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Sweet fancy Moses, do Michael and Lincoln radiate some sort of lobotomizing rays on the female population? I ask this after an episode in which Dr. Sara hangs up on her terribly-concerned father to chat with "Lance" after her dad warns her explicitly to stay away from the guy, and after a boozy divorcee invites Team Escarpara into her house on Michael's cock-and-bull story about needing to check for power line corruption and Lincoln's strategic grunting.
Anyway, the boys are hanging out in this lady's garage because it just happens to be built over the silo where Westmoreland buried his stash. Their idea is to break up the concrete floor, find the silo foundation, then find the money. Since the only digs T-Bag can get in are the verbal ones, he's left to charm the lady of the house. This works well for fifty-some minutes, until she asks him to set her up with Linc and T-Bag's feelings are hurt. He's not what you'd call a natural-born wingman.
Also, this is not Tweener's episode. He gets bullied by the rest of the guys in Team Escarpara, sent hither and yon on errands, then apprehended by Mahone. Will he give his teammates up? Will T-Bag kill the boozy divorcee? Will Kellerman kidnap Dr. Sara? Stay tuned for week. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We begin the episode with Haywire. As he pedals along on his purloined bicycle, the opening notes to what sounds like the "teach us to dance, Zorba!" number kick in.
Haywire rolls through the drive-in at a fast food restaurant, then decides to pull up to the window. The music continues its progression from a dozy little collection of chords to more tightly organized and speedy bouzouki music, right as Haywire moves from goggling at the fast food restaurant to breaking in through the window and doing things with the soft-serve machine that are downright unseemly. Seriously, if reading Fast Food Nation didn't put you off the stuff slung across the counter at our nation's alleged eateries, watching Haywire deep-throat the business end of an ice cream machine, then swim in the downpour from the soft drink fountain, may well do the trick.
His revels among the condiments are curtailed when two excruciatingly wholesome teenagers come in to open up the fast-food joint. Since they are TV teenagers, and therefore merely a collection of walking hormones with some vestigial survival skills attached, they promptly fall to rutting on the counter. However, catching sight of Haywire's sticky, pop-eyed mug cools the young lady's jets right quick. Especially since he's sitting there sipping a soda and avidly watching the action as if he's at a 1980s-style "horny teens have screwball adventures" movie.
Meanwhile, out in Tooele, Lincoln is driving the kids around the subdivision to try and figure out where that silo might have been. He pulls over in front of a house surrounded by mature trees, then makes this incisive observation: "The ranch is gone, Michael." Really? What was your first clue, Linc? Michael says dully that the money might not be. From the back seat, T-Bag pipes up with some asperity: "And you gonna find (that money) how? What, you got a divining rod tattooed on your ass?" Hee! Also, wouldn't it be awesome if the answer was "yes"? Well! Michael completely loses his cool. He informs T-Bag at the top of his lungs that: "I don't want to hear anything out of your mouth other than what your photographic memory spits out concerning that map!" Linc averts his eyes. I cannot decide if this is because he's been hoping Michael would finally display some temper, or because he knows that whenever Michael loses his temper, it doesn't end well. Here, T-Bag snarls back, "You watch your mouth with me, boy." Michael's snapped back into cool reserve, and that's even more unnerving than the screaming. He slams an icy Blue Steel onto T-Bag and whispers, "I will watch you get tossed to the side of the road to fend for yourself, boy. Because if you can't remember where that silo was, you're worthless to us." T-Bag takes a moment to ponder whether Michael's bluffing. Tweener takes a moment to remind us he's still in the trunk. Without raising his voice above a weary monotone, Linc tells Tweener to shut up. Y'all, Linc is totally the dad on the family road trip from Hell: "Don't make me turn this car around and head back to Fox River!"
So anyway, Michael screams at T-Bag to recall the map, and Linc turns away again, for whatever reason. T-Bag begins developing his photographic memory: "The ranch... the ranch was in the center of a box. Sheep Road on one side, Kokosing Road on the other ... " (Let me interject here that Kokosing was the name of the rancher for whom the Double-K was named. I screwed up his name in the prior recap; consider this the correction.) T-Bag continues, "In the center of the property was the ranch house, and the ranch house was surrounded by trees." All the car's occupants turn to look at the trees. Tweener is still pleading to be let out of the trunk.
Everyone except Tweener gets out. Michael notes that every tree in the subdivision is a year old, save a few. Linc is no arboreal gawker; he wants to know where the silo is. T-Bag makes a big show of tapping his head to prod his memory. We see the map in flashback. Imagine a set of X/Y axes, just like in geometry class. The house is right on Y=0, where X is a value in the negative range. The barn is in the quadrant where the coordinates will be (X = negative, Y = negative), and the silo ... well, the silo is on another axis to the right, somewhere on the X=0, y in the negative range. (All of you who teach math, you may now tell your students that what they are learning will have practical application later in life: they'll need it to read recaps.)
