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Dear Prison Break: When my adrenal gland breaks, I am blaming YOU. Also, I would like my quadriceps to return to normal, as they are currently cramped from sitting on the edge of my seat for fifty-odd straight minutes. Please send handsome masseurs to me, pronto.
So! What could have caused my grievous physical state? Only the most awesome season opener, that's what. We pick up with 62.5% of Team Escarpara hauling ass through the woods. They've missed the plane, so they use a train to put some distance between themselves and Bellick, and wrangle an automobile out of a hunter whose daughter is unlucky enough to stumble on them. Bellick sweats and snorts and snots and screams, "Scofield!" You know -- the usual.
What is new: the FBI agent played by William Fichtner, who actually has half a brain and therefore will be a worthy adversary for our little fugitive mastermind. Fichtner takes about five seconds to figure out that the entire escape plan is hidden in the tattoo, and announces the plot conceit that may make Season Two incredibly tense: he will decode the tattoo and beat Michael to wherever he's headed . He didn't swing it this episode -- Team Escapara made it to the grave site where Michael had buried his carry-on luggage about ten minutes before Fichtner did -- but it's coming. Oh, yes, it is.
As for everyone else we know and/or love from Season One: Dr. Sara lives. A guilt-wracked Nurse Gossipson helpfully advances the plot by coming to visit, dropping off Sara's purse, and revealing the note Michael tucked in the bag. T-Bag is currently pushing the boundaries of cross-species medical knowledge. We have no idea what is going on with either Haywire or Tweener. And Veronica -- holy cow! The conspiracy dudes killed Veronica! And carried her body out in multiple Hefty bags, so you know there's no chance of this whole thing being some sort of pre-sweeps fake-out. RIP, Veronica. You died as you lived -- stupidly. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Prison Break: What, y'all can't read the recaps?
No, seriously, here's what happened: Linc got framed for a crime he didn't commit -- whacking the vice president's brother, Steadman. Linc's brother Michael was eventually convinced of Lincoln's innocence, contrived to get himself thrown into prison, then commenced with executing a breakout plan that was suitably complex enough to carry several sweeps episodes, yet effective enough to place the brothers (plus a motley crew of assorted felons) on the outside as of the season one finale. Now that we're all caught up...
We get a shot of Fox River. The miracle of time-lapse photography shows us clouds rushing by a steadily-lightening sky. Then we pull into a tight shot of someone doing the brainteasers in a newspaper -- word scramble, crossword puzzle, etc. Clearly, this is meant to show us his keen and active intellect; I personally have always suspected the brainy smart among us are too smart to waste their time on those little amusements. He asks, "The escapees -- who were they?" His underling replies, "I've got a list. Would you like me to read it to you? My reading is so evocative, it causes expository flashbacks for anyone within earshot." With an offer like that, who is the other, silhouetted dude to say no?
The guy begins: "Michael Scofield. Structural engineer. Five years, armed robbery. Benjamin Miles Franklin --" whom we all know and/or love as C-Note "-- former U.S. Army, eight years for possession of stolen goods. John Abruzzi. Don of the crime family of the same name --" and here is where I have to pause and wonder why on earth someone didn't elect to write the more elegant and equally accurate phrase "Don of an eponymous crime family'? Because, really, how many good excuses are there to use that word on TV? Not enough. And this one just got squandered. Anyway, let's carry on: "Life without parole for conspiracy to commit murder. Charles 'Haywire' Patoshik. Sixty years for second degree murder. Fernando Sucre. Five years for aggravated robbery. David 'Tweener' Apolskis. Five years for grand larceny. Theodore 'T-Bag' Bagwell. Life for six counts of kidnapping, rape and first degree murder. And Lincoln Burrows. Scheduled to die week for the murder of President Reynolds' brother." Ladies and gentlemen, your Team Escarpara line-up!
The puzzle-doing dude picks up the exposition fairy's bag of plot-moving dust and sprinkles some over the dialogue, noting that Team Escarpara went over the wall at 8:00 PM last night, reminding us that Linc and Michael are brothers, and concluding that Michael was the mastermind behind the plan. He says, "I want everything they've got on him." Across the nation, thousands of women (and men) snarl, "Take a number. There's a line."
Meanwhile, Team Escarpara runs through the woods in slow motion. That's unfortunate, as the police and their dogs appear to be chasing after them at full speed. Linc, Abruzzi and C-Note -- the three dudes with the most keenly developed survival skills -- are leading the pack. They stop to get their bearings relative to Bellick et al, then hear the whistle of a train rolling on down the track. Lincoln tells 'em all to get going: they're going cross the track ahead of the train, thus using it as a barrier against the cops. Linc is not bad at thinking on his feet. I guess those two extra toes give him a strategic edge over Michael.
The three street-seasoned cons are quick like bunnies. Sucre, not so much. And Scofield -- well, he will not be anchor leg when Team Escarpara competes in the Fugitive Olympics' 4x400 relay. These two will have to jump up on to a moving car, then scamper to the other side and jump out again. Yes -- the two least in-shape cons have the hardest job. Sucre manages it, but Michael can barely haul himself on to the car. Bellick, who is right behind him, shouts in glee, "Open fire!"
