Prison Break: "Five The Hard Way" - Episode 407

There is less sense in an episode of Prison Break than there is in all of John McCain's endgame (and that's really saying something), but that doesn't mean it isn't a thousand times more enjoyable to watch. I think if McCain is really serious about wanting to win, he needs to go to Vegas, prove his manhood to a whale, and then get busted for cheating at slots. Never mind. You'll know what I mean in a minute. More Prison Break after the jump...

So when last we left these knuckleheads, T-Bag had just gotten pinched by Gretchen back at his apartment, so it's fitting that we kick off this episode right then and there. Gretchen's got him tied to a chair, and she informs him by way of cutting his one good arm to ribbons that he's going to help her get to Scylla no matter what it takes. T-Bag tells her that she might want to keep him alive in order to do that, so like I said last week, the two resident psychopaths of the show are now teamed up. For now. Until they try to kill each other again.

Meanwhile, Self consults Mahone on what the hell to do about the big scary man who keeps trailing after him. Namely, Wyatt. Mahone tells him that sometimes the only defense is a good offense - beat Wyatt and his bosses at their own game, and the heat will come off. Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact that Wyatt has now been set loose full-force on Don Self's skinny white butt. The General has officially taken a hit out on Don to break up the team and end the pressure on the Company that they've been causing. Don tries to turn the tables on The General by presenting him with a bunch of files that incriminate him and The Company in everything but the sinking of the Titanic, and he tells the General that if anything happens to him, it won't go unnoticed. Of course, that does nothing to convince Wyatt to call off the chase, as the big guy's already been to Don's house. Yikes.

So back at the warehouse, Michael and crew are cooking up a plan to go to Vegas. The fifth Scylla card is there, and it's in the hands of a man named Scuderi whose security team is far too thick to get through here in LA. Out there in the desert, though, the team will only have to get by a few bodyguards, and bam - the card's theirs. The team decides to split in two here - one half going to Vegas for the card, the other staying behind in LA to deal with T-Bag. See, the team got a call from T-Bag's secretary back at GATE, and she wants $2,000 to spill her guts about where she's seen him. However, when Mahone, Michael, and Bellick show up to deal with her, it's a trap set by T-Bag to kidnap Michael so he can figure out what the hell the bird book means in relation to Scylla. Remember how Gretchen's still on T-Bag's ass about that? Yeah.

T-Bag's secretary is looking more delicious than ever, but that's not important right now. After Mahone makes a dramatic escape from the kidnapping attempt, T-Bag turns up the heat on Michael to decipher the bird book with Gretchen listening in from the next room. In typical T-Bag style, he threatens to kill Michael if he doesn't cooperate, but you know that wasn't going to work. Who's going to decipher the book if Michael's dead? T-Bag ups the ante a little bit by putting his gun to the secretary's head instead, so Michael cooperates. Or at least pretends to. After sneaking a page from the bird book into his pocket (something he'll need to leave behind as a clue), he tells T-Bag that what he has here in the book is a blueprint. See, printed piecemeal across all the pages of the book is a schematic of the entire GATE building, and the entrance to the room the team will need to find to decode the Scylla cards is hidden somewhere inside it. T-Bag rounds up his prisoners and scuttles them off to get into the building, but not before cutting off Michael and Bellick's ankle bracelets at Gretchen's insistence. She's no dummy, I'll give her that. Mahone later uses these bracelets to find where Michael and Bellick are being held, but when he arrives, everyone's already gone. Remember the page of the book that Michael snuck out of the bird book? Well, he left it behind as a clue for Mahone to follow, and what's more, he left it folded into an origami swan. Mahone unfolds it, revealing the word GATE printed on it loud and clear.

