'Prodigal Son' season 1 episode 1 sees the copycat serial killer follow the footsteps of The Surgeon to finish his job
Spoilers ahead for season 1 episode 1 of 'Prodigal Son' on Fox
The first episode of the latest Fox thriller has Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) and his new NYPD team Lou Diamond Phillips' Gil, JT (Frank Harts) and Dani (Aurora Perrineau) under the impression that they are looking for a copycat serial killer.
The team is investigating the murder of a 43-year-old rich and unmarried woman. Barely a minute into the crime scene, Bright infers that the woman has not been strangled or knocked out instead she was paralyzed. He notes that "inducing paralysis is a thousand times harder than knocking someone out - it requires practice, equipment and medical skills".
This inference leads him to believe that the murderer is a copycat following the steps of none other than his own father, Dr Martin Whitly, The Surgeon. But is he really copying The Surgeon for there have been only three murders compared to The Surgeon's quartet from the 90s?
The killer isn't finished.
The bondage on the woman, akin to BDSM, leads the investigators to Nico, who they find tied to a chair in his own apartment with a timebomb set under his seat. What they also find at Nico's house is that the killer is more than just a copycat - he is making his own drugs. In a desperate attempt to free Nico from the chair and save his life, Bright chops off his hand with an axe and they narrowly escape the explosion. Bright's profile leads him to believe that the killer is bald, has body dysmorphia and is rich.
So far, it was only their speculation that the killer was a copycat. But the discovery from the crime scene in Nico's house leads them to a different path altogether. Gil hands over anatomical sketches he found at the crime scene, the very same were also part of The Surgeon's study for Bright and he cannot fathom how they got into the hands of the killer. Desperate to find answers about how his father is involved in all this - could he have orchestrated this series of murders so he could get Malcolm to come visit him in his facility? Bright makes a visit to his father.
There he discovers that these notes were actually stolen from his study by Michael Cerveris' Carter Berkhead, the developer, who Dr Whilty had tended to at one point. Berkhead's motive was revenge on his cheating wife. He followed The Surgeon's model after stealing the anatomical sketches from him. In the end, as Bright is buying time from the killer so he doesn't shoot Dani and himself, the killer is shot by JT.
'Prodigal Son' airs Mondays at 9/8c on Fox.
