Did my eyes deceive me? Did we get two -- possibly even three -- female characters in this episode who can think on their feet?
The first character never even appears on-screen: she's T-Bag's former ladylove, and it turns out that the minute Susan found out her ex escaped, she moved. T-Bag finds this out the hard way: he goes to her house and discovers it nearly empty. As he sulks around the kitchen, his dreams of courting Susan with sunflowers and stab wounds in pieces on the floor, Bellick catches up with him. T-Bag gets off the best line of the night â it includes the phrase âmachinations of loveâ â but Bellick ultimately gets the last laugh.
The second woman to think fast on her feet: Mahone's ex-wife Pam, who calls Michael out on his bluff that he's merely doing a background check on our favorite crazy conspiracy stooge. Michael is doing the background check because Mahone's messed with his escape plans one too many times, and Michael wants to mess with Mahone's head. He soon discovers this is ridiculously easy to do. All it requires is a phone call to Mahone, wherein Michael deduces what nobody in the whole Federal Bureau of Investigation has figured out thus far. That sends Mahone off to dig Oscar Shales's bones out of the birdbath.
And garnering an honorable mention for her mad thinking skillz is Dr. Sara, who manages to figure out what the missing origami bird was going to say. She's on her way to meet up with the boys in New Mexico. Unfortunately, so are the feds.
The final female character who figures big in this episode is Kacee. Thanks to C-Note and a few of his good friends from back in the day, she manages to elude Lang and reunite with her daughter and her husband. Y'all, this storyline was so tense, I ended up watching it through my fingers.
In other plotline news: L.J. and Linc have many road-trip adventures, but ultimately end up re-captured. Is it wrong to look forward to Michael's reaction when he finds out?
Previously on Prison Break: Linc demonstrated that when you hit your own kid, it's abuse, but when you hire someone else to do it, it's love. Also, Michael and Sucre spent a lot of time getting wet together. They're now registered at Sur Le Table.
We open at the Blanding Botanical Gardens. Michael pops into view, then rolls up his sleeve to check his tattoo. What, does he now have the taxonomic tree for kingdom Plantae inked on his right arm? "Okay, I know all the plants here are in subkingdom Tracheobionta, but I always get confused after that -- are the ferns in Filicophyta or Pteridophyta? Is that why there's this pterodactyl on my arm?"
Oh, how I wish. We don't get a very good look at what clue Michael got -- I think it's a low, clustered flower -- before he's off to bluff his way onto the volunteer gardener team. He tells another volunteer that manager Jimmy Madan said he could change shifts, then sprints off. Michael then heads over to a flower labeled the "Apache Desert Ghost." It's probably a succulent of some sort, but what sits wrong with me is how the rest of the garden appears to be devoted to our little friends the Pteridophyta, and ferns are not exactly the stars of the desert landscape. What sort of botanical garden is it that sticks a desert succulent in the middle of a humid, wet landscape? Haven't these people ever heard of root rot?
But Michael has bigger things to worry about than a botanical garden full of ig'nant landscapers. He has to worry about a botanical garden full of FBI agents. What tips him off is the floral photographer who's dumped half a pack's worth of cigarette butts on the ground: in addition to this being boorish behavior, it's also a tip-off that the guy's been there a while and is clearly waiting for something -- or someone. Michael turns around and casually begins strolling away. That is the cue for several volunteer gardeners to stand up and casually begin following him. The photographer joins him, and we get confirmation that yes, he's an agent sent to stake out Scofield.
Then the chase is on, only it's not so much a "chase" as it is "a bunch of guys doing purposeful, yet elaborately casual race-walking." Michael cleverly puts an elementary school class between himself and the agents, then begins running through what looks to be a shade garden. He then goes through what appears to be the Mediterranean garden -- I spy what looks like some salvia and penstemon -- then ducks behind a row of eucalyptus. The faux-tographer sees the white sweatshirt and beige vest that all the volunteers (real or otherwise) were wearing. He draws his gun and orders the guy to freeze. Unsurprisingly, it's not Michael. Scofield lives to stare another day!
