Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT "You're a Waste of My Fries"
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.09.2006
Field trip! The bloodhound gang heads over to the well, and Nick notices that it's been covered up. Veronica erroneously concludes that someone must have already come for Quinn. As the snow comes down gently, Nick concludes that there's no better time to poke around an abandoned well than in wet and freezing weather. He lifts off the well cover, and only then does it hit them that perhaps that putrescent smell wafting on the breeze could be connected to the corpse below. Quinn died with cell phone in hand. Veronica and Nick both look at LJ.
That poor kid. He's been shot at, framed for his mom's murder, unable to visit his dad, forced to hang out with Nick and Veronica, and now this? Also -- while LJ is a teenager and therefore still possessed of a metabolism that would keep him skinny, Veronica is still smaller and lighter. It makes more sense to make her go get the phone. But poor LJ's being lowered into the well by Nick -- Veronica's sole contribution is to sit around and look really really really concerned -- and he quickly grabs the phone. As he's waiting to be pulled back up, he looks over at a wall. Quinn apparently had the wherewithal to scratch "KELLERMAN," then beneath it "O. KRAVECKI." And that is why Kellerman ought to have shot Quinn or dropped a really heavy rock on his head. Dead men write no graffiti.
Michael's ushered back into Pope's office. He stands there, looking faintly smug, while Pope tells him, "I want you to be absolutely honest with me. Dr. Tancredi found this [burnt crunchy bit of uniform] embedded in your flesh when she was treating you. Apparently it came from a guard's uniform. Have you been assaulted by an officer? I need an answer. This is not about sticking to the inmates' code anymore, this is about officer misconduct." To his credit, Michael actually looks really unhappy. Pope twists the knife a little more with, "This is my responsibility. You wouldn't want to see me lose my job now, would you?" Michael scrambles for a way out of this, saying sincerely, "Of course not! You have been very good to me and my brother --" Pope cuts him off with, "I need to know where you got that burn, right now. Otherwise, your ass is going to solitary, you understand? Your choice."
Michael makes his choice off-camera, because the next thing we see is him struggling like crazy, screaming, "Don't do this! Don't do this!" as the guards wrestle him down the hall and throw him into a cell. Perhaps it's just me, but I wonder if maybe a cell of one's own wouldn't be a welcome diversion from the whole no-privacy prison area. I mean, when you're not trying to escape from prison, it might be, anyway.