Anyway, the upshot is that the silo is somewhere to the southwest of the house, or down and to its left, assuming you're standing in the front door. T-Bag more or less pegs the silo there too, but adds weakly, "That could have been a barn." He's right there too, as the barn was also to the west of the house. T-Bag says, "I remembered as best I could, gents. I'm sorry, but I didn't know this place would be smothered in tract houses. I'm sorry that I'm not Rain Man over here." Amazingly, Linc does not reach over, rip off T-Bag's newly reattached arm, then beat him about the head and shoulders with it while inquiring, "Does that help jog your photographic memory any?"
We then go to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Mahone is barreling through FBI headquarters and generally getting in everyone's grill about the long-dormant D.B. Cooper case. Helpful things to take away from this scene: Mahone's first name is Alex and he's sure that the Fox River Eight are in Utah to get D.B. Cooper's money. Shouldn't that be the Fox River Seven at this point?
The cons are back in the car and T-Bag is driving them all crazy with his attempts to remember where the dang silo was. Linc frets that "we're going to get made out here," and T-Bag snaps at him to shut it, because he may have just remembered where the silo is. Unfortunately for T-Bag, Michael easily proves him wrong through logic, saying it's not inside the trees by the farmhouse. He points to a brick house surrounded by trees: the ones on the right side of the house are taller than the ones on the left, and Michael explains, "They're shorter than the rest. They were all planted at the same time, but these two didn't get as much sunlight." Linc realizes, "Something was in their way." T-Bag looks a little perturbed by this explanation: either he's realized Michael's capable of putting his book smarts to work in the field, or he's realized he's expendable now. Michael concludes that the money's right under the garage in the brick house. T-Bag snarls, "You better be right, boy." Linc looks at T-Bag like he's merely waiting for a pretext to snap his neck. Michael continues laying the groundwork for this episode: the houses were put up in a hurry, so the odds are good that the developers just laid the concrete floor of the garage over the silo's foundation. Therefore, all the boys have to do is contrive a way into the garage, dig straight down to the foundation, then take it from there.
As they're scoping out the house, a well-assembled blonde in a silky Asian-print robe comes outside. The boys all groan as they realize they won't have the luxury of breaking into an empty house. As they watch the lady pick up her paper, T-Bag muses, "Ain't no problem a screwdriver to her temple won't fix." Michael rolls his eyes and thinks, Would it kill the universe to cut me ONE BREAK?
Credits. Also, commercials this week. There is something forlorn about the Gap relying on footage from Funny Face to sell pants. That footage is 49 years old: why is it being held up as appropriate for contemporary fashion? I can't imagine that in 1957, retailers were all, "You know what says, 'Timeless?' Long-line corsets, like they used to have in 1908."
Anyhoodle, we're back. The boys watch the lady walk back into the house. T-Bag helpfully points out, "People die all the time. Five million dollars comes along once in a lifetime." Michael is determined to get in that house without hurting anyone. T-Bag gives him a look like Come ON! Linc is the one who says he's thought his way out of this sticky situation -- but first, they'll need some supplies.
The guys pull over on the undeveloped bluff overlooking the erstwhile ranch. Apparently, they talked over Linc's marvelous plan en route, because they're all squabbling over the details now. T-Bag is busy arguing that Tweener can't be trusted, which is a little bit like Ann Coulter arguing that Hillary Clinton is an unsubtle debater. Linc points out that Tweener has no clue where the house is, so he can't lead cops back if he gets caught in town. When the grown-ups finally let Tweener out of the trunk, he is not exactly grateful. Michael immediately snots, "Guess what? I need you to do something." Tweener is eventually amenable... so Michael tells him to go back to the same garden center where he was beaten silly, and shop from a list. That seems kind of cruel to Tweener. Michael also hands Tweener a twenty and tells him to gas up the car while he's out and about. "And get me some Yoohoo," Linc adds. (Not. These guys apparently are holding out for their tacos and beer.) Tweener sulks over to the car, and Michael adds quietly, "David? Don't screw this up." I have always liked how Michael calls some people by their given names; it's such a nice insight into how he chooses to relate to people. Inspired by this morsel of civility, Tweener tells Michael, "This ain't Fox River. You're looking at the real deal, now."
Meanwhile, in the flat bean fields and riparian woodlands of northern Utah (ha!), we hear the droning buzz of a motorcycle as it winds down a lonely highway. We then see C-Note, clad in a wife beater and his my-mom-dresses-me hat, walking along that same road. He watches the bike roll by, and then we get a slo-mo shot of Sucre riding the bike and watching C-Note, and I swear, these two are but one Meatloaf song and a fog machine away from a big, dramatic kiss hello. How did this show get more homoerotic once the boys got out of the big house?