Meanwhile, Linc and L.J. are tooling down the highway in Jeanette's stolen car. Linc tells his son, "I'm a target, kid. As long as you're with me, so are you." Apparently, it has escaped Linc's notice that so long as he's alive, everyone he cares about is a target, period. Therefore, wouldn't it make more sense to keep an eye on the people you don't want to end up dead? I'm just saying. L.J. says, "But after we meet up with Uncle Mike in Panama?" Linc tells him, "Panama ain't a sure thing. Your uncle Mike's plan is dangerous, really dangerous." What, when compared with the last 32 episodes' worth of hijinks? What can be possibly be -- the episode where Michael gets them over the border by juggling vials of live Ebola virus? Linc tells L.J., "All the charges against you have been dropped. You're free and clear -- you can start a new life." Unbutton your shirt more, Linc -- your overheated pecs have clearly cooked your brain, because otherwise you'd figure out that the Feds are only using L.J. as a pawn, so they can easily invent a new predicament to screw him over and draw you out. Also, L.J. is only a kid, and it's not like he's got a vast, non-wanted-by-the-Feds family to go home to. L.J. asks if Linc wants him to leave. Linc says softly and reluctantly, "No... no." L.J. replies stoutly, "Good. Because I'm not." Awww!
Michael's repaired to a diner where he's having a glass of water and a side of freak-out. Another customer orders Jenny the waitress to turn up the sound on the TV. How convenient! How else might Michael happen to overhear the televised press conference in which a reporter asks Mahone, "Do you have any thoughts on the death of David Apolskis?" Michael's head whips up and swivels around, and his eyes go round with shocked grief. Mahone's face fills the screen as he says, "It's unfortunate." Michael breathes, "Oh, David... " His is probably the second most sincere expression of regret at Tweener's passing, behind Debra Jean's. We transition from Michael's stricken face to the press conference, where Mahone is busy trying to strip the dead of their humanity by pointing out, "Let me remind you that despite his age, David "Tweener" Apolskis was a fugitive who made a move for my weapon. I did not want to have to kill him. Sometimes things happen that are just out of your control."
Back at the diner, the other customer chortles, "That good ol' boy's hunting them all down, ain't he?" Michael is making a move to go, but then a reporter sets up the whole episode by stating, "Sources say you've recovered Scofield's hard drive and have removed substantial data from it... allegedly, you've got information detailing not only how Scofield broke out, but how he stayed out -- care to comment?" Unsurprisingly, Mahone does not. The reporter persists, "The stake-out in the botanical garden today -- that was the result of hard drive data you collected?" Mahone again declines to comment.
Michael stands in the diner and has a flashback to the first time he laid eyes on Mahone, then the botched L.J. breakout, and we hear him telling Linc about how there's something about the way Mahone keeps anticipating his every move. And that's how he realizes that he should have attached a boatload of magnets to that hard drive before flinging it into the Chicago River.
The press conference then provides a handy way to transition to the Chicago FBI headquarters. Lang and Wheeler chat about how they've unearthed 3200 nitroglycerine ampoules from the botanical gardens near the Apache Desert Rose. Wheeler says, "Scofield knew these needed to be stored in a cool, moist area. The best place for that in the Utah desert is the botanical gardens." I... am going to do all of you a favor by not rambling on at length over what it might take to sustain a massive rainforest garden outside in the high desert. You can thank me later. As Lang holds one, Wheeler points out, "It's all medical grade. Heart patients use it safely all the time, but in the aggregate --"
"It can take out an entire building," Mahone cheerfully announces. Boy, it's a good thing his surprise entrance didn't rattle Lang, or else there would be a tiny explosion around her shoes. Then Mahone gets all shouty about how there can't be any leaks in the office. When he kicks a desk and shouts, "God help the agent who goes behind my back and talks to the press!" it is surprisingly hot. We immediately go to Lang. She is not having the same reaction I am. Instead, she is looking like, "Yeah, I called that reporter. What are you going to do about it, freak-o?" (By the way: I totally suspect she's been put there by the One World Conspiracy to make sure Mahone sticks to the game plan. But I could be overthinking it.)
As Mahone huffs off to calm down over a pint of Chubby Hubby and a copy of US, we go to his press conference, where he's saying coolly, "Sun Tzu says, 'If you know your enemy, you need not fear a hundred battles.' I know these guys -- who they are, where they came from, where they want to go."
But Mahone's not the only one who's read The Art of War. Michael's ducked into a local branch of the Moab (Utah) library. As Mahone VO's about how the convicts are in a constant battle, "with themselves, second-guessing every decision they make," we see Michael pull up an article on Oscar Shales. Well-played, writers. Well played. Michael uses what looks like the unholy spawn of Google and Zabasearch to pull down all sorts of information about Mahone, including his past four home addresses and the current whereabouts of his former spouse, Pam. As Michael zones in on this information, Mahone carries on about how you need to know your prey completely, because then you can go in with everything you've got.
