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Sweet fancy Moses, this show is going to kill me, either from the laughter or the eye-rolling incredulity. As Michael's math sinks in for Team Escarpara, C-Note tries to play mind games with Sucre to get him to eliminate Michael. Fortunately for the team, C-Note's not exactly plowing fertile territory. Besides, Sucre has what's known as "pregnancy brain," what with Maricruz making the NYC-Chicago jaunt to dither and weep and generally spin him up over her impending motherhood (his kid) and possible marriage (to Hector).
Meanwhile, Abruzzi gets a case of religion-prompted mania that makes Bill Paxton's turn in Frailty look positively atheistic by comparison. Consumed with guilt after his tactic to scare T-Bag's relatives goes horribly awry, Abruzzi hallucinates a picture of Jesus on his cell wall and has a Saul-to-Paul conversion. This leads him to cut short T-Bag's planned execution and urge Sergeant Sodomy to turn the other cheek. T-bag does -- but only because he's been stashing a razor in it. He slices Abruzzi's throat and leaves him for dead.
Veronica and LJ and Nickzzzzzâ¦huh? Oh, the only relevant thing is that Agent Hale's also had a change of heart. Given the way this show works, it'll be fatal.
As for the guy engineering the escape and his lunkhead brother: Michael fends off Bellick's badgering, checks some escape pipes, and generally ignores the seething mutiny C-Note and T-Bag are fomenting. Lincâ¦proves he is not the brains of the operation by decking a guard mere days before his execution. Oy. This show! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The episode begins in flashback. Michael's in a suit and tie, and he's about to be interviewed for a job. The office is the kind of place we all thought we'd be working in after the Dot-Com Revolution: gleaming hardwood floors, excruciatingly well-designed furniture, a boss with a good haircut and hipster doofus eyeglass frames. Anyway, the boss congratulates Michael on his résumé and Michael smirks just a little before saying thanks. The boss lobs a softball: "Tell me why you chose to pursue a career in engineering." Michael does not answer, "Because some day, I might have to break my deadbeat brother out of prison." Instead he tries to smile and says, "I've always been interested in structure...geometry." What I find interesting about his answer is how he's trying to gesture as he talks. It's a marked change from his very self-contained, closed-off body language at the prison. It also suggests that there's a huge gulf between what goes on in Michael's head and what he lets out.
Michael laces his fingers together and explains that he's fascinated by how things fit together. Then he strokes an arty -- if phallic -- skyscraper model and natters on a little about the happy marriage of form and function. Hipster doofus boss guy asks, "What about the future? Where do you see yourself in five years?" Michael does not answer, "Breaking my deadbeat brother out of prison."
We zip to Fox Hills, just in case any of the viewers don't realize that...well, Michael certainly didn't see himself skulking through the most antiseptic sewer pipes ever to grace a prison, yet here he is. Michael continues wending his way through the wide, dry, clean pipes. We flash back yet again to Michael's belongings being checked in by CO Stickyfingers. Michael then continues down the clean, well-lighted pipes and tosses a suit coat button into a chamber. Its click tells him that verily, he has stumbled upon a giant, clean, well-lit compartment. Of course. Doesn't every prison have these, in addition to the large, well-lit, unsupervised corridors behind every cell?
Anyway, we find out that Michael hid a trash bag and a length of rope in his suit lining. I can see where neither the rustle of plastic nor the lumpy coil in a suit jacket would have attracted attention. Within short order, Michael's put his suit in the bag and tied the end closed with the rope. Then he stares up at the opening for a while. That's right, Michael -- play to your strengths.
Aboveground, T-Bag's on the phone, asking someone, "That baby boy all growed up yet? ...Oh, he's gonna raise hell in the few years... Takes after his mama." I don't know what I find more improbable: that T-Bag's got friends or loved ones who regularly give him updates on their children, or that T-Bag's actually thinking of children in the context of letting them live to adulthood. And now we get to the portion of the phone call where T-Bag alludes to his imminent escape and does some convenient foreshadowing with, "Things are getting pretty tense, like they're fixing to collide." Coming from a man who instigated a deadly riot, things must be getting very tense indeed.
