Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | 1 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Let the Water Wash Away Your Sins
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.03.2008
Back at the corporate lair of evil, General Von Baldy asks, "How's Emmy?" Gretchen's not looking at him as she says, "I didn't come here to listen to you pretend to care about her. Or me." That little girl comes from Gretchen and General Von Baldy? Good God, she's a one-person case study in the power of nature versus nurture. Gretchen turns around and faces General Von Baldy to say, "I came here to tell you that I'm a free agent now. The community that we run with know[s] that I'm alive and available. I can just as easily work for one of them as I can for you, so the question is: What's your offer?" General Von Baldy calls her on her "You know, I could date any other guy" schtick, and purrs, "It's not a time for grudges, Gretchen. It's a time for coming together. The salad days are fast approaching. Laos worked perfectly. Soon, the populace will turn to us -- the leaders of the military, finance and energy -- to right the ship. And then, we'll rebuild this country in our own image. And when we do, I want you there beside me, as my number two, as I always promised." I do believe General Von Baldy is the first person since Sara Crewe to use "the populace" in a wholly unironic way. Awww! Who was a little general in boarding school, even when nobody else believed him? Von Baldy, that's who! However, I have this warning for Gretchen: Go get an iPod and listen carefully to the lyrics of Joe Jackson's "Number Two (Won't You Be?)" There is a cautionary tale there, especially since Von Baldy's giving you a song-and-dance about how Lisa means nothing to him. Also, regarding this scene: Aaaaaaigh. Blergh. Huuuuuuurl.
Michael and Sucre continue to try and guide the sleeve through the hole, in a sequence that is completely and utterly devoid of any homoerotic subtext whatsoever despite all the sweaty men straining and grunting and shouting, "Keep going! Keep going!" Well done, Prison Break. That takes talent. Anyway, the thin sliver of wood propping up the sleeve is groaning dangerously, which is Linc's cue to say, "I don't know how long that's going to hold." There's more sweating, straining, grunting and pushing, and that is when the wooden plank breaks, causing the big, heavy sleeve to fall down into the even bigger drainage pipe. Lincoln helpfully points out, "It broke!"
Fortunately for Team Scylla, nobody in the GATE offices heard them. That's possibly because Empty Suit White is being buried under a metric ton of T-Bag's southern-fried horsepuckey, as T-Bag is busy blaming all his accounting discrepancies on the now-departed Andrew. T-Bag sorrowfully explains the checks clearing with "[Andrew] must have been money-laundering for God only knows what criminal exploits. The point is, if the good officer gets his hands on the papers, you know you are going to be up to your eyeballs in IRS auditors. I suggest you go tell [the detective] that you found some irregularities in Mr. Blauner's expenses, writing off personal matters, et cetera. This will explain why he disappeared, and we'll placate the po-po." Empty Suit White has a look like, "People actually say 'po-po' outside The Wire?" but he agrees to the charade." And that is how T-Bag gets away with (being an accessory to) murder. Again.