But for now, we have the credits. It's so weird to see Linc in a shirt that's not flapping around his bellybutton.
When we get back from the credits and the commercials, Michael's made his way to a local thrift store. He buys something -- we know not what, since this show knows that the only reason we keep watching from scene to scene is to see if our curiosity about someone's actions in Act I will be satiated by Act III.
Meanwhile, in the Chicago FBI headquarters, Mahone is busy looking at his big map of clues and gloating, "We are just inches away, today. Inches." But Mahone, didn't you see that part of the map with the "Scale: 1 inch = 100 miles?" He then asks people to blow up and post the sheets listing all the possible alphanumeric sequences for that last haiku bird, explaining that it's "information about a possible rendezvous Scofield set up." Then he shouts for Lang, explaining, "Today's the day Franklin told his wife he was going to meet her at the Rainbow room." Without looking up, she sighs, "Right." "Wrong!" Mahone sings out, adding giddily, "Today's the day Franklin's going down. Are you ready?" Lang plays along, smiling slightly as she says, "Everything's arranged." She picks up her gun on the way out, and practically dances out the door. I feel like this sequence should have been choreographed to "Rock And Roll Part Two." We cap the scene by going to the board o' felons: on the left is Abruzzi's mug with a big red X in it, on the right is Haywire's addled phiz, and in the middle, C-Note.
Cut to the establishing shot of downtown Chicago. The rap music of impending racial violence, since repurposed to become the music of escaped-prisoner scheming, plays on and we go to a shot of several men under the el tracks. They appear to be engaging in black market activities. C-Note skulks into view. Then he greets his brother-in-law Darius and some other people -- "'S'up, Flam! You look like you lost a few!" Flam, who could still take out a defensive tackle with one casually-outstretched arm, grins, "SlimFast, baby!" Hee. We soon find out that the feds have been in C-Note's old lady's business, no joke -- up in his crib, etc. Darius says, "I know you love Kacee, but I don't know if it's a good idea for you to keep coming around here. You're a wanted man." C-Note points out, "I'm wanted because I kept my mouth shut, and I kept you out of Fox River." Everyone realizes the TSA's new security rules mean they can't even bring a truck full of contraband on this guilt trip. The guys mumble about how they owe him one and C-Note glowers, "I'm collecting right now. My wife is waiting for me today, and I am not leaving Chi-town without my family. All y'all can help me. Let's roll out." The half-dozen men do.
Speaking of the missus C-Note, she's busy packing the car and checking Dede's seatbelt. Lang materials out of nowhere and asks where Kacee's off to. She says brusquely, "To take my kid to school." As Kacee swings a big-assed bag into the passenger seat, Lang tells her, "I know about the Rainbow Room... your phone lines are tapped. We heard your entire telephone conversation with your husband. Since you're not booked on any flights to New York, don't tell me the Rainbow Room isn't a restaurant in Manhattan! You can tell me where you're meeting your husband, or I can arrest you." Kacee looks dazed, as would anyone who's been hit by Agent Lang and her personal space invasion. Then she snaps, "You go to Hell. I haven't done anything wrong." As Kacee tries to get in the car, Lang gets up in her face again and points out that actually, yes, she did: by speaking to C-Note, she could be hauled in for aiding and abetting. Lang presses on, "One phone call, and the county is here. You're going to jail, and Dede's going into foster care." This hits Kacee where she lives. Lang says maliciously, "I hear the families in the foster system are top-notch." Why wouldn't Dede just be remanded to a grandparent or legal guardian's custody? This makes no sen -- oh, sorry. I forgot what I was watching. The two women have a long angry stare-down, then Kacee says, "You are asking me to choose between my daughter and my husband." Lang is okay with that.
Meanwhile, the Bozo Fetts are hot on T-Bag's trail. Bellick's got friends checking the con's file at Fox River, and we find out that T-Bag's written Susan 52 times, but never received a response. The two would-be bounty hunters are off to see T-Bag's ex.