Linc and Michael are walking over to whatever menial PI chore they're about to do, and Michael's telling Linc that he's found the access to the infirmary, but he'll need time to make it work. So he's planning to skip PI tomorrow, the better to solve the problem: "How do I ascend a 20-foot vertical drainpipe without a ladder?" Michael, if you could only levitate, this wouldn't even be an issue. Linc's all, "You can't skip! You'll get detention!" Michael snaps, "I don't have a choice, do I?" Not about that, no. But you could say no to the watch cap. Michael appeases Linc with, "Once we get through the pipes in the guards' room, it'll be a whole lot easier. I can come and go without using the door, and with Westmoreland as lookout, we'll have one more man available for digging." Linc is not so keen on Westmoreland: "All seven of us can't get over that wall in 18 minutes. You said it yourself: it's impossible...I'm tell you, one of us has got to take a hike." Just then, C-Note pops up and drawls, "Mind if I share that with the rest of the class?" What is this world coming to when you can't conspire in private in prison anymore?
Cut to us learning what C-Note will be bringing to Team Escarpara: dissidence. He's busy filling everyone in on Michael's new math, instantly setting off Sucre, who declares, "I'm not going to dig if I'm not going to go." Michael tries to bluff his way out of it, but Linc shoots that idea in the kneecap by declaring that they'll have to decide who stays behind. Abruzzi nominates T-Bag. Frankly, I'm surprised they're even having this conversation: why a liability like T-Bag is still alive (as opposed to being killed, quietly, in a PI-related "accident") is a mystery to me.
Speaking of T-Bag, he comes in and everyone gives him a speculative stare. He laughs insincerely and says, "Pardon me for interrupting, but what's that smell?" It's the sweet, subtle Eau de Extraneous, mister. T-Bag sniffs and says, "It smells a little like conspiracy." No, no -- it's plot complication. It smells like muffins. Delicious, improbability-studded muffins.
Michael tries to prod everyone back into working, and T-Bag snots that he was so sure everyone would unfairly gang up on the child-raping serial killer, and he secured insurance by telling his man on the outside that "If he don't hear from me five minutes before the escape and 20 minutes after, I told him to call up the warden and blow the whistle on the whole thing." Everyone stands around, looking like they wish they had thought of killing him back during the riots.
Commercials. It must be hard to try to promote War of the Worlds in a way that doesn't make the star look like a bug-eyed madman, so here's to the valiant people who tried. You failed. But still -- nice try!
When we get back, PI is just ending. Michael and Westmoreland leave first. I can't believe nobody's noticed Westmoreland's sharp new haircut. And sharp new facial expression. In the T-Bag Antipathy Society, Linc grumbles to Abruzzi, "That son of a bitch has a countermove for everything." Abruzzi says almost jovially, "Not for this." Meanwhile, C-Note and Sucre are bringing up the rear. C-Note tries to fan the flames of incipient racially-induced paranoia. Sucre attempts to cut him short with, "I don't know about you, but I'm going." C-Note then tries to confuse Sucre with logic. He is mostly successful: first he tells Sucre that Michael's "you only work on a need-to-know basis" M.O. is a sure sign of an upcoming double-cross, and when Sucre protests, "He tells me everything!" C-Note reasons that they really don't need Michael to escape, then. But so long as they do, the potential for Michael to screw them over is still there. Having poured the marinade of mistrust all over Sucre, C-Note walks off to let Michael's cellie stew awhile.
