Hello, Prison Break fans! I'll be covering the maddeningly intricate yet painfully addictive hot mess that is Prison Break this season, and to be honest, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I've just finished reading up on the past 3 seasons of the show in order to get caught up (even though I've watched every episode of it in the past), and you know what? I'm still not entirely sure I know what exactly the hell is going on. Because I'm a good sport, though, I've decided to dive right into Season 4 and break it all down here for all you guys and girls the best way I know how. This show rarely fails to deliver week after week when it comes to so-bad-its-good style cliffhangers, fun little MacGyver-esque escape plans, and big-ass explosions, and in addition to that, the rumor is that Sara Tancredi is coming back this time around. Booyah! For that reason alone, I'm pretty excited. I have a crippling addiction to pretty brunettes with big brown eyes and mental instabilities, so it's pretty much win-win for me. Besides, the 'previously decapitated' thing is kinda hot, don't you think? Anyway, enough of my rambling. More Prison Break after the jump...
We start off with a narrative recrap of last season courtesy of the man with the plan himself, Mr. Michael Scofield. You remember Season 3, right? Michael was in a South American prison called Sona where was approached by the shadowy organization known only as The Company. Their proposal to him was a simple one - break a man known as Whistler out of Sona, and he would be set free. If he didn't accept this task, they would kill Sara Tancredi. Michael did as he was asked, but Sara was killed anyway by that ruthless bitch/incredibly bad actor called Gretchen, otherwise known as Susan B. Anthony. Well, now that Michael's out of Sona after springing Whistler, he's made his way to Los Angeles where he's tracked down Gretchen and her crew of baddies. He's out for blood on this one, so this oughtta be all kinds of fun. The best part about Mike's recrap is that it's in the form of a letter, but to who? Well, we aren't told, but I'm sure it will come out eventually. Maybe.
Next thing you know, we're in LA, and here are Gretchen, whistler, and my man Mahone (anyone else yell out "Mahone!" when this guy turned up in the opening sequence of 'The Dark Knight' this summer? Just me? Oh well) tooling around town in a limousine. Mahone's driving, and Gretchen and Whistler are in the back plotting out some dastardly plan. Michael's watching their every move through binoculars from the buildings above (he always seems to find the best windows to look out of, doesn't he?), and he follows them into the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown LA. Scoffield's on his way to catch up with them, though, and he makes his way into the hotel by posing as a waiter. Wait... an actor posing as a waiter in LA? Preposterous! Once inside, he ditches the apron and changes into a suit all Bourne-style (actually, he's more like Olyphant's 'Hitman' - all he needs is the bar code, if you ask me), and tucks a gun into his belt for safekeeping. From there, he goes inside and begins his mission.
He's in the right place for it, too, as Whistler is in the hotel, smack in the middle of a deal to purchase some mysterious card from some equally mysterious guys in suits. Card? What card? All in good time, I guess, but what matters is the amount that Whistler is about to give these guys for it. 50 million bucks! Holy crap. Mysterious Guy goes to get the card in question, and Michael's right outside in the lobby looking all dapper and shit. I love this rekindled age of the well-dressed assassin. Thanks, Daniel Craig.
So Mysterious Guy brings back the card in question, and apparently it's some kind of computer data card that they stole from The Company. Mysterious Guy gives Whistler some advice as he hands it over, too. 'Be careful', he says. 'The Company will do anything to get it back.' He also explains that it's filled with all kinds of secret data and stuff, so yeah - it's no joke. Whistler takes it and puts it into his pocket, but just then, he takes something else out of his pocket to make room for it - a silenced automatic! BANG BANG! He kills the two dudes he just 'bought' the card from and splits out into the hotel lobby. Before he goes outside to meet up with Gretchen and Mahone, though, he makes a pitstop in an incredibly convenient room where he's a hidden a Mysterious Stolen Data Card Copier. Gretchen calls right as he's about to begin making his copy, and she's pissed. 'Get outta there!' she yells, but he hangs up on her ass and finishes his card copy. He's about to split outta there when he hears a click and a rumbling voice behind him. 'Where is she?' asks the voice. It's Michael! With a gun! Pointed at Whistler! OMG.