He then runs up, positioning himself to pick off Michael, then bellows, "Freeze! I will gun you down, Scofield!" Michael is trying to scramble, but he sort of freezes at this. It's very tense. But right in the nick of time, Linc yanks Michael into the car! Bellick's bullet just wings off the side of the car. The guys roll out of the car, and as the train's cars roll by, Bellick sees them jogging into the woods.
Being Bellick, he immediately takes out his frustrations on someone else; he grabs a nearby flunky, and we learn that the airborne unit is back on the ground, refilling. Bellick snarls, "Son of a bitch." And then we go to credits. Hey! New shots of some characters! Hey, same old name, despite the crew having actually moved from the "Break" part of the plan to the "Broke" part.
When we get back from the break, the puzzle-doer's being summoned to a press conference. As he stands up and begins smoothing his shirt cuffs -- it looks like a grooming ritual he does automatically -- we get the first full-on shot of this guy's face. It's William Fichtner, nee Agent Mahone. to me on the couch, my friend Mary-Lynn instantly snaps, "Dibs." Damn her speedy diction! ["Sars will fight you both, and it won't be pretty." -- Joe R] Back on the show, Mahone prepares to head into the press conference. His fingers scrabble for a thick black pen, hesitate, then grab the pen.
Cue the ravening horde. Mahone steps to the podium and employs the extremely effective trick of speaking in low, calm tones. It's brilliant. Everyone has to shut up and listen to his monologue: "I'd like to talk about John Wilkes Booth for a moment, if I could. Abraham Lincoln's killer. Twelve days -- that's how long it took to find him. In his journal during this period, he wrote that the shadow was his friend, the night his domain."
And this is where we cut to Lincoln running through the woods in broad daylight. Well done, editors! Mahone continues, "He acknowledged that whatever neuroses drove the criminal to commit the original crime is compounded, magnified..." And here we go to Michael, who's somehow managing not to trip over his bugged-out eyes as he runs. Okay, editors, this one I will give you -- nice cut. Back to the Mahone monologues: "...by flight. By the sounds of dogs at his heels. Fear becomes paranoia..." And here we go to Sucre, so all y'all who are smitten with the big goofball, I hope you're steeling yourself for the worst. Mahone continues, "Paranoia becomes psychosis." And...we go to Abruzzi. Is anyone surprised? Mahone explains, "I bring this up because in 140 years, the fundamental mind of the escaped man has not changed. The escaped man is still human, he is still afraid, and he will stop at nothing in his attempted flight." We see Abruzzi sliding a gun into the waistband of his pants. Mahone adds, "Fortunately for us, while our quarry has shadow and night as his ally, we have something far greater -- television." Well, there goes all of C-Note's hard work down the drain. So then Mahone wraps up by exhorting everyone who watches TV to spend endless hours gazing upon Team Escarpara. Clearly, the guy has never been to the forums, or else he'd know that some of y'all are doing that already.
Team Escarpara runs into a clearing and pauses so they can give Sucre a much-needed complaining break. You can see where his forbearance was beginning to cramp, and he was getting a stitch in his side from having to suck it up. Now that C-Note's also taken the pause that refreshes, he has renewed energy. He uses it to raise his arm and point an accusing finger at Abruzzi, whose airline strategy was only slightly less addlepated than those by which the major U.S. airline carriers go. Abruzzi strides forward to proclaim, "Yoo were never gunna be on thah plane, brotha." Bzzzt! For a truly chilling rejoinder, he should have gone with, "Cut out your complaining...or I'll cut off your arm." 'Cause, see, everyone knows he'd do it too.
C-Note then continues to sow the seeds of discord by trying to drag Michael into it with the whole, "Don't think I don't know you weren't planning on heading to Utah!" business. He asks, "When were you planning on telling us about the money, man?" Sucre: "What money?" The Goddess Eris: "Well, done, Minion Miles! Keep on with my work!" C-Note: "Will do! Team, I'm talking about the $5 million Westmoreland had. Michael was not planning on saying anything apparently?"
Michael says curtly, "You don't know what you're talking about." C-Note snarls, "You wish I didn't know." He is really presumptuous, isn't he? First he's all, "I want in on the escape" and now he's all "I want in on the loot," and it's not like he's the one getting framed for a murder or tattooing blueprints on his body. Sucre's all, "Wait! Wait! What money?"
Meanwhile, back at Fox River...Pope is striding through the halls when Mahone catches up to him. Pope asks caustically, "It's a little early for the FBI to be showing up, don't you think?" Mahone points out that the minute the cons cross state line, this gets bumped to the Feds anyway. Pope snaps, "Yeah, well, that is not going to happen." And Mahone shows that he's not just a master of manipulating the press. He pacifies Pope by saying, "I hope you're right. Which is why I'm going to suggest that we cut through any interagency politics from the outset and focus on transparency." Pope agrees to this. Mahone then reveals that his idea of transparency is to grill Pope about his staff, specifically, Dr. Sara. "From what I'm hearing, she may have abetted the escapees -- opened the door that allowed them to get out," Mahone says. Pope is like, "Okay, this amusing little experiment in transparency is over. Bye now!"
