By Ruthie
*no relation to anyone on staff. Probably.
Here
we are again, all dressed up and ready to roll. I don’t know about
y’all, but after last week’s creep fest, I am really ready for a good
wholesome bank robber.
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| "Fifty year old Altoids? What kind of clue is that?" |
We start out in a generic bank, where a
dapper fella in a snazzy suit strolls in with a briefcase and requests
to visit his safety deposit box. The teller, a pretty 40-something,
escorts him back. Once they’re alone in the back, the make-outs begin.
Oh ho ho, you young kids and your crazy bank-smooching fetishes! As soon
as she assures him the cameras are turned off, he spins her around,
slips a syringe from his pocket, stabs her, and dumps her drugged body
in a corner. His briefcase turns out to contain a captive bolt gun, a
device you might remember as Javier Bardem’s weapon of choice in “
No Country for Old Men.” He cleverly uses it to pop the locks out of the
boxes—pumf! pumf! pumf!—and starts stuffing his briefcase with 6 boxes
worth of wills, deeds, and papers. He seems delighted to discover a
pretty platinum and sapphire pendant. “What’s your story?” he asks it.
Speaking as an aficionada of the sapphire, I too would like to get to
know that particular sparkly rock better; perhaps even take it out for
drinks where the sapphire and I would have a lively chat, followed by a
long walk of a romantic nature before slipping it around my neck and…
but I digress.
The bank manager interrupts the robbery, and for a
brief moment, it seems like he might just walk in and back out again
without incident. Unfortunately, he spots the sedated teller, and the
robber is on him with the cattle bolt. “Please! I have a family!” he
pleads, and the scene has already begun to wipe to Alcatraz when we hear
the subtle “pumf!” of the gun. That's some nice cinematography.
On
the Rock in 1960, Cal Sweeney is busy teaching a young man how he uses
his prison laundry job to smuggle contraband to his fellow inmates. The
protégé looks like someone spliced together Matt Damon and Taylor
Lautner, sort of vaguely handsome with an eager expression. When a
customer asks for credit, Sweeney agrees on the condition that the price
will triple. Sweeney uses this as a teaching moment to explain to the
protégé that if he isn’t utterly emotionless and uncaring, he’ll be
perceived as weak. No soft spots, he says. The kid assures Sweeney he
has committed this lesson to memory. A guard comes up and lets Sweeney
know Tiller is tossing his cell, and Sweeney rushes back, discovers
something missing, and demands to speak to Tiller.
In an Asian
restaurant, Madsen and Doc are having buns for breakfast. (Side note: I
adore those little meaty buns, and I haven’t had a good one since I
moved back from Japan. Just not the sort of thing you can find on every
street corner in North Texas.) Their meal is interrupted by the news
that someone robbed the safety deposit boxes at the bank, leaving the
vault alone. Doc recognizes the M.O. of Cal Sweeney. (Our own Bill
Sweeney claims there is no relation. A likely story.) Doc explains that
going after just the boxes is smart because it means the robbery isn’t a
Federal crime, and therefore, the FBI stays out of it.
They
interview the teller, who explains how Sweeney romanced and conned her.
He gave her a little mother of pearl butterfly pin that she hands over.
They decide to talk to the owners of the boxes to get a list of lost
items; just as they say this, Sweeney rings a doorbell and identifies
himself to the owner as a representative of the bank, here to begin
filling out insurance paperwork for the lost items in the box.
At
the kitchen table, Sweeney questions the owner about the pretty sapphire
necklace, and his questions rapidly become personal. When Sweeney pulls
the stolen pendant from his inner pocket, the owner smells a rat. He
jumps up and ends up with a bolt gun through his hand. Eeew, that was a
bloody special effect. Sweeney says that he wants the story of why the
necklace is important and that the man will begin with how he met his
wife.
Back on the rock, Sweeney interrupts Tiller’s shave and
demands the return of a metal box from his cell. Tiller demands a piece
of Sweeney’s operation. Sweeney refuses and tells Tiller that Alcatraz
needs his operation. Afterward, Sweeney does a lot of macho posturing
about how he can’t back down from Tiller or he'll lose face, and his
protégé tells him that the warden is having a party for Tiller’s
birthday. The protégé can arrange to get Sweeney assigned as a steward.
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| Logo-rific! |
At the pendant owner’s house, a woman with vibrant red hair lets the
Dynamic Duo in, and they discover the man dead with a hole in his head
and hand. Sweeney, meanwhile, is headed into another bank.
In 1960,
the prisoners are looking smart in white tuxes at E.B. Tiller’s birthday
party. The observant will immediately note that Lucy is among our
honored guests this evening. Tiller arrives with a woman Sweeney
identifies as Tiller’s "gimp" sister. The warden greets her as Jeri, and
she jokes about wanting to wear her birthday suit in honor of the
birthday but Tiller is such a prude. My husband declares, “I love that
woman. Let’s have more of her!”
At the table, the warden introduces
Dr. Beauregard to Dr. Lucille Simgupta, and he is obnoxious and
condescending. It’s clear that she likes Dr. Dracula almost as much as I
do, which is to say, almost as much as I enjoy finding a cockroach in
my cupcakes. She explains her theory that violent and criminal behavior
stems from traumatic memories, and she believes that by eliminating
those memories and replacing them with soothing ones, the behavior can
be changed. She’s apparently had some success at this with rats. The
protégé is displeased to hear that they might be after his memories
next.
Back in the Batcave, Doc and Madsen wonder at the fact that
Sweeney’s sole possession was a burned, crushed tin box. They show
Hauser that another deposit box owner robbed by Sweeney had also been
killed with the bolt gun; this is new for Sweeney, who was just a robber
in the 50s and not a killer. Since the only connection is the tellers
who he uses to get in, they study the tellers in security footage and
discover that he sent flowers to both robbed banks. At the flower shop,
the helpful florist recognizes Sweeney, gives them a list of his orders,
and flirts with Doc. They identify the next bank from the list of
deliveries.
They’d better hurry, because Sweeney is already in the
back room with the redheaded teller and make-outs are imminent. He’s
already slipped the sapphire necklace around her neck, but she sees the
syringe coming before he stabs her. She runs and triggers the alarm, but
he catches her and smashes her head into the wall. He finds and
presumably robs a box, but the alarm means the bank is on lockdown. He
beats up a guard and steals his gun, but the police have already arrived
and there's no escape. He takes everyone hostage. Madsen and Doc arrive
just in time to see him threatening hostages.
Well, that’s a problem....
