Episode Report Card Sobell: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Safe and Sound
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 09.22.2008
Back at Team Scylla, Michael shares the bad news: the safe is some super-scifi-biometric dealie that's cued only to open on Oren's fingerprints. Worse -- they've got to be still attached to his warm and living fingers, so lifting fingerprints off something isn't an option. Nobody thinks about, say, simply contriving to chop off one of the man's fingers. (Finally, three seasons later, an Abruzzi solution that would be appropriate!) The next complications: the 12-digit key code, and a set of hinges that are wired to the alarm. Michael adds, "The bones of this thing are ¾-inch cobalt plate alloy. Drilling's not going to work. Not in our time frame." Don Self says, "So, basically, we have a way to get you into the garage which, in case you guys forgot, puts me on the hook for another four (federal) charges, but no way to get you up to the tenth floor. But let's say we do get you up to the tenth floor. Then we need to get you into Oren's office for an hour in the middle of the day. Then we need to hope that not one of Oren's coworkers is going to hear the extremely loud drill that you're going to be using to break into a safe that, I'm telling you, cannot be broken into. Do you understand? There are Homeland agents whose sole job is to design measures to make this structure impregnable." Michael reminds Don Self who his daddy is with, "Yeah. They had those guys at Fox River too."
Linc manages to hide his amusement and we soon get the seeds of the plan. DOJ employee Sam Middleton has the office right next to Oren's, and as luck would have it, they share a common wall.
Then we cut to Mahone leaning over Roland's shoulder as Roland plays on his computer. Roland's got the credit card info -- used at the bar at 10:32 a.m. Dr. Sara first spotted Agent Blots Out the Sun at 11 a.m. Mahone's in full agent mode as he whips out a map and estimates the likely radius of Agent Blots Out the Sun's perambulations. Within a few seconds, Mahone's managed to deduce exactly where Agent Blots Out the Sun is staying -- within easy access to a freeway, at someplace where he can pay with cash and nobody asks questions, and where he can easily get to his car. For once, Roland has nothing mouthy to say; he just sets to searching for hotels within a nine-mile radius that fit those criteria.
T-Bag is still dicking around in his office -- I suppose a lifetime in prison means he wouldn't realize that a lot of sales requires being out of the office on calls -- and he tags the receptionist Tricia to bring him another cup of tea. She does not remind him that it's 2008, and so far as she knows, there is nothing wrong with his legs. Instead, she says she can't leave the desk because Sucre and Bellick happen to be there. We see T-Bag dive behind the lounge chair in his office.