Category: Prison Break (Page 6 of 15)

Prison Break 4.4: “Eagles and Angels”

September 16, 2008 /

Given the number of times that Michael and Sara used the phrase, the name of this episode should have been “One Day,” but obviously the writers are trying to make a point about how the series should eventually end – the carrot on the proverbial stick, if you will. And in this scenario, the audience is the mule/horse. Sometimes being a fan of this show feels like being a beast of burden, but this episode was relatively headscratcher-free, aside from Sara’s ponderous decision to have her credit cards exposed for the skeezy barfly to conveniently swipe, which (apparently) is the only way that Morpheus would be able to find the gang. Sara gets a pass since she wasn’t thinking straight, mourning the death of her friend and all. Heck, I give her credit for not downing that double bourbon, though the bartender gets an assist. (That bar scene was a nice piece of acting by Sarah Wayne Callies, by the way. It’s good to have her back in the fold.)

I also question the convenience of Gretchen being held somewhere in L.A. That’s a little contrived. She’ll eventually escape and cause a ruckus, no doubt.

Speaking of obvious future plot twists, with the death of Don’s whistleblower, it’s clear that the gang will eventually need to enlist the aid of T-Bag, since he (ponderously) is risking life and limb to infiltrate the Gate Corporation posing as the company’s top salesman. Apparently, this is somehow a part of the Scylla puzzle; methinks that the corner office is important so that the gang can either drill up or down into an adjacent floor.

Back to T-Bag – I was really looking forward to his first meeting with his supervisor, but that was fairly anticlimactic. However, I’ll give you three to one that he’s sliding up next to that well-endowed secretary in the next episode or two.

There was a nice moment between Linc and Bellick after the two had clashed earlier in the episode over Bellick’s constant naysaying. Bellick stepped up and stabbed the Company henchman, effectively saving Linc’s life.

We had another taste of foreshadowing with Michael’s bloody nose. He’s clearly suffering from some illness and it will either come up later in this season or at the end, when they’re setting up Season Four. Whatever the plan, I hope Fox allows the series to end on its own terms, or at least gives the creators enough notice so that they can end the show properly. I know it’s premature to talk about this, as the show is considered a “hit,” but it has happened time and time again to other series, and the conclusion of “Prison Break” needs to be protected. We’ve invested too many goshdarn hours in this show only to have them pull the rug out from underneath us.

Anyway, two cards down, four to go, and Morpheus is hot on the gang’s trail.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV Action, TV Dramas

Prison Break 4.3: “Shut Down”

September 9, 2008 /

I couldn’t place it last week, but Wyatt (the company’s hitman who is trying to track down the Brothers) seems to be channeling Laurence Fishburne from “The Matrix” series. So, from now on, I’m going to refer to him as Morpheus.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the episode, which was actually a little bit of filler. As Don (the FBI agent) struggled to keep the operation alive, Michael had to break into an internet hub in Anaheim to retrieve a couple of emails (because Roland’s stealth data collector just happened to run out of hard disk space as it downloaded those emails). Anyway, with Sara in trouble at the front desk, Michael pulls the fire alarm to create a distraction. He returns to the server room, and he and Roland get trapped there when the room is locked down. The two almost die because all of the air is being sucked out of the room to prevent the servers from burning. Now it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the server room locked down after Michael returned, but hey, this is “Prison Break.” Lincoln does what he does; he grabs and axe and smashes the window, freeing his brother and the “douche.”

At the beginning of the episode we were treated to a shot of Don twiddling with his wedding ring and a later shot of him gazing at his wife’s photo, so count on his marriage coming up later on. (Maybe “The Company” killed his wife?)

Morpheus now knows that the Brothers are in Los Angeles. For some reason Bruce (R.I.P.) knew they were in L.A., but he didn’t know where. Other than a convenient plot device to get Morpheus to the City of Angels, why would Bruce know where they were? Doesn’t that knowledge only put them in danger?

T-Bag’s idiotic “blood feud” has brought him to Los Angeles and now he’s trying to get a bonus check from the Gate Corporation. God only knows what’s going on there.

This week’s “you must suspend disbelief” moment goes to Mahone, who somehow knew (before the team had even acquired the emails, mind you) that the meeting of the six Scylla cardholders would take place at a power plant in Newport Beach, so he asked his former partner to hide the files he requested within walking distance of the power plant. Either (a) Mahone knew where the meet would be or (b) it was a totally lazy (or overlooked) plot progression that the writers must have assumed that the audience wouldn’t notice. All they had to do was show him driving off in the stolen cab, and have the drop point at some location other than the powerplant/docks (that don’t exist in Newport Beach, by the way), and this would have been totally reasonable. Sometimes I wonder if the creators watch the episode before it airs or if they even think about these things as they’re shooting (or as they’re writing the script).

