The Surgeon Is Not Dead

A blog dedicated to deciphering Martin Whitly A.K.A "The Surgeon" from the hit TV Series "Prodigal Son"

[thesurgeonisalive]

Whispers In The Dark

--Part One--

The room felt stuffy and humid. Sweat glistens my temples leaving a sheen of moisture that shines in the cone of light being emitted from a small window half a foot above my head. I am sitting in a metal chair facing my therapist, whose doe-like eyes carefully and thoughtfully study my face, body language, and overall demeanor.

The silence is deafening and awkward, however I don't dare break it. I don't even see the point of this mental evaluation. I didn't do anything wrong or abnormal. I just expressed my desire to see into my fellow classmate, Jefferson's, chest cavity to see if he indeed has a heart. My Human physiology Professor didn't like that and now I am here in this putrid-smelling, suffocating room being stared at by Dr. Hermen Shultz, himself.

I have better things to be doing right now instead of this mental evaluation. I inwardly sigh and fiddle my thumbs waiting for the hour to be up.

To my dismay, Dr. Shultz breaks the silence with, "So, why did you say that you wanted to open Jerfferson's chest to see his heart for?"

I grumble and stay silent. I am not letting this shrink get inside my head.

"Martin Seers, you have to participate in this conversation or I will have no choice but to suggest that you get dismissed from this Medical School immediately."

My eyes connect with Dr. Shultz's eyes as I grumble, "What?! You can't do that! I just started the school term! This isn't fair!"

"Martin, life isn't fair, that said yes, I can do that if you don't put some effort into helping me understand why you said what you said."

I frown, roll my eyes, sigh, and grumble "Fine, whatever"

"Thank you, Martin, now please tell me why you said what you said about Jefferson."

"I said I wanted to open up Jefferson's chest cavity to see if has a heart because I believe him to be heartless."

Dr. Shultz scribbles on his notebook in his lap and muses, "I see, now why do you think Jefferson is heartless?"

"Oh, you know, his complete lack of self-awareness or consideration for others, and his inability to look me in the eyes when talking to me."

"Martin, you do understand that some people have a hard time with eye contact and have difficulties connecting with people right?"

I stare at Dr. Shultz taken aback by his question. I don't know how to answer him because I've never allowed my mind to ponder this. As my silence lingers Dr. Shultz scribbles some more notes in his notebook, before continuing his musings, "Martin, you did hear what I said before right?"

I squirm in my chair, wring my hands together, and manage to utter, "Yes, I heard you."

"Oh, good, now please answer the question. Do you understand that some people have a hard time with eye contact and have difficulties connecting with people?"

I shrug and utter, "Never thought about it before. I mean, I do now that I've processed what you said, but like I said, I've never thought about it before." I flash a sheepish smile.

Dr. Shultz sighs, scribbles some notes down, and says, "Martin, your lack of consideration for others' feelings, anxieties, and general social difficulties is a bit concerning, however, we can work on that in our next session."

I lead forward, and nearly growl, "What do mean next session? I thought I had to do one session."

Dr. Shultz smiles and halfheartedly utters, "Well, as I see it you need to deal with whatever it is that created the man sitting in front of me before you do something that you'll truly regret."

"Like what?"

"Like say, killing someone."

I roll my eyes, softly chuckle, and say, 'Pff, me? Kill someone? Please, I'm not that..uh...I would never...um...I wouldn't kill someone."

The room grows still and quiet after the words tumbled out of my mouth. I can feel the therapist's eyes boring into my soul as the intense scritch-scratching of his pen carves letters, words, and phrases onto the rough fibers of the notebook paper. My heart pulsates in my ears as sweat trickles down my temples.

Dr. Shultz sighs and starts to say something in response, only for the timer to go off, signaling the sweet relief of being free from this stuffy, suffocating room. I hurriedly collect my bookbag, which has been nestled between my feet for the past hour, sling it over my shoulder, and leave the therapist's office with no intention of returning.

Three Hours Later:

I am sitting at my desk in lecture hall B23 listening to Professor Wilkes of Human Biology drone one about the endocrine system and its many important functions. I tuned out at the half-hour mark of class and have been doodling my classmate Jefferson dismembered in my personal sketchbook. Each part of his body is painstakingly drawn in jars surrounding his body. I drew myself as the surgeon performing this macabre surgery. I am so enthralled with my drawing that I scarcely heard Professor Wilkes say "Class dismissed".

