Episode Report Card Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The light you see at the end of the tunnel…
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 13 | Aired on 11.27.2005
We get back to the prison, and the anti-death penalty activists have set up their vigil. Linc is still playing with the matches. Given how woodenly he's reciting the 23rd Psalm, it's a wonder he doesn't come with a "FIRE RISK: HIGH" sign nailed to his trunk. We transition to the chaplain finishing the psalm in Michael's cell. Both he and Michael are kneeling as they pray. Michael is looking unusually humble. The chaplain tries to be comforting and Michael's actually getting weepy. Then he hands over a rosary and asks, "Would you give this to my brother? It would mean a lot to him, knowing it came from me." Sucre comes back into the cell, looks at Michael reproachfully, and says, "That was my mother's." Michael's nearly back to his old self as he replies, "Tell her it saved someone a lot of pain." Sucre nags, "Do you know what you're doing?" By this time, Michael's completely composed; he says, "It's in God's hands now." (God: "So you expect Me to feel generous after you hoodwinked My employee with that rosary?")
Only THEN does Michael head to the clinic. Good thing cutting into your skin and bleeding all over everything couldn't threaten your help. Dr. Sara's sterilizing the area none-too-gently. Michael keeps his tone light as he says, "Feels like you've been the clean-up crew for me the whole time I've been in here. Toes, contusions, insulin shots." Dr. Sara doesn't even look at him as she says, "Well, somebody's got to do it." Michael's looking at her with less smugness than usual as he tells her he's grateful. Then he asks, "Did you ever think, that in another life --" "I won't be that woman, Michael," Dr. Sara says. Michael backtracks, "I wasn't asking you to be. But it is something I wonder about." I wonder about how you'd handle introductions: "This is my wife, the illegal alien stripper. And my girlfriend, the well-connected doctor." Anyway, Michael tells her, he wants to make sure it's out there. Dr. Sara finally looks at him as she asks, "Why do I feel like you're saying goodbye to me?" Michael smiles and plays dumb. A nurse tells Dr. Sara that once again, the clinic's been backing up while she dillydallies with Michael, so she makes to wrap this up. Michael grabs her arm, sliding down to her hand, and says, "Doctor…" She looks at their hands; he looks at her and says, in all sincerity, "Thank you." It's all very loaded with tension and whatnot, but would these two just get a room already? Michael walks off, leaving Sara to think, "Damn! Now I have to re-read Don't Do Life in the Prison of Love!"
As Dr. Sara leaves the examining room, a maintenance guy comes in, replaces a few things, and just happens to notice the grungy grate under the sink. Why, that's the grate in which Michael's been dumping caustic chemicals!