Whistler tries to get him to listen what he has to say to keep his brains from getting splattered, but Mike's not having it. 'Get Gretchen in here now!' he roars. Lo and behold, Gretchen walks in. Michael's ready to shoot Gretchen for role in killing Sarah, but Gretchen's got an ace up her sleeve. 'She's not dead, Michael,' she says. 'She escaped, so I faked the whole thing. Ask Lincoln what he really saw.' Michael's not sure what to believe, but Whistler's not taking any chances. He pulls his gun out of his coat and trains it on Michael. 'Put it down', he says. Gretchen says she'll tell Mike where Sara is (yeah, right), but only after they get the hell outta here like now. The police can be heard outside the building, so they have to split.
On their way out of the hotel, Whistler hides a copy of the card he stole in a newspaper and dumps it in the lobby. Some shadowy grey-haired dude picks it up, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him later in the season. For now, though, Michael and crew are off. Michael stops outside, beside himself with the news he's just received. 'Sara!' he says to himself.
Out in the desert of Mojave, New Mexico, Gretchen's meeting up with her boss to tell him the details of the mission she just finished. He's not pleased with her - apparently he knows the card he received from Grey Haired Guy is a dupe, and that this is a massive security breach that can't be tolerated. Sure, the card probably still has all the info he needs on it, but the fact is that there's another one out there somewhere, rendering his copy basically useless. Baldheaded Boss Guy isn't happy. He waves to a big scary looking dude in a limo nearby who gets out and pulls a gun on Gretchen. She tries to bargain her way out of it, but before we see Gretchen's fate, we cut quickly to...
Panama City, Panama, and here's Lincoln! He gets a call on his cell, and it's Michael. Lincoln tells him that Sofia and LJ are fine (which they are, seeming they're sitting at a table right behind him), and he also informs Michael that Sona is no more. There was a prison riot, and the place burned to the ground. How convenient. No sign of Bellick, T-Bag or Sucre, either. Interesting. Michael tells Linc about his adventures with Gretchen and Whistler, and also that Sara's still alive. Linc calls bullshit on that last one, reiterating what he saw in that box last season. He pleads with Michael to come back to Panama so they can start a new life together, but Michael's adamant. He tells his brother goodbye and hangs up the phone.
We travel again to Arizona, five miles from the Mexican border. A big panel truck pulls up, and the driver hops out and opens up the back doors. A big pile of people are in back, presumably ex-Sona prisoners. From this pile emerge Bellick and Sucre, and they hop to the ground and wait around for Bellick's mother to come pick them up. After a few minutes, she shows up and the two men hop in her car. Man, I really hope at some point in the remainder of this show, Bellick gets the chance to be a badass again. Remember how hardcore he was in Season 1? Now he's jumping around yelling for his mommy. WTF.
Back in LA, and Michael checks the europeangoldfinch.net website he set up for any news about Sara that might've come down the pipe. I have yet to find out why a secret message on that site would have the glaring title of 'I HAVE INFO ABOUT SARA', but whatever. The message tells him to go to Santa Monica Pier, so when he arrives, Mahone shows up and tells him a little more about the card Whistler and Gretchen were so hot to get their hands on. He'll tell him more, but they've got to go somewhere a little more private so they can talk and meet up with Whistler. Whistler tells him that he and Mahone are working against The Company in some sort of secret double agent-type shit, and along with Scylla (the card that Whistler stole at the top of the episode), he's trying to get back his bird book. Remember that? The secret-coded book that was all the hubbub last season? Why he needs that book is as such - it contains information about the next part of their mission: breaking into The Company's headquarters to properly read the information on the data card Scylla. What's more, they want Michael to do it. They tell Mike that Sara might be headed to Chicago, but before Whistler can tell him anymore, BLAM! He takes a bullet to the head from somewhere in the distance and goes down for the count. Holy shit! The big scary dude who might've shot Gretchen out in the desert walks up to Whistler's body and takes Scylla out of his suit pocket. With that, he's gone, and they're REALLY going to have to convince me on how and why Michael should go after it.
Hey look! I'm being convinced. Michael heads back to Chicago, and wham! He's picked up by the coppers. In addition to that, Lincoln is apprehended in Panama by the cops after foiling an assassination attempt by two goons after a hit is taken out on him by the boss of The Company. See, now that he's got Scylla back, it's time to clean up, and that job falls into the hands of Wyatt, the big scary dude who offed Whistler and might've killed Gretchen, but probably didn't. Speaking of Wyatt, he goes to Mahone's house and does God-knows-what to his wife and son. Mahone pulls up to the house shortly after, and is told by the police that he really shouldn't go in there. Ouch.