Meanwhile, Michael's peeled off from Team Escarpara so he can look at a big, yellow pipe poking up out of the yard. It's shaped like an inverted "U," and it's got a big wheel on top to turn the flow on and off. Michael's reverie is interrupted by Tweener, who tells Michael that he snitched the watch, so where's the PI? Michael brusquely says it's not going to happen. Tweener's face falls and he says, "You promised." Michael says coolly, "I said I'd think about it. Maybe somewhere down the road." Michael really should think about it now: you'd think that prior run-ins with prisoners who know how to hold grudges should have taught him something. Anyway, he walks off, and Tweener looks disgusted.
Meanwhile, on the outside...LJ pulls up in front of a hospital. Veronica's playing nurse to the bleeding Nick. Her backseat manner leaves much to be desired. Nick protests that the hospital will call the cops over any bullet wound, thus blowing their cover. To the great surprise of nobody, Veronica dismisses this safety-minded consideration. If Quinn isn't already dead at this point, he should commit seppuku from the shame of having been outwitted by this carful of clowns. For that matter, so should Agents Kellerman and Hale.
Back inside, Michael's done some poking around the vent duct below the grate in the infirmary floor. He drops one of the origami swans he just happens to have on hand -- because what well-prepared gentleman doesn't have a swan in his pocket? -- and it drops through the hole he poked and lands on a floor below that. Michael hears a noise and heads away from the corner vent.
That noise would be Bellick, who's looking for Michael. He says with malicious good cheer: "There you are! I just looked for you in your cell. I couldn't find you. [sotto voce] I couldn't find your credit card either. You know what I'm talking about -- the one your whore wife trucked in the other day." Naturally, this is the moment Dr. Tancredi enters the examination room. Bellick gives her the wait-a-minute motion, then amends his statement: "Maybe 'whore' is too strong. What do you call a girl who married a felon to get into the United States? What'd she have to come here for, anyway? No strip clubs in Whatzistan?" Michael is glaring daggers at Bellick, and Dr. Sara is too. Ah, mutual animosity -- the glue that binds the best couples together. Dr. Sara finally snaps, "Do you mind conducting your inquisitions on your own time, please? I have a schedule to maintain." Bellick says, "Excuse me, Doctor." Subtext: "Fuck you, Nursemaid." He continues, "I was just asking Mr. Scofield about the contraband he had his stripper wife truck in here the other day." Why am I not surprised that Bellick's got a whore/Madonna complex? He then delivers another subtextual eff-you with, "But you go ahead. Your job's more important." Unfortunately, Dr. Sara does not say, "Better paid, certainly. Requiring more useful skills, yes. Not prone to inciting riots, for sure. Potato, po-tah-to." Instead she proves that all those nights doodling Michael on her medical reimbursement claim forms weren't for naught, and nails Bellick with a pretty good Blue Steel. Rather than recognize ocular defeat, Bellick leaves.
Michael slumps and sighs in the examining room chair. Dr. Sara's trying to prep his arm, but he's fidgeting and looking everywhere but at her. He finally says, "He's had it out for me since the day I got here." Dr. Sara, who has clearly moved to the later chapters in Don't Do Life in the Prison of Love, replies, "Hold still, please." Burn! Michael apologizes. Dr. Sara pricks his finger or whatever, and he goes back to gnawing on his knuckle, obviously agitated. Dr. Sara silently pulls down his arm and begins prepping it for his insulin. Michael doesn't look at her as he says, "I only married her so she'd get her green card." Dr. Sara then undoes all the progress she made earlier with, "I saw you coming out of the conjugal room." And he's not married to you, is he? Michael gives a non-answer with, "That's just business," and Dr. Sara lies through her teeth with, "You don't have to explain it to me, Michael." ["Then why bring up the conjugal room if you don't want an explanation, Passive-Aggressie Bessie? It's called 'Match.com,' look into it." -- Sars] Michael stares and says he wants to explain it. Dr. Sara stalks off rather than bother figuring out whether Michael's being sincere or merely trying to play her. Michael does not look happy as he watches her go.
