Prodigal Son redefines the investigative procedural with the introduction of this invigorating new drama.

For the first time, in a very long time, it finally feels like Fall TV has returned. Shows, and promising ones at that, are debuting across network stations (remember ABC, Fox, CBS?). Meanwhile, legends are still dominating the stations, or at least doing well enough with viewers who say, “Can you believe this show is still on?” raking in enough money either through international distribution or syndication to justify their existence.

Few things excite me more than a well-balanced procedural. I love the Law & Orders, NYPD Blues, and even NCISes of the world, but I am talking about the underdog procedurals: Person of Interest, Elementary, Hannibal, the ones that run parallel to crime of the week tales, infusing the weekly episodes with much more character-driven stories so that the twists and turns of the cases are a mere bonus to elevated drama playing out in the forefront.

In 2019, the most promising contender to fill this niche is Fox’s Prodigal Son.

‘Prodigal Son’ is the must-see drama of the fall

Prodigal Son follows Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), an FBI-trained profiler and son of serial killer Dr. Malcolm Whitly, aka “The Surgeon,” who has at least 23 known victims on his roster. Though locked up in a cell for eternity in a cozy asylum, Martin does not idly sit back and watch the days tick by. People in positions of great wealth and power still seek out his expertise as a cardiothoracic surgeon, and he consults on the stray case or two from his cell. But the only visitor he wants is the one who stopped signing in 10 years ago: his son.

In the present, Malcolm’s reckless behavior leads to a parting of ways with the FBI, and he returns to New York, where his mother (Bellamy Young) and sister, Ainsley (Halston Stage), both reside. Here, the story kicks off with Lieutenant Gil Arroyo (Lou Diamond Phillips) bringing Malcolm into the NYPD fold as a consulting profiler, not unlike Sherlock’s stint just a few networks down.

The pilot episode follows a textbook procedural introduction: display the unique behavior ticks that set the lead apart, cast him against the veteran officers, perform an act that might get him cast out for good, and yet, somehow set his skills as an asset that leaves the door open for more.

And it did the legwork to set up a brilliant ensemble in the NYPD team: skeptical detectives Dani Powell (Aurora Perrineau) and JT Tarmel (Frank Harts) playing against the enthusiastic medical examiner Dr. Edrisa Tanaka (Keiko Agena).

But then Prodigal Son did something I was not prepared for — it took a season 1 finale nugget and burst it open at the end of episode 1. There is no tiptoeing around the immense, unresolved trauma from Malcolm’s childhood. He called the cops on his father after making a discovery in the basement. And yet, through a series of flashbacks, we see that it did not cast him apart from his dad, but rather made him a subject of interest.

As Malcolm’s mother, Bellamy Young delivers a performance of a woman so deeply scared by the life of her husband’s misgivings that she is barely hanging on to some semblance of a normal life. When Ainsley delivers the news that Malcolm has been working on a copy cat murder of his father’s, she does not miss a beat in delivering the names of the women Martin killed during his “Quartet” killing spree.

What sets ‘Prodigal Son’ apart?

On one hand, you could argue that the pilot front loads a lot of the information that would otherwise be teased out around forthcoming cases. It’s something that worked for series such as Elementary and Person of Interest because the cases were the key to the singularity of the leads like Sherlock and Harold Finch. Those two characters needed to grow in connection to their partners, Joan Watson and John Reese, respectively, through the work they were doing.

In episode 2, “Annihilator,” Malcolm says, “As an investigator, the end of the story doesn’t mean the case is solved.” And Prodigal Son is far from solved.

That leads us to look at the other hand: If you have Sheen playing a serial killer, you better use him. And that is where Prodigal Son made the right move to push unpacking the family trauma over solving the weekly case work. The procedural element here is the icing on the cake.

In this respect, it would be easy to draw a line from Prodigal Son to the likes of Hannibal, especially in the first season. But that line is about as effective a comparison as the red line in Whitly’s cell is a barrier to keep him from hurting his son.