And then we zoom on down to St. Davis, Arizona. L.J. is coming out of a coffee shop with breakfast and Linc is watching his own facial hair grow in the side mirror. The mustache area appears to be the clear follicular overachiever. L.J. gets in the car and tells Linc they're good. Three teenaged girls go walking by, and an amused Linc watches L.J. checking them out. Right as he tells L.J., "No more stops until we get to New Mexico," a teenaged girl knocks on L.J.'s window. It turns out L.J. forgot his change because he was zipping out of there so quickly. As she heads off, Linc mutters, "Keep walking," but... no. She recognizes Linc, then sprints back to the restaurant, presumably to call the cops. O, how ironic that the very behavior L.J. was employing to try and keep them from getting made is exactly what leads the cashier to recognize Linc!
As the guys zip down the road, L.J. argues for ditching the car, while Linc points out that they need the car -- "we got 400 miles to go. We don't get to Michael in time, he'll leave without us." L.J. protests that Uncle Michael wouldn't do that. Ah, the sweet naiveté of a kid who didn't see the episode where his Uncle Mike was like, "Look, border first, framed nephew second." Linc sets up a future episode's plot with, "He doesn't have a choice. It's a one-shot chance out of the country." The two squabble over what to do, and L.J. points out with some asperity that he's not exactly lacking in survival skills here. "You got caught," Linc points out. L.J. snots that he's sorry he's not a crackerjack chip off the felonious block. To his credit, Linc apologizes to L.J.
And now, we're in Durango, Colorado. This is where the ex-Mrs. Mahone lives, and where Michael now is. Apparently, that thrift store he was at has well-tailored blue suits and hipster doofus eyeglass frames, because he's now in disguise as "Agent Wayne Merrick, FBI."
Commercials. I am too distracted wondering exactly what's happened to Callie Thorne's face since her days on Homicide: Life on the Street -- make-up? Something a little heavier? -- to pay any attention.
When we come back, Pam's asking why they're coming to her for a background check on her ex, and Michael blithely lies that it's standard procedure "when an agent's about to be promoted to an, ah, higher security clearance." Pam says, "I know that. I did this dance the last time he was promoted. I just figured that since we were divorced -- I mean, I rarely speak to him and I certainly don't follow his career --" Michael interrupts in a haughty whisper, "We need to get this done today. I promise I won't take up much of your time." Pam says tersely that she's given enough time to her ex-husband. Michael is all apologies: "The bureau can take its toll on your family. I understand that. My ex-wife is a --" Stripper? Oh, please, please say stripper.
Disappointingly, Michael invents an ex-wife who's also an FBI agent and boy, does his heart go out to Pam. Thus softened by Michael's lies, Pam buckles. "Promise me that he won't find out we spoke?" she asks. Michael solemnly assures her that he can do that, then continues, "Do you mind if I ask why?" Pam replies, "To be perfectly honest, he scares me." Cut to a shot of Michael's eyes bugging out behind his glasses. What, did he think they got divorced because Pam ran off with the gardener?
Somewhere in Elgin, Illinois... Dr. Sara is crashing at a cheap hotel and trying to figure out what in the dickens Michael was planning to write in his last origami crane. A chance superimposition over a brochure clues her in -- she's to meet Michael at a Sundown Hotel. A quick phone call to what appears to be a national 411 directory and she's on her way to figuring out that she'll be meeting Michael at the Sundown Motel in Gila, New Mexico. Looks like we'll be spending a future episode in the Land of Enchantment! Shippers, start your engines.
Then we head out to Tribune, Kansas. T-Bag has taken some of his ill-gotten millions and invested in a shiny new suit and a blow-out. You'd think he'd actually drop the cash for a decent hairdresser -- he's rocking the Courtney Love roots -- but perhaps he's holding out until he can get a full-scalp transplant in Thailand. Anyway, T-Bag's storing his duffel full of dollars in the world's cleanest bus terminal lockers. He drops the key into his socks, then heads over to the florist's stand to buy sunflowers. While the clerk is busy wrapping up the flowers that symbolize haughtiness, T-Bag filches the scissors that just happen to be laying around. I guess buying a more effective weapon was out of the question.
The clerk amiably tells him that he doesn't sound local, and T-Bag says, "You have a sharp ear. I hail from what we call the 'Yellowhammer state.'" The clerk asks, "What brings you to Tribune?" T-Bag checks the tattered slip with Susan's address on it, suffers a few brief flashbacks, then growls, "Romance." Sunflowers and stab wounds? That's a man who knows how to show a girl a fun Friday night!
