Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Tom Payne, Michael Sheen, Bellamy Young, Halston Sage, Lou Diamond Phillips, Aurora Perrineau, Frank Harts, Catherine Zeta Jones, Keiko Agena, Esau Pritchett, Kasjan Wilson, Alan Cumming.
What we inherit, the D.N.A we have coursing through our very being, is only a fraction of the traits we exhibit when out in the open amongst others, the very question of nature and nurture is never more acute of the moments when we have to remove the mask we have put in place, when we allow our true feelings to surface in the company of strangers and family who may look upon us as the uncontrolled daughter, the Prodigal Son.
In the realms of many a series cut short and then discarded by numerous television executives, the cancelling of Prodigal Son perhaps is one that grates with the fans more than others, and yet even in a truncated second season of thirteen episodes, the nature of the programme and the intensity of the scripts has been able to shine, to showcase the extraordinary and undoubted talents of the likes of Michael Sheen, Bellamy Young, Aurora Perrineau and of course the lead of British actor Tom Payne as Malcolm Bright, and for the faithful viewer, a chance to recognise just how important the science behind psychology and criminal profiling can be when applied in a correct and positive manner.
Prodigal Son will be seen as many things; depending on the viewer’s critical outlook; at times subversive, perhaps even glorifying in the murders and incarceration of Martin Sheen’s Dr. Martin Whitley, but it is also one that the viewer should take seriously, especially with the introduction of Dr. Vivian Capshaw, portrayed with a gruesome fear inducing malevolence by the outstanding Catherine Zeta Jones, to the proceedings, and giving extra credence to the notion of veiled respectability.
From the acknowledgement of the way humanity has had to deal with the rise of the Covid Pandemic of 2020, to the finale of the son having to take down the psychopathic father, and the cut which leaves the serial on a satisfying cliff hanger which will never be resolved, Prodigal Son has been a series which pushed the boundary of how the act of the serial killer is seen in society and how we maybe rely upon them to quash the prospective urge in others.
An insightful, well written drama that has reached an end far too soon, and yet finished in a suitable and satisfying manner; few programmes are given such dignity when given its final notice.
Ian D. Hall