Yahoo Finance ‘Prodigal Son’ Creators On Fox Finale Cliffhanger, Season 3 Plans & Hopes For Series’ Finding A New Home: “WBTV Is Shopping It As We Speak”
SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details from the series finale of Prodigal Son.
On Monday, Fox/WBTV’s procedural drama Prodigal Son came to an abrupt end, offering resolution as to the fate of Malcolm (Tom Payne), his serial killer father Martin (Michael Sheen), and Martin’s psychotic one-time paramour, Vivian Capshaw (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
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The series finale, titled “The Last Weekend,” honed in on questions that have been at the heart of the drama all along: Is Martin truly irredeemable? Is it possible for “The Surgeon” to salvage his relationship with his son? And will Malcolm triumph over the darkness that he’s inherited?
At the beginning of the episode, Martin teams with Malcolm to help him take down a serial killer known as The Woodsman and the pair share a couple of heart-to-heart moments, with Martin hoping to regain his son’s trust, and show, once and for all that he’s a changed man. But even after Martin helps his investigation along, Malcolm sticks to his moral code and asks the police to come get him. When Martin realizes his only path to freedom is to kill his son, he tries to stab Malcolm, who is able to get a hold of his weapon and stab his dad in the gut in self-defense. This confirms to a dying Martin that he and his son are one in the same, and might ruin Malcolm’s chances with Dani (Aurora Perrineau) when she sees what he’s done.
The other major player in the finale is Vivian, who in the beginning tells the police that Malcolm and Martin conspired to kill her—even though she had just recently abducted Martin and tortured his son. In the end, Jessica (Bellamy Young) helps Gil (Lou Diamond Phillips) and his fellow officers to get a taped confession that will put the psychotic doctor behind bars, though she’s almost killed by Vivian in the process.
It was just a week ago that Prodigal Son was canceled, after a 33-episode run on Fox. Before tonight’s episode aired, creators Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver spoke with Deadline and confirmed that they have not yet reached the end of the road with the show. “WBTV is shopping it as we speak,” they said.
Sklaver said that he and Fedak pitched Fox on their “big” ideas for Season 3 a few weeks ago. “The spine of the season was Bright becoming his own man,” he explained. “The Dani-Bright relationship was key, along with a new ‘venue’ where Martin could shine.”
Indeed, it seems Martin might be alive at the end of Season 2, despite the fact that he suffered a pretty bad jab to the gut. “I mean, he could be dead,” said Fedak. “But we’d be really bad writers if we did anything that means Michael Sheen couldn’t be a part of the show going forward.”
The EPs also said they envisioned Zeta-Jones’ Vivian returning, if the show were to continue. “We hadn’t pitched Catherine our plan for S3, but yes…” Sklaver said. “We have a totally sane and not at all crazy story for her in S3.”
So, will see see more seasons of Prodigal Son? “I don’t know what our chances are,” Fedak admitted, “but writing for these actors and this crew was a great privilege. I hope we get to work together again.”
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