Back in Chi-town, C-Note is busy trying to convince his crew that they can whisk Kacee away from the Feds without resorting to guns. To my eternal disappointment, nobody hauls out a crossbow and says, "You ain't said nothin' 'bout ol' Burly here." One of C-Note's guys protests, "Johnny Law is going to be strapped up. I'm going in hot." And on it goes until Darius steps in and confirms that there will be no guns. Proving he's a born mediator, Darius then tells C-Note, "You better be right about this, because if those bullets do start flying, the only blood being spilled will be ours. You feel me?" C-Note feels him.
And off in some dystopian urban landscape, Kellerman's off on his postprandial constitutional when some flunky drops a slip of paper in his hand, explaining, "That name you wanted me to track, Kelly Foster, she booked a flight to New Mexico and it just landed... we got an ID on her rental car. Should we update Mr. Kim?" You will all remember that Kelly is the name of the woman who died in the last episode. Kellerman says that he'll take care of this himself. I have the feeling that we're in for a scene in a future episode in which Kim asks delicately, "Why did you feel like you didn't need to tell me about the New Mexico trip?" However, Kellerman does whip out his mobile.
Cut to the FBI headquarters. Wheeler is telling Mahone about the waitress's tip in re: Linc and L.J. but the real news here is that Mahone's phone is going off. He hustles everyone out of his office and picks up the mobile. Kellerman tells him that Dr. Sara just booked a one-way ticket to New Mexico. Then he asks if Mahone's had any luck breaking the code on the final bird. No, but he'll do it in the few minutes, 'cause that's how the plots roll on this show. Kellerman begins circling all the alphanumeric sequences that have "NM" in them, then bellows for some poor flunky named Mueller to compile all the entries with NM in them, then cross-check them against any possible locations in New Mexico.
Back in Colorado, Pam is asking. "How well do you know Alex?" "He knows me better than I know him," Michael truthfully replies. Pam then serves some coffee with a side of back-story: "He's a closed book, all right. He wasn't always like that. The first few years of our marriage, he was actually romantic. And then, one day, out of nowhere... everything changed. He became obsessed with getting out... getting out the marriage, getting me out of the house, out of his life. He left me. He left the both of us." We cut to a shot of Pam with a boy who is clearly supposed to be Mahone's. Michael prods, "You said you were scared of him. Why is that?" Pam says, "He started acting strange, spending all his time in the backyard gardening." On behalf of gardeners everywhere, I kind of resent that. Spending all your time in the back yard is sometimes a necessary evil. Pam continues, "The man was a neat freak -- he'd throw away shoes if they even got scuffed. But he'd be out there, all covered in dirt and surrounded by these huge bags of fertilizer and lye." Cut to Michael, who had, like the rest of America, read "A Rose for Miss Emily" in English class and totally understands that Mahone's primary interest was not horticulture but homicide. Pam continues, "We'd just put this new sod in, and he just tore it up and planted a flower bed." Any bets as to what the language of flowers had to say there? "And here are penstemons, for 'I murdered you during my psychotic break' and impatiens for 'Now, here is the cover-up... " Pam says she once went back to talk to Mahone while he was tending his garden and "he screamed at me and said not to come near the garden, that it was his." Pam breaks down into tears. Michael lays a tentative hand on her arm and says, "I'm sorry. If you want to take a break... " Pam says, "All I wanted was an explanation." It's still all she wants, the poor thing. She continues brokenly, "Things ended so suddenly. And all Alex could say was, 'Sometimes, things happen that are just out of your control.'" Michael struggles to look thoughtful, as opposed to whispering. "Eureka!"
Pam then gets up and Michael notices her mobile over on the buffet. He quickly palms it and checks the list of contacts. Fortunately for him, Mahone's listed under his real name and not as "Crazy bastard ex."
We're now at an amusement park. In an FBI van parked outside the gate, Lang's confirming, "The picture in your daughter's bedroom -- the exact location it was taken was a merry-go-round, right?" Kacee can't look at Lang. The agent says, "All you have to do is wait by the merry-go-round. He's expecting you." Then Lang locks and loads her gun. Kacee asks, "Is that necessary?" You can totally tell Lang hopes it will be. I tell you, she is totally in on the One World Conspiracy and is hoping to beat Mahone's death count. Kacee says, "I do this, you leave me and my child alone." Lang manages to quash both her derisive eye-roll and the sinister cackling before replying, "You have my word." At least Kacee doesn't appear to trust her.
