Malcolm Bright

**Malcolm Bright** is the son of the notorious serial killer, *The Surgeon*. When he was a child, he discovered a Girl in a Box, his father's last victim, and eventually helped put his father in prison by calling the police. Despite this betrayal, he was still incredibly intrigued with his father's intellect and continued visiting him at the asylum for the next 12 years. After graduating Harvard University, he ceased these visits so that he could focus on becoming an FBI agent and profiler.

Over the next 10 years, he became quite efficient at his job, although he occasionally disagreed with the way in which the FBI and local police agencies handled their cases. After one such disagreement, he was forced to resign, but he was then quickly recruited by an old friend and mentor, Detective Gil Arroyo, to act as a consultant for the NYPD. However, due to his father's possible insight into a new serial killer case in New York, Malcolm was forced to mend his relationship with the other man, even though he still suffers pavor nocturnus *(night-terrors)* and guilt ridden hallucinations.

Over the course of the show, it is clear that his father still holds on to the hope that Malcolm will one day turn out to be a prolific killer, just like him. In fact, many of the conversations Martin has with Malcolm suggest that he is still trying to groom his adult son.

## Early Life

In 1998, when Malcolm was a child, he discovered a Girl in a Box in the basement after a study session with his father. Soon after, he begins suffering from night terrors known as pavor nocturnus. Sometime later, he called the police with his findings, which was initially assumed to be a prank call. The responding officer, Gil Arroyo, was invited in by Dr. Martin Whitly, Malcolm's father, who fixed him a cup of tea. Malcolm entered the foyer where Gil was waiting, aware of his father's tactics. He informed the officer to take out his gun, as his father was getting ready to poison him. Fortunately, Gil took his warning seriously, and this led to the arrest of the wanted serial killer *‘The Surgeon.’*

Over the course of season 1, we discover that Martin struggled with the knowledge that his son seemed to be realizing that he was a serial killer. While on a camping trip with Malcolm and another man named Paul Lazar, Martin considered killing his own son because the chloroform he regularly used to sedate and subdue Malcolm was no longer working. When he lost his nerves, Paul agreed to do it, but Malcolm stabbed him in self-defense. After this, Martin decided that he couldn't kill Malcolm even if he wanted to and they both returned home.

Over the next 10 years, Malcolm continuously visited his father in prison, using his father's knowledge to help him better understand the psychology of murder. After graduating from Harvard University, Malcolm joined Quantico to become an FBI agent and admitted his desire to stop visiting Martin. This led to an argument between them, and Malcolm didn't visit again for the next 10 years.

## Season 1

After following a serial killer, Claude Springer, into an abandoned warehouse, Malcolm finds himself in a stand-off with Springer. He is able to talk the man down, but the County Sheriff shoots Springer dead. Malcolm retaliates by punching him in the face. This leads to him being forced to resign from the FBI.

While visiting his sister, Malcolm runs into his old friend, Gil Arroyo, who brings him along to have a look at a suspicious case, and is introduced to Detectives JT Tarmel and Dani Powell. He then realizes there is a copycat of *The Surgeon*, mimicking four murders from 1992. The next day in the morgue, he and Dr. Edrisa Tanaka come to the same conclusion. Prior to their deaths, the women had all engaged in consensual BDSM. This eventually leads them to the apartment of their Dom, Nico Stavros. They find him tied up with a bomb strapped to the bottom of his chair. Malcolm cuts off Nico's hand to separate him from the bomb just in time to save them both.

Malcolm inspects some evidence and recognizes some of the killers drawings from his father's private medical journal, one that describes Martin's own crimes. Malcolm visits his father in prison, knowing his father is somehow connected. Through access to Martin's client list, he narrows down the suspects. Martin agrees to tell him, but only if Malcolm returns to visit again.

Malcolm and Dani arrive at a charity event. They split up, and Dani finds the suspect's wife but is knocked unconscious. Malcolm intervenes and talks with Carter Berkhead, trying to de-escalate the situation and save both Dani and Mrs. Burkhead, who was the intended fourth victim. Malcolm reveals that he is the son of the Surgeon, and convinces Burkhead that he is deserving of the Surgeon's pain. He is close to being injected with a paralyzing agent when they are saved by JT and Gil. The next day, Malcolm goes for another visit to his father as promised, but they soon get into an argument and leaves.

