“Hard Time” is episode fourteen of season two of Mutant X.
Jesse and Brennan are looking for a friend of Brennan’s, Denny. He’s apparently recently broken out of prison. Brennan says they never hurt anyone – physically. Denny was huge and people didn’t cause problems. And he’s a gentle guy. Jesse asks why Denny broke out of jail 6 months before he would be paroled. Brennan doesn’t know. Jesse spots the car from the APB and Brennan says they don’t need backup; Denny wouldn’t hurt a fly. Cue Jesse being attacked as soon as Brennan leaves. Denny then attacks Brennan too. His face looks a mees. When Denny hears sirens, he runs off and gets hit by a vehicle.
At Sanctuary, Brennan is telling the others that Denny was completely different. He was never a boy scout but was never violent. Emma has the tox report; Denny was clean of street drugs. Jesse says Denny was psychotic, and covered in cuts and bruises. Adam suggests a prison fight but Brennan has been digging into the jail. 14 deaths in the last 3 months, 12 of them suffering severe trauma as if beaten to death. Brennan wants to find out what’s going on by going inside; if Adam doesn’t get him in, he will find his own way.
At the jail, two men are talking. One, a doctor, says Dennis was killed this morning and that he was able to escape because of what they did to him. His work wasn’t meant to be used this way. The other says they can’t rehabilitate these animals; they are getting what they deserve. And they’re making money off them. Compensation for putting their lives on the line, doing a job no-one else wants to do.
Brennan tells Emma that he owes Denny. There was a diamond heist planned and Brennan couldn’t do it, so he talked Denny into going. It was a setup and everyone was arrested. Brennan is responsible for Denny getting killed. Adam is getting both Brennan and Jesse into the prison population; Emma will be on the staff. Brennan is concerned about Jesse going; he will get eaten alive and his attitude could get him killed. Blend in, don’t get noticed. Brennan has been to jail and that one worries him. They can’t use their powers. Adam wants Brennan to teach Jesse what he needs to know. They are going as a team or not at all.
Shalimar will remain at Sanctuary. Emma will work under Dr Nigel Rigas, the doctor seen earlier. A behavioural psychiatrist who’s been there a little over a year. Brennan and Jesse are in on robbery charges. Inside, they will be treated the same and Emma will be their only contact with the outside world. The warden, Wallington, is the man who was talking to Rigas. He used to be a reformer, until he was almost killed in a prison riot. That changed his attitude.
Jesse and Brennan are taken in and Jesse makes a comment during the warden’s speech, getting a truncheon in his gut as a result. Perhaps he didn’t listen closely enough to Brennan. Afterwards, Brennan tells him the guards are the least of Jesse’s worries. Then Jesse nearly gets into a fight with another prisoner. Emma, meanwhile, is with Rigas, who doesn’t want a trainee. He plans to call the Department of Corrections to get rid of her, but she flatters him into keeping her on.
In the prison yard, Jesse and Brennan meet up. Brennan has found out that the inmate Jesse tangled with, McMullen, is in for a double homicide and to stay away from him. Jesse discovered Denny got into a fight, was sent to solitary and was never seen again. Then McMullen hassles Jesse again and Brennan gets involved in the fight. When the guards break it up, McMullen is taken to solitary.
Rigas has left his office, which has a keypad log. Emma hacks the number and contacts Adam once she’s inside. In their cell, Brennan is telling Jesse that the people who survive are the ones who don’t get noticed. One more move like that and the mission is over. When the lights are turned off, Jesse decides to go find Emma and phases out of the cell.
Emma isn’t finding anything but Adam has Denny’s autopsy results. Several levels were through the roof; he was so violent because his body’s own chemicals were being used to alter his behaviour. Emma finds a wall safe with an unknown serum and a notebook about tests carried out with some sort of steroid. Dr Rigas’s experiments were supposed to make people less aggressive. Now, it looks like the opposite is being done. Brennan really isn’t appreciating how Jesse is handling jail.