Vegas, baby, Vegas! Roland's far too excited about being here, and it comes as no surprise when the hotel security teams draws a bead on him the minute he walks in. Hasn't Roland told us about some problems he's had in the past involving gambling and the police? That could be bad. Anyway, the rest of the team is here for business, not pleasure. There's a card to be had somewhere in town, and what better place to start looking for it than the hotel pool. Scuderi (the card holder) is lounging at the bar in $500 sunglasses and a Speedo (what is it with older men and completely inappropriate swimwear?), so Sara is sent in to get him back to his room. No, not for that - she wants to get him back there so she can use the portable hard drive to record the Scylla card. It's obviously not tucked away in that Speedo, right? Right. However, no matter how little clothing she has on, her first attempt at it is total Failsville. Not interested, he says. The bartender tells her that he doesn't think she's his type. I think he'd be much more interested in Tom from 'Lost', if you get my drift.

Time to bust out the big guns - Sucre! Sucre uses his big guns to get Scuderi's attention, and before long, the two men are back in his hotel room. Could the most macho cheeseball show in the history of time seriously be considering some hot man-on-man action? Of course not. That wouldn't sell nearly enough copies of Maxim, now would it? Scuderi turns the tables on Sucre by telling him that he was hideously maimed during his time in the military, and as a result of it, well... he doesn't have a dong anymore. There, I said it. Sucre's trying like hell to pick his jaw up off the floor when Scuderi drops the final bomb on him. See that curvy cougar lady standing over there in the doorway to the bedroom? Well, says Scuderi, that's my wife. Sucre puts the pieces together and damns the heavens above for making him so pretty. We should all have such problems, dude. Sucre gets the line of the night when he gets back to the team's hotel room with the contents of the card (but not his dignity) intact. 'It stays in Vegas', he says. You better hope it does, pretty boy.

Back in T-Bag's camp, things are moving quickly. They need to get into the GATE building to find out where to go on the blueprint Michael found, so they kidnap that douchebag who kept giving T-Bag so much guff about not doing any work, and then for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, they kill him. Well, I guess by that point, he'd seen too much, right? Right. T-Bag takes Michael into the room behind his office that he found (the one that was referenced on the blueprint as being '8x10'), and before long, Mike's up to his old tricks and bashing holes in the floor. He finds a metal door, and it's just like old times for T-Bag and Michael now. The two men make their way down into the subterranean room down there, but before T-Bag can get any more answers, Mahone pops up out of nowhere and helps Michael lock T-Bag in a caged room. Needless to say, he's pissed. See, Mahone followed the origami swan clue that Michael left for him back at the apartment they were being held in, and... Look, just go with it. It's Prison Break, for chrissakes.

Michael calls Don Self to come get T-Bag, and he tells Michael that he'll be held in protective custody until after the whole Scylla thing is worked out. Yeah, the previews for next week disagree with you, dude. Anyway, as they're leaving the building to head back to the warehouse, a nearby trashcan starts ringing. Wait, what? Oh, there's a cell phone hidden under a trashcan over there. That's better. Self picks it up, and it's Gretchen. She's not happy with how things have gone down, and unless they release T-Bag post-haste, they're not getting the pages of the bird book that she ripped out. Uh-oh.

So that's about it. Oh, wait! Remember how excited Roland was to get to Vegas, and how that might have something to do with his legal troubles involving gambling? Well, as the Vegas half of the crew was leaving town, Roland hung back a bit and tried to rig some slot machines with his magical portable hard drive. Wait, that thing can rig slot machines, as well? Hell, they should've spared Sucre the embarrassment and sent it upstairs to fuck Scuderi's wife, too. Anyway, as Roland is sitting there rigging slot machines, hotel security spots his weasely ass on the Eye In The Sky and comes downstairs to bust him. They let him leave, but not with the magical hard drive. They confiscate it, and Lincoln's so mad that he wants to leave Roland's ass out in the desert for Raoul Duke and his attorney to pick up.

So now are we done? Nope, not yet. Lincoln drops some knowledge on Sarah by telling her what's up with Michael's nosebleeds. Seems their mother died of a brain tumor, and before she shuffled off, she was having a lot of nosebleeds, too. Not only that, but when she died, their mother was the same age Michael is right now. Once again, I say uh-oh.

Okay, NOW we're done. Back to your previously scheduled lives, already in progress.

-littlebigmouth.