**MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD**
I don’t know if anyone is paying attention, but “Prison Break” is back from its seemingly never-ending hiatus. After a couple of episodes in the prison to wrap up the near-escape, last night’s excellent episode took a page out of the “Lost” manual and delved into the backstories of most of the main characters.
Three years prior to Michael’s bank robbery attempt, he wasn’t nearly as sympathetic to his older brother’s situation. As he almost has a romantic liaison with Linc’s ex, his brother calls from a pay phone looking for help. Michael doesn’t answer and Lincoln hangs up and goes into the parking garage to kill a man, who we know was already dead. He didn’t do it for the nookie, he did it for the money – the money that he owed a bad guy in order to buy life insurance for his mother. Money that ultimately paid for his younger brother’s schooling. Once Michael hears this (from Veronica) his quest to save his brother begins.
We find out how Fernando, Michael’s cell mate, landed in prison. He took a liking to a young girl, but one of his friends likes her too and calls 911 to rat him out when he saw Fernando go in to rob a convenience store. Irony reigns as Fernando was only robbing the convenience store to buy a ring for his lady. I doubt he’ll find out that it was his buddy that called 911, but if he does, there will be hell to pay.
C-Note, despite appearances, isn’t a thug. He’s a military man, who got a dishonorable discharge after reporting the abuses in an Iraqi prison. His commanding officer sold him out in order to cover it up, and C-Note couldn’t get a job to pay the rent. He resorts to driving a truck with stolen goods and, when caught, he doesn’t give his associates up. That’s how he ends up in Fox River.
The creepiest backstory has to go to T-Bag. He was actually in a “healthy” relationship with a woman (with two children) when she saw his picture on America’s Most Wanted. She turns him in and, when she visits, he vows revenge once he gets out. It was hard to believe T-Bag when he said he truly loved her, but maybe the nut has a heart in there after all.
I was most surprised by how Dr. Sara Tancredi found her way to Fox River. She was a drug-addicted doctor who finally decided to clean herself up after being too doped up to help a bicyclist who got hit by a car. At one of her support groups, she meets a friendly guy who turns out to be the psychotic prison guard Bellick, who tells her about a job opening at Fox River. He wants to take her to dinner…eww…but she successfully fends his gorilla-like advances off.
Getting a peek into the past of all these characters made this episode one of the show’s very best. Fox has something going with “Prison Break” leading into “24” and the network is primed for a strong run on Monday nights for the rest of the season.
