Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship
By Sobell | Season 3 | Episode 8 | Aired on 11.11.2007
Then we see that Pike has Sofia. He makes the classic bad-guy mistake of gloating: "Different day, same problem, huh, Lincoln? You know how this turned out when L.J. was in this position. And today is no different. Be a good boy and put down the gun." Linc looks like he's thinking "LINCOLN AM NOT SCHOOLBOY." Pike then says the exact wrong thing: "Come on. I know you learned your lesson." Lincoln concedes, "You're right. I have." And then he kills Pike. Sofia looks at him with something akin to amazement.
Back in Sona, Michael finally finds Whistler in a conveniently empty hall on the second floor. Whistler lies that he's been looking for scrap metal for the tunnel's support braces. Michael says, "Really?" right before he reaches up and pushes back an acoustic ceiling tile that was already loose. He adds, "Looks like a pretty tight squeeze up there. You sure there's enough fresh air, or does the claustrophobia come and go?" Whistler glares at him and asks, "What's it like? Going through life, always distrustful?" Michael gives him the Blue Steel and says, "You tell me, James."
Before this can turn into another rock-em-sock-em fight, T-Bag comes strolling on by with news that Lechero would like to talk to Michael about Linc. Michael is in Lechero's office in a flash, and Lechero tells T-Bag to am-scray. Lechero tells Michael, "If your brother should ever call my cell phone again, you tell him you're the one who's going to pay." Michael doesn't say anything. Lechero then offers him the phone, and Michael promptly calls Linc. Michael's all, "You got the message?" and Linc breezily says, "You were right -- they just tried to take us out." Michael replies, "Whistler got a visit from the One World Conspiracy. He's been acting strange ever since. I'm telling you something's up." Linc adds to that by sharing the news about Sofia and concluding, "The One World Conspiracy's coming after us." Michael's eyes bug out as he concludes, "They don't need us any more. They're breaking him out on their own."
They sure are. We see a helicopter wheel over Sona, and then it opens fire on the guard towers. We see Whistler somehow pop up to the roof -- if it was this easy, why aren't there inmates camped out up there all the time? And then he's raising his arms and shouting for the helicopter. Michael sprints over to where he last saw Whistler, figures out that he's up on the roof, curses briefly, then heads up.
Meanwhile, the helicopters are busy blowing up truckloads of guards and assorted guard towers. When Michael catches up to Whistler, the other man greets him with a right hook. Fortunately, all the getting punched he's endured in the last week has taught Michael how to take a hit. He's still not able to fight back, but he can take a hit or twelve. A second helicopter lowers a line with a bar on it for Whistler, and he grabs it with both hands. As the helicopter lifts him away, however, Michael leaps up from behind him and is now clinging to Whistler's waist. No amount of kicking is going to dislodge him. The pilot radios, "There are two men on the line. Two men on the line." The one helicopter that is not accessorized with dangling prisoners is busy firing onto the courtyard below, dropping smoke bombs and spraying the guards with gunfire, the better to introduce confusion. A gunman tries to take out Scofield, but he can't get a clean shot. And then he can't get any shot, as a guard finally takes him out. Finally, the weight on Whistler gets to him, and he lets go of the bar. He and Michael fall to the top of a building. A pilot narrates for Susan B., "We lost Whistler. Abort! Abort! Mission failure. Return to base one immediately." In the middle of her command center, Susan B. reels. At home, I ask, "Why...why go to the trouble of inserting Michael into the prison if you could do this all along? Does General Von Baldy like incredibly baroque evil schemes? Will we eventually see him sitting around admiring his tank full of sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads?" (I mean, I dig the comic-book style narrative here as much as the next person, but come on. This makes no sense at all, and I say this as someone who has read Marvel's "House of M" and "Civil War" events and therefore knows from senseless and overly complicated stories with no payoff.)
Back in Sona, Whistler scrambles to get off the roof. As the alarms sound, we see him rip off his shirt. Note to the writers: please invent more excuses for that. I will accept one shirt-doffing incident per episode with no questions asked, I promise. Michael makes his way inside, baffled and disoriented. He realizes he also has to change his shirt and scrambles through someone's cell looking for a shirt. We get ONE BRIEF MOMENT where we see a shirtless Scofield and his tattooed back, and then he finds another long-sleeved shirt. Argh! Note the second to the writers: if you're going to go to all the trouble to get Scofield's shirt off in a scene, and the actor has to go to all the trouble of getting all the body makeup, at least give EVERYONE their money's worth. Send him outside with no shirt! Or give us more tattoos per episode. Anyway, Michael gets a new shirt on, and then he gets a rifle butt to the stomach as a pissed-off guard hauls him outside. Every inmate is now on his knees, arms behind his head, in the courtyard.