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Massive props to Dragon, without whom you'd have a recap that covered only 60 minutes of this episode and not the full 75.
We got no time for the beachy shores of Miami today; it's all about the prison action, at a location presumably close enough to make prison breaks an issue for Miami suburbanites. Why they don't float felons on a barge off the Keys is a municipal mystery that may never be answered. Anyway, we get plenty of shots of the prisoners taking their recreation out-of-doors. There are many men who have that "Body By Prison Weight Room, Tattoos By My Bitch" look. Two of them get into it on the basketball court. While we're getting acquainted with this setting, some sort of rap music is playing in the background; I suppose it's to give this some sort of hard-core cred, but really just sends middle America the message that anyone who makes or listens to rap is but one drive-by shooting away from carjacking a viewer's minivan and committing a drug-fueled act of violence out in the local soccer fields. Anyway, a shanking ensues.
We then see the prison gates opening to frame a shot of an empty courtyard under a Sergio Leone-filtered sky. Then, as if by magic, Horatio has appeared in the doorway and is now striding into the prison. He gets buzzed through the gate, and presumably heads right out to the basketball court where the bald, tattooed victim of the shanking has bled out. The weapon -- a toothbrush which has been altered so as to resemble a knife on one end -- is lying nearby. There had better be a really good reason Horatio's here, like finding out that the prison is but blocks away from the Miami Dolphins stadium and thus well within the jurisdiction, or maybe that Horatio lives next to the prison or something. Otherwise, it seems like the Department of Corrections might have a few employees who would investigate this themselves. Anyway, Horatio and a security guard glower at the body for a moment, bemoan all the free time the prisoners have on their hands. Well, when you cut things like high-school equivalency classes and programs that actually attempt to give convicts some marketable skills to fall back on once they're in the real world, the result's going to be a lot of free time. The sky-high recidivism rate is only a side effect, no doubt. Anyway, Horatio and the security guard head over to where the other basketball players are on their knees with their hands behind their heads. The net effect is...well, let's just put it this way: there is nobody on Earth who's going to be able to wear a prison jumpsuit well.
Horatio decides to pick one and ask him what his name is. The man balks, and Horatio's all, "Come on, partner. What's your name?" The guy replies, "Ramirez, Rico. Booking number 9397489." Horatio takes this opportunity to pull down Ramirez, Rico's collar and notice the "Montoya" tattooed on the back of the guy's neck. Oh, how sweet: his mom put her name on his collar, kind of, in case he gets lost and can't find his way home. Horatio gives the guard a look and asks him what his name is again, and the con replies, "Ramirez. You deaf or something?" Horatio asks, "Did you forget your name when you got this tattoo? We've got a bracelet switch here." Note that this is the first time we, the viewers at home, have had a chance to see the bracelets all the convicts are wearing on their right wrists. How these bracelets get there and how the prison guards prevent convicts from switching them as a matter of routine isn't covered. The guard notes that the prison's been in lockdown for half an hour and they're only now beginning to check IDs.
Just then, Horatio looks up and asks, "What's that? This airspace is restricted." "That" is a helicopter, and it's hovering mighty close to the prison courtyard. The guard sounds exasperated as he says, "Someone get on the horn to air patrol and get that chopper out of here." Someone scampers off to do precisely that. Horatio's all, "The air patrol doesn't fly A-stars. This murder is a decoy. We have an escape in progress!"