On March 21, 1963 three hundred and two inmates, guards, and staff vanished in the night and started to reappear today.
“Webb Porter” was another intriguing, but horrifically sad episode. Mr. Porter, who suffers from ringing in his ears, a condition or symptom called tinnitus, that was supposedly brought on by his mother attempting to drown him as a child, and who later in life returns the favor by drowning her in the bathtub, landed himself a ticket to Alcatraz where he is nick named “screamer”, because unless he is in the infirmary with his ear pressed up against a wall, he would scream and scream. The episode also featured music therapy and Lucy attempting help Webb Porter leave the infirmary, untangle his tangled mind by providing a sense of logic, and find another way for Mr. Porter to drone out the ringing with out screaming.
“You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks, But He’s Still an Old Dog.”
E. B. Tiller continues his argument from “Clarence Montgomery” that once a criminal, always a criminal, but Tiller’s argument might be slightly half baked, since really he doesn’t think that “ a new trick” constitutes as a “changed” dog, despite it’s age. And really that’s where the argument for the viewers lies. Does it matter what kind of criminal a person is? --Does it matter if some of the criminals are victims of circumstance and should have been institutionalised and not placed in America’s most brutal well-known prison? I say it definitely does matter. It matters that they are patients more than criminals in some cases, and that they are being further corrupted.
But the episode also makes it more clear that Edwin James has faith in the abilities of Dr. Sengupta.
James comments that she has “ a bag of tricks” and this is the second time that Lucy is referred to as a WITCH. Beauregard had also once commented that she was “Mother Goose”, (“Paxton Petty”) who’s origins and fables come from beliefs and events in 17th century French history. Their society believing they were dealing/living with witches, but there are arguments about her relating to the wife of a French King and other accounts of a woman from Boston, Mass. -But when you think about the iconic images of Mother Goose you realise she is often seen with a pointy hat, stripped stockings, carrying a broom, and riding a large goose! But the fables or rhymes apart of Mother Goose also point out these horrific tales where people are lost, sad, and abused. It’s strange to think of rhymes and songs such as Rock-A-Bye Baby, or Humpty Dumpty were made to tell very young children, but respectively these dramatic tales told in youth, go hand in hand with the stories of the inmates of Alcatraz and there own traumatic experiences that for some started when they were very young, like with Webb Porter.
“It’s Alive!”
On and off in other recaps I have been commenting on the horror-supernatural film aspect of the series that reminds us of cult classics like Dr. Strange Love or Jekyll and Hyde, and also episodically has a lot in common with some the cases and events seen on Fringe. Fringe itself pays a lot of homage and references to Mary Shelley’s Gothic horror classic, Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus). I think it’s also something that one could reference here. Shelley’s story consists of a physician who goes outside of his society’s acceptable scientific box and dabbles in what would be perceived as fringe science, as Dr. Frankenstein could not deal with the loss of several family member’s deaths and seeks out a way to bring people back to life after death.
In My Opinion, Mary Shelley tells a tale about responsibility and creationism and not just about the immoral idea of cheating death. Mary Shelley goes out her way to have Dr. Frankenstein do everything wrong. His creature is made up of mostly dead criminals' body parts to give into the idea of creating something truly
abominable and being further corrupted by having Frankenstein abandon his creation and leave him to figure out the world for himself, which leaves the creature to have several bad experiences that sets him out for revenge!
The inmates alone may reflect this, as it’s possible that some of them have been left to fend for themselves and server no master, while others may be ‘perfected’ and either both serve someone, or are out for revenge.
But the ideas presented my also coincide with the sharing of colloidal silver blood. Webb Porter was a match for Lucy and at the end of the episode, like always, despite being caught, Webb returned the favor, and was very willing to help save Lucy. But what if the colloidal silver, especially if it’s passed on from one person to another, also changes you? So far in Lucy’s flashbacks she seems to be on the side of actually helping the criminals, and not on the side of intentionally further corrupting them, but the truth is we still don’t know why James or whomever suggested her for Alcatraz, but even if she was innocent, I can’t help that Webb Porter’s colloidal silver infused blood might come with effects in which we may continue to debate about, as hopefully we are able to get into a second season.