In cellblock A, the cons are mingling. Who knew prisons had cocktail hours? Anyway, T-Bag sidles up to the new and improved Westmoreland and tries to smart-mouth. Westmoreland wheels around and growls, "Take a couple of steps back, boy." Sensitive student of human nature T-Bag says, "Know what I can't understand is why somebody like you wants to get out of here anyway? How you going to survive on the outside? The world's all different now. It's scary! They got computer phones, boobies made out of silicone...you wouldn't know what to do!" Frankly, I'm stunned that T-Bag's got working knowledge of either VoIP or the secondary sexual traits of post-pubescents. ["He's an expert in Brooks's lines from Shawshank, at least. …Come on, writers, at least don't be so obvious about it." -- Sars] Westmoreland points out that he really doesn't need to be justifying himself to T-Bag, but T-Bag thinks otherwise, and threatens to snap a few of Westmoreland's old bones. Westmoreland sends T-Bag flying backwards with a well-placed shove, then invites the bantamweight pervert to take his best shot. Because T-Bag can't, he's reduced to making idle threats.
Meanwhile, over in Abruzzi's cell, the hitman's having either a seizure or a brainstorm. It's hard to tell which it is. However, it revolves around a folded piece of paper in his hand. A few moments later, we see him strolling over to say hi to Linc in the yard. Abruzzi tells Linc, "Records from the phones in the yard. James Bagwell lives down in Gary." Linc correctly guesses, "T-Bag's insurance policy?" Abruzzi says placidly, "Yeah. My guy's gonna lock him up in a moving van for a coupla days until we're in the clear." Linc says, "Moving van?" He's not horrified so much as he is skeptical, it sounds. Abruzzi shrugs, "Don't worry, he can breathe and all. We do it all the time." He thinks that this way, T-Bag will no longer be a threat. If Abruzzi leaps to these kinds of conclusions all the time, it's a wonder he survived to his forties.
Meanwhile, on the outside...we meet the Bagwells. They are not what most HOA boards would consider desirable neighbors. A guy driving a moving van rolls up and tells Cousin Bagwell that he's got a delivery.
Meanwhile, LJ and Veronica are just chilling out in the local hospital. Improbably, the waiting area is conveniently located. Even more improbably, it's got reading material that's less than two years old. How is this possible? I had occasion to hang out in a hospital waiting room last year -- a hospital waiting room that had just opened up that week, no less -- and the most current reading material was a 2002 issue of Reader's Digest. I figured there was some sort of superstition about letting news of the outside world into a hospital.
Anyway, there's a paper, because what better way for LJ to find out that his mom's getting buried today at 2 PM? Fortunately, Veronica's too busy making up totally improbable lies as to how Nick got shot ("He was in the garage, underneath his car") to notice that LJ's slipped away. She's what you call an "asset" to any team. You just know if she was part of Team Escarpara, everyone would be unanimous agreement to leave her behind.
Speaking of team members whose value fluctuates from minute to minute, it's Agents Hale and Kellerman. Hale's hanging out in a cemetery and Kellerman's strolling the Miracle Mile; they're checking in with each other on the phone. I guess he thought he could give valuable strategy tips like "We want the trifecta today" in between trips to the Gap and the Apple store. He's right. The whole reason Hale's staking out Lisa's well-attended funeral is to see if LJ shows up, then follow the little fugitive to wherever Nick and Veronica are.
Back on the inside, Abruzzi's little thug is checking in with the boss. There's good news and bad news. The good news: T-Bag's insurance policy will not be calling Warden Pope at any time on the night of the breakout. The bad news: That would be because Abruzzi's guy popped him during a gun battle. Proving that some behavioral traits may well be encoded in our DNA, Cousin Bagwell also contrived to get a little kid killed too -- his own, whom he used as a human shield. Nice. Abruzzi takes the news of the toddler boy's death hard. I pause the TiVo to grumble, "Suck it up. Scorsese's mobsters never snivel over the deaths of innocents."
Commercials. That Nasonex bee makes me wish the African killer bees would invade his neighborhood.