Waking up from another night terror, Malcolm begins his morning routine of pills and working out, and agrees to meet with his mother and sister for breakfast. Ainsley is called away for work about a quadruple murder in the Upper East Side. Malcolm asks his mom about a woman he remembers seeing in a box as a child, she insist she was never real.

For work, *The Boutsikaris family* was murdered at their dinner room table, with the father's mouth sewn shut. Dr. Tanaka the mouth and multiple black snakes slither out, one coiling up her leg. Malcolm distract the snake and remove it before she faints in his arms. Back at the police station, Malcolm explains his own family history to JT before they all go searching for the missing family member, *Liam Hauser*. They track him to a warehouse, housing legal black-market animals, and are forced to chase him through it. Malcolm is bitten by a poisonous snake, and wakes up screaming and delirious in the hospital. The next morning, Ainsley comes to visit and hears the voice messages their father left on his phone, warning him to stay clear.

After being informed that Liam had apparently killed himself, Malcolm and Dani visit the family lawyer, Littman, to find out about the mysterious payments that had been made from Aristos' account. Malcolm quickly deduces that Littman is really the estranged son of the Aristos and has poisoned his own family, as well as himself. Thinking quickly, Malcolm is able to reverse the poison and bring everyone back to consciousness. The next day, Malcolm visits his father, demanding answers about the Girl in the Box. His father insists it never happened, but Malcolm doesn't believe him.

Malcolm has an intense night terror, and breaks his restraints, before crashing through his own window over the street. His mother helps him, and then scolds him for visiting his father. Malcolm stops off at his psychologists Gabrielle Le Deux and explains his continuing nightmares and fears, but soon called into work. He meets everyone in the forest where the victim's brain is missing. Edrisa determine the victim had fifty times the normal level of LSD in his system. The victim is a professor and Malcolm and Dani interview his idols Dr. Elaine Brown at the university. While there, another doctor explains the campus had been running secret experiments with grad students and LSD. That same doctor later calls the team, convinced that someone is after him. Malcolm, JT, and Dani find him on the roof of a building with an enormous amount of LSD in his system. The assailant gets away. Realizing that the killer is targeting the doctors involved with the experiments, Malcolm and JT protect Dr. Elaine Brown’s house, and she gives them the name of one of her disgruntled students. Before calling it a night, Malcolm goes inside to ask a couple more questions, but is attacked by the killer. The killer is shot dead by Brown who has been poisoned with LSD in her tea, and when Brown turns the gun on Malcolm in her delirious state, they are both interrupted by JT who arrives. Once getting home, Malcolm chloroforms himself in the hope that the experience will bring up more memories from his childhood.

Malcolm tells Dr. Gabrielle of his flashback when he chloroformed himself, adding that he now remembers his mother in a red dress, yelling at him for looking through his father's things. Dr. Gabrielle tells Malcolm that he is beginning to take things to a dangerous level, and Malcolm gets worked up to the point that the glass breaks in his hand and cuts him. He leaves in frustration and soon gets a call from work. He enters a lavish New York apartment to find a dead model lying in a bathtub, her skin painted blue. JT is a fan and reveals that her body was laid out in the same style as her first major advertisement magazine spread, with her now-boyfriend, Axel X as the photographer. Upon hearing that Axel X is outside, Malcolm confronts him, informing him about how her body was laid out. Axel says nothing and is escorted away by his entourage. Gil is upset with Malcolm's brash decisions. Malcolm asks for the videotapes of his mother's interrogation the night of his father's arrest, but Gil refuses to give them to him. Malcolm goes home to his apartment and finds his mother there. The two get into a heated argument when Jessica slaps Malcolm, and she informs her son that he is no longer allowed to visit his father. Malcolm accuses her of being complicit in his father's murders, and she leaves visibly upset. Malcolm defies his mother's wishes and goes to his father, demanding answers, but Martin will not give a clear one.