Speaking of the good doctor, there she is, in a hospital bed, not on a morgue slab. Well, that's one cliff-hanger resolved. The voiceless ululations that signal A Very Poignant Moment kick in and some medical types come in and babble about how "either she fights and lives, or quits and dies." Or respires and has lots of little flashbacks implying that Michael Scofield is so compelling, the very thought of him can rouse women from morphine-induced comas. Again -- not news to certain of our forum members.
And now, a couple that's been camping in the woods is going to get a lesson in why it's better to spend all your vacation days and weekends locked safely indoors. We see a campfire and a grill to it. Then we see T-Bag hunched over by the cooler. Fortunately for him and his hand, there's ice in it. T-Bag also noshes on some ice. Then the guy on the camping trip comes out of the tent. Reasonably enough, he'd like to know why a bloody one-handed man is busy rooting around his breakfast. T-Bag grabs a knife. The guy's girlfriend grabs him -- as a human shield. That woman has perhaps the second-most finely honed survival instincts on this show. Obviously, T-Bag holds the top spot. Anyway. T-Bag threatens them by waving around the knife and saying, "You call the cops and I will put (this knife) in your eye." The guy's all, "Well, I am fond of both eyes and look! My cell phone batteries have run low. Darn." Then T-Bag grabs the guy's hat and whispers, "Thank you." Okay, that was freaky. Also freaky: how someone who's had a major appendage chopped off, then spent hours running around in the woods has managed to A) elude the scent-tracking hounds and B) not pass out from blood loss. T-Bag shoves the hat on his head, picks up the cooler with his hand in it, and takes off.
Speaking of tracking dogs, there they are around the train tracks. Mahone is now flipping through photos of Michael's tattoo and commenting, "A structural engineer, huh?" His partner Ives comments that it's not typical for those guys to get a lot of ink. Mahone concurs. The two of them estimate the total time spent on the work at a few hundred hours, and Mahone decides that they need to talk to the tattoo artist who gave Michael his ink. Ives runs off to find out who it was.
Bellick goes barreling by and Mahone says smoothly, "Mr. Bellick." "Don't talk to me," Captain Displacement replies. Mahone says, "Fine, but it's going to make collaboration kind of hard." Bellick decides to play the oppressed-proletariat-workers card with "I got men out here in harm's way and you're giving press conferences." Mahone says coolly, "The press is a tool. They'll bring those men back quicker than bloodhounds will." Bellick snots, "We don't need you. We're hot on these guys' trail and it's just a matter of time until we nail them." Mahone does not burst out laughing, but that's only because he didn't see Bellick's greatest hits in season one. Instead, Mahone says, "The problem with being on a trail is that by definition, you'll always be behind your prey." The best rebuttal Bellick can muster is, "We'll see about that." I would almost feel sorry for Bellick, as he's so clearly doomed to always be outwitted by his intellectual betters, except that he's such a hubristic prick. Mahone thinks so too; the scene ends with him rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
Meanwhile, in beautiful Blackfoot, Montana, Terrence Steadman is busy telling Veronica, "I'm not armed." She replies, "You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little short on trust at the moment." Steadman -- who appears to have been radically altered by his captivity -- slurs to Veronica, "I assure you, young woman, that I am the furthest thing from a threat. I think the Percoset pretty much insures that?" I don't know -- David Gest might allege otherwise. Veronica snaps his picture and Terrence tells her it won't do any good. Veronica snaps, "You don't get it -- somebody's about to be executed for your murder while you just sit here." Then she and Terrance go back and forth for a few minutes; his contributions to the conversation can be summed up thusly:
1. Don't hate the player, hate the game. And
2. Veronica is now a prisoner in the house, as all the doors only open from the outside. Quoth Terrence: "There's no getting out of here, young woman."
The cameras zoom in on Veronica's face as she realizes that once again, her inability to think like a sneaky bastard has gotten her in a bad situation. Then they zoom out to provide a nice contrast to the confines of the house -- a beautiful lake, and a deserted dock leading to said lake. Linc and Michael are sitting on the lake. Linc thinks the brothers should ditch the rest of Team Escarpara, but Michael says, "We can't. They know about Utah." Linc more or less points out that two people with an elaborate contingency plan have substantially better odds of reaching Utah before three people with scanty improvisational skills. Michael rebuts that the guys are likely to get caught and therefore sic the Feds on Los Brothers Burrows/Scofield in Utah. He figures they're all a big happy team until at least Utah. We pan to the suspicious mugs of C-Note, Abruzzi and Sucre.