Back in Chicago, Michael is turned over to Homeland Security Agent Don Self, played by that annoying dick Michael Rappaport. Seriously, I cannot stand that guy. Oh well. He tells Michael that he's looking at serious jail time unless he agrees to a deal - find Scylla, break into the headquarters of The Company (the same job that Whistler was trying to do until he got popped), and find out what the hell is on the card. Turns out that Michael and Lincoln's dad was hot on the trail of Scylla, too, and I think we all know what happened to him. (Just in case you don't, he was killed.) Michael doesn't think too much of the plan at first, but when bail is posted for both him and Lincoln (flown back to the States at special request of Don Self), by Sara Tancredi's old contact Bruce Bennett, he's at least grateful. The real kicker is in the next room, though - it's hot-ass Sara Tancredi herself, in the flesh. The two share a moment or three both at the police station and in private later that night (get it, Mike!), and they're just about to go for some sloppy seconds on each other when BANG! The window is shot out, and it's Wyatt. He's shooting at them both from outside the building, desperate to complete his cleaning job as ordered by his Company boss. The two of them escape, and it's then that Michael is sold on the plan to take down the Company. He calls Don and tells them that they're in. Not only himself, but Lincoln and Sara, too.
So we've got a nice little threesome set up for the rest of the season, but is that all? Hell no! Michael, Linc, and Sara meet up with the rest of the gang in some pretty wacky ways, but it's nice to see them all back together again and miraculously all on the same side. Here's how it went down - Sucre and Bellick were picked up by the police after Sucre got set up at the hospital while trying to see his daughter, and Mahone joins the crew at special request of Michael. Mahone's got good reason to be there, what with his whole family being killed by The Company, but I dunno. I'd lay good odds at him being the loose cannon of the crew, what with his past addictions to prescription drugs and all. Should be interesting.
So the gang's all here, right? Well, almost. Where in the hell is T-Bag? Well, here's where that lecherous old pedophile has been - paying his way back across the border with the 5 million bucks he stole from Michael's crew. Yes, the five million bucks that was originally stolen and hidden by the real D.B. Cooper. Heh. I love this show. Well, as T-Bag usually does, he starts shooting off his mouth en route back to the States about all the money he's got and what he plans to do once he gets back home. He knows that he'll eventually run into Michael again, but why? Well, here's why. He's got the bird book, the essential key to breaking into Company headquarters and deciphering Scylla. Awesome. This show wouldn't be worth a spit if it weren't for T-Bag, so I'm happy they're utilizing him in such an important way. Anyway, the 'coyotes' he hooked up with to get back across the border jack him for the money bag and leave him there to die in the desert. Wait, what? How the hell is he gonna get outta that one and be utilized on the show in such an important way? Well, keep in mind that this is the same man who cut off his own hand to escape getting caught by the police while tied to a radiator. Escaping the desert should be a walk in the park for him, especially with the aid of writers like these.
The most laughable and ridiculous part of the episode comes when Michael decides to have all of his tattoos removed. He's not given any sedative at all, but more importantly, no reason is given, either. Well, whatever. If it was done deliberately to basically help reboot this show and start over from scratch, then I'm all in. The last two seasons have been a little meandering and repetitive, so I'm glad that the writing crew has the balls to begin anew and maybe even set up a potential end to the show itself. They can't run forever, can they?
Anyway, Michael's group is given fake IDs by Don Self (that's it?) and are shuttled onto a C-130 cargo plane for the first step in their mission to take down the Company - fly back to Los Angeles and locate the building where headquarters is located. You know, if I were Michael, I'd tell Don to go screw and take my crew on an entirely new kind of mission - to become the new A-Team. Tell me that shit wouldn't work. Michael is Hannibal, Lincoln is BA Baracus, Bellick and/or Mahone is Murdoch, Sucre is Face, and Sara is Triple A. Hell, all they need now is the van. Oh, and some bullets that never seem to land where they're supposed to.
So that's the first hour of the Season 4 premiere. Ready for the second? Here we go.
We begin 'Breaking and Entering' in the office of The Company boss, the bald dude who has declared war on the Scoffield boys. He's handed a slip of paper by somebody that reads '10,000'. No explanation there at all, so I'm assuming it will pop up later in the show and/or season at some point. From there, he gets a call from Wyatt who tells him that Michael and Linc have been transferred to a supermax prison somewhere (apparently a cover to protect them while on their mission), but Bald Dude is unimpressed. Call me again when they're dead, he says.
