Well, the two biggest stars of Prodigal Son 1.3 - the two biggest factors in moving along the story - were LSD and chloroform. That is, two very different kinds of drugs.
LSD is responsible for the murders that Malcolm and the team investigate. The psychedelic drug magnifies fear, among other things, which proves to be the source or at least the accelerant of the killings. Let me say here that I'm liking almost everyone in the team - not only Gil and Dani, but even the skeptical J. T., who had a good conversation with Malcolm in this episode. The only member of the team I don't like is Dr. Tanaka. It's not the fault of the actress, Keiko Agena. It's the fault of writers and the producers, who keep giving her needlessly stupid lines, attempting to be funny, and therein annoying. Actually, I'd guess that's ultimately the fault of the network people, who think a narrative this serious and sometimes horrifying needs to be leavened with some lame comedy. My unasked-for advice: keep the character and throw out the "comedy".
Chloroform, the anesthetic, provides the big punch in the underlying continuing story of this series thus far. I said last week that I suspected Malcolm's mother of maybe being the real killer. Episode 1.3 pretty much rules that out. But under self-administered chloroform, Malcolm remembers - likely not dreams - that his mother had something more to do with his father's killings than just abhorring them. We earlier get a strong scene of Jessica talking to her husband Martin in prison. She was clearly unnerved, to say the least, by what she discovered her husband was doing. The question is: when? Malcolm's chloroformed memory suggests that his mother knew something, knew a lot, long before she turned her husband in to the police.
I'm glad I'm caught up now with this series. I'll be reviewing it now on a much more regular basis.
See also: Prodigal Son: A New Serial Killer ... Prodigal Son 1.2: Dreams or Memories?
