Episode Report Card Sobell: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Teddy And His Telephone
By Sobell | Season 3 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.30.2007
Up in the room where she's being kept, Dr. Sara sees Linc kneeling in the square (where he's muttering "Clock, clock..." like some deranged character in a Poe story) and manages to kick a shoe out of the window. The shoe and the realization of what Dr. Sara meant hit Linc at roughly the same time.
So Linc goes running into the building where Dr. Sara and LJ are being kept, and a low-level flunky end up on the wrong end of the LINCOLN SMASH! Lincoln breaks into the room just in time to see L.J. spirited away, has to do another LINCOLN SMASH!, and then heads down a flight of stairs in time to see L.J. (and the leg of the presumed Dr. Sara) hustled into an anonymous van, which then leaves with all due haste. Linc tries to catch the van on foot but, alas, he only has the Hulk's superstrength and not his freakish speed.
We cut to Susan B. strolling along a riverside walk. She gets a phone call from someone -- "They made a move. Burrows made a move" -- and stops, either in shock or irritation. Susan B. begins to press for more details.
Back in prison, Linc has just finished telling Michael of his day's labors, concluding, "It was the right place. I just couldn't get to them in time." Nor did you have the manpower to have all the exits covered. So don't blame yourself, Linc. Blame Sucre for not being around to help. Michael asks whether L.J. and Dr. Sara looked all right. Linc confirms that they did, and then points to the Polaroid Michael's still clutching: "You can keep that and give it to Sara as a souvenir when this is all done." I so hope that Dr. Sara can burn it in a ritual of some sort, and not in the "And this is the photo I cherished during your harrowing hostage ordeal. Shall we scrapbook it along with the others?" way. Michael is one big gloom cookie, and Linc gives him a pep talk: "Michael, we can do this. They wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to put you in here if it was impossible to get out. We can do this. We can do it." This bucks up Michael.
That is, it bucks Michael up until he flashes back to the first episode of the season, and all the ways people were shot in the head. Michael's busy meditating on that when Whistler comes in, all, "We need to talk." Michael agrees: he would like to know why the One World Conspiracy is so interested in Whistler, who finally spills: "I've been splitting time between here and the Pacific Northwest, running charters. Fishing, sightseeing, whatever was paying the bloody rent. About a year ago, I took a guy out. He was some sort of naturalist. He was taking water samples, measurements. I didn't really care [why] as long as the check cleared. But here's the thing: a few months later, I get a call from somebody wanting to know where I took the guy. And I told them I couldn't remember. But then these government types, they started showing up at my flat asking questions. I didn't know what to do. So I got low, I came down to Panama, and I moved in with Sofia full-time, until [the fight at the bar]. And then I'm moved in here, where those same people show up at visitation, saying they're going to get me out, and when they do, I'm to take them to the same place I took that guy. That's why I need the book your brother got. It's my trip log. I write notes in the margins -- coordinates, landmarks. I need to retrace my steps and find that location. I don't have a choice." Michael is skeptical, and smarms a bit about holding on to the book. He and Whistler then snarl at each other some, because they're too stubborn, stupid or crazy to see that if they put their heads together, they can both get what they want. Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on the guys: months of fugitive living (Michael) or weeks of rat dining (Whistler) might make anyone slower on the uptake. Whistler eventually simmers down and makes nice with Michael.