I'm one of the last students to leave the lecture hall. Before I could leave the lecture hall, Professor Wilkes stopped me by saying, "Hey, Martin, hold on a minute, I need to talk to you"

I grumble, go over to Professor Wilkes, and mutter, "What is it this time, Professor Wilkes?"

"You're missing two assignments that are massive chunks of your grade." his beady eyes study my face.

I furrow my eyes and utter, "What two assignments?"

"The 20-page essay on the human circulatory system and the 50-slide presentation on the human nervous system along with a scale model." he stares me down like a lion stares down a zebra.

"I thought those assignments were extra credit so I decided not to do them because I didn't have the time to complete them because of the other twenty-plus assignments I have to complete for my other eight classes," I explained slightly whining as I did so.

Professor Wilkes just stares unyielding at me and flatly utters, " I said at the beginning of the term I do NOT give extra credit work and that EVERY assignment was mandatory and non-negotiable. Meaning if you don't turn in those two assignments by the end of the week you will get zeroes on them and fail my class. Understood?"

A wave of burning anger bubbles its way to the surface and threatens to boil over as I stand there staring unyielding daggers at my professor praying for the man's slow painful death under my freshly sharpened scalpel. The unbridled heat of my anger causes my cheeks to flush a light crimson and my eyes fog over with the color red. The next thing I know everything goes dark and all the heat dissipates in the endless dark void of my mind.

Two Hours Later:

I awake in the university's recovery ward. There is an ice pack resting on my forehead. The cold seeps into my clammy flesh and creates a dull ache in my temples. I slowly lift my hand and gently remove the ice pack allowing the stale, hot air to warm up my forehead. I lay there and slowly looked around me. I notice some police officers talking to a nursing student covered in blood and sobbing.

I strain my ears to hear what the nurse and police officers are discussing only for me to realize that they're on the other side of the glass. I grumble to myself and focus on my surroundings. The walls are an off-white almost cream color. The room is barren of flowers and get well soon cards. The ceiling light flickers on and off for a few seconds at a time in a repeated loop of electricity flowing through fried wires and broken connectors. The flickering light causes my head to feel weighed down and groggy.

I close my eyes, gently shake my head, and try my hardest to shake the grogginess from my weighed-down brain. Whatever is happening in my head it is not easing up instead it's getting steadily worse. The Grogginess is taking over and my eyelids are refusing to open. What is going on? Why is the nurse, who is talking to the police, sobbing and covered in blood? What the hell happened to me? Where is Professor Wilkes?

As these questions circulate in my brain, the darkness steadily engulfs my conscious mind. I have no choice but to obey the suffocating darkness and see where it leads. Will I ever wake up?

[thesurgeonisalive]

Prodigal Son Playlists

Here are my Prodigal Son character playlists:

Any Other Character Suggestion? Please comment your character suggestions below!

[thesurgeonisalive]

Did Martin's Therapy In Claremont's Psychiatric Facility Actually Have a Positive Effect on Martin?

When we are officially introduced to Martin Whilty in the TV Series "Prodigal Son" we learn that he's been in Claremont Psychiatric Facility for at least 20 years. So that begs the question, did Martin Whilty actually benefit from the therapy and medications he was given in his incarceration in Claremont? It is said numerous times that Serial killers are made not born and therapy is meant to be used as a tool to safely deal with and talk about childhood trauma or any life traumas we may have faced and been affected by.

It's safe to say that Martin was given a mix of solo therapy sessions and group therapy sessions throughout his incarceration in Clarmont (before he escaped in Season 2 Episode 10 I believe). He would have also been given a mild sedative for aggression and/or irritability as well as possibly some mood stabilizers (we don't know what medications Martin was given or if he was given any medications besides Benzodiazepines a.k.a Benzos).

However, it's safe to say that Martin was probably given different kinds of drugs to help calm him and stabilize his mood throughout his stay. It's also important to note that therapy would also be implemented in his treatment plan. So the question I have is the following:

Was the therapy actually effective in changing Martin's mindset on murder, and did it allow him to genuinely care for his son, Malcolm?