When we get back from commercials, Sucre's heading into the visitor's lounge. He has a surprise guest -- Maricruz. Cue Prison Break's tender love theme. Maricruz reacts by looking nauseous. Sucre breathes, "You look so beautiful." A small but significant portion of viewers all swoon at this delivery. Maricruz looks even more nauseous. She says, "I came here because I have to tell you something...I'm pregnant, Fernando." In Sucre's head, the tender love theme shrieks to a halt. He's evidently shocked by this side effect of sexual intercourse. Maricruz helpfully adds, "With your baby. I'm going to have your son." Sucre's gobsmacked: "You -- you're gonna -- we, we're gonna have a baby?" Maricruz confirms this. Sucre gleefully bellows to the world at large, "Oh, yeah, Papi, you hear that? I'm gonna be a dad!" Ah, Sucre -- so brainless, yet so adorably amusing. Maricruz grabs his hands and is all, "Whoa, whoa." It turns out that Hector's offered to make an honest woman of her and raise the kid as his own. And this is where the tender love theme really does shriek to a halt. Sucre doesn't understand why Maricruz hasn't already told Hector to pound his proposal sideways. Maricruz snivels, "My mom, she says that having a baby is the hardest job in the whole world, and it's even harder if I do this by myself. But all I know is, I'm really scared. I'm really scared to be alone." With remarkable restraint, all Sucre says is, "You're not going to have to be." On the plus side, Maricruz hasn't told Hector "yes" yet. On the minus side, she hasn't told him "no" either.
Meanwhile, on the outside...LJ pulls up to his mother's grave totally undetected, because there's no way police officers would even think to look for a fugitive kid at his mother's graveside on the day she's buried. This show! Wouldn't LJ at least think of going incognito? Up until now, I had thought he was the brains of the operation. Anyway, LJ wanders over to his mom's coffin, lost in grief, and the sight triggers something for Hale.
Night's fallen. Michael's busy stuffing his sheets so he can slide out of the cell. Sucre pops up and asks where Michael's going. Michael non-replies, "I'll be back in ten minutes." Sucre asks for more details, and Michael says absently, "It's complicated. I can't explain." "You said that same thing when I asked how Maricruz could have a baby!" Sucre protests. Oh, he does not. Sucre asks to come, and Michael says, "Someone has to stay here. I need a lookout." It's a weird line delivery -- it's like he's reciting from Escape Plans for Dummies. Sucre protests that he's always on lookout. Michael clearly cannot believe they're having this argument right now and points out, "You're my cellmate. Who else is going to do it?" Yeah, it's not like he can outsource the job. Anyway, there's a really weird little staring thing going on, and then Michael bumps knuckles with Sucre as a show of good faith. Off he bops, completely misreading his cellie's evident mistrust and agitation.
Meanwhile, Abruzzi's captivated by the growing splotch on the wall. Pareidolia strikes again! He sees what appears to be an image of Jesus' thorn-crowned head. Abruzzi's cellie is left to handle messenger duty: he fetches the tightly-rolled cylinder of paper from the string to which another inmate attached it, and tells the goggling Abruzzi, "We're all lined up for tomorrow. Where do you want it." Abruzzi silently drools in response. Eventually, he tells his cellie to decide whether they want T-Bag in the shop or the shed. Finally, finally, someone had the good sense to realize that T-Bag needs killed.
Michael scampers back through the pipes, returns to the clean, well-lighted place we saw earlier, crouches in front of a pipe that just happens to be poking out of the wall, and turns the faucet. A few brackish drops of liquid trickle out. Michael grins, then looks up at the grate 20 feet above his head.
We're then transported to the Senate rotunda, if the architecture is any indication. There's a coffin lying in state. A clean-shaven, non-sebaceous Abruzzi looks down at the child contained within the coffin. Then the kid's eyes slam open and Abruzzi wakes up from his nightmare. I cannot believe that this seasoned hit man, who's gleefully cut off a man's toes with no moral qualms, to say nothing of folding, spindling, and mutilating plenty of people on the outside -- I can't believe he's all jacked up about this kid.
