Sarah Jones and James Pizzinato in ALCATRAZ - Season 1 - "Paxton Petty" | ©2012 Fox/Liane Hentscher

Cast: Sarah Jones, Jorge Garcia, Sam Neill, Paraminder Nagra, Jonny Coyne, Leon Rippy
Writer: Jennifer Johnson
Director: Paul Edwards
Network: Fox, airs Mondays @ 9 p.m.
Original Telecast: Feb. 13, 2012

“A couple of things … You just killed a good man and my legs hurt.” – Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) on the ALCATRAZ episode “Paxton Petty”

So that was pretty bad. The quote that I begin this review with was said toward the end of the episode “Paxton Petty” on ALCATRAZ but there were equally as bad lines throughout this episode but this one stuck out the most for a number of reasons.

First, it’s ludicrous. No one says sh** like this. You are pissed off that some guy tried to kill you and he ended up blowing up some other poor unfortunate red shirt. Still, you wouldn’t just go up to the guy and say that line and shoot him in the leg. The brain, maybe, or the chest, but not the leg.

Second, are we to believe that Hauser is that much of a badass that after standing all day in a single place that not only would his legs work pretty damn good but he’d not be shaken up the least bit? He’s hard core. He could have been blown up any number of times but he’s so damn cool that it’s just another day at the office for this guy. He shook it off just like Bela Karolyi taught him to do.

Third, talk about some serious lack of respect for the dude that just gave his life to save yours. Your legs hurt? What about the dude that’s now in a million pieces because he tried to disarm the landmine you were standing on?

Not that this one line of dialogue made this episode of ALCATRAZ horrible but the entire episode was just crap. A guy gets sent forward in time to the present day and uses landmines to kill people because he’s pissed the government took his pension after the Korean War. Really? Really. Obviously, landmines were his poison of choice back in the day and why he got sent to the big house in the first place but this is 2012, there’s so many easier ways to kill innocent civilians.

Plus, you gotta love a show that spends a great deal of time during the episode developing a character – in the dude that got blown up in Matt Tanner (Mehcad Brooks) – only to kill him at the end. What’s the point? Especially when all he got as a eulogy was Hauser complaining about his tired legs. If only the show spent that same amount of time on character development into some of the other reoccurring characters than maybe we’d care more about their plight.

Other things that stunk in this episode. Soto (Jorge Garcia, who we should just call Hurley because he’s playing the exact same character) having his quirky moment with the morgue technician. Why? Will it go somewhere in future episodes or just shows that Soto is that hard up for a date that anyone wearing a comic book t-shirt he ogles after?

Jorge Garcia and Sarah Jones in ALCATRAZ - Season 1 - "Paxton Petty" | ©2012 Fox/Liane Hentscher

Then there was the obligatory bonding moment between Hauser and Madsen (Sarah Jones) when Hauser was about to be free of the landmine. Excuse me but haven’t these two been at loggerheads pretty much the entire series so far? Why does she care now?

If anything saved “Paxton Perry” from being a complete disaster was a few bits of mythology they threw at us in order to give us more questions. The biggest of which is that Hauser is aware that Lucy (Parminder Nagra) is from the past and that they have some romantic history. And that Hauser is also holding Dr. Beauregard (Leon Rippy) in his stable of (presumably) good guys that have returned from circa 1960.

The only other bit of interesting information came from Paxton Petty to Hurley (see I’ll just call him that and you won’t think any different of it) where he talked about a female shrink being in the prison during his time and Hurley saying there was no females in the prison. But before anymore could come of this, Madsen had to go save Hauser.

But as far as we can tell Petty had no agenda outside of just planting landmines all over the place. He didn’t know how he got there and didn’t know anything about the mysterious “they”. Hopefully, ALCATRAZ gets back on track next week.

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Article:TV Review: ALCATRAZ – SEASON 1 – “Paxton Petty”  

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