The next day at work, Malcolm recognizes the intense stalking behavior of the killer and he and JT head back to her building where a vigil is being held. While there, JT points out a suspicious photographer that is way too interested in everything. They chase him down and force him to agree to come in for questioning, but at the police station he lawyers up. Malcolm stalks and surprises the photographer on the street, and while he declines to answer, he is later hit by a car. At the hospital, Malcolm tells the photographer that he is dying, and in his despair, he confesses that he saw the model and Axel X get into a physical fight as she was leaving him for another advertising agency. Back at the police station, JT brings up the fact that the boyfriend will be leaving for Europe soon. Malcolm insists they go to the party to head them off, but they can't get a search warrant in time. Malcolm goes to the party alone and soon able to coax Axel X outside with. They are then confronted by the real killer, a friend of Axel X and a member of his entourage. He tells Axel X that he'll take care of Malcolm. Before Malcolm can be shot, the rest of the NYPD show up and arrest the killer.

That night, Gil stops by Malcolm's apartment and finally lets Malcolm see the video footage of Jessica's interrogation from the night his father was arrested. Malcolm's worries are put at ease when he sees his mother's innocence and her utter horror at what her husband had done.

Malcolm is continuously plagued by nightmares, no matter what he does. Trying to clear his head on a walk, he mistakes a sleeping dog for a person chained up in the back of a car. The next day at breakfast with his mother, she informs him that she is taking some of his advice and looking into new charities to support. Malcolm later finds Gil at work, and even though he is seemingly not needed, he tags along on to a new murder case. Inside of the speakeasy, they find the bodies of two men related to drug dealing. The theory is quickly brought up that is related to a man named *Estime,* even though Dani, who previously worked in Narcotics, insists he had nothing to do with it. Gil sets up a meeting with Estime’s archrival *Saulo* inside of a church, who also claims that he had nothing to do with any murder. Back at HQ, Dani is obviously personally invested in the situation, and Gil tells her that perhaps she should stay away from the case. Ignoring her boss, Dani goes to the club and Malcolm follows. They are both brought into Estime’s office. He also claims he was not involved, but their conversation is short-lived when the club gets shot up. Malcolm, having inhaled a large amount of cocaine when a box exploded beside him, is sent home with Dani as his babysitter, her punishment for disobeying Gil. While she is making him food, he begins to hallucinate and trips out in the bathroom. He sees himself dressed as his father in prison and imagines that he has been stabbed. He is eventually punched out by Dani against a bathroom wall. He thanks her the next morning for such a sound sleep. While talking over breakfast, she admits that she used to work undercover and was addicted to cocaine for two years. She even overdosed but was saved by Estime. Malcolm stops in at his mom's place to find an old shoebox from his hallucination-dream and is introduced to Eve Blanchard, a human rights lawyer whom Jessica is thinking about donating to. Continuing their stakeout of Estime, Malcolm is able to come to the conclusion that it was Fabiola’s mother Trini Cadichon who killed *Jacques Desir* for his role in her daughter's death. They barge in while he's at the barbers, and she threatens to kill Estime too, but Dani is able to talk her down. Back at home, Malcolm is happy to find the shoebox he was talking about in his apartment, accompanied by a message from his mother. He finds a photo of him as a child with his father, standing next to an old station wagon.

A man is stabbed over a hundred times to death in a park; Malcolm finds himself drawn to the victim's young son Isaac, who reminds him of himself when his father was arrested. His profile suggests that the killer is a sadist, and he correctly infers that the boy's mother is a "Jocasta", a woman with an unhealthy dependence on her son's companionship. Both Jessica and Malcolm are against Ainsley's plan to interview Dr. Whitley, and Jessica forbids her to do so. Dani and JT catch the mother trying to dig up evidence from the crime scene and take her into custody, whereupon she instantly confesses to the murder. Distraught that his profile might have been wrong, Malcolm visits his therapist Gabrielle, who prompts him to realize that he has blinded himself to the possibility that Isaac is the real killer. His suspicions are confirmed by the mother, and the police race to catch Isaac, who has attacked another man. Malcolm talks him into voluntarily submitting to psychiatric treatment. Ainsley tells her mother that she'll find a way to conduct the interview. Malcolm finds one of his father's old cars, with traces of blood in the backseat.