Commercials. You can swaddle George Clooney in 30 extra pounds of lard and Gil Grissom's back-up beard, but you cannot bury his suave appeal.
When we get back, Veronica is busy setting back Nick's recovery by being the first thing he sees post-surgery. LJ wanders back in and Veronica gives him a hug. LJ has a little meltdown -- can't blame him there -- and sobs into Veronica's shoulder, "She didn't deserve this." Agent Hale watches this, then pops out of view just as Veronica looks up. Just outside everyone's line of sight, Hale is busy having a mid-career crisis. Stupid job! Stupid conspiracy henchman duties! Stupid Kellerman, always threatening to kill me!
On the inside, a guy with a super-deep voice is passing C-Note some postcards from Iraq. "These were seriously hard to get. What you need them for anyway?" he asks. C-Note declines to share. I guess he's only chatty when he's torpedoing someone else's plans, huh?
Meanwhile, T-Bag is sitting on his bunk, waiting in nervous dread. Pope comes over. Ever the soul of courtesy, he says, "Thank you for waiting, Theodore. I don't mean to deny you your time in the yard." T-Bag nervously asks what this is all about. His body language here is interesting: I can't tell if he's submissively hunched because he's genuinely nervous, or if he's trying to pull a fast one on Pope. Warden Pope tells him, "I'm afraid I have some terrible news. Your cousin James was shot and killed in his home yesterday. His son, James Junior, was killed as well." T-Bag physically recoils from the news, his face going blank with shock and denial. T-Bag takes a shaky breath, but doesn't say anything. Pope says how sorry he is. He walks off, and T-Bag reaches out for him, then lets his hand drop as his other arm snakes up in a futile, warding gesture. His arms swing wildly for a moment before he finally covers his face and reels from the grief.
And in another cell, Abruzzi's having a full-on spiritual epiphany, asking the prison chaplain, "What does it mean? Am I chosen?" The pastor posits that the Lord appears when you're in particular need of forgiveness. Abruzzi suddenly recalls a rich and varied history of unforgivable acts against his fellow man. He breaks down as the chaplain urges, "It's never too late. If you agree to accept Christ into your heart and turn from your sin, he will forgive you and save you in eternity." Abruzzi has himself a bona fide conversion. The padre has himself a head-scratcher, given that what he sees of the stain is a few rusty streaks.
Sucre's catching C-Note up to date on what Michael's been up to at night. C-Note is pleased to learn that from Michael's cell, anyone can slither through assorted pipes into St. Louis.
Out in the yard, CO Stickyfingers is carping to Bellick about how Tweener had the effrontery to steal the watch he himself had stolen from Scofield. The name Scofield sets Bellick off like a hound on the scent.
In another part of the yard, Westmoreland keeps an eye out while Michael revisits the big yellow pipe and sets the faucet a-twirl. Clear, clean water immediately begins flooding into the chamber below. Good thing Michael's homemade plug is in there to block any grates! And good thing he already turned on the pipe at the bottom too, huh?
While Michael and Westmoreland have been doing PI, Abruzzi and his magic stain have been conducting a Bible study. Abruzzi is particularly struck by the phrase, "He shall hear my voice," which he repeats just enough for it to get really annoying. Then he closes his Bible, and we see that he hasn't been reading Isaiah 2:4 ("They shall beat their swords into plowshares…"). Let's hope Abruzzi doesn't make any hair-splitting arguments about the Bible never explicitly mentioning shivs and shanks.
Outside, T-Bag's no-good, horrible, very bad day is continuing as three prisoners ambush him and bring him down with a minimum of fuss on their part. As you can imagine, he's fussing considerably. T-Bag is carried into the shop, the door of which is quickly closed.
