Episode Report Card Sobell: A | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT He is a man of constant smirking
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 08.28.2005
And then the next morning, Michael knocks over a bank. We quickly establish that Michael's probably the world's most incompetent robber, and that the absent bank manager is a fiend for White Castle's sliders. He dawdles long enough for the cops to arrive, and as he turns around, we see that he's got the ghost of a smile on his face.
And then, we are in court. This episode is not messing around in setting up the premise at all, is it? Judge Hardass is barking, "Rarely in the case of armed robbery do we hear a plea of 'No contest.' Are you sure about this, Mr. Scofield?" Michael stops staring into the middle distance long enough to snap to and say crisply, "I'm sure, your honor." His lawyer, Veronica Donovan, is all, "Yeah, hold that thought, your honor. My client's confused." Michael inadvertently helps Veronica's case by insisting he's not. Because squabbling with your attorney is never a problem sign in a trial. And then Michael proceeds to sass Judge Hardass. Veronica looks down at him in total amazement, and he's smirking ever so slightly again. Then he catches sight of his nephew L.J., and that chases the smirk right from his mug. L.J. calls his name, and for the first time, Michael is shaken out of his remote resolve. He says, "I didn't want you to come. Go home, L.J. I didn't want you to see this."
And now, time for counsel and client to disagree some more. "He's not going to take this well," Michael frets. "Can you blame him? He's your nephew. He's going to get the idea that anybody he attaches himself to is going to end up in prison," Veronica replies. This is where Michael and Veronica should agree to send her after the poor kid, to maybe head off that assumption. But nooooooo -- we have to set up the backstory between these two. She's all, "I've known you my whole life, and you never once indicated that you'd be so spectacularly incompetent as a bank robber," and he's all, "Lady, step off. Gratitude for your past friendship and compassion only goes so far."
And we have to have Veronica warn, "You put the book in that woman's hand and she's going to lob it like a grenade: justice and punishment are the same thing to her." Well, that puts the smirk right back on Michael's face. He sobers up in time to have the judge hit him with a volume titled Since You Pulled a Gun, That's Five Years in Top-Security State Prison Fox River Penitentiary, straight in the kisser. It does not knock the middle-distance stare off his face. At least it sits well: Wentworth Miller has a remarkably symmetric face.