She heads over to the merry-go-round." In another vehicle, C-Note asks someone on the phone, "Is my wife there?" Our friend who was on the SlimFast diet replies, "Yeah, she's here." There's much clicking off phones and nodding among C-Note's crew. Kacee's watching nervously.
Then Chris -- one of C-Note's guys -- comes over and pulls up his hood so his face is concealed. He says slowly and carefully, "In 15 seconds, a black Jeep is going to pull up to the parking lot entrance, run to it." Kacee's all, "Chris?" Chris nervously replies, "Go!" Y'all, this is the point where I was on the couch shouting, "Woman, what are you waiting for? Haul it!" Instead, she protests, "I can't. They're going to take Dede." Poor Christ -- he's trying to look like he's just some random stranger who happens to be watching merry-go-round riders while also trying to tell Kacee, "No, they won't."
Lang catches on to the fact that Chris and Kacee are chatting right around the time I say, "Oh, come on already! Run!" There's a very tense moment, but Kacee finally runs -- right into the commercials. Go like the wind, Mrs. C-Note!
Commercials. I love how we segue right into a Dockers commercial with some guy running hither and yon. Thematic continuity is meet and proper.
When we get back from commercials, Kacee is skidding out of the park and into the black Jeep. Yay! There was no clichéd tripping-during-pursuit! The Jeep zooms off with the Fibbies in hot pursuit. At least, they're in pursuit until a van and a truck happen to box them in. Lang actually shrieks in rage. She tears out of the van and whips out her gun, telling the truck driver, "Let's drop." Our man Flam pulls the "No Ingles, esta--" but she is not having any of that. Just don't shoot Flam, lady, or you'll have an enemy in me for life.
Inside the Jeep, Kacee wants to know where Dede is. Jay the driver tosses her a phone -- he has to concentrate on driving. She picks up and C-Note tries to go the smooove route, all, "Hey, it's me, baby, I just want to tell you that everything is going to be okay. We're going to be a family again, I promise" Because this is FOX and not HBO, Kacee is not at liberty to scream, "Shove the platitudes, you sweet-talking son-of-a-bitch, and tell me why the fuck I'm not talking to my daughter right now!" We learn that Darius is picking up Dede right around the time that Lang orders her underlings to pull Dede out of school ASAP.
Cut to the school. Dede's darn adorable. Darius is darn worried -- the principal and the teacher are stalling him. He tells C-Note as much. C-Note looks thoughtful. A chance for his little girl to blow the curve on the Otis-Lennon, or a life on the run? It's so hard to figure out what's right sometimes.
Michael is continuing to pump Pam for information, asking about Oscar Shales. Pam asks why he's important, and Michael smirks only a little as he says, "He's the only fugitive to ever successfully elude your ex-husband." He does not add, "So far." Pam admits that Alex was obsessed -- "It was all he worked on, all he did for a year. I don't think it was the stress of chasing Shales that caused Alex to start behaving erratically... because Alex changed after the trail went cold. I remember it like it was yesterday. He just walked into the kitchen after twelve years of marriage and said that he wanted me out of the house. I'll never forget the date -- it was June 15." Michael flashes to an article he pulled up, with a dek conveniently reading, "Shales Missing Since Mid-June" and puts it alllll together. That he can do so after a morning at the library, compared to the dozen years Pam spent with Alex, either speaks well of his deductive abilities or poorly of the show's need to hurry things along once we slip past the half-hour mark.
He gets up to go with a line about how he has to file these reports with strategic operations, and Pam totally calls him on it. "You're with strategic operations?" Michael bluffs, "They handle these checks." He keeps walking, and Pam calls out sharply, "Not since the 9/11 realignment!" Michael gets a look on his face like Oh, CRAP... Pam continues, "The chief information officer does them now. They handled Alex's last check." Michael says, "When an agent reaches a level as high as your ex-husband's, ess-op takes over. Again." Pam is not convinced.
Meanwhile, C-Note is busy telling Darius to just take the kid and run, language arts story time be darned. The Fibbies get out of their car, and C-Note loses his mind, sprinting inside, telling Darius to start the car, then popping into Dede's classroom. She looks up and happily calls, "Daddy!" and I swear, I get a little choked up when he says, "Hey, baby! You ready to go?" because he's trying so hard to sound cheerful and casual for her, but you can totally hear the fear in his voice. "Where are we going?" Dede asks, as she hops into his arms. "Disneyland," C-Note replies, and sprints like mad.