Meanwhile, Linc asks if the money's really there. Not wishing to speak excessively ill of the (sob! Sniff!) recently dead, Michael replies, "Charles may have had a flexible relationship with the truth, but at the end...at the end, there would be no reason for him to lie about it. I figure once we bag it, we cross over in Mexico." Michael begins to smile a little as he continues, "Take a whole bunch of bumpy, second-class bus rides until we can get to Panama." The non-related members of Team Escarpara continue their glowering as they try to eavesdrop. Linc grins at Michael as he says, "You really got a fix on this dive shop thing, huh?" Michael is equally amused as he says, "Yeah. Right now, I wouldn't mind swinging in a hammock for the 10, 20 years." Then Linc plays Captain Bringdown by reminding Michael that half the country is after them. Michael then propels season two forward by telling him that A) Linc should just let go of any idea that Veronica will be of any assistance, and B) he was smart enough to set up a plan B on the off-chance that his carefully-planned season one breakout was complicated by a few extra inmates, the death of the money guy, a handcuffing to T-Bag, some bassackwards driving on Linc's part, and juuuuuust missing the plane on the runway, duh. Michael tells Linc they have everything they need in storage; then he looks at the tattooed inscription "Ripe Chance Woods" around his wrist.
Meanwhile, back at FBI field headquarters in Chicago, the tattoo artist Sid is busy telling Mahone that Michael designed the whole tattoo. She says, "He brought it in, every element. Look at it -- it's the friggin' Sistine Chapel. I knew the guy was an engineer or whatever, but man, his skill as an artist was unbelievable." Mahone is not big into art: "What else? What can you tell me about him as a person?" Sid thinks. She finally says, "Ah, he was cool, you know? But talk about a detail Nazi! Everything had to be perfect, exactly as he drew it. I always sort of had the feeling that the whole thing was some sort of inside joke that only he was in on." Mahone looks at one of the tattoo shots and catches sight of "English, Fitz, Percy." He gets a flash of inspiration, so it's see ya, Sid. Then he calls for his colleague Foley, asking her for the name of the long road they took to get to the prison. "I think it was English street?" she replies. A few more Who's-on-first-style questions, and Mahone's figured out that Michael was encoding breakout clues in his tattoo. Kudos to him for figuring out in sixteen minutes of one episode what an entire prison staff missed through all of season one!
Linc and Michael come back from their tete-a-tete on the dock. Abruzzi wants to know where they're going, and Michael replies, "Someplace where we can stop being cons and start being civilians." C-Note speaks for all fans of forthright communication when he says, "Why don't you cut out the riddles, Snowflake, and just give it to us straight?" Sucre, who has been looking off in a different direction, is making noises that indicate something along the lines of "While I applaud your general sentiment, perhaps you will want to shelve this discussion for another time?" C-Note barks, "What?" He turns around. All the cons do -- and see a little girl staring at them.
She says hi, and Sucre, bless him, hesitantly says, "Hi..." in response. Michael has a look like They make humans in a travel size now? C-Note decides to take charge of the situation. He walks forward, saying, "Hey, little one." She asks, "What are you doing?" He's all, "Well, uh...we're just fishing." Unfortunately for him, this travel-sized human has an economy-sized attentiveness to detail. She asks, "With no poles?" C-Note lies, "Well, we like to fish with our hands." The girl has now caught notice of Michael's fish-handling, be-cuffed wrist. Sucre, however, hopes to distract her by adds, "Yes, uh, hand-fishing." Yes, that will be FOX Sports counter-programming during Monday Night Football.
Since patronizing the kid is not working, Michael decides that perhaps a little traumatizing is in order. He saunters forward, saying in a particularly menacing voice, "Perhaps the question is, what are you doing here?" She shrugs and replies, "Hunting."
In other words, she's with a guy who has a gun, and he's just trained that firearm on the cons, because he happens to recognize them. Oh, no!
When we get back from break, Daddy Hunter is training his gun on C-Note and screaming, "Get back from her." C-Note's like, "Of course," and he's backing away slowly. However, Abruzzi has different ideas. He grabs the girl and whips out the gun, shouting that if Daddy Hunter feels like making any funny moves, he's going to find himself down a kid. There's lots of shouty behavior back and forth and Abruzzi finally screams the guy into dropping the gun and tossing it over to him. After Sucre picks up the gun on Abruzzi's orders, Abruzzi releases the girl with a surprisingly soft "It's okay," and pushes her toward her dad. Michael then shakes down Hunter Dad for his car keys. As the cons head off, Linc gives Abruzzi a look that could kill.
Mahone has evidently dispatched Foley off to have a little girl talk with Dr. Sara: "Did you have a sexual relationship with Scofield?" "I wish!" replies Dr. Sara.
And now, T-Bag illustrates the pitfalls in the American healthcare system by going to a veterinarian for his hand re-attachment. Hey, it was the only Chicagoland healthcare provider in his PPO. T-Bag lurches into the vet's office and tells Dr. Gudat, "I'm going to need some work done, and I'm going to need it done privately." Dr. Gudat gently reminds T-Bag that the point to being a veterinarian is to work on animals, and T-Bag promptly slaps his stump on the counter. He persuades Dr. Gudat to operate on him by poking something sharp in his neck.
Meanwhile, Team Escarpara is conducting a post-mortem on their car-procuring adventure. C-Note is once again paying homage to his bitch goddess Eris by screaming, "I want the Eye-tye out of the car! Don't you have a heart! I have a daughter! I have a little girl!" Abruzzi leans forward and says in a low, menacing voice, "I have one too. And if I hadn't done what I had to do, we wouldn't be on our way to see them right now, would we?" Meanwhile, Sucre has a look like, Oh, wait. I could be having a GIRL?
