Four episodes into Alcatraz, and it feels like it may be starting to get a bit too comfortable. It seems somewhat fitting that in “Cal Sweeney,” the criminal of the week, is a man who has a clearly laid-out plan for how he goes around robbing safety deposit boxes. Everything is familiar, structured. It seems like Alcatraz is also suffering from that rigidity, getting more procedural than the show deserves to be.
In the episode, Sweeney seduces bank tellers, knocks them out, and then steals from very specific boxes. While in the past that would be enough, now he is visiting the owners of the boxes as well. In the past, Sweeney usually left the bank employees alone, but he now is killing bank workers and the box owners, in a very Anton Chigurh-ish way, by using a device that kills cattle. After one bank robbery in the present goes wrong, Madsen must sneak into the bank he is holding hostage and get him out so they can put him in the new Alcatraz. Once she goes through the process of doing this, we find out that the whole reason he broke into this final bank was to steal a key for someone, leaving the mystery for the audience.
Back in the 1960s, we see that Sweeney was an expert at sneaking things into the prison. When Deputy Warden Tiller wants a piece of his action, he works his way to his dinner party, thrown by Warren James, and threatens him. There doesn’t seem to be much importance to this flashback sequence however. His best friend Harlan betrays him, stealing the only thing Sweeney had remaining from his childhood, and Harlan says that he will take over Sweeney’s business as he rots in solitary for 30 days. By the end, we see Harlan being thrown into a room that appears to be a cellar. The key that opens this door is, you guessed it, the one Sweeney stole. However the door needs three keys, and as we see from Hauser and his crack team of scientists, they only have two. Another nice piece of info we receive is that even though it seems like Hauser is secretive and knows more than he lets on, he doesn’t know how the inmates jump through time.