We don't get a clear answer for this in the two seasons of "Prodigal Son", however, we do get subtexts that suggest that Malcolm is in denial of his father's improved mental state due to Martin being diagnosed as a megalomanic Narcissist who craves power and control. So it's safe to say that Martin's "love" for his son Malcolm became more of an obsessive desire to prove his worth to his son Malcolm.

As the events in "Prodigal Son" unfold we see Martin Whilty desperately trying to do everything in his power to prove to his son Malcolm that he is a changed man. Martin starts to prove this by helping Malcolm solve murder cases. This action alone is enough for Malcolm to become slightly more dependent on his father's input on the cases he's working as well as ensure that Malcolm visits Martin more often.

However, these simple interactions are not enough for Martin to prove to Malcolm that he (Martin) is indeed a changed man. We also see Martin becoming obsessed with the idea of being good, which in itself, is also a quite toxic mindset. This is because obsession, whether over something good or bad can result in toxic, manipulative behaviors that can be more hurtful than good.

In Martin's case, his obsession with proving himself a changed man results in Martin manipulating his fellow inmates into doing actions that result in Malcolm, and at some points Ainsley, being in Martin's cell and giving Martin the ample opportunity to further manipulate his children, mostly Malcolm into believing that he, Martin is a changed man.

Now that's not to say that a part of Martin isn't indeed a change man in some way. It's a big improvement for Martin to say multiple times that "murder is wrong" given the fact that he killed 23 people when he was an active serial killer. Now, that's not to say he completely changed. After all, psychologically he can't stop being a serial killer because he'll always have the urge to kill someone.

So we have to take into consideration that he can fight the urge to kill someone and that by the time we officially meet Martin in the present day, he's roughly 55 years old, so he doesn't have the physical capacity to continue killing someone, even if he wanted to. He's also been incarcerated in Claremont Psychiatric Facility for 20 years and has grown to only really care for Malcom visiting him.

So, it's safe to say that he's changed somewhat. but not completely. We get to see in the finale of Season 2, that Martin doesn't kill anyone nor does he go into his "old ways". He instead abducts his son Malcolm and attempts to bond with him by solving a missing person's case that ties into a local serial killer (not Martin of course). The goal of this was to ultimately prove to his son that he "doesn't want to murder anymore" and that he's "a changed man" to some degree.

However, when Malcolm finishes solving the case he calls in the location of the victim that they saved, as well as Martin Whitly's location. This action proved to Martin that his son would never accept him in any capacity and also proved that Martin wasn't as changed as he claimed to be. Especially when Martin decided to kill his son. This action proved that he was still "the monster" that Malcolm said he was while also showing that he still craved control, especially over his family.

So, did the therapy that Martin underwent at Claremont really help Martin? Well yes and no. Yes, it helped him realize his own toxic behaviors however it didn't help him to stop those behaviors. Therapy actually helped Martin to better hide those behaviors. Yes, it did help him to somewhat change and understand that murder is wrong, and helped him not want to murder anymore.

It also gave him the tools to become obsessive with his love for Malcolm and his family. Now that doesn't mean that Martin doesn't on some level truly love his family. It just means that Martin struggles between how to love someone and what loving someone actually entails. Due to his nature as a psychopath, he doesn't have the capacity or ability to feel/express empathy, sympathy, or remorse, however, that doesn't mean he can't on some level "love" someone. It just means he can't understand or empathize with someone else.

That said, we can safely say that therapy helped him somewhat but not completely because Martin himself didn't allow the therapy to truly be effective in changing his mindset and personality. Instead, he used it as a tool to further his obsession with Malcolm, and even went as far as manipulating the Claremont staff into getting him a job with a staff member who had a gold card once he learned that a gold card can open ALL areas of Claremont.

[thesurgeonisalive]

Deciphering Martin Whitly A.K.A "The Surgeon"

I have been pondering what exactly caused Martin Whitly a.k.a "The Surgeon" to become the serial killer that he became? To understand this we have to delve into the limited information we know about his victims from the tidbits mentioned and shown in the TV Series "Prodigal Son".

The topics that I am going to cover are as follows:

1.) The limited victimology we do get from the show

2.) The possible metaphorical meaning of limited victimology.

3.) His coma state when he was stabbed by Malcolm in Season One of Prodigal Son.

and

4.) What Martin Whitly's childhood trauma could be and how it shaped who he became.