Commercials. I cannot imagine any incentive that would get me out of bed early enough to make it into a Wal-Mart at 5 AM. Not even George Clooney offering me a sack of lead hamburgers with which to beat the Burger King could do it. Speaking of which...this marks the third King-free week of ads. I win! I win! I win!
When we get back, Sucre's busy composing a list of boys' names -- Oscar, Carlos, Alejandro. Michael nervously asks what Sucre's doing, and Sucre snarls, "Nothing." It's so sad when cellies stop communicating. Michael begins setting up the cell so he can duck out, and Sucre testily asks exactly when they're getting out. Michael's baffled. He replies, "As soon as possible." Sucre snaps, "As soon as possible's not a specific time! You tell Abruzzi the time?" Michael impatiently replies, "Yes, because he needs to know." Sucre wants to know, "Why does he need to know and I don't?" "Because he's arranging the plane. Why the sudden curiosity?" Michael asks heatedly. And none too quietly -- that's not smart. Sucre has no good reply. Michael calms down a little and asks, "Why would you want to be responsible for potentially dangerous information? The less you know, the better. It's for your own good." Sucre simmers in some of that mistrust marinade C-Note poured all over him earlier. Michael says he'll meet Sucre in PI. Sucre's all huffy. He turns back to his list so he can make a big point of not writing "Miguel" all over it.
As if this show's commercials weren't enough to turn me off fast food for life, this episode now wants to finish the work that the Burger King and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation started. That's right: we get to see Bellick cramming his moon face with greasy food and spraying some in Tweener's general direction as he wheedles the young man into becoming a rat. Tweener, it should be noted, sells out for a cheeseburger, which makes him a remarkably cheap little bitch. God only knows what abominations he'd commit for a Whopper. I pray we never find out.
Meanwhile, on the outside...we visit the House of Hale. The missus is wondering why Hale's home during the middle of day, and he tells her in a too-cheerful voice, "I've been thinking! I think we need to make a change!" Mrs. Hale is not the keenest student of human behavior. She has no idea what Hale's talking about. He tries again: "Remember when we first got married and we talked about moving out west. Well, maybe we should give it a shot. It's not too late." Mrs. Hale is still cloudy: "I don't understand. What brought this on?" "Oh, work problems. The overtime's a bitch, and I'm tired of being a conspiracy henchman, and Kellerman keeps threatening to kill me, and it's just a big bummer is all," Hale says. Or perhaps he merely alludes to how the sparkle is gone from the usual routine of killing people for no clear reason. Hale finally says in all seriousness, "We gotta go." "You're in trouble, aren't you?" the missus replies. Hale doesn't nod, but his eyes move up and down.
Back in St. Louis, Sucre's doing some serious grudge digging. Man, if I didn't think C-Note's little turn as Eris was going to be bad news, I'd suggest that he make everyone peevish: it does wonders for the work. C-Note comes in to make some snotty comments about how the workforce has shrunk down to him and Sucre, but Linc's not having any of it. He and Westmoreland switch off in lookout position.
In what has become this episode's most drearily familiar sequence, Michael wends his way back through the pipes. He stops at the usual opening; there's a wet splash. He quickly strips down to his skivvies -- this is network TV, so the man's forced to run around in wet underwear later -- and dives into the water.
I guess the pipe he was in angles down steeply to the chamber, because Michael's now at the bottom of the clean, clear pool of water. He finds the end of the rope and soon begins kicking his way to the top. Somehow, the rope stretches to fit. Michael reaches up, pushes the grate out of the way. We see a origami swan lying on the floor about a yard past the grate. Within seconds, Michael's pulled himself out of the water and is sitting on the floor, shaking the water out of his ear. After checking for the swan, Michael pulls the rope and unplugs the drain at the bottom of his impromptu pool. After tying the rope to the top of the grate, Michael climbs a set of shelves to check the air vent he's been dissolving. As if to provide the data he needs, Sara walks right over the hole and washes her hands at the sink; she does not look down. Michael then watches the water drain down.