Great Expectations:
The character’s name of the episode, Webb Porter, may point out to themes and plots of other Bad robot works. Webb Porter initially makes me think of Felicity, as the title character’s last name is Porter, but also one of Felicity’s love interests, Noel Crane, ends up marrying a women named Zoe Webb at the end of the series. Felicity is a coming of age story about young collage students and their life changing experiences, but specifically for Felicity it was her torn identity between two men and two career paths that lead to some crazy Wicca witchcraft inspired time traveling events during the last five episodes. In the middle of series Felicity decides to defy her father’s wishes to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor and instead pursues a lost childhood interest in art…Noel ended up working for Zoe’s father at a Webb Graphics, as Noel was interested in art and graphic design, which Noel’s artistic association reflects Felicity’s torn identity as he is one of her love interests.
E.B. Tiller tells Lucy in a flashback during an inmate jazz band music room scene that he had dreams and interests in becoming a musician, but his father discouraged it. We have also seen this sanario in LOST, as Daniel Faraday also wanted to be a musician and not a physicist, but his mother made him.
But musical themes also lead to patterns and the structure of time lines presented in both Fringe and Lost. The Fringe episode, “The Equation” deals with creating delusions such as black mailing a young musical boy with images of his dead mother, who appears alive to him, in order to have the boy try finish a piece of piano music that reflects an equation that ZFT needs and is considered apart of "The Pattern".The “Patten” then two deals with the manifestation of the universes and repeated events that lead to a type of “fate” in the Fringe universe (Fibonacci sequence)
Whatever happened to Webb Porter between the time Lucy started helping him and his modern day return is left in the dark to us, but in modern day he has delusions, as he plays his violin for an audience that isn’t there, as he didn’t get the part.
Additionally going back to Daniel Faraday and his association with the Dharma Initiative can we also assume that the Valenzettie Equation also reflects a similar equation representing the repeated and newly manifesting events from time line to time line, and events to events in the Island’s history/histories (Whatever Happened, Happened/People are Variables)
We can also tie these ideas with former Alcatraz episode, Paxton Petty, which also dealt with music and lyrics as “code” to remember where he planted the land mines…
Another interesting comparison to Felicity is that when Felicity does go time traveling back to alternate reality, ("Felicity Interrupted") she ends up getting institutionalised and she meets another version of Zoe Webb in the institution. Alcatraz clearly has tried to blur that line between patient and criminal and the effects of being locked behind bars.
Note: Felicity went as the bride of Frankenstein at a Halloween party during the first season (Spooked)
But ultimately all these things reflects the choices we make and how sometimes we take on more than we can chew and if we think we can always out run and not be responsible for our mistakes, we may want to guess again.
“I feel like my life is someone else’s”
Rebecca too has recognised that she is no longer the same person she was when we started. That the quest to find Tommy Madsen ---to be caught up in some supernatural events has awakened something that she now knows she can never put back to sleep and parallel’s her to the feelings of Olivia Dunham in "The Pilot" of Fringe. Rebecca is a character who continues to grow on me, and what I like about her most is that is generally honest with her feelings. I don’t feel like she is lying to herself or us about whom she is. And I can’t wait to see what will happen if she ever comes face to face to with Tommy Madsen. I also like that she does have some social life and that she and Nikki seem to have a good friendship going.
The Rabbit Hole:
Although Not Brought up in this episode. I had some time to think about “The Hole”. Bad Robot also references “Alice and Wonderland” a great deal (LOST, Super 8, Fringe). I kept thinking how strange it is that if there was time travel, that there aren’t time displacement or course correction physical effects taking place and it suddenly dawned on me that The Rabbit Hole in Alice in Wonderland is literally the nexus and/or bridge between two parallel universes/realities and it brings me back to Fringe and Peter Bishop's machine(s) in the season 3 finale ("The Day We Died")
Peter Bishop: ...This isn't a war that can be won. Our two worlds are inextricable. If one side dies, we all die. So I've torn holes in both the universes and they lead here, to this room. A bridge so that we can begin to work together to fix --
So I propose that The Hole is a room, a pocket universe, a bridge between the two time lines. But obviously what's unique here and different than what we have seen before with Bad Robot is that the 'present' times of the two universes are different, but yet they still relate to each other since the 2012 time line still includes a history of Alcatraz and it's inmates, guards, etc....but I venture somewhere there could be a discrepancy, or that the future of the 1963 time line may not have been the same as the future of the 2012 time line, but we may never know that. It may be "mute" point for one reason or another. It's not to say that there couldn't have once just been one, but the idea creating a bridge between two time periods could create branch off realities that made them become separate. The 1963's time line's future/(2012) may not reflect the 2012 time line's 2012.