Linc is behind the wheel, wearing a long-suffering expression. I swear, if just once, the writers would throw me a frickin' bone and have him bark, "Don't make me turn this car around!"...I would compose a little sonnet in their honor. Or perhaps a series of haikus. Michael gives him directions, because they're heading to Oswego. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with C-Note. Oh, he is such a complainer. Sucre whines, "What about New York? My girl's pregnant, yo." Abruzzi explains for what feels like the hundreth time that the feds will be waiting for them at the usual spots, so they'll have to be a little patient. When freakin' ABRUZZI is the voice of reason in the auto, you really are looking at the Car of Cluelessness. Abruzzi says, "Your love is your weakness right now, and they know about it." And then closet romantic Michael, of all people, says, "Don't let that stop you. You just have to be smart about it right now."
Back at Bellick's work site, the Anti-Pope hands over Scofield's credit card records prior to his incarceration. "He spent a lot of money out here in Will County," Bellick notes, adding, "Why does a guy from Chicago come all the way out here to spend $8000? Car wash, storage, car rental..." Oooh, Bellick's found a trail! Just then, a random cop comes up and breaks the news that a hunter just ran into five of the guys from Team Escarpara. Bellick sprints off.
Mahone is now visiting Michael's old apartment. He walks around the empty, pristine apartment -- having killed or removed the new occupants, one presumes, since the odds of a luxury loft with waterfront views staying on the market for long are tiny -- and begins brainstorming to Ives: "Mother's dead, father's a deadbeat...you got nothing in the whole world but your brother. So you plan..." Mahone lets his voice trail off as he runs his fingers along the wall, which is pocked with pinpricks from Michael's elaborate planning. Because, again, this is the sole luxury loft in the downtown Chicago area that has not been seized upon by home-staging professionals. We get about a minute of slickly overlapping images of Michael pinning things up and studying his plans, and Mahone trying to imagine Michael's actions. Mahone muses, "You scheme for months, until you get it right, every single element. And then you destroy all the evidence." How fortunate for Mahone that his powers of imagination include the ability to flash back to season one, because otherwise, how would he know to look out the window and imagine that Michael's chucked his hard drive into the Chicago River below? He tells Ives, "I want divers down in the river." And you know, while I really, really like the idea of Mahone being smart enough to figure out Michael's plan, I really, really dislike the idea of him figuring out every element on the first try. So I hope that when the divers bring up that hard drive, they discover that Michael has either affixed refrigerator magnets reading, "Good luck, suckers!" to the drive's outer case, or he's filled the drive with enough malware to bring down the FBI's network.
Meanwhile, up in beautiful Blackfoot, Montana, Terrence is woozily telling Veronica that the cell phone reception sucks up here. Veronica tells him to shut up, and he snaps, "Just trying to save you some effort. It's like a web with these people -- the more you struggle, the worse it gets." Unfortunately, Veronica decides now is the time to be incredibly suspicious of Terrence, instead of mulling the possibility that the old saying "In Percoset veritas" has any truth to it. She snaps, "It sounds to me like a coward trying to justify his actions." Terrence points out, "If I stay out of the way, I stay alive. That's what they said. That's what they told me." Veronica asks, "And you're willing to live like this? In a hermetically sealed box, while everything out there goes to hell?' Frankly, she makes that option seem alluring. Terrence tells her, "Self-preservation is a strong motivator." "So's the truth," Veronica rebuts. She...must not have wowed them in her trial classes, because that's a pretty weak rejoinder. Also, it's going to an audience that's just admitted it would rather live like a coward than die for a principle, so exactly how effective is it going to be? Veronica then punches the button, and turns her back on Mister Self-Preservation-Is-My-Strongest-Moral-Imperative. Clearly, self-preservation is fairly low on her list. After a few woozy protests, Terrence decides putting the barrel of his pistol to the back of Veronica's head might be a more effective form of protest.
Bellick has now picked up Team Escarpara's trail at the boathouse. He strides over to talk to the hunter, asking, "How you doing, buddy?" "I'm pretty freaked out is how I'm doing," the guy admits. Me too -- Bellick displaying any human empathy is deeply unsettling. Bellick soon finds out that the 78 Grand Cherokee is heading north to Oswego. A penny drops, and he summons the Anti-Pope to him. They review Scofield's credit-card statements; among them is a statement for Allen's Self Storage (nestled between such local businesses as Larry's Hardware, Marry's Food Mart, Ronny's Rental Car and Jenny's Car Wash. Clearly, Allen is a nomenclatural iconoclast). Bellick feels S-M-R-T: "Of course -- where is he going to put all the crap he needs to disappear? We're going to Oswego, boys!" The boys cheer because now they can stop at Marry's for some of them tasty dill pickles that float in the jar by the cash register.
When we get back, we learn that the power of Michael-centric flashbacks has not only propelled Dr. Sara out of her coma, it's also enough to have her sitting up and reading a leather-bound volume titled Alcoholics Anonymous. The nurse tells Dr. Sara she has a visitor. It's Nurse Gossipson! How sweet that she's come all this way to keep Dr. Sara in the loop at work.