The question at the heart of the show is: Is Malcolm’s future implacable?

As Whitly is being taken away at the start of the series, he says to his son, “You’re my son, and I love you. I will always love you because we’re the same.” Does Malcolm somehow lose his father’s love if he turns out to not be the same? What if he is this undefined “other”?

Sheen walks Whitly on such a razor-sharp line that you never know what you are going to get in a single second. Take the reunion scene in the pilot. Martin is elated, terrified, and in awe of his son. But he also realizes that he is at the disadvantage, that his son can and will walk out the door at any given moment. Describing Martin to EW, Sheen says, “This character is someone whose main preoccupation is control, and yet he is reduced to staying in one room and doesn’t seem to have the ability to control anything — how does someone cope with that?”

Despite a compelling trailer, I’ll be completely honest and admit that I only came to the show thanks to the casting of (as he is known in my circles) the Internet’s boyfriend, Michael Sheen.

Sheen has, by any reasonable measure, enjoyed an extremely successful career, on television and in film. In fact, he’s had an incredible five months. It was just in May 2019 when Amazon’s Good Omens dropped, exceeding all long-time book loyalist’s expectations while generating a new wave of admirers. This is, in large part, due to Sheen’s magnetic performance as Aziraphale matched with David Tennent’s Crowley. Something that is replicated on an adjacent, yet equally compelling plane with Payne in Prodigal Son.

Though Sheen may don the most comfortable looking sweaters in New York, in Prodigal Son his performance as the serial killer Dr. Martin Whitly is a far stretch from being anything resembling warmth. There is an unsettling quality tucked away in his eyes that makes you want to trust him as he cracks jokes about being vegan yet run when he delivers his 17th voicemail to Malcolm’s inbox. He exudes subtle horror.

Through two episodes, we’ve seen the ramifications of Malcolm’s return to see his father — night terrors, flashes of repressed memories, and an increase in physical tremors. While we see a terror play out in real time in the pilot, in episode 2 Malcolm wakes up in the hospital screaming at the nurses who gave him a sedative: “What did you give me? I need to be able to wake up!”

Vigilant as he may be — taking medication, routinely reading daily affirmations, greeting his parakeet, chaining himself to his bed — Malcolm is anything but in control of life, lucid or otherwise. And the only way to keep unpacking the answers to his past are to get them right from the source. Which leads us to his consulting job, a means to an end. Get the cases, have an excuse to get face time with dear old dad.

After all, it is the only bargaining chip Malcolm has. Their scenes together are electric, with Payne describing them in an interview with Collider, saying, “It’s like two animals, stepping around each other, in those scenes. They’re very fun to play, and very fun to watch. You go outside of the scene, and make-up and hair are watching on the monitors, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my god, it’s so scary!’ And it is. Those scenes, even before they start, when I’m just walking down the corridor to the room, they have tension, before anyone says anything, and that’s a gift. And then, when you put an amazing actor in the middle of that, it’s pretty hard to mess it up. That’s the biggest interest in the show, really.”

Will these interactions give Malcolm the answers he wants, or will they reveal something far worse than the nightmares his subconscious has been feeding him? And what, if anything, can redeem Martin, maybe not in our eyes, but in the eyes of his son? Is he even worthy of redemption?

There are lots of paths my mind has wandered down already, interactions I want to see, storylines I feel are inevitable: Malcolm will frame himself as a serial killer as part of a ploy with Martin to capture a killer; Malcolm will be suspended (multiple times), but work on cases anyway; Martin and Ainsley seeing each other in person; Jessica Whitly confronting Martin (episode 3 seems promising for this!).

Just like Malcolm’s on-screen professional tactics, our profiles of these two figures are constantly evolving. And so long as Sheen and Payne work toward unpacking these questions in the same space, I’ll be tuning in week after week.

Prodigal Son airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET on Fox.