Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | 1 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Let the Water Wash Away Your Sins
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.03.2008
Aboveground, T-Bag is basically boring his interrogator to death as he tries to deny loathing Andrew. White comes in at the end of another of T-Bag's florid monologues with Andy's travel schedules, and that's when Bellick and Linc decide to pop out of the closet. White asks reasonably, "What's this?" Sadly, neither Lincoln nor Bellick have the presence of mind to reply, "Shit! We're not in Narnia anymore, are we?" but Bellick does manage to improvise with a line about getting more bracket joints for the shelves. T-Bag then smoothly lies to his boss and the detective about how he's getting shelves installed in the closet on his own dime, because he's a giver like that. Bellick takes off with "Wait up, Manuel." He's doomed. You know why he's doomed? He's getting the best lines this week.
Now it's Don Self's turn to get in the cage with Agent Blots Out the Sun, who asks him, "You're going to talk to me now?' Don Self says, "Me? No -- we're done talking, but you're not." He pushes a button on a digital recorder and we hear the sound file: "They're all dead. It's over." Then Don heads out with Agent Blots Out the Sun's phone. Mahone comes back in, and asks Don Self quietly, "Can you take a walk?" Don Self just happens to need a god leg-stretching, so he agrees. He also prods Dr. Sara outside. She huffs out -- I guess nobody reminded her that Agent Blots Out the Sun brutally tortured and killed her surrogate father Bruce a few episodes back, or else she wouldn't be on such a high horse.
And in this week's "Plotline that can be summed up in one paragraph" paragraph, because I have a weak stomach for graphic depictions of torture: Mahone tortures and kills Agent Blots out the Sun. However, I am sure you want the gruesome details, so... it turns out that Agent Blots Out the Sun has a truly cheesy lion king-style tattoo on his chest, and we know this because Mahone rips open his shirt and puts on the sensors for a heart monitor. Then he says, "My son's autopsy report said he'd been shot twice. Once in the stomach. [sobs] Why? Just -- [grabs Agent Blots Out the Sun's throat] in front of my wife! And then a full five minutes later, right in the..." Mahone can't finish. He just points a finger to the spot immediately above the bridge of his nose. The upshot is clear: Agent Blots Out the Sun deliberately extended the child's suffering. Mahone decrees, "You, too, will suffer. And when you can't stand the pain anymore, you'll make a phone call for me. You know, Scofield said that torture wouldn't work because [General Von Baldy] would hear the fear in your voice, but the thing is, I want the person on the other end of the call to hear the fear." Then he discloses how he'll break Agent Blots Out the Sun: through acupuncture. No, seriously: "The most sensitive nerve endings are [at the tips of your fingers]. That's why acupuncturists avoid placing needles anywhere near them, because opening up the nerve endings in a fingertip, even a little pinprick, can result in quite a painful hot flash. So a five-inch needle being driven up the length of your finger--" Well, even Agent Blots Out the Sun has to scream at that. But lest Agent Blots Out the Sun actually pass out from the pain and gain a moment's release, Mahone's going to use the portable heart monitor he's rigged up to watch Agent Blots Out the Sun's vital signs, and thus calibrate his acutorture so as to keep Agent Blots Out the Sun conscious and in the maximum amount of pain. After we've seen a few scenes where Agent Blots Out the Sun is in horrific pain, Mahone monologues: "Acceptance is important, Wyatt. I had to accept that my son is gone. And you have to accept that your life -- your very short life span ahead of you -- is just going to be filled with agonizing pain. At least, until you do what I've asked of you. And then, then the pain will go away." He smiles a little, but if Mahone thinks the pain will go away for him or Pam, he's deluding himself.