Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship
By Sobell | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.11.2007
Meanwhile, on the outside...Susan B. is in some dreary big conference room setting up the "bang and burn" with a small army of conspiracy dudes. Where have these guys been all along, and why weren't they better deployed in managing Linc and Sofia? It's a bizarre deployment of resources. At one point, someone actually says, "I do have a call into Sergeant York," and I figure this scene has moved into the realm of the ridiculous. Next!
So we're on to Sofia reading the newspaper and noting that nobody made it out of the previous day's escape attempt. Her reading is interrupted by a call from someone trying to locate "the family of Mr. James Whistler." Sofia lies that she's his wife. We soon learn that Whistler has another apartment across town, and his landlord, Tommy Day (another expat American), is calling because some pipes burst and the apartment next door flooded. The landlord asks her to come by (he tracked her down via Whistler's last phone bill), and as he does, we see that the One World Conspiracy is listening in on the call. Within seconds, the eavesdropping stooge is calling Susan B. to let her know that Sofia's on her way over to the apartment.
Inside Sona, Whistler's in his cell, perusing his field guide to the birds of North America. He flips to a page where he's written some words about Mahone -- "special ops," "drugs," "family," "One World Conspiracy" among them -- then rips out the page and burns it via an apple-green votive candle. Actually, Whistler's whole cell looks like it came from Pier One Imports -- bronzy votive holders, exotic bird tchotkes, a vase, et cetera. Truly, this humble fisherman has many hidden facets. Michael pops over right then to share the news that they've got four more days in which to escape; Whistler looks sick as he nods. Michael continues that he's not sure how they'll get out, but Whistler's not really listening. He's checking his watch -- "bang and burn" is due to begin in ninety minutes. This reminds me...remember how twenty-four hours ago, these guys were beating the stuffing out of one another? Isn't it great how each man repeatedly landed punch after punch on his opponent's face, yet nobody has any bruises today? Michael finally notices that Whistler's not at all there, and says sarcastically, "I'm sorry -- is this a bad time for you?" Whistler says, "It's been an intense twenty-four hours. I have things on my mind." Michael replies, "Like your last trip to visitation, maybe...forgive me if I'm wrong, but she doesn't really strike me as the girlfriend type." Whistler shares that his visitor was a part of the One World Conspiracy, and she's there for motivational purposes. Then he storms off all pissy-like. Conveniently, this lets him meet up with some rotund bald guy who's rocking a serious eye-patch, and a fat wad of rolls later, Whistler's got himself a shiv.
Meanwhile, on the outside...we have officially run into another episode that features a plotline so extraneous to the main act, it deserves the one-paragraph treatment. Regrettably, it's the Mahone plot this time. We zoom in to his hotel room (where, I might add, the pillow sham embroidery is to die for -- Hable Construction would charge T-Bag's arm and a leg for one of those) and then to Mahone himself, who is hallucinating all the people he killed last season. But as he mumbles, "Shales. Shales..." Agent Lang comes on in. When the sweaty, not-lucid Mahone gives her the Manson Lamps, she mutters, "Oh, my God. What the hell is going on?" And then Mahone has one of the meatiest mental breakdowns on TV: he gradually reveals that he killed Shales because "I couldn't -- couldn't turn him over. Some scumbag lawyer was just going to get him off. Just no, no, no. So I killed him. And I felt...good. I felt, I felt really good." Lang sits down next to him, not looking at him, the professional interrogator taking over. Then Mahone reveals that he began hallucinating Shales's final moments, so he took serious hard-core drugs to even out his emotional keel, but once he was thrown in Sona, the pharmacy was low on anti-psychotics, so he "had to...[voice breaks] improvise." Lang winces in very real pain. But then, Mahone channels classic addict behavior by positing that if Lang can score him some pills just this once, he will be able to pull it together long enough to testify. It is a truly heartbreaking scene -- Mahone is begging, and Lang's just admitted that she's down here because she respects and cares about him. But then he's in court and rambling like a demented nutbar in the throes of withdrawal -- which he is -- and when Lang comes in, she catches one look at this and drops the pills she's procured into a trash can. When all is said and done, she has to break it to Mahone that unfortunately, his testimony (or lack thereof) has sent him back to Sona. And that is how Mahone will end up on Re-Team Escarpara.