Episode Report Card Sobell: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT To Thine Own Self Be True
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 11.24.2008
Meanwhile, T-Bag is losing his cool. He figures Team Scylla found another way out, a hypothesis Gretchen dismisses as "impossible." Clearly, her brief working relationship with Michael has not schooled her on his uncanny aptitude for pulling off the impossible. T-Bag shouts, "How much longer are we going to wait?" and when Gretchen rips into him, Trisha takes advantage of the squabbling to sneak over to where the GATE employees are all being held. Of course she's in a camisole, miniskirt and heels whilst doing so. She comes in, shushing everyone and brandishing her badge, then unties everyone. This turns out to be a strategic mistake, because she unties White and he decides that when it comes to escaping from an office held hostage by two gun-wielding maniacs, he'd rather trust his own instincts than the advice of the federal agent who has managed to thus far elude said gun-wielding maniacs. So Trisha's plan to sneak people out in dribs and drabs is torpedoed by White's desperate make-a-break-for-it sprint. This, of course, prompts a hail of gunfire from Gretchen and T-Bag, White is riddled with bullets, and the entire office degenerates into chaos and carnage. (And let me tell you something: recapping fictional violence mere days after the horrific carnage in Mumbai is beyond surreal. If anyone ever needs to underline the difference between violent entertainment and real life, try this exercise.)
Back to Team Scylla: they've decided to twist the knife a little as they walk out with Von Baldy. Mahone asks, "How does it feel, huh? Doing something you don't want to do, knowing that if you don't go through with it, someone you care about's going to suffer." Sucre adds something in Spanish -- alas, he speaks too quickly for me to understand and the closed captioning is useless. Oh, wait -- perhaps his added "What goes around, comes around" is meant as translation. Von Baldy's got a 5000-yard stare; he's plainly trying to think ahead as to how to come out on top in this situation.
Lisa is trying to infect Dr. Sara with a quick and convenient case of compassion. Her vector of transmission: giant moist eyes and talk-show-delivery of lines like "I can't imagine what you've been through." Dr. Sara, however, has had a comprehensive set of vaccinations against mendacity and continues with binding Lisa's hands and keeping the gun trained on her. Lisa tries, "You used to be a doctor. You devoted your whole life to helping people. Now look at you: they have you holding your gun on an innocent woman." Dr. Sara dryly asks, "You're just crunching numbers and running data to make the world a better place?" Lisa's all "I ... have no reply to that." She is then forced to lie to her security detail about why she's tarrying in the bathroom, calling out, "I'm soaking my skirt. If I don't get the grease out before it gets to the cleaners, it'll be ruined." The guard looks at the restroom door with a look of baffled terror -- clearly, both expensive clothing and dry cleaning frighten and confuse him -- and backs away slowly. Dr. Sara keeps her gun nestled beneath Lisa's chin and says, "I don't know what it looks like up in your ivory tower. But down on the ground, men and women are dying and lives are being ruined. So I'm prepared to do absolutely anything in order to stop you people." She then orders Lisa to turn around. The teary woman prepares for her death ...