Anyway, the gang now has video of all six Scylla cardholders, so the operation is back on.

External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Dramas

Prison Break: “Scylla” & “Breaking and Entering”

September 2, 2008 /

Well, “Prison Break” is back for a fourth season, and it’s sort of a blessing and a curse. There’s no doubt that it’s an entertaining show, and its return marks the beginning of the fall season. But I’ve been using my brain this summer, and it’s hard to turn it off for two hours while “Prison Break” gets set up for this season’s storyline. How contrived is this show? Let me count the ways…

1. Sona burned down and Bellick, Sucre and T-Bag escaped. Think about this for a second. Sona was a big square building with a fence around it. If the building catches on fire, the inmates would just run out into the fenced-in yard surrounding the prison. If any tried to climb the fence, they’d be shot by the soldiers in the towers. So how do not one, not two, but three main characters escape the prison?

2. Lincoln kills a man in Panama. All right, this is a little more believable, but he was right there in public and any number of witnesses (including LJ and Sofia) would have seen the struggle and the eventual accidental murder. He gets 15 years yet Don (played by Michael Rappaport… Michael Rappaport!) is able to “swing a deal” to allow Linc to serve his time in the States.

3. This whole “Ocean’s Seven” thing they have going. Don is working a covert operation and he needs Michael to acquire “Scylla” to take down the Company, and he’s going to give him the manpower to do it. Not trained professionals, mind you, instead he’s going to provide – you guessed it – guys like Sucre, Bellick and Lincoln. These guys have mad skills in covert ops.

4. T-Bag is going to leave his sexy nun because he has a “blood feud” with Michael. T-Bag has $50 K from Luchero and a hottie Panamanian girl that seems to love him despite his handicap and his general creepiness. Why leave all that to pick another fight with a guy who has outsmarted you time and time again? What’s the upside here?

5. Sara is alive. Boy, this one really got me. During the entire run of the third season, I watched and waited for some clue, some tiny little hint that Sara might still be alive. I was slow to accept her death because I believe that her romance with Michael is the real heart of the show. But finally, when no discernable clues or hints ever came, I eventually accepted that she was gone. NOPE, SHE’S BACK! (And luckily I missed the news that Sarah Wyane Callies was returning to the show.) She somehow escaped Gretchen’s clutches and made it back to America in one piece. Now, I have no problem with the thesis that Gretchen faked Sara’s death, but the story of her escape is implausible and the fact that there was no hint that she still might be alive is proof that this is something that the creators came up with during the hiatus (or very late in Season Three). Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s back, but this seems woefully thrown together.

I could go on, but those are the major head-scratchers.

So now what? Once again, “Prison Break” has spun off into a completely different direction. Michael, Lincoln, Sara, Sucre, Bellick, Mahone and some tech genius named Roland have to acquire the six parts of Scylla and break into the Company’s headquarters in order to secure their freedom. Gretchen is still alive (I’m sure there will eventually be some emotional confrontation between her and Sara) and Michael is bleeding mysteriously from his nose.

Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still a lot of money sitting at the bottom of that Panamanian bay. Clearly, the producers are hoping we forget that little fact because surely Lincoln would have collected the loot once the escape was over.

Lastly, one thing I noticed was that the show was quite a bit funnier than last season. Here are a few of the better lines:

Bellick and Sucre getting caught at the hospital…

Bellick: “We’re screwed!”

The group discusses Roland’s background.

Michael: “He’s an identity thief.”
Lincoln: “He’s a douche. Hey, why don’t you sit in the corner and we’ll get you when we need you.”

(By the way, I think “douche” is one of the funniest words in the English language. I want a sound clip of Lincoln saying “he’s a douche” to play every time I get an email. That’s how funny I thought that line was. In fact, I’m still laughing as I type this.)

Mahone catches up to Bellick, who supposedly stole the maid’s bag.

Mahone: “I actually had to slow down not to catch you.”

(Is it just me, or would it have been easier just to have Sara meet the maid at the bus stop again and tell her that she might have accidentally dropped her cell phone in her bag when she was looking at it? No, no, of course not. What am I thinking? The double break-in was totally necessary.)

T-Bag comes across a couple of four-wheeling Americans just after becoming a cannibal.

