Episode Report Card Sobell: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Missing The Corner Pocket Shot
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 08.28.2005
So! Michael's still down a bolt, he gotten nowhere with Abruzzi, and now his PUGNAc supplier is really pissed at him. I'd say he's 0-for-3 today.
Meanwhile, on the outside...Tim Giles comes by Veronica's plushy office to apologize for being so short with her: "The closer it comes to an execution, the harder it becomes, so..." And then he makes a peace offering, handing over the surveillance tape from the garage the night Linc purportedly killed Terrence Steadman. He wishes her good luck, and she blurts out, "With what?" "Picking up subtle, coded clues, woman! You're supposed to be unraveling a conspiracy here!" he snaps. No, not really. He'd like her to get closure. Veronica pops it into the VCR she just happens to have in her office, and watches Linc lurch over to a parked car all Frankenstein-style. He's got a gun out, since "stealth" is apparently not a watchword when you're busy not-killing someone with that gun in your hand, and he walks over to the side of the car furthest from the tape and fires at something we can't see. Veronica looks taken aback. We get a close-up of her horrified mouth. And then another of her horrified eyes. We see Linc run around to the passenger side of the car to open it -- what, the bullet didn't shatter the glass on the driver's side? Should I just let go of this unreasonable expectation for things to make sense? -- and then he checks something in the front seat and runs off. Veronica looks aghast.
Cut to a really nice shot: it's of Michael standing alone, by the fence at the edge of the prison yard. The way the shot is framed, you see the smokestack looming on the left, then a low-slung prison building, then Michael standing straight on the right; it's just really nicely composed, and I like how the blue of his shirt is picked up again in the color of the sky. Ah, the sweet distraction of semiotics! Anyway, the menacing music starts up again, which is our cue to look for roving gangs of beefy African-American prisoners and -- look! There they are! I have a hard time believing that wiry little T-Bag, who looks like one of those yogis that lives off nothing buy silken tofu and rose-hip tea, is the rallying point for the Fabulously Gay White Supremacists; you'd think that someone would have tied him into a bow at some point and used him as a festive valance when decorating their cell.
Anyway, Michael watches the muttering mob with no small amount of trepidation. On the other side of the fence, Bellick comes over and growls, "Allen Schweitzer. That name mean anything to you?" Michael's expression almost changes. If he had an actual temper, he'd be screaming, "Sweet fancy Moses, what else can go wrong today? I lost my bolt, the Italian guy won't play ball, I think I just agreed to be someone's girlfriend, and there's a riot coming on!" But since this is Michael, he asks, "Should it?" Bellick says, "I dunno. You tell me." Michael stares straight ahead and coolly says, "Never heard of the guy." Bellick asks, "You sure?" Oh, yeah, he is. After Bellick leaves, Michael watches his back.