Once again, I’ve almost fallen behind in my coverage of ‘Alcatraz’. I’d like to throw together another recap before the new episode airs tonight, because last week’s ep had some important developments for the show’s mythology story arc.

I’ve been wondering what happened to Robert Forster. His character Ray (Rebecca’s mentor and surrogate father figure) pretty much disappeared after the show’s pilot episode, but finally returns in ‘Guy Hastings’.

This episode also marks the first reappearance of one of the prison’s guards. Guy (Jim Parrack from ‘True Blood’) was a training officer in 1963, and seemed to be a stable and happy family man. However, one of his first actions upon returning in the modern day is to kill a ranger at the Alcatraz park.

Rebecca and Doc assume that he’ll try to visit his daughter (who doesn’t look nearly the 58-years-old that her character is supposed to be). But Guy doesn’t even realize that she’s alive. He was told (by whom, we still don’t know) that his entire family died in a chemical accident at the prison. Instead, he tracks down Ray, who was one of his former trainees. Ray tries to act surprised to see him (having not aged a day, no less), but strangely adapts to the situation pretty calmly. What Guy really wants is for Ray to lead him to Tommy Madsen, Rebecca’s grandfather.

Ray brings Guy to Tommy’s old childhood home. Tommy isn’t there, but Rebecca tracks them there and takes Guy into custody. Later, Tommy turns up at Ray’s bar, complaining that he has nowhere to live. Ray tosses him out of the bar, and threatens him to stay away from Rebecca.

Things We Learn in This Episode

• Ray is Tommy’s brother, and hence Rebecca’s great-uncle. He hid his identity and became a guard at the prison in order to help Tommy break out. As part of his training (and to keep his cover), he was forced to savagely beat Tommy in front of the other prisoners.
• Rebecca speculates that Tommy has either gone rogue from whatever mission he was sent on, or is lost.
• The reason that Ray wasn’t so surprised to see Guy is that he already knew about the ’63s. Hauser had tried to recruit him for his program 16 years ago, but Ray refused. This makes me wonder how long Tommy has been loose in the world. As far as we were aware, the ’63s only started appearing recently. Was Tommy sent in advance?
• Guy has gaps in his memory and can’t articulate exactly what happened to him or who sent him back. When asked where he’s been, he responds, “I haven’t been anywhere.”