction to her coma in the present.

But I thought the best part of fleshing out Hauser's character was to see his normal operating procedure getting him into hot water. As always, he withheld information from Madsen and Soto, and as usual, for no apparent reason of safety or security, but rather just because he felt like it. And this time, the withholding meant that when he was trapped and needed rescue, none was certain to be coming. Madsen had to reconstruct the clues all on her own to determine Hauser's location and come for him. Hauser doesn't seem like the sort of person to let this one incident change his way of thinking, but I could see this being the first chink in the armor. If more come in the episodes ahead, it could lead to a much needed softening out of his character.

Admittedly, the motivations of this week's inmate-of-the-week were a bit flimsy, but there's only so much time and space that could be given to that without crowding out those strong character elements, and the tantalizing teases of story progression: Banerjee inquiring in the past about the experiments on the inmates; Soto learning in the present that a woman doctor was working at the prison; all of us finding out pretty concretely that the inmates have absolutely no recollection of where they've been for 50 years, and that they'll appear in all sorts of places.

I still hope for Alcatraz to keep getting better, but I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked now for the rest of the season. And if it stays on this course, I'll be rooting for it to get another.