We're in the C-130 cargo plane now, and our gang of assorted Scoffields and their accomplices are getting out of it and onto the tarmac in Los Angeles. Everyone's looking surprisinly pretty and well-kept for just getting out of the back of a damn cargo plane. Anyway, Don Self welcomes them to LA, and everyone is fitted with an ankle bracelet that will let him know where they are at all times. From there, they're told about the supermax prison cover story, and then taken to what is essentially their home base for the mission - a really cool warehouse on the docks of San Pedro that has been outfitted as living quarters. See, I like this. Taking this season in a very A-Team sort of direction is a really cool idea in my book. What do you think?
The team is introduced to their new team member Roland, a nervous little Asian computer whiz guy who will help the team secure new identities and stuff. Don Self is ready to get this party started, and he wants the team to start figuring out how to lay their hands on Scylla post-haste. Mahone's got an idea on how to get it, too - he got a visual ID on the driver that was handling the Cardholder, the guy that picked up Scylla from Whistler. Through flashback clips, we see him, too, but Mahone's got more than just that. He deduces that the guy is private security, highly paid, and former military. Run some tax records, and you should narrow your field to find him quite considerably. Yeah, because a shadowy private security guy that's running with secret organizations like The Company is DEFINITELY going to have a complete set of tax records just waiting to be found. Okay, I'll stop.
Anyway, we cut to the Mexican desert now, and here are T-Bag and one of his transporters walking back to, well, wherever you try to get to when you're dumped in the middle of nowhere. They're trying to get to San Diego, I guess, mainly because that's what's written in the pages of the bird book that T-Bag still has on him.
Back at the warehouse, Sara Tancredi has a sexy little temper tantrum outside while thinking about her torture sessions with Gretchen. Yikes. It's only shown in short flashback clips, but even then, it's hardly pretty. Kinda hot, but hardly pretty. Inside, Roland's already pulled a short list of men for Mahone to pick out the driver from, and it's not long before he finds his man among them. The team rolls out in the A-Team van and pulls up to the dude's house, and from there they follow him to home base, the home of one Stuart Tuxhorn that is a veritable fortress with every kind of security measure imaginable. I'm surprised the place wasn't surrounded by a moat filled with sharks that have freakin' lasers strapped to their heads. The team goes back to the warehouse to try and put a plan together, and it's not going to be easy. However, Roland uses a handful of incredibly clunky dialogue ("Back up there, hombre!") to tell the team about the cool little toy in his pocket - a wireless hard drive that will copy the digital information from any source within ten feet of it. Get close enough to Scylla, he explains, and the hard drive will copy it.
Back in Baldy's house now, and he's meeting with Stuart Tuxhorn. Baldy shows him the note with '10,000' written on it, and asks if that is an acceptable number. Stuart pauses. '10,000 people?' he asks, and Baldy says yes. Stuart says that it is, so Baldy welcomes him aboard and tells him that he'll send out the op order immediately, whatever that means. The two men raise their glasses and have a toast. Gentlemen, to evil!
Back with Michael's ridiculous plan to copy the Scylla through ten feet of thin air now, and their first attempt at it is a bust. Sucre intentionally crashes into Tuxhorn's car and tries to get close enough with Roland's device to get a signal on the Scylla, but no dice. Back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, Don Self tries to pressure a previous Company employee about where the decoder box for the Scylla is, Wyatt threatens two DOC employees to find out where the hell Michael and Lincoln have been transferred to, and out in the Mexican desert, T-Bag inadvertently kills his transporter and eats him. No, for real. The dude died by hitting his head on a rock, so T-Bag built a fire, threw him in it, and ate his ass. Rad. He's picked up later by a couple of ATVers who come through with the line of the night when they notice T-Bag looks a little green around the gills. "Eat some bad Mexican?" Hey-ooooh!
Time for Attempt #2 to copy the Scylla, and for this go, it's Sara's turn. She's going to put the wireless hard drive into the bag of Tuxhorn's housekeeper at a bus stop (because a housekeeper who works for somebody that rich couldn't POSSIBLY make enough money to have their own car), and from there, the device will be smuggled into the house where the Scylla is. So she makes the drop by engaging in a little girl talk with her, and the housekeeper's back in the house before long. When she's about to leave for the day, Michael calls the house (how did he get the number? Don?) and tells the housekeeper that he's from the security company, and that she needs to walk around the house checking that all the windows are shut. What he really wants is for her to walk around the place with the hard drive still in her bag so it can make a copy of the Scylla. The housekeeper does as she's asked, and she's on her way out when she notices something in her bag and goes back inside. Uh-oh.
