Michael Sheen (pictured above) portrays Martin Whitly, also known by his serial killer alias “the Surgeon.” Whitly is the central point around which the plot and characters turn in the show “The Prodigal Son.” (courtesy of idominick on wikipedia commons)
“The Prodigal Son,” which aired on FOX and is also available on Hulu, was released on Sept. 23. Audiences were blindsided by the show’s incredible, layered plot and seductive character development.
Audiences are brought to the site of our protagonist’s upbringing in New York City for the start of the show. We are introduced to the series’ major conflict immediately, in which protagonist Malcolm Bright—portrayed by Tom Payne—struggles with the moral consequences of turning his serial-killer father over to the police as a young child.
The rest of the show takes place ten years after Bright’s childhood. Even after a decade, Bright must still work to disentangle himself from the nefarious legacy of his father, Martin Whitly—portrayed by Michael Sheen. Whitly is infamously known as “the Surgeon” for his detail-oriented, prolonged and disturbing methods of torturing and eventually murdering his exclusively female victims.
Bright deals with his trauma by becoming a profiler for the FBI, and later the NYPD. The job acts as a means of catharsis for Bright, almost a way for him to repent for his father’s sins. Lieutenant Gil of the NYPD—portrayed by Lou Diamond Phillips—recruits Bright as a consultant and acts as a mentor for the troubled man.
From the beginning of “The Prodigal Son,” Bright is shown to have PTSD from his father’s many killings. As the episodes progress, Bright’s PTSD recalls his repressed memories and the state of his mental health begins to steadily decline. With the hulking shadow of Whitly looming over him, Bright slowly falls out of touch with reality.
“The Prodigal Son” covers physical murder and the psychology of the crimes as Bright puts himself in killers’ shoes to figure out their motives. Bright speaks to family and friends of killers out of sympathy for those who have been emotionally scarred. However, this has as many negatives as it does positives since Bright is forced to investigate his father’s mindset with every case, and this feeds into his own obsession.
Like Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, Bright grows rapidly more fixated on the line between innocence and darkness. He rethinks every detail of every crime, trying to decide whether he had been an accomplice in Whitly’s killings. The plot of “The Prodigal Son” becomes more knotted together and the lines become more smudged and blurred with every episode as Bright tries to remove himself from his obsession with Whitly.
Whitly hasn’t only tainted Bright though; his remaining family members have their own obsessions with their criminal father figure. From Bright’s sister, who wishes to be loved and supported by her dad, to their mother who may or may not have known about Whitly’s murders.
With every second, each character becomes more closely tugged into a world with Whitly at its center. Every step onto a new path causes Bright and his family to walk around the circle and wait to be deceived by Whitly once more. There is seemingly no escape from “the Surgeon,” though escape is the one desire that every character wishes could be fulfilled.