Episode Report Card Sobell: B | 1 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Well, look what you've done now, Michael
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 10.02.2005
Michael snakes his way through the pipes. Really, there is nothing I can add to that.
Meanwhile, at 20,000 feet above the point at which I actually care...Nick and Veronica are flying Fantasy Airlines to D.C. No screaming babies, nobody watching vile, hard-core, multispecies pornography on their laptop computer, an aisle down the main cabin that doubles as a bowling alley, a dearth of drunken tourists rehashing their vacation at the top of their lungs, a lack of seat-kicking children...I'd continue, but I'm now seething with resentment that all my frequent-flyer miles are not on Fantasy Airlines. And I'm bitter because Nick and Veronica are not sitting in airline seats so much as they're sitting in those plushy chair-and-a-half armchairs that Pottery Barn sells. Enough about me: the whole point to this scene is that Veronica is apparently all about trusting Nick the Legal Beagle now, and she tells him, "Before Steadman was killed, EcoField introduced a prototype electric engine at the TechnoConference. Sixty-dollar barrels of oil would be obsolete, if that thing ever hit the mainstream." And so too would InterCaps, one hopes. Nick begins pointing fingers at the oil industry and adds darkly, "Or the government of an oil-based economy." Anyhoodle, once these two dullards land, they're supposed to meet up with Nick's source in a parking garage. These two are not so much Woodward and Bernstein as they are Wooden and Boring.
Things are much more interesting inside the prison, where the inmates are still trying to break the windows in the doctorquarium. You know, I can appreciate that these guys have gone a long time without female companionship, but doesn't this seem like an awful lot of effort? Dr Tancredi engages in a little prison-riot cross-training, alternating her shiv-curling lunges with her aerobic screaming activities. Fortunately, her yelling helps Michael figure out which fork he ought to take in the heating duct. He continues slithering, then finds a pipe and hoists himself along it, hand-over-hand.
Outside the prison, the governor's just arrived. That was a speedy trip from Springfield. The limo and security detail pass through a gaggle of what are ostensibly reporters, but are really just polite, well-dressed looky-loos with microphones. As Pope notices all this hoopla driving over his formerly pristine prison lawn, he tells Bellick, "That's the governor. Whatever happens, don't say anything." As the governor gets out, Pope attempts to rip the Band-Aid off his seeping career wound quickly with, "You should know since our last conversation, the situation has escalated, but not to worry. We're making good progress with our contacts and --" "Just cut the crap, warden! And tell me where my daughter is," the governor snaps. Pope's all, "Uhhhh…" Even Bellick -- who displays a near-invincibility to other people's discomfort -- cringes.
Well, if the governor were watching this show, he'd see that Dr. Tancredi's still working on the crouch-and-scream plan.