Meanwhile, on the outside...Veronica's still waiting around Nick's room when the phone rings. She answers, of course. If Veronica were fleeing the country via airplane and she touched down in a strange airport, she'd totally follow Agent Kellerman to her certain death just because he held up a sign with her name on it. Anyway, Hale's proving that he may not be the brains of his operation either, what with calling her from his house on his cell phone. Hale promises information that'll lead to Linc's exoneration -- provided she meet him tomorrow night at 8 PM at the Highland Café on Kennedy Avenue.
T-Bag's no-good, horrible, very bad day is continuing with a juicy pummeling. Abruzzi calls it off, and the thugs leave T-Bag on a work bench. His hands are duct-taped together. As Abruzzi pulls the shiv out, T-Bag whimpers, "You don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do this." Abruzzi runs the blade against T-Bag's skin and says, "You brought it on yourself. I'm just an emissary for all the pain and suffering you caused, all the families you ruined, all the little kids." Thinking fast, T-Bag asks, "What about Jimmy? He had nothing to do with this. You had to kill him? And what about his beautiful son?" Abruzzi does not point out that the minute T-Bag called his cousin, Jimmy did indeed have something to do with this. T-Bag's crying, "You didn't need to kill a beautiful child. After all I've done, maybe I do deserve to die." Maybe? Anyway...T-Bag keeps talking fast, "Maybe I do. But you are no better than me." Abruzzi lifts T-Bag up and grits, "But I can be! If I want! God has given me the chance to choose." T-Bag's now genuinely scared.
Abruzzi then proves that faith is no guarantee of brains, reasoning, "Maybe I should give you a chance to choose too." T-Bag thinks that's a fine idea. Abruzzi tells him, "Back out [of the escape] or die." T-Bag chortles nervously that "I wouldn't make it out there anyway. Not with my proclivities." Oh, Lord save me from the fallacy of the talking criminal. How is it that mostly non-criminal Michael is the only who knows enough to shut up? Anyway, Abruzzi wants T-Bag's word. T-Bag gives it eagerly. It's amazing what a knife aimed at the eye socket can do for your motivation. T-Bag collapses on Abruzzi crying, and after a minute of this, Abruzzi barks, "All right! I have forgiven you. I have forgiven you. You just have to pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will do the same."
Abruzzi makes his second mistake then -- cutting T-Bag's bonds. (His first, frankly, was keeping T-Bag alive.) Then Abruzzi makes his third mistake, and turns his back on T-Bag as he walks out of the shed alone. Again -- how did this guy survive? And how is this only the first attempt made on his life? It looks to be pretty darn successful too. T-Bag's been hiding a razor blade somewhere, and he spits it out. Then he calls for Abruzzi, and when the man turns around, T-Bag says, "About Jesus...say hi to him for me, will you?"
Meanwhile in St. Louis, the digging members of Team Escarpara have just gotten through the pipe. Linc pops in to tell them that the bulls are coming. Westmoreland tells him, "You gotta stall them. We're not ready [to hide the hole again]." Clearly, EVERYONE has a case of the stupids today. You have two canny thinkers in Westmoreland and C-Note, so you ask Linc to think quick on his feet? His idea of thinking quick is to slug a guard.
Michael -- who is now back in the pipe and fully dressed -- is sort of waiting impatiently until he can pop out of the hole Team Escarpara dug. When he pops out, he announces to the crew, "Well, we leave tonight!" He's looking pretty happy. That's because he doesn't know his brother's in the SHU and his transport guy is dead. Yet. Michael looks around at the less-than-thrilled faces and asks, "Where's my brother?" Westmoreland answers with, "Michael, we got a big problem." And hey, you know what? That statement can pretty much sum up one of the show's main themes.
Will Michael solve this problem? Will Kellerman make good on his threat to pop his coworker? Is Team Escarpara about to become Team Frustrado? Stay tuned for the final pre-hiatus episode.