Dude on four-wheeler: “What’s wrong, man? Eat some bad Mexican?”

Ba-dum-bump-tish!

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

Prison Break: “The Art of the Deal”

February 19, 2008 /

Season finales of “Prison Break” are about heading off into a new direction. Now that Linc and LJ are safe, Michael is all about seeking vengeance on Gretchen. Part of me would like to see the brotheres retrieve that bag of money (that should still be sitting underwater in that Panama cove) and retire to some sleepy beach community. But then there wouldn’t be a show, would there?

Once next season starts, I’m guessing that Michael will catch wind that Sucre is in Sona, and will feel obligated to try to break him out. But if Whistler, Gretchen and Mahone (how about that threesome?) leave town, I’m curious to see how Michael finds out about Sucre. For his part, Sucre seems resigned to his fate, but inside Sona, he has to deal with T-Bag, who has turned himself into something of a communist Robin Hood after pulling a fast one on Luchero. T-Bag still has the bird book, which is apparently still important even though it doesn’t contain coordinates.

On that front, it turns out that Whistler and Gretchen are more closely linked than we first thought, though there was that mid-season meeting at Sona where it seemed to me that the two were working together. It was surprising to see Whistler and Mahone hook up and it looks like Mahone’s new job is to protect Whistler from Michael. This should reintroduce the Michael/Mahone chess match that was so compelling in season 2. However, the roles will be reversed – Mahone will be the one on the run, and Michael will be hot on his trail.

It was pretty laughable that Sofia just happened to get shot outside the museum – I mean, what are the odds? – which led to Michael overhearing LJ tell Linc about the case in Sofia’s apartment. This gives Michael the ammunition he needs to find Gretchen.

So that’s where season 3 ends. I wondered last season if the show would be better off wrapping it up, but in Gretchen they introduced a new foil for Michael, something to keep him going, and now that she has Mahone’s help, they should be a formidable team. Whether we like it or not, “Prison Break” will go on, so we might as well see where it takes us.

I still wonder about that money, though. Hopefully, the writers will reintroduce that storyline next season.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

Prison Break: “Hell or High Water”

February 12, 2008 /

This week’s episode might have been the most ridiculous yet.

1. Michael led three other prisoners through a maze of active, alert guards and no one was seen.
2. In order to have a shot, he had to count on the fact that neither T-Bag nor Bellick would give him up quickly.
3. T-Bag happened to fall and find Whistler’s bird book.
4. McGrady’s papa “took a chance” and happened to find the gang clinging to a buoy in the middle of the ocean.

It was obvious something was up when Michael decided to let Luchero, T-Bag and Bellick get a head start on the escape. When he wasn’t moving, it became clear that he was using the trio as a distraction to make his real escape, and that point was punctuated when he said, “This is the plan.” In a series of maneuvers that would have made Solid Snake proud, Michael successfully navigated a crapload of random-walking Sona soldiers to get to the fence, where he punched through the hole and entered the jungle. For a guy that usually plans everything down to the last detail, this was quite the departure, but he had to improvise with this escape and he proved that he could.

Burying the cans of oxygen at the beach was a nice twist, though how they successfully ended up at the buoy remains a mystery. Dimwit Whistler is dumb enough to lose his bird book, the same book that holds the key to his freedom, but he’s smart enough to pull the ol’ fall-down-during-the-escape-and-pretend-to-twist-your-ankle trick on Michael.

At the beach, the guards didn’t bother to look for footprints (of course), but the dogs found the buried cooler and it looked for a moment that papa and the gang would eventually have a run in with the coast guard, but that encounter never happened.

Once T-Bag and Bellick got caught, I began to wonder how they would continue to be involved in the story if Brothers Scofield were free. That question was answered when T-Bag just happened to fall next to (and retrieve) Whistler’s aforementioned bird book. That’ll be the leverage he needs to stay involved. It doesn’t hurt that Sucre looks like he’ll soon be a resident of Sona as well.

Next week’s episode is the season finale, and it looks like next season may revolve around Michael trying to break Sucre and T-Bag (with the bird book) out of Sona. Michael will feel responsible for Sucre’s situation and he isn’t going to let him rot in prison. Plus, he’ll probably have more incentive if Susan still holds LJ and Sofia hostage. Bellick will probably make it, though it might be time for the writers to kill him off. I don’t know anyone who is clamoring for more Bellick right now. I’d like the show to push off into a new direction, but I don’t see how that’s possible. But “Prison Break” has surprised me before, so only time will tell.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

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