If this would be true, I have wonder if the room is a lab and if both doors lead to the same place on both universes or not?
On another note we might be able to parallel Webb Porter’s tinnitus and drowning in the bath tub to that of the various ways the various versions of Charlie Pace died in LOST. It often related to suffocation, usually drowning, including his current version’s death in the Dharma Station: The Looking Glass which included a mission to try and make contact with anyone else in the out side world. The task dealt with turning off jamming equipment in which one needs to over ride a key pas with a numerical password who’s frequency was The Beach Boys’ song, 'Good Vibrations'. All of these things play on music and missions.
Tui Na - Push and Grasp
Again Alcatraz, like Lost and Fringe, also uses a great deal of Eastern Culture continuously within the works. Besides what ever is going with the witch references with Lucy, we know both her surnames are rather old Bangladesh surnames, but also since San Francisco like New York has a China Town, do we get also get glimpses into Asian culture and trains of thought.
At the beginning of the episode Soto follows Hauser in China Town. Soto isn’t able to get into the building Hauser goes in, but we get insight that Hauser is stressed and goes for a type of Asian Massage Therapy. I went looking for more specific information and one thing I found seems to cover at least the Chinese version of such things.
Form Wikipedia:
Tui na (Chinese: ??[citation needed] or ??; pinyin: tui ná), is a form of Chinese manipulative therapy often used in conjunction withacupuncture, moxibustion, fire cupping, Chinese herbalism, t'ai chi, and qigong. It is a hands-on body treatment that uses Chinese taoist andmartial art principles in an attempt to bring into balance the eight principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The practitioner may brush, knead, roll/press and rub the areas between each of the joints (known as the eight gates) to open the body's defensive (wei) chi and get the energy moving in the meridians as well as the muscles. The practitioner can then use range of motion, traction, massage, with the stimulation of acupressure points; this is claimed to treat both acute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions, as well as many non-musculoskeletal conditions. Tui na is an integral part of TCM and is taught in TCM schools as part of formal training in Oriental medicine. Many East Asian martial arts schools also teach tui na to their advanced students for the treatment and management of injury and pain due to training. As with many other traditional Chinese medical practices, there are several different schools with greater or smaller differences in their approach to the discipline. It is related also to Chinese massage or anma .
I find the idea of this interesting since longevity and rehabilitation are both themes woven into the show so far.
Final Thoughts:
“Do You Know What This Is? It’s A Time Machine”
From Ben Covington getting an old film canister with the film “Gold Rush” for him and Felicity to watch, To Desmond, Jack, Locke, and Eko watching the Swan Orientation film reel, to Super 8’s viral marketing campaign which included constructing old film reel footage of the military scientists working with the alien, Bad Robot continues it’s repeated nostalgia of giving us another old film reel! This one from 1960 reveals to Diego and Rebecca that Lucy was there!!!!
I am glad we didn’t have to wait till the next season to get this reveal. It allows for Diego and Rebecca to be on the same page as the audience as we go to finale season one episodes! I could debate back and forth about the innocence of Lucy and from when she might really come from, and if shooting her and giving her colloidal silver blood is also part of some colossal plan!!!!! (I think it might be no coincidence)
But Lucy and Emerson’s love story continues to intrigue me, as Emerson too comments to the Asian Chiropractor, “I wasn’t always this way.” and we continue to explore what it is to be a person who can be effected by so many experiences and asks it’s viewers how much control do any of us really have when we are all struggling with something? I loved all of the musical elements in the episode from Webb just learning how to play the violin based on the sounds in his head, to Tiller’s Jazz Band, to Lucy and Emerson’s date with kiss included at a Jazz club, it made for a more dreamy dark episode.
However, when it comes down to it, thinking back to “Clarence Montgomery” I am not sure if I fully buy that Mr. Porter with his 162 IQ and tinnitus resulted from his mother drowning him as a child, because I can’t imagine it would take all of those years to kill his mother and for not to have been institutionalised earlier. I
think some of these prisoners are set up with fake back stories and Lucy became a tool for the warden and whom ever else is behind this so they can go even further.
Until Next Time,
Make Your Own Kind of Music
