'Prodigal Son' Episode 5: Fans think Malcolm's parents have been hiding the truth about his own dark nature from him
Spoilers ahead for Episode 5 'The Trip' of 'Prodigal Son'
Nightmares and terrors never seem to leave Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) alone. Each, in fact, is more frightening than the last one.
In this particular episode though, these visions or memories became much more "vivid". He begins seeing someone moving under a cover, shackled at the ankle implying that it must be the elusive girl in the box. This very same vision not once but multiple times, even during a murder investigation.
When he is in the titular trip after accidentally snorting a good deal of drugs, he has an epiphany of sorts. The trip takes a bad turn the minute he is alone. After he shuts himself in the bathroom, he finds himself in his father's cell with himself dressed in Martin Whitly's (Michael Sheen) clothes.
This hallucination, clearly his subconscious, yells at him to not ignore it. What you need is some context to tie all the crazy together, says the hallucination version of Malcolm.
He directs the real Malcolm to a certain box he hid under the bed of his childhood home and implies that he might find some answers there.
At the end of the episode, Malcolm finally retrieves the box from Jessica (Bellamy Young), who had earlier said that nothing is under his bed. The box contains old paraphernalia from his childhood.
It also contains some photographs from what looks like the family's camping trip to a lake. There are photographs of his parents together and of him with his father with a station wagon in the background.
It looks like the same station wagon that Malcolm had seen at the beginning of the episode with a shackled person inside the trunk of the car. The episode ends with his father asking what he did that he can't recall.
With a cliffhanger at the end of the episode, fans are coming up with the wildest of theories. "Martin was grooming Malcolm to do what he did," said one fan. "Daaaang. Was Malcolm Daddy's Little Helper???!" wondered another.
One fan has shelved out a detailed theory that technically does tie the loose strings together. "I always felt that the reason Malcolm doesn’t remember well of that time gap and his mom insists not to, and the secret conversation his mom and dad had were because... Young Malcolm was actually the serial killer. Dad did it too. but tried to keep Malcolm out of prison," the fan theorized.
" I think that's a good reason for Jessica to overlook what Martin was doing. If she wanted to protect Malcolm from getting arrested so was covering for him, that makes sense. Malcolm could've had his memory repressed. (Maybe he didn’t notice killing was bad? Psycho)," the fan continued.
"Yet we can argue that if Malcolm is a serial killer, then what’s the whole point? The show is unique because he's 'the son of a serial killer'. And why name the show 'Prodigal Son'? But at the same time, I feel like 'Being a serial killer is a real way to be a 'Prodigal Son' right?" the fan added.
This theory, in particular, is pretty spot-on considering the amount of information we have as of this moment. Guess we will see more of Michael Sheen and Tom Payne in the next week's episode.
'Prodigal Son' airs on Mondays at 9 pm ET/PT on Fox.