Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Shut Down
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.08.2008
We cut to Roland discovering that the Feds have pulled the plug on his computer. He sasses at Linc, "I've even tried a backdoor entry. You were in prison -- I'm sure you were familiar with that one." Roland has the survival instincts of a bug facing a windshield. He's also a lot more likely to become unwillingly familiar with that prison practice than Linc ever was. Mahone confirms that they're being shut down, what with him having been on the other end of this, and Michael triple-verifies that with Sucre's text. Roland declines to escape with the rest of them, so Mahone, Dr. Sara and the brothers pile in a pristine gargantomobile and take off. Fortunately for all of them, Linc's well-versed in evasive driving by this point in the series.
Michael calls Don Self to delicately inquire, "What the hell?" and Don Self kicks the blame upstairs, and once Michael realizes there is no reasoning with Don Self when he's in Organizational Drone mode, he barks at Linc, "Lose him!" Linc -- who is already feeling nigh-invincible thanks to his ax-wielding caper and his casual abuse of Roland -- happily complies. After your usual car chase sequence, the Gargantomobile is, of course, trapped by several government vehicles. I get distracted wondering exactly how much taxpayer money goes toward keeping these gas guzzlers filled with unleaded, and Team Scylla commences the footrace portion of events. As always, I retain admiration for how recent toe-amputee Michael is capable of sprinting with the rest of them.
After everyone takes a break behind a cargo container, Mahone shouts at Michael, "Why the hell did you tell Self we'd have a cardholder by today?" Michael shouts back, "I didn't have a choice!" and Mahone shouts, "And now none of us have a choice!" I... may pass out here, as Mahone + Shouting = Just as Hot as Michael + Shouting. I believe in algebra that we expressed this as a+b = c+b, where b=shouting. Now, solving for a and c only proves that really, Michael and Mahone are Mental Mates. Ah, I love it when we can use math to impose continuity upon a TV show!
Linc interrupts the shouting match -- dammit! -- and reminds them all that there is the small issue of the ankle monitors to deal with, plus eleventy-dozen feds on their tails, plus no clue as to where the cardholder meeting is, so maybe just focus on solving those problems first?
Apparently, Michael manages one of those problems because we then cut to Don Self running around in circles and exclaiming, "The signal's gone! The signal's gone!" Let us all take a moment to stop and marvel at the diversity in federal hiring -- on the one hand, you've got Lang and Mahone. And on the other ... you have Don Self. I wonder who on the writing staff had the bad TSA screening experience at the airport and decided to take it out on Homeland Security.