Dr. Sara's tentative yet eager expression drains away. Nurse Gossipson says, "You look disappointed." "I thought you were going to be my father," Dr. Sara says. Nurse Gossipson -- now Katie -- asks, "You heard from him?" "His office," Dr. Sara says. Katie proves that she is a good friend by hauling out a change of clothes and the purse that Dr. Sara left at the prison infirmary. Dr. Sara reaches for Katie's hand. She squeezes, then manages a rueful smile as she says, "I'm in a lot of trouble, I think." Katie's like, "Yeah, and I really didn't help things when I sort of told Pope everything I knew. But in my defense, he did threaten me with my job. Dr. Sara accepts Katie's apology with, "One thing we learn when we're walking the steps is that you never outsource the blame. It belongs in your own back yard." Really? It seems like Bellick's missed that step.
Katie smiles and says, "You're not the first correctional worker that fell for a con, trust me." She is just growing on me by leaps and bounds in this scene. Bring Nurse Katie on as a full-time character, I say. She and Dr. Sara can join the manhunt. Dr. Sara falls back against the pillow and says brokenly, "He never cared. Not one bit."
Cut to Michael making a liar of her. He's all broody in the middle seat of the Escarparamobile. Sucre leans forward and asks what Michael's thinking about. Michael sighs, and says, "Mistakes." The rest of the cons do not immediately begin screaming that the last thing they want to do is talk about anyone's feelings, so Sucre decides it is indeed prime time for some sensitive-male bonding. He tells Michael, "You had to do it." Michael sighs, "Not like I did. I ruined her life." Sucre pragmatically points out that there's nothing Michael can do about it now. He snots back, "That's not true." Sucre claps a commiserating hand on Michael's shoulder and asks, "You fell for her, huh?" The rest of the hardened cons do not immediately begin screaming that the last thing they want to do is interrupt the manhunt to talk about their feelings. However, that is the last thing Michael wants to do, so he lurches away from Sucre and begins discussing Oswego with Linc.
Veronica has decided to hang up on the call-the-cops plan so she can yammer at Terrence some more. "What are you going to do? Shoot me? Blow my guts out? Then what? You can't leave, remember? You kill me, you're stuck with me," she says. Veronica is not what we'd call a creative thinker, as she's not entertaining the possibility that Terrence could merely wound her, then get the gun. Or she hasn't noticed the huge kitchen; a body could easily fit in that freezer, and it's not like Gummy over there requires a lot of room for frozen fish sticks. Terrence points out that he's not exactly motivated to put his life on the line: "I gave up my family, my teeth...I eat Percoset all day just to dull the pain of my miserable existence. You have no idea what I've been through." Veronica correctly points out that he does not want to get into the "Guess who's had a harder day" contest with her. She calls the Blackfoot Sheriff's Department, introduces herself and asks for a unit to be sent to the house.
Dr. Gudat is profusely apologizing to T-Bag in advance of the operation. T-Bag snarls, "My hand has been in that box for hours now. It is dying." Dr. Gudat pleads, "Sir, I am not capable of doing this!" Not if T-Bag wants his hand reattached, he's not. But if he'd be willing to consider a retriever's paw, or maybe a hoof, then they're in business. T-Bag waves around his Phillips-head screwdriver and says, "I only have one hand. I can stick that in your neck before you get to the door. If that's not incentive enough for you, I see that you have a Missus Gudat out there. With a name like that in a county like this, old Missus Gudat would not be too hard to find now, would she?" Again, let us ponder how amazing it is that T-Bag, even having lost about six gallons of blood, is still capable of shrewder strategic thinking than Veronica, who is full up on O-positive. Dr. Gudat finally concurs with, "I can promise you nothing." "Story of my life," T-Bag hisses. But when Dr. Gudat goes to put T-Bag under, the unidextrous felon decides that would be a bad idea. Dr. Gudat protests, "I have to cut away dead flesh! Nobody can undergo a procedure like this without an anesthetic." T-Bag grabs him close and grits out, "I. Ain't. Nobody."
Mahone is busy studying another tattoo shot -- this one's of the segment that reads "" then "Allen" then "Schweitzer." Ives comes in and tells Mahone that Schweitzer was the name of the plumbing company that made the toilet Scofield took off in his cell, and an Allen bolt was the fitting. Mahone muses, "It's all here, isn't it? It's amazing." The two then move on to the segment reading "Ripe Chance Woods." They start brainstorming over whether there's a nearby place with that name when a third agent comes over and tells them the Department of Corrections is moving in on a self-storage unit in Oswego. Everyone scampers off.
We see Michael opening a garage-type door. The rest of Team Escarpara is eying him with open skepticism.
We then switch to Allen's Self Storage. Bellick's tearing into the parking lot. As he leaps out of the car, the Anti-Pope tells him that Scofield's still got an active lease on unit 164. In a display of the initiative he will need if he ever wants to succeed the warden, the Anti-Pope's already put cars on all the surrounding streets so the cons can't easily escape. Bellick replies, "If any of them make a move, put a hole in them." The possibility of outwitting Scofield, then shooting him, is clearly a dream come true.