She's at the bus stop again, and here comes Mahone all smiles and happiness next to her. What's he doing there? He's just standing... HEY! Bellick just ran up behind her and grabbed her bag! Mahone gives chase ("I had to slow down to catch up with you!" HA!), and the two of them search the bag for the wireless hard drive. Ah! I get it now. They dig around in the bag for a while, but it's not there. Crap! Think that might by why the housekeeper went back inside for a minute? Me too.
Wyatt has apparently gotten the information he needed about which supermax prison Mike and Linc are in, because here he is up on a hill overlooking it, armed with a gigantic goddamned rifle. He uses the scope on it to count how many prisoners there are in the yard, and it's with that information he knows he's been had. With one phone call, he finds out who posted bail for Michael and Lincoln, and as we know, that someone is Bruce Bennett, Sara's contact. Wyatt goes to Bennett's house to shake him down for info, but when Bruce says he doesn't know anything about where Michael and Lincoln are, he gets a syringe injection in the neck for his efforts. Gee, thanks.
Back at the warehouse, the team is trying like hell to figure out what happened. Did she drop the hard drive somewhere? No, they looked all over. Can they make another one and try it again? Nope - Roland says that would be impossible with how little time they have. There's only one option - break into the house and get it back. Michael checks in with Don Self to fill him in on things, and while they're talking, Michael gets some weird sort of headache for a second. What's that about? Hmm.
Alright, here's the plan to get inside - it's impossible. Can't be done. End of show, end of series, cancel craft services, get everyone's agents on the phone like NOW. However, since Michael is the master of getting us out of ridiculously impossible situations like this, here's what he comes up with - Sucre and Lincoln will set off an alarm at the residence across the street, the guards at the Tuxhorn house throw a hissy, Mr. Tuxhorn comes downstairs to see what the hubbub is (turning off the alarm to get outside in the process), Michael and Mahone sneak inside the house to grab the hard drive, and get out before Tuxhorn comes back in resets the alarm. Easy, right? Sure. Total piece of cake. LOL.
Now, the plan goes off without a hitch (of course), but in the process of sneaking around, Mahone hears Tuxhorn's son calling out from a bedroom nearby to see what the matter is, and he has a brainfart while thinking about his own son, who is presumably dead. I told you Mahone would be the loose cannon here, didn't I? So they bring the drive back to Roland who downloads all the crap on it to his computer. Only thing is, it's still very much indecipherable. Roland tells them that based on the data that he's looking at, the data card they downloaded is only the first piece in the puzzle. Apparently, there are five more cards out there somewhere, and to get the full download of the Scylla and complete their mission, Michael's team is going to have to find them. Cue rest of the season.
Let's see, what other loose ends need tying up here? Oh yeah - T-Bag. The creeepy one-handed flesh-eating pedophile makes his way to San Diego with the help of a few guys in an RV, and when he gets there, he follows some clues in the bird book to make his way to a bus station. He finds a bus locker with those clues, too, and inside of it is a bunch of crap that Whistler was obviously supposed to find when he got to this point in the mission himself. Now that he's dead, though... well, you get the point. Inside the locker is a credit card, a fake ID, a key, and an envelope from something called Gate Industries. I love shadowy, anonymous corporations, don't you? From there, T-Bag grabs all that stuff and hops a bus to Los Angeles. I can't wait to see what other crimes against humanity the guy's got up his sleeve. No pun intended.
Anything else? Oh yeah! Get this - Gretchen is still alive. You knew that, though, right? You really didn't think they'd blow a perfectly good "character ALMOST getting killed" scene by having that character actually die in it, do you? Hell no. Apparently she's being held by some goons of Wyatt's. They're keeping her alive while tied up in a room somewhere, being fed only water and a spoonful of honey. Total 'Se7en' style stuff going on there, but she looks remarkably healthy for a woman that has eaten less than your average honeybee in the last few days. Hey, that's Prison Break for ya.
Alright, cliffhanger time. Michael's in the bathroom of the warehouse, and he starts to get one of those weird headaches again. The camerawork goes all blurry weirdness on us, and what's this? Michael looks in the mirror, and his nose starts to bleed for no reason at all. Uh-oh! That can't be good. What might've happened to him? And when? By who?
WHEW! That's the last time I decide to take on a two-hour season premiere of a show that I haven't watched in a while. What a monster! Anyway, judging by the preview, the rest of the season looks fun as hell. Lots of ridiculousness, costumes, and Sara Tancredi going all Sydney Bristow on our asses by rocking some seriously sexy disguises. Woo-hoo! Should be fun. See you next week!
-littlebigmouth.
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