The Limited Victimology We Do Get From The Show:

In Prodigal Son we get snippets of Martin Whitly's Modious Operandi (M.O.). The snippets we get are the following

--Victims are lured to his house via something mundane as a phone call

-- Before the victim can make the call he chloroforms them and/or gives them tea laced with ketamine

--Then he strips the victim down to their underpants and puts them in a box

--When he's ready to murder them he transports them in the back of a station wagon (a vehicle used as the vehicle he took his son Malcolm on a "camping" trip in once)

--in the secluded cabin he puts music on just in case someone might hear the victim's screams.

--then he paralyzes and surgically tortures them to death (what he actually does isn't explicitly stated and is more implicitly implied by the moniker "The Surgeon" that he was given when he was active and that stuck when he was caught).

The Possible Metaphorical Meaning Of The Limited Victimology:

In the show, it's plainly stated that Martin Whitly is a predatory psychopath who has some form of narcissistic personality disorder coupled with the ability to be super manipulative. This knowledge compared to the use of chloroform/ketamin, a paralytic agent, and the victim being put in a box are all indicators that Martin at some insatiable level desires control over his victims.

This desire for control could stem from not having a sense of control over his mind and/or his body in his childhood. So him using chloroform/ketamine to subdue his victims before stripping them down to their underpants and stuffing them in a box could be a metaphorical representation of his powerless childhood mostly because of his father more than his mother (put a pin in this, we'll come back to this thought later on).

It's also important to note that he strips his victims down to their underpants before putting them in the box. The act of stripping away the victims' clothes and leaving them in their underpants could be representative of the possible abuse that he, Martin, could have suffered as a child. Martin could have been forced to strip to his underpants before being forced into a box by his father as punishment for a perceived wrong. The stripping down to the underpants could also symbolize Martin's own vulnerability and feelings of "nakedness" in his childhood or it could indicate the more intimate abuse he suffered as a child, such as emotional, psychological, or even sexual abuse (though it is important to note that it's hard to figure out what kind of abuse Martin suffered at the hands of his abusive father).

The surgical torture (assumed by the knowledge of the moniker "The Surgeon") is also a metaphorical reflection of having power over someone's body. In this case, it's Martin's way of dealing with the powerless feelings he had as a child due to having no power over his mind and/or bodily autonomy. It could also be an indicator that his puberty possibly made him feel powerless over growing up. The act of cutting out a man's heart (this tidbit is mentioned in the first season of Prodigal Son during the scene where Ainsley, his daughter, interviewed him) could be an indicator that he thought his father was heartless. You don't get what he did to his female victims, though one can assume it was a bit more restrained and more symbolic of his mother choosing to love him too much and/or choosing to not love him enough.

It's also important to note that his victims were men AND women meaning his victims could have been surrogates for his actual parents. The male victims were surrogates of his abusive father, the man who had power and control over him in his, Martin's, childhood, while his female victims represent his mother, the woman who should have stopped the abuse but didn't, and was also being abused herself. (NOTE: this is possibly Martin's mindset, not mine because domestic abuse situations are complicated and terrifying).

All that said, we don't have a solid confirmation about whether or not the above is true or not. However, it is known that narcissists have extremely poor self-esteem and obsessively desire power and control in their lives. So taking the psychology of a narcissist and putting possible scenarios that could cause narcissistic personality disorder we can fairly assume that Martin was abused as a child and part of that abuse involved a box.

His Coma State When He Was Stabbed By Malcolm In Season One Of Prodigal Son:

Later on, in the first season of "Prodigal Son", Martin is stabbed by his son Malcolm so that Malcom's mother, Jessica wouldn't have to do it. When Martin is taken to the hospital he ends up in a coma. It's in this coma state that he has a lucid nightmare about his supposed final victim. In this dream, the supposed final victim asked why he abducted her and tried to kill her. His response is as follows:

"Because I wanted to...

 No.

Listen, listen.

I'm not being flip, that's the truth.

Anything else is-is a guess.

No, it-it-it's this brain I was born with, or because my mommy didn't love me enough, or maybe she loved me too much, or because daddy [hesitation] did horrible things to me.

Because, because, because.

What does it matter if the end result is the same?"

