Review: The Prodigal Son

This latest crime show is one of the best new shows to come out this year.

Tom Payne is excellent as lead character Malcolm Bright. A disgraced former FBI profiler, now working as a consultant for the New York Police major crimes department headed up by Gil Arroyo, the man who arrested his father and acted as a surrogate father for Malcolm as he grew up. Malcolm has a unique way of profiling; he is able to view the murder scenes from the perspective of the killer. While this allows him to pick up on things others would have missed, it also allows his inner demons to surface wondering if he will end up suffering a psychotic break and following in his father’s footsteps as a prolific serial killer.

Michael Sheen gives a stunning performance as Malcolm’s father Dr Martin Whitley, also known as “The Surgeon”.

While he was a practicing Dr in New York he abducted, tortured and brutally killed 23 people before finally being caught when his young son Malcolm phoned the police to turn him in. Now locked up in a psychiatric hospital he hasn’t seen his son in years. But when someone manages to perfectly recreate one of his more elaborate kills, it leaves Malcolm no choice but to go and visit his father.

Although it does help him find the copycat, it also brings back terrible memories from his childhood. His nightmares are that bad he hardly sleeps, and when he does, he has to chain himself to the bed to stop him from hurting himself. As missing pieces start to slot in to place and memories start to come back, he becomes fixated on the woman in the trunk. As a child he snook in to his fathers’ workshop in the basement, a place he was forbidden to enter. He opened a trunk and found a naked woman bound up inside, his father found him and took him upstairs and put him to bed, the next morning he called the police and reported his father. But as the memories come back, he realises there are missing days between the two incidents.

As he works tirelessly to help the New York Police Department take killers off the streets he also does everything he can to bring back the missing memories. Just what will he find out and how will that affect those around him.

This show is intense, exciting and filled with that many twists and turns you don’t know where you’ll end up. It leaves you constantly wondering what will happen next, and eager to watch the next episode to find out.

When criminal minds ended it left a hole for a killer TV show, a hole I think The Prodigal Son just might be able to fill