The agents are now running all over the place. C-Note comes tearing out, shouting at Darius that they have to go, and holy cow, how in the heck did the C-Note storyline become the most riveting in this episode? Go, go, go!
Back in Kansas, T-Bag saunters on up to Susan's lovely little craftsman bungalow. He heads toward the door, wrapped in a haze of flashbacks, but all of T-Bag's murderous little castles in the air come crashing to the ground when he sees the for-sale sign tucked on the front porch. That is one agent who is just not trying hard enough.
T-Bag's jaw swings open, but he manages to find a way to let himself in. The house gives every sign of having been vacated in a hurry -- there are personal belongings left in every room and a pile of mail on the floor by the front door, and honestly, I just have to ask, did Susan try to find the worst real estate agent in all of Kansas or did she just get lucky? I mean, hasn't she ever SEEN Designed to Sell? You don't stage a house with a big pile of mail in the middle of the foyer. Overwhelmed by the knowledge that he can't even ruin any real estate open houses, T-Bag sinks to a chair in the middle of the dining room and tries to figure out what he'll do .
Ah, Linc and L.J. have apparently decided to ditch their car after all. Linc decides that what this volksmarch needs is a little father-son bonding time: "I, uh, I saw you checking out those girls back at the diner." L.J. says, "What?" in the tone of voice that richly conveys how embarrassing it is that Linc's noticed this. Linc continues, "'Fess up." L.J. says, "I was making sure they weren't staring at us." Linc ripostes, "With their asses?" Heh. He continues, "There are beautiful girls in Panama. They love Americans." L.J. is okay with this. Linc asks him how long he's known about girls, and L.J. says, "Thirteen." Linc then asks, "Who?" and oh my GOD, if there is anything more embarrassing than telling your parents about losing your virginity, it is giving your parents the details, and I just cannot believe they are having this conversation. Or that Linc is not at all alarmed by the idea that were it not for... something, he could have been a grandfather by now. A really hot grandpa, but who wants to shtupp Grandpa? Anyway to make a long story short, L.J. apparently lost it with an older woman -- the 17-year-old door, who was being paid to give him French lessons. "Well, she earned the money," L.J. cracks, and it is just too bad that Linc didn't immediately smack him upside the head for that piggish little remark. Instead, he's all, "That's my boy!"
Meanwhile, T-Bag is sitting around and marinating in flashbacks, because what better way to fill in a few seconds without having to write anything new? Finally, even he gets bored with this and decides it time's to throw a hissy in the kitchen. When he's collected himself, he heads out, wherein he's promptly greeted with a real estate sign to the face. T-Bag's world goes black, and when we all regain our sight, we see not an avenging Realtor, but Bellick. Of all the implausible things that happen on this show, the Bozo Fetts pulling one off on the sociopathic mastermind is topping my list.
Back in FBI headquarters, Mahone's finally figured out that we're all due to meet up in Gila, New Mexico the day. His mobile rings, and Mahone checks the read-out. He pauses, sighs as if to gird himself, then says, "Pam, I really can't talk right now."
Well, the good news is, it's not his ex-wife, whom he probably still loves, on the other line. The even better news is that it's his Mental Mate Michael. Mahone's eyes go wide, as if to ask, Is that... is that an angelic chorus I hear in the background, singing, "Tonight, Tonight... "
Well, he can figure that out over the commercial break. I am going to figure out when Ron Livingston sold his soul to the devil, and what the terms of the deal were. I think one of Satan's conditions was that Livingston shill for Sprint, but I can't figure out what the rest of the terms are.