The main point to focus on is this:

"...my mommy didn't love me enough, or maybe she loved me too much, or because daddy [hesitation] did horrible things to me..."

The reason why the above quote, which very briefly mentions Martin's mother and father is important is because it gives us a positive motivation behind WHY and HOW Martin ended up going down the path of serial killing.

It doesn't paint a complete picture but it does give us something important. It tells us that Martin loved his mother more even if she didn't consistently love him and it tells us that Martin's father is most likely the one who abused him and his mother. The reason for this possibility is the fact that Martin slightly hesitated when mentioning that his "daddy did horrible things to him", which could possibly indicate that his father was an abusive, narcissistic asshole who abused Marin and possibly Martin's mother.

The non-hesitation when talking about his mother could possibly indicate that he didn't hate or fear his mother. He probably just didn't like how bipolar she was when it came to loving him "too much" or not loving him "enough".

The other thing to take into consideration is the fact that Martin, himself doesn't really know why he did what he did to the 23 victims and the sole survivor. This could also indicate that the serial killing was more impulsive rather than meticulously thought out. For instance, when we get to see what sort of happened the day he lured the sole survivor to his house, the woman had a sprained ankle, so, being a doctor, he told her she could come to his house so he could help her with her ankle and that she could make a phone call.

It's important to note that he didn't decide to help until he noticed she was hurt. This could indicate that he lures unsuspecting victims to their deaths by being a kind doctor who happens to be out and about that day instead of, I don't know, at the hospital. This also indicates that Martin was more often than not, on call with the hospital he worked at so he could prey on the "weak" in and around Central Park and less trafficked parts of New York close to his hospital and close to his house.

What Martin Whitly's Childhood Trauma Could Be And How It Shaped Who He Became:

From the limited victimology and his brief explanation for why he thinks he did what he did, it is safe to assume that Martin Whitly( whose last name wasn't Whitly when he was a child) was in a domestic violence and abuse situation. That said I want to give you what I think Martin's childhood was like. Please keep in mind that there's no way to prove or disprove what I am theorizing due to there not being enough details on his victimology, no pictures and/or flashbacks showing what his male and female victims looked like, and the fact that his son's Malcolm's psyche is fractured and an unreliable narrator throughout season one of Prodigal Son.

Without further ado here's what could have been Martin's childhood:

I believe that Martin wasn't born into a rich family, on the contrary, he was born into a lower-middle-class family. His father was possibly an alcoholic and most likely narcissistic and cruel, though not when he first met Martin's mother, who was probably meek and co-dependent. The mother was most likely abused first before Martin was born and possibly during her pregnancy with Martin (which could have caused slight brain damage in Martin, IDK for sure).

When Martin was born, his father was probably not really there when he, Martin, was a baby. The father also probably didn't start abusing Martin until he, Martin, was like 6 years old. The abuse consisted of punishing Martin by making him strip down to his underpants and forcing him to get in a box (for how long? unclear). The other possible abuse could be physical, emotional, verbal, and/or psychological abuse, and possibly sexual abuse (though it is unclear if the sexual abuse happened or not and the other abuses are more guesstimations to the aggressive powerlessness he gave his victims). The main abuse we assume most likely happened was physical, emotional, and psychological (this is because Martin is super manipulative and uses someone's mind against them, so he had to have learned from someone (i.e. his father)).

As time went on Martin didn't develop the way average children and/or boys his age developed. So, as he got older, he got meaner, aggressive, and possibly killed his father (his first kill that was most likely self-defense). This possibly resulted in his mother being taken to a mental health facility and Martin being put in the system (government foster care system that is) where he probably stayed for the remainder of his childhood/adolescence before going off to college and becoming a surgeon.

It probably wasn't until med school that Martin noticed he was different. In fact, I have a theory/head cannon that Martin's first victims were him practicing and perfecting his surgical skills until he graduated and he continued to kill to get off and make love to Jessica Whitly, whom he married shortly after graduating from college.

Whether or not the above is correct or not, we'll never know because "Prodigal Son" was canceled after season two concluded. This is just a theory and is not concrete. As I said before, there is very limited victimology and vague details discussed throughout the first season, and Martin's coma state may not be entirely reliable. That said, it's safe to say that Martin's childhood wasn't a happy one.