Clarence Montgomery

Tonight, FOX ran the Alcatraz that was postponed two weeks (and three episodes) ago, Clarence Montgomery. It was an interesting hour that mixed some social issues into the series narrative.

This episode was the first centered around a "colored" inmate, to use the episode's 1960s parlance. It provided the opportunity to look at racism at the time, and also provided an unlikely opportunity to humanize the character of the warden by having him be a progressive on the subject of race. (But there was more at play there, as I'll come back to.)

The episode also focused around a "reverse Clockwork Orange" scenario, in which a peaceful and innocent man was turned into a violent killer through psychological and chemical therapy. Because of this aspect of the episode, I think it actually was for the best that the episode was delayed from its intended air order (something I never thought I'd say about the network). Last week's Sonny Burnett episode showed how a man could be corrupted by the prison system itself. Granted, Burnett was already guilty, but he was mutated into far worse by his incarceration. This episode pressed the theme farther by driving a completely innocent man to murder, and I think seeing this first might have lessened the impact of the "natural transformation" in the other hour.

In the end, it turns out this demented therapy was performed at the request of the warden, which undermined any attempt to humanize him earlier in the hour. It's not just that the man was ordering experimentation on the inmates -- we already knew he was doing that with the blood samples. He also specifically acknowledged that he knew Montgomery was innocent, when I would think any man with an ounce of compassion would have seen to his release from prison.

With all the focus on social commentary and fleshing out the 1960s ongoing story, there wasn't much room for character development in the present time. Soto scored a date with the autopsy doctor he's been flirting with for a few episodes, but otherwise, he, Hauser, and Madsen played their required roles in moving the story along, with little more.

In all, it was an interesting hour of the show, though not one of the series' best.