Malcolm is shot at in the junkyard by a shadowy figure. Ainsley interviews her father, and Malcolm shows up in search of answers. Halfway through the interview, the hospital goes into lockdown when a patient, Tevin, stabs his therapist. Ainsley's cameraman and boyfriend, Jin, is stabbed when he gets too close to Tevin, and Martin performs emergency surgery on him, which Ainsley films. Martin saving Jin begins to change Ainsley's opinion about her father, a development that both Malcolm and Jessica are concerned about. While at Jessica's house, she and Malcolm hear a ringing phone from Martin's boarded up office.

Malcolm breaks through the cement wall with his mother in tow and answer the ringing phone. Paul Lazar, who is revealed to have been Martin's protégé, is on the other end and demands to know why his work was interrupted. Malcolm's team comes to his mother's house, and Gil agrees to put surveillance and officers outside the house. Back at the station, Malcolm reveals more theories about his father's colleague. Malcolm and Gil go back to the junkyard, and Malcolm soon discovers Paul's buried trailer where an unconscious victim is inside. Connecting that multiple victims were from the same church under Father Leo's protection, they go to question the man, who insists he knew nothing. Later, Malcolm is mailed Father Leo's severed hand in a box, accompanied soon after by a phone call. Paul brings up the dead woman that Malcolm saw as a child, confirming that she wasn't something that he imagined. Malcolm leaves the precinct to get some air and is comforted by Gil, who says that he believes Malcolm's account of the girl being real. After Gil leaves Malcolm alone to cool off, Malcolm notices a man string at him from afar. Malcolm follows him down into the subway tunnels and is trapped in a turn-style, with Paul threatening to crush him if Malcolm doesn't answer his questions properly. Malcolm is forced to admit that he identifies with his father's killer instincts and Paul agrees to meet him later, giving him a burner phone. That night, Malcolm is secretly accompanied by the NYPD to a meeting with Paul, and he soon realizes the man before him is not Pail, but a tied up Father Leo, and that Paul used this as a distraction. His real target has always been Brian, his earlier victim, and followed him to the hospital to finish what he started. Malcolm is able to call his sister and keep her safe over the phone until police arrived. Later that night, he is very angry to find out from Gil that the FBI has taken over the case.

Malcolm visits his therapist, Dr. Gabrielle Le Deux to explain his dream, and she suggests he is possibly sexually frustrated and encourages him to behave in more normal behavior. After running into Eve he asks her out and she accepts. They go play pool on Friday night. Crashing JT's date with his wife. After playfully asking him to profile her, Malcolm goes too deep and brings up her sex trafficked and missing sister, and she leaves in tears. After solving a sex-cult related case Malcolm goes home and is pleasantly surprised to find Eve knocking on his door. He apologizes for how he acted and invites her in. After sleeping together Malcolm has another one of his extravagant dreams, where the *Woman in the Box* attempts to kill him. He gets a knife to dispense himself and regains consciousness after screaming and thrusting a knife into the air Eve.

After being called in on Christmas Day to investigate the possible murder-suicide of a good cop,  *Ian Turner* and a sex worker, Malcolm breaks everyone's suspicions because he believes it was a double murder. Before finishing the case he is taken off the case by his former FBI colleague Colette Swanson. Not to be discouraged, Malcolm begins running up his own leads aa he and Gil soon get in contact with Turner’s old partner, Detective *Owen Shannon*. While visiting, they are surprised to find out Turner was gay, meaning there is no possible way he was in the hotel room to hook up with a hooker. Malcolm is later confronted by Shannon and the two return to Turner's office where Malcolm puts the pieces together that he had been hunting the *Junkyard Killer* too. Realizing they both had lists of names of possible suspects, they cross-reference them and come up with *John Watkins*, the real name of *Paul Lazar*. Malcolm and Shannon go to the address and are greeted by Watkins's blind and violently religious grandmother, *Matilda Watkins*. Malcolm searches Watkins' childhood room alone and sees evidence of abuse Watkins suffered as a kid. In Malcolm's absence, Watkins murders Shannon. Malcolm pursues Watkins into the backyard shed where he is blindsided and knocked out. Watkins drags his body away after stating that no one will find them where they're going.

