We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article. Why Prodigal Son was cancelled "Wow. Gutted. Didn't see that one coming." Tom Payne ( The Walking Dead) stars in the show as Malcolm Bright, a former FBI profiler who is snapped up by an old friend working at the NYPD to act as a consultant on murder investigations. But it just so happens that his father Martin Whitly, played by Michael Sheen, is a convicted serial killer, known as The Surgeon, who had killed at least 23 people before being thrown behind bars. What are the odds, eh?