Episode Report Card Sobell: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Veronica -- dead!
By Sobell | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 08.20.2006
The cameras zoom in on Veronica's face as she realizes that once again, her inability to think like a sneaky bastard has gotten her in a bad situation. Then they zoom out to provide a nice contrast to the confines of the house -- a beautiful lake, and a deserted dock leading to said lake. Linc and Michael are sitting on the lake. Linc thinks the brothers should ditch the rest of Team Escarpara, but Michael says, "We can't. They know about Utah." Linc more or less points out that two people with an elaborate contingency plan have substantially better odds of reaching Utah before three people with scanty improvisational skills. Michael rebuts that the guys are likely to get caught and therefore sic the Feds on Los Brothers Burrows/Scofield in Utah. He figures they're all a big happy team until at least Utah. We pan to the suspicious mugs of C-Note, Abruzzi and Sucre.
Meanwhile, Linc asks if the money's really there. Not wishing to speak excessively ill of the (sob! Sniff!) recently dead, Michael replies, "Charles may have had a flexible relationship with the truth, but at the end...at the end, there would be no reason for him to lie about it. I figure once we bag it, we cross over in Mexico." Michael begins to smile a little as he continues, "Take a whole bunch of bumpy, second-class bus rides until we can get to Panama." The non-related members of Team Escarpara continue their glowering as they try to eavesdrop. Linc grins at Michael as he says, "You really got a fix on this dive shop thing, huh?" Michael is equally amused as he says, "Yeah. Right now, I wouldn't mind swinging in a hammock for the next 10, 20 years." Then Linc plays Captain Bringdown by reminding Michael that half the country is after them. Michael then propels season two forward by telling him that A) Linc should just let go of any idea that Veronica will be of any assistance, and B) he was smart enough to set up a plan B on the off-chance that his carefully-planned season one breakout was complicated by a few extra inmates, the death of the money guy, a handcuffing to T-Bag, some bassackwards driving on Linc's part, and juuuuuust missing the plane on the runway, duh. Michael tells Linc they have everything they need in storage; then he looks at the tattooed inscription "Ripe Chance Woods" around his wrist.
Meanwhile, back at FBI field headquarters in Chicago, the tattoo artist Sid is busy telling Mahone that Michael designed the whole tattoo. She says, "He brought it in, every element. Look at it -- it's the friggin' Sistine Chapel. I knew the guy was an engineer or whatever, but man, his skill as an artist was unbelievable." Mahone is not big into art: "What else? What can you tell me about him as a person?" Sid thinks. She finally says, "Ah, he was cool, you know? But talk about a detail Nazi! Everything had to be perfect, exactly as he drew it. I always sort of had the feeling that the whole thing was some sort of inside joke that only he was in on." Mahone looks at one of the tattoo shots and catches sight of "English, Fitz, Percy." He gets a flash of inspiration, so it's see ya, Sid. Then he calls for his colleague Foley, asking her for the name of the long road they took to get to the prison. "I think it was English street?" she replies. A few more Who's-on-first-style questions, and Mahone's figured out that Michael was encoding breakout clues in his tattoo. Kudos to him for figuring out in sixteen minutes of one episode what an entire prison staff missed through all of season one!