Malcolm had been kidnapped by a served killer Paul who held him (unbeknownst to him at the time) beneath his own house. There make discovered the trip to the cabin had been so his own father could kill him, but when he changed his mind up all had attempted to do it, and tenure rolled Malcolm stabbed him. As part of his revenge 20 years later Paul had kidnapped him, and then swiftly stabbed Malcolm. He then revealed his plan to murder makes mother and sister, but by breaking his own hand Malcolm was able to escape his chains and subdue Paul.

Malcolm was hurt and aggravated after finding out his father had attended to kill him as a child. He had since been plagued with hallucinations of himself as a child, dead. While investigating a cult he underwent shock therapy, into his delight it briefly stopped the hallucinations. Unfortunately, he was continuing to break under pressure and began to experiencing a mental breakdown, taking his anger out on Gil. Blaming part of his neurotic and obsessive behavior on his friend. This upset Gil who demanded he take a break and go home. Kicking him off the case. Malcolm became further upset and locked himself inside one of the offices while looking at another hallucination. Desperate for relief from his own demons he attempted to electrocute himself, but after spotting a garbage can that led to a clue in the investigation, dropped both the prongs, and they electrocuted the metal table. This created a blackout across part of New York.

Days later Malcolm apologized to Gil, insisting he had never been anything but a positive impact on his life. After Gill left he sat in silence with his bird, Sunshine, sitting beside the hallucination of himself as a child. This time not dead.

Before being forced on vacation by his mother, Malcolm insists is Gil drive by murder he heard over the intercom. After stepping on a pressure bomb, Malcolm throws himself out the window on to Gil’s car. He finds the entire murder to be reminiscent of *The Count of Monte Cristo* as the entire thing is connected to an incredibly rich New York family. Malcolm and Dani even crash the famous family's wedding, arresting dead girlfriend and the father for covering it up.

Malcolm accompanies his mother to the park where she is supposed to meet someone with a hot tip about the girl in the box. However, instead they are greeted with a dead body on one of the horses. He later arrives at his sisters work when the carousel killer calls in, soon followed by his father calling in as well. After his mother tries to pay off killer, with his demand for a million dollars, he kills a second victim anyway and courses his mother to kill Martin. All three of them have a standoff at the hospital when Martin remembers all the victims are connected to him as he originally had suspected. There has been over women who died on his operating table during her heart surgery was the one behind this entire ordeal After Martin admits to attempting to kill Malcolm as a child, Malcolm missteps him through the heart. Hoping to hit him in the exact spot he once explained to him, was possible for a person to survive.

Malcolm continues to worry about his father, unsure if he had stabbed the correct area. Though most of his colleagues aren’t concerned with the pending death of a serial killer, Malcolm chooses to suffer in silence. Even getting for some heat from Dani for losing focus on the case. After realizing Edrisa isn't interested in talking with him on the phone, he goes to the basement to find her held at gun point. He involves himself in the situation, and to his amazement Edrisa is the one to disarm the woman. Afterwards he goes to the hospital where his father wakes up.

The entire team is called into a high-end jewelry robbery that left the manager murdered with a single gunshot wound. Malcolm shows up last and they explain the entire event, and he profiles that the shooter was a rogue team member. They are interrupted when Vijay Chandasara, an insurance agent who happens to be Malcolm's childhood. The two work together, and even the hash out old childhood anguish. They are both kidnapped together, but Malcolm manages to talk his way out of part of the situation, before Vijay arrives and saves him by hitting the assailant with the van.

After having a dream about Eve, Malcolm can't stop the nagging feeling she is not being honest with him. He confides in his sister and they've both agreed to investigate her separately, and Ainsley finds out that upon her adoption, Eve moved states and changed her last name. Soon his family realizes there might be a connection to the Girl in the Box, Eve interrupts them at his apartment and admits there is. Revealing she believes Martin killed her sister 20 years ago, and that's the sole reason she came to New York, but insisting her feelings for Malcolm were real. They part ways both incredibly upset, but days later find each other, and Malcolm is able to identify the photo of her sister, as the girl in the box.

Late one night, Malcolm is again haunted by a hallucination of Sophie Sanders. She no longer visits him as a scary dead woman, instead as a well-dressed young lady, determined he find her. He skips out on a banquet dinner with his mother, only to be called in when one of the dancers is murder. Days later, another one is left blind. Though the trail starts to point to his mother's old friend, Nicholas Endicott, they find the real killer. After forcing his father's hand, Martin reveals he *did* leave Sophia alive, only after *she* revealed crucial information about Nicholas.