The Fibbies pull up, and the minute Mahone gets out of the car, Bellick pees all over his shoes just to remind him whose territory this is. Mahone turns and gives the camera a look like I am so conflicted. On the one hand, I want to catch Scofield. On the other hand, I would really like it if Bellick's day was ruined...
Bellick strides toward the specific storage unit, with about a dozen gun-toting cops trailing behind him. We then flash to a wary-looking Sucre closing the garage door on Michael's say-so. Then we flash to Mahone, who is still monkeying with the phrase "Ripe Chance Woods." Ives tells him that as a place name, it doesn't exist. Bellick goes barreling on by. We cut to the cons inside their closed location, pulling out gardening implements. Back to Bellick and company, walking in sync with an ominous drumbeat courtesy of the show's music supervisor. Back to the cons. Back to the gun-toting corrections officers. The tension is ratcheting up with every intercut. Michael grabs his implement -- a shovel, y'all! Quit thinking dirty. I mean, quit thinking salaciously -- and tells his teammates, "Let's go." The cops approach the scrolling metal door for the storage locker. All four dozen of them cock their rifles. The music gets louder. The cons head toward the door, to pull it up. Bellick heads for the door, to pull it up. The music gets louder still. I nearly explode from the dramatic tension. Then a flunky pulls up the door for Bellick as the cons raise their door --
And we see that Bellick's looking at an empty storage locker. Behind him, someone says, "That son of a bitch set us up!" As I collapse back on the couch, completely wrung out by that dramatic tension and the bait-and-switch editing, we see Team Escarpara closing their garage door thingy and heading off with landscaping implements in hand. They walk across a graveyard and stop at a specific gravesite. Then, all five cons begin digging.
Cut to a surly Bellick stomping past Mahone and Ives. Mahone gives him a look and Bellick snots, "Not one word" as he goes by. Mahone goes to flag down another officer, and as the youthful man turns around, Mahone hyper-focuses on his nametag; it reads "Rivers." A light bulb goes off over Mahone's head, and he flashes back to the "Ripe Chance Woods" tattoo. He shakes his head, saying, "Nothing," then comments to Ives, "That kid's clever. It's not a place, it's a name. Your PDA, you got it? Bring up the census for this county, as far back as it goes."
Meanwhile, Team Escarpara is digging away. C-Note winds up for a monster complaining session, but Linc curtly tells him to keep digging. Sucre crosses himself and informs them that they'll all be going to hell. Yes, it's the grave desecration that'll send them there, not the murdering, the thievery or the lying. Michael eventually pulls up some well-filled Hefty bags and C-Note says conversationally, "You are one sick cat. You know that?" Heh.
Ives's PDA is chugging away, and once Mahone finds a specific name, he bids Ives to drive them to the cemetery. Again, let me reiterate that I like the idea of Michael having a brainy nemesis but jeebus, let's not make him capable of deciphering all the clues on the first go.
Back at the cemetery, Michael is hauling out clothing and explaining that he'd only packed enough for a week's worth of outfits for him and Lincoln. He adds, "But I figure you need as much help as we do --" "So you're just doing this out of the goodness of your heart, Fish?" Abruzzi asks snidely. Michael shoots back, "That's right, John. The heart -- you remember what that is, don't you?" C-Note comments on the fit of the clothes with, "Damn, snowflake, this is tight, man." Sweet fancy Moses, is there nothing he won't complain about? "Damn, these diamond shoes aren't so sparkly at night! Damn, this pillow made of hundred-dollar bills isn't cushiony! Damn, the ability to fly means I get gnats up my nose!" Come on. Michael points out that the whole reason to get out of the prison blues is to avoid looking like escaped cons, so cram it and get some clothes on already. Cue the getting-dressed scene, wherein we all learn that dang, the actors on this show must be sit-up machines. Everyone else is in things like jeans and tees -- Abruzzi notes that the pants are a tad too short on him, giving him that hipster-doofus look so popular in the Mission in the 1990s. However, Michael is looking bandbox-perfect in a khaki traveling suit and crisp blue button-down. Linc, meanwhile, has decided to skip wearing an undershirt. And to skip wearing a tie -- he's got on a navy sports coat and a blue button-down unbuttoned about halfway to his navel. to me on the couch, Mary-Lynn lets out an involuntary whimper. Then we spend the ten minutes rewinding that scene and watching Linc walk by over and over because that look, it is a mighty good one on him. Who needs a tie when you have pecs like that? Sucre begins complaining, and Michael snaps, "You want variety? Hit Target." Sucre and his newsboy cap give Michael a look like Why am I always the one you snap at? Where is the love for the guy who likes to talk about your feelings with you?"
Linc strides off and Michael follows him, tossing him a backpack. It contains money, prepaid phone cards, and passports for Archie Ryan (Linc's new alias) and Phineas McClintock (Michael's new alias).Let the speculation about what those names mean begin! ["Okay, Phineas McClintock? Is the greatest alias ever. A friend of mine uses "Ginger McClellan" at bars sometimes, but Phineas tops it, I think. Not my recap, moving on..." -- Joe R] There are also keys to a car parked nearby. Michael planned on the car only seating two. Linc looks at the rest of Team Escarpara and asks, "Do they know?" Michael figures they will soon enough. However, that conversation will have to wait until after they figure out what to do about the FBI guy who's just pulled into the cemetery.
