The Ames Bros. / Sonny Burnett

Tonight brought us two new episodes of Alcatraz. Neither was a blow-your-mind revelation, but both did stretch the shows in interesting directions.

It's inevitable in a show about a prison that sooner or later, you'll tell a prison break story. The first hour, The Ames Bros., was the series' first take on that subject. As a twist, the 1960s prison break featured in the episode wasn't really about escape, but rather about locating mythical Civil War gold in the bowels of the island. Still, it was a framework to hit all the prison break beats -- the escape plan, the conspirators, the execution, the complications.

This backstory was intercut with a bottle show present day story that had the main characters hunting through the empty corridors of Alcatraz for the inmates-of-the-week. The most effective moments of this were seeing poor Doc Soto -- the proxy for the audience -- in danger. The show couldn't really manage to generate much tension, as you knew the heroes weren't actually going to die or anything, but it was a fun and serviceable hour.

The second hour, Sonny Burnett, was interesting in that it portrayed the first criminal to not just pick up the M.O. of his previous crimes, but to specifically go back and visit a previous victim. It was also interesting in that Burnett was arguably the most villainous criminal yet featured on the show. Yes, that's a bold claim to make when we've already seen a callous sniper shooting innocent civilians, and a poisoner who tried to gas a subway car... but this was a man torturing one particular person purely for vengeance, for the thrill of it, and showing no qualms about any collateral damage.

I doubt the series had many lofty ambitions in their storytelling here, but the hour could be looked on as a minor critique of the prison system itself. Far from rehabilitating a criminal, or even just punishing him, we saw how prison transformed a criminal into an even more savage and evil person. Sure, it's fiction, but you wouldn't have to look hard to find real life cases of some similarity.

If you watch Alcatraz for the mysterious doors and keys, oddly modified blood, and other such mysteries, well, you got a bone or two thrown your way tonight. Nothing amazing. But it does seem as though this is the mode Alcatraz has settled into. Yes, there's an ongoing story, but it's not going to play a very big part from week to week.

For my part, I'm enjoying the "catch a crook" part of this show more than the average episode of CSI or what-not these days, so I remain entertained, if not blown away.