Prodigal Son (2×06) Head Case Review

For our review of the last episode of Prodigal Son, click here.

Synopsis: Malcolm has an accident and his mind sends him in another world, where his family is happy and he is in a good relationship. While his mind is going on a journey, his subconscious tells him, that something isn’t right. (TV Guide)

To think, it only took the series taking the story to an alternate universe to deliver one of the best episodes yet and one that would test Malcolm’s fragile psyche like no other. It brings up plenty of interesting possibilities in terms of characters and relationships but it was just a shame that none of it was real.

Head Case starts with Malcolm visiting his father but getting blindsided by him and his mother to talk about Ainsley and the truth about what she did. They each worried about her for different reasons and what telling her the truth may lead. Malcolm wished he never knew his father was a killer and wanted to protect her sister by not going to the cops which kind of went against what he did with his father.

Breaking up the family drama was a well-timed case at an old hotel whose architect working on its revitalization was found murdered. Ainsley was of course on the case as well, still consumed by her work though was still reeling from her experience while Malcolm continued to lie to her about what really happened. The billionaire owner of the building pointed the police to the tenants whom he fought to evict from the building. The loft of eccentric artists were definitely on the odd side and suspicious. Meanwhile, Greta Swann (Jessica Blank) and her wheelchair-bound father Rudolph (Mark Margolis) hinted at tension between hotel owner Ramón Vieja (Joel de la Fuente) and the architect.

A small piece of evidence of that confirmed the conflict between Ramon and the architect led Malcolm back to the hotel where he got pushed into an elevator shaft and found himself knocked out at the bottom as a result or was he? He woke up in the hospital and continued with the case but there was something not right with him (other than the fact he was now a detective). Ramon didn’t kill the architect because it would be disadvantageous financially. One of the earlier artists was having an affair with the dead architect. Her colleague who was also in love with her thus made him another suspect was also found dead.

Family dinner was the first sign that things weren’t quite right as Martin was present among other subtle and uncomfortable changes. Next, Malcolm and Dani were a close couple, a call from Claremont led him to Gil who was also a cop but was now in Martin’s place and claiming that his father wasn’t who he thought he was. Martin showed up as well but Malcolm increasingly believed that he was still at the bottom of that shaft and what he was experiencing was in his head. He thought solving the case would wake him up.

Malcolm and Martin went back to the crime scene to make sense of what was happening. His subconscious was trying to tell him what was happening and now he had to try to figure out that symbolism. The evidence pointed at the Swanns. Rudolph was really an infamous serial killer who was never caught and also was not handicapped. He had to kill to protect himself from being exposed. Despite Rudolph putting Martin at knifepoint, Malcolm’s detective firearm took care of that. However, solving the case was not the answer. The answer was exposing Martin as a killer by finding the girl in the box.

Now awake, it was up to Malcom to free himself before being crushed by the elevator. His ordeal only took 20 minutes but his dream led him back to Rudolph Swann thus solving the case in the real world. Plus, he and Dani had a cute moment talking about the version of her in his dream.

The episode ended with the moment we’ve all been waiting for, Malcolm telling Ainsley the truth but it would only be the beginning as she revealed that she killed someone else. Tom Payne and Halston Sage and their great chemistry was on point here.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.