When we get back from the break, Mahone is gritting, "If you've done anything to Pam or my boy --" Michael says coolly, "We both know your family's fine, although Pam did seem a little upset about your leaving. But then, you had to, didn't you? Because you couldn't let her find out." Mahone gently closes the door -- instead of, say, sending an IM to his team reading, "I have Scofield on Pam's phone, so trace the GPS location for this number stat" -- and asks, "Find out what?" Michael replies, "About Oscar Shales. You remember -- the one who got away. Except he didn't get too far, did he?' Mahone is all, "You're slipping, Scofield," but Michael continues, "Let's hypothesize for a moment. Let's pretend I was the one who caught Shales. I don't think I could have just handed that psychopath over to the courts, not after he'd eluded me for so long, made me look bad... you Feds make a nice living, but not so nice that you go around tearing up expensive sod. Not unless you had to do a little digging, to hide something, or someone. That's what all the lye was for, wasn't it? See, because there are two kinds of lye -- in small amounts, it's the gardener's best friend, and in large amounts, it's the other kind, that decomposes bodies." The best rebuttal Mahone can come up with is, "You should write mystery novels." What, is that supposed to send Michael reeling with sudden dread? Michael continues, "I don't know about you, but if I'd buried someone in my own back yard, I'd think about it all the time. I'd think, maybe I should move that body. And then I'd remember that DNA leaches into soil, so even if the body was gone, proof of what I'd done would still be there. I can imagine how it feels, the pressure, the constant fear. It's more than a man can bear." We cut to Mahone sitting there and melting down. Michael continues, a steely edge creeping into his voice as he says, "I'm giving you a choice: back off, let me and my family disappear, and in return, I'll keep your little secret. How does that sound?" Mahone still has enough pride to croak, "Like a dead man talking." Michael then moves in for the kill, finally moving above a whisper to say calmly, "I know it's not how you wanted things to play out, but sometimes, things are just out of your control." Mahone finally pulls it together, thinks of Gila, New Mexico, and says. "I'll see you soon, Michael. Oh, and it just may be sooner than you think." But he sounds lame and he knows it.
T-Bag finally comes to, and Geary snarls, "Did you have a nice nap? Visions of 12-year-olds dancing in your head?" T-Bag hisses. "You're trespassing." See, that is how bravado is done, MAHONE. We find out Susan scampered right after she heard about the breakout, thereby proving she is the most sensible character this show's ever produced. Bellick muses, "So this is where Theodore practiced Pervert Knows Best, this is where he had his family supper, and that is where I believe you and Miss Hollander expressed your love. Tell me, Teddy, did you make her wear Dr. Dentons and hold a lunchbox to help you get all worked up?" T-Bag says coolly, "Frankly, I couldn't possibly expect a grown man who still lives with his mama to understand the machinations of love," That is quite possibly the best phrase I've ever heard. I can't decide if "machinations of love" should be the name of a cover band or a slogan for a new world religion. Geary is an equal-opportunity sniggerer, so he's delighted by this line too. Bellick, not so much. In retaliation, he rips out T-Bag's sutures. T-Bag bellows in pain.
Meanwhile, inside getaway car number one, Kacee is not relieving tension with an endless stream of wisecracks; she's just waiting silently as Jay taps his fingers nervously. A second SUV pulls up, and Dede comes running out. There's one happy reunion, and then, having ensured that Kacee's softened up with relief, C-Note dares to show his face. Instead of smacking him into the middle of week for the elaborate lies and total bitch of a morning she's had, Kacee merely plants one on C-Note. Despite myself, I am moved. Jay is all, "Y'all, get a room." Once Kacee comes up for air, she asks, "What do we do now?" C-Note only pulls Dede into the family hug and hangs his head over Kacee's shoulder so she can't see his I have NO IDEA expression.
And now, having exhausted all their talk about L.J.'s sex life (and, mercifully, gone nowhere near Linc's), the boys have rolled up to a train station. Unfortunately for them, they're soon made.
Several hundred miles to the east, Mahone's decided to do a little sunset gardening. In the real world, nobody digs as quickly and deeply as that all by themselves, but in the real world, nobody digs a hole in their dress clothes, so who are we to observe that Mahone happens to be doing both? The upshot of this scene is that Michael's driven Mahone mad, mad, mad, and he's about to exhume the bony remains of Oscar Shales. While looking disturbingly hot. I... this is wrong, isn't it?
Michael drives toward New Mexico, thinking about how much fun it is to mess with people's minds.
And somewhere in Arizona, Linc and L.J. have a brief pursuit on foot. It soon comes to an end when L.J. is hit by a squad car. Linc immediately screeches to a halt, out of his mind with worry for his son, and the episode ends with the battered boy and his father back in custody. Sweet fancy Moses, Michael will go as mad, mad, mad as Mahone when he finds out about this. Linc tells his wheezing son, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
week: Well, I suppose we find out exactly how sorry Linc really is. Also, we get to check out the look on Michael's face when he discovers that there's yet another huge goddamn complication in his escape plan.