Episode Report Card Mr. Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mama's Family
By Mr. Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.17.2009
We return from a commercial break to rejoin Memories of My Mother with Michael Scofield already in progress. Sitting in the trailer of the Dallas-bound 18-wheeler, Sara seems fascinated by Michael's tales of his mother's cookie-baking prowess and kickball-playing exploits and other non-Company agent tendencies and behaviors. Me, I'd like him to go back to wordlessly pouting. We do learn that Michael saw Mom's medical file -- add HIPPA violations to The Company's list of wrongdoings -- and that she had the same diagnosis as him, and that Company doctors also operated on her. So she was doubtlessly up and about immediately after brain surgery, too. Also, amid Michael's ceaselessly mewling, Sara leads him to the conclusion that General Von Baldy is only revealing the existence of Michael's mother now because he hopes to use it to his nefarious purposes.
Speaking of America's greatest bald super-villain outside of comic books, he's riding in a limousine with Oren, the company stooge who got his safe drilled into a while back. And the General just can't keep from singing Michael's praises: "Beyond question, he possess the most gifted mind of any man I've ever encountered." "Well, I'll try not to take that too personally," Oren cracks. Well, you should -- you're a horrible disappointment. Which is what the General would say if he weren't too busy nursing his scotch. "If we could have turned Michael Scofield," the General continues, "it would have been like having 30 more years of Christina." Oren has apparently heard enough -- he tells the General's driver to pull over where another sedan is waiting. "That's my ride," Oren says. Out here? In the middle of nowhere? Because this is a total setup? Indeed. And by time the General figures out what's going on, both the driver and Oren have hightailed it out of Dodge, leaving Von Baldy to struggle with his non-compliant seatbelt. The General manages to grab what appears to be the corkscrew from the limo's mini-bar and begins slashing away at the seatbelt to free himself. It says something about Prison Break's world view that a seatbelt is an instrument aimed at hastening your death, while a tool for providing you easy access to liver-destroying booze is in fact the pathway to redemption. While I muse over that, the General's limo is blown to kingdom come. So he's dead, right? Maybe... though on this show, I'd wait to see a body before I jumped to any conclusions. And even then, I'd just assume it was an evil twin or something.