Malcolm shares in awkward breakfast with his sister and Nicholas. He reveals Eve broke up with him two weeks earlier, only to be called in to work and discovered she had allegedly killed herself. He asks Edrisa to do a thorough investigation, believing she was murdered. His assumption are proven correct, as the water from her lungs did not match the water from the river. He warns his mother of Nicholas and his involvement, while being haunted by hallucination of his dead girlfriend. After witnessing an attempted murder on his father's life, he is arrested, with the allegation of killing his father's would-be assassin, and Eve's killer, Eddie.

Malcolm makes bail, despite his DNA found under the victim's fingernails. His mother has hired him a team of lawyers, and he has to wear ankle monitor at all times. He quickly frees himself, and brings Edrisa in on his plan. She agrees to work with him, even hiding him from his team members. He visits his father's lawyer for more information, who reveals Nicholas, through a shell company, was responsible for helping him secure his father's luxurious prison sentence. He is then assassinated in front of him, and Malcolm quickly returns home. His teammates demand to know if he left, and he promises he did not. After wanting in on the case, he reveals he did leave, and they bring him in for questioning. He continues to protest his innocence, while insisting Nicholas is behind everything. Especially after finding out his father has been moved to general population. He had a sister visit, and Martin admits he had no documentation to prove what he knows about Nicholas, it was all a gamble. Malcolm is later called to the hospital by his mother after Nicolas stabbed Gil. His sister then calls him home, where he confronts Nicholas. Nicholas admits he is responsible for the pending death of their father, and will be framing Malcolm for the murder of Eddie. Malcolm threatens to shoot him, and when he can’t, Ainsley slits his throat. His father then calls from prison.

## Season 2

At the beginning of season 2 Malcolm can be seen standing on a ledge in an attempt to catch a serial killer.

## Notes

* When he was a child, he found a woman held captive in a trunk in his father's work-room. Eventually, he turns him into the NYPD.
* Suffers from pavor nocturnus, *(night-terrors)*, since he was a child.
* Graduated from *Harvard University* and was a FBI agent for 10 years, before becoming an NYPD consultant.
* Cut his own hand on a glass he broke.
* Constantly takes suckers from Dr. Gabrielle Le Deux's office after their sessions.
* His hand tremors began as a child after his father was arrested and Malcolm was aggressively questioned and accused of murder by Det. Owen Shannon.
* Malcolm's psychosis is further slipping away from him, as evidence with more hallucinations, and when he mistakenly pointed a loaded gun to his head.
* After breaking his own hand to escape his chains, he received a fracture to his first metacarpal *(wrist)* and seven abdominal stitches, with no damage to any of his organs after being stabbed.
* According to Paul, his father attempted to kill him 20 years ago while on a camping trip.
* Malcolm's bird is named *Sunshine,* which is after his mother's affectionate nickname for him.
* Malcolm is currently struggling with the knowledge that his father tried to kill him.
* Martin admitted he attempting to kill his son before Malcolm stabbed him in the heart.
* Has become more aware of his hallucinations, and even converses with them, including with Sophie Sanders.
* Malcolm and Eve Blanchard were in a committed relationship,  but broke up after Eve discovered her sister Sophie Sanders was still alive.
* Took ballet for 5 years as a child and he also stated that he has had some training in Kung Fu and Jiu Jitsu.

## Trivia

* Bellamy Young and Tom Payne play mother and son, but are only 12 years apart.
* Tom Payne is 11 years older than Halston Sage who plays his sister.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Pilot
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Alone Time
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Annihilator
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fear Response
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Designer Complicity
6. ↑ The Trip
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 All Souls and Sadists
8. ↑ Q&A
9. ↑ Family Friend
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Pied-A-Terre
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Silent Night
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Internal Affairs
13. ↑ Wait & Hope
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Eye of the Needle
15. ↑ Death's Door
16. ↑ The Job
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Stranger Beside You
18. ↑ Scheherazade
19. ↑ The Professionals
20. ↑ Like Father...
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Scheherazade