'Prodigal Son': Bellamy Young's Jessica harbours secrets and she could have been in cahoots with serial killer The Surgeon?
Spoilers for Season 1 Episode 2 of 'Prodigal Son'
Parents often keep secrets for children as they aren't meant to know everything. But on Fox's 'Prodigal Son', the secrets Malcolm Bright's (Tom Payne) parents keep are lethal.
Bright's father Dr Martin Whitly is a serial killer who, in his prime, killed 23 people. He earned the moniker 'The Surgeon' since he used his medical expertise in the slaughter. In the 90s, after a young, 10-year-old Bright discovers this, he calls the cops on his father. Following his arrest, The Surgeon is held in Clairmont Psychiatric facility.
Bright's mother, Jessica, is apparently completely unaware of the approachable monster that her husband is. When The Surgeon is being arrested, an exasperated Jessica asks the police to take him away for good before rushing off the room with her son.
When Bright returns to the city after being fired from the FBI, he joins the NYPD under Gil Arroyo (Lou Diamond Phillips) to investigate murders. This leads him back to his father - you know, because who else knows the mind of a serial killer best than a serial killer himself?
Bright's constant meetings with his father aggravate the already dire state of his mental health. Soon, his mother Jessica takes notice. Not once or twice, but several times through the first two episodes alone, Jessica dons the role of a soothsayer - warning Bright of the repercussions of meeting his father. "You have no idea what your father is capable of", is a warning for Bright, but it shows that Jessica knows a lot more about The Surgeon than she has let on.
Manipulative, shrewd, and cunning - Dr Whitly is all this. It is possible that during the course of his marriage with Jessica, he must have been all those things to her. Which Jessica had only realised in hindsight. So is the foundation of her warning coming from mere contemplation?
Most definitely not.
Question is, how much does she really know? And was she aware of it all when The Surgeon was in business?
'Prodigal Son' airs on Mondays at 9 pm ET/PT.