Team Escarpara hides in the underbrush and watches Mahone check out the newly dug-up grave. As Michael studies Mahone, he finishes tying his tie and straightens it out. Whomever thought of this gesture, nice call -- it conveys both Michael's comfort in his old identity, and his awareness that people are a lot less suspicious of suit-wearing dudes. Mahone spends a while staring at the gravestone, which reads, "R.I.P. (to) E. Chance Woods."
Sucre makes the first sensible suggestion -- "We got to roll" -- and as Team Escarpara jogs off, C-Note asks, "How did he know?" Michael watches Mahone for another minute, and he's figured out that Mahone's now studying the tattoo for clues. Michael then sees Mahone pull that thick black pen out of his pocket, unscrew it, and shake a blue pill into his palm. Mahone dry-swallows it and looks up, but by now, Michael's jogging into the woods.
The rest of Team Escarpara has been waiting for him by the train tracks -- aww! How can he ditch them after that? -- and they all jog away toward picturesque downtown Oswego. Seconds later, Mahone is on their trail. We hear a church bell go off. It is apparently the cue for the entire town to drop what they're doing and walk around on the sidewalks. As Michael and Linc walk, Michael mutters, "We're civilians, remember that. Civilians." Just then, someone grabs him by the right wrist.
Michael turns around with a hell of an expression, and a teenager recoils. The kid asks, "I'm sorry. I was wondering if you had the time?" Michael does not. Mahone, meanwhile, is standing in the center of the town square, looking at people marching through every crosswalk and thinking, What a weird little town. What's ? A pre-lottery picnic? A visit to the cornfield?
Meanwhile, out in Montana, Terrence is busy pacing around, fretting that the minute he goes outside, they'll shoot him. Veronica replies, "You're wrong. As soon as you show your face, this is all going to be over." Oh, Veronica. Apparently, season one taught you nothing. Her phone rings, and it's Linc, calling to check in. Veronica tells him, "I saw the news. You gotta stop -- I need you to turn yourself in. I found Steadman. I'm with him now, Linc. He's alive. You're going to be exonerated." As she says this, we see some be-suited guys coming up the walk. They do not look like Blackfoot's finest in law enforcement. Lincoln is all, "Wait a minute..." because unlike Veronica, he is not one to underestimate the reach of a major conspiracy. Veronica continues to assure Linc it will be okay while also trying to talk to what she thinks are the police.
Some reedy blond guy tells her, "Ma'am, put the phone down." Veronica asks, "What?" and that is when we all notice the gun the blond has on her. Blond Guy tells Steadman to step away. We switch to Lincoln, who is listening to all this. He begins to freak, repeating, "Veronica, Veronica..." We see Veronica looking at Blond Guy with disbelief. She has time to get out, "Oh my God..."
We switch to Blond Guy firing three shots. A thousand miles away, Linc backs away, screaming into the phone, "Veronica!" He then pulls away the phone like it's burning, and begins half-sobbing in disbelief as he physically reels from what he just heard. (Nicely done, Dominic Purcell.) Lincoln finally falls to his knees, breathing deeply. Michael runs over and crouches to him, tentatively reaching out an arm.
Then we cut to Veronica, who is on the floor with two shots through her heart and one through her brain. Holy cow! She really is dead. I...wow. Well played, writers, Well played. How brutally ironic -- the one time someone appeared to have her best interests in mind, she decided to mow over him in a fit of misplaced suspicion.
We then cut to the be-suited dudes carrying out no fewer than FOUR FULL HEFTY BAGS. Holy cow, there went her chances of being only mostly dead and in a lead-induced coma, huh? Rest in pieces, Veronica. Blond Guy tells the dopey Terrence, "I thought you knew all police calls were routed through us. This is federal land, remember?" Terrence makes a noise. Then Blond Guy is all, "So! Want to tell us about the pistol?" and Terrence summons his tattered shreds of dignity to woozily announce, "I brought it. To protect myself." He then watches his alleged protectors loading the bags full of julienned Veronica into the car. We see that the license plates are for the U.S. government. I don't know how I feel about my tax dollars going to this sort of thing.
And now. Lincoln has to stand in a doorway and brood picturesquely. Michael comes out and claps a commiserating hand on his shoulder.
We transition to Dr. Sara, who's still reading in bed. She goes to pull a pen out of her purse, and finds an origami crane in there. Turning it this way and that, Dr. Sara sees the written legend, "There is a plan to make all of this right." That's then followed by a sequence of dots -- one presumes they're some sort of code. Whatever it is, it's making Dr. Sara feel a lot better about abetting the escape of eight cons, then falling off the wagon.
Back at FBI HQ, Mahone is busy cluing in the especially dense viewers -- and Ives -- that he's figured out how Michael hid all his escape plan clues in his tattoo. As he explains this, we see Michael getting the handcuffs off his wrist and dropping them into the dirt in a totally symbolic gesture of freedom. And now, let the games begin -- Mahone v. Michael in a battle of the brains.