Anyway, the two of them have a little confab in the middle of the road. Sucre asks dazedly, "Did you walk here?" Heh. He is like the absurdist version of Occam's Razor: instead of thinking of the simplest explanation, Sucre instinctively goes for the most implausible. C-Note sighs, "It's a long story." The two forlornly admit that their reunions with their loved ones have not gone as planned, then C-Note effectively buys his seat on Sucre's bike by whipping out the map he drew of the coordinates and saying, "I'll make it worth your while." Sucre glowers at him. I don't like this newer, darker Sucre. Damn you, Maricruz! Damn you!
Meanwhile, back at Chicago's FBI field headquarters, Wheeler is crowing about how they've spotted Haywire in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin. Mahone is all, "Psycho killer, schmycho killer. This is the Michael Scofield show and don't you forget it!" He then clicks off the phone and saunters into the Salt Lake City FBI's conference room so he can babble about how he's going to talk to the gas station attendant who handled the only D.B. Cooper bill in circulation, one Harold Jenkins. Agent Lyle dolefully notes that he worked on the D.B. Cooper case when he was but a wet-behind-the-ears academy graduate, then asks, "What makes you think these escapees know where the money is?" Mahone replies, "Because he has a beautiful mind, a beautiful, beautiful -- oh, was that in the out-loud voice? I meant, 'Because they may have been locked up with the real D.B. Cooper.'"
We then catapult back to the Windy City, where we are once again in Dr. Sara's lovely robin's-egg blue apartment. She's received another origami crane in the mail. This one is yellow, and it's bearing the numeric sequence "786-369-6468." Dr. Sara dials the numbers into her phone, but the line is disconnected. So she opens the book where she's stored the other crane -- it's bookmarking a chapter titled "Safe Haven," and I totally hope that's an intentional detail on someone's part. Together, the yellow and blue cranes have the numeric sequence "786-369-6468-736-339-8687." She mulls them, wondering what it all means. You and the rest of us, sister.
Meanwhile, her new GBFF is meeting with Agent Kim... in the Capitol building? Kellerman is busy telling the politely attentive Kim that "Scofield sent her a message through the mail, a phone number that was disconnected... you know, to be honest? I was expecting to brief the president?" Kim gives a polite chuckle and does his best Lumbergh impression: "Yeee-ah, about that. Right now, as you can imagine, Caroline's quite busy." Not one to take a territorial challenge lightly, Kellerman says pointedly. "She's always busy. I've been working side-by-side with her for 15 years." Kim then makes the dominance-establishing move, saying, "Paul. She's the president of the United States now." Kellerman clears up one tiny, lingering mystery from season one when he tightly says, "Yes, Bill, and I put her there." Agent Kim doesn't look like his first name should be "Bill." Anyway, he smoothly tells Kellerman than he's been shuffled to the boonies with this Burrows clean-up, and until he can waltz into the 202 area code with Lincoln's head in a burlap sack, he can consider himself on notice. And then Kim performs the HR equivalent of whipping it out and spraying the room with urine by noting, "You report to me now. Only me. You're not to try to contact Caroline again without my approval, showing up unannounced."
Anyway, as this is wrapping up, we transition to Governor Dad, who just happens to be in D.C. Some handler is busy prepping him on which senators are gunning for him and which ones are making like the ones currently rubber-stamping White House policies. As they charge down some marble staircase, Governor Dad happens to notice someone leaving by a side door. He flashes back to his meeting of Dr. Sara's new friend "Lance," and in one sharp instant, realizes the humble and slouchy personality was merely an act for some man who moves with single-minded focus.
Meanwhile, Tweener's made it back to the garden center (actual motto on the sign: "You reap what you sow." Heh. The set decorators have a sharp sense of humor. Now if they'd only tell me where they got that bench for Dr. Sara's apartment... ) Ahem. Anyway, Tweener rolls inside. Mulletman is still grunting for help. Tweener opens the door to the supply closet where the trussed merchant is mmmphing away, and pleads with him to "just chill." Oh, sweet fancy Moses, all that time in the hot car trunk cooked his bean-sized brain. Why else would he do that instead of merely getting in and out with as much speed and stealth as possible?
Why, because if Tweener behaved sensibly, then we wouldn't have the plot complication in the form of Mulletman's friend -- let's call him Wingman -- come to see what the Mulletman is up to. Wingman happens to notice the discarded baseball bat on the floor. He whips out his phone, and Tweener's face slides into sick resignation. As Wingman stays on hold, Mulletman begins grunting again. Tweener moves -- and Wingman takes a short, involuntary nap.
Commercials. You know, I have longed for a dessert-delivery service, but I am not entirely sure Domino's is the vendor for it.
When we come back, Lincoln is busy proving that wood is a terrible conductor. (I kid! He's done a much better job this season of expressing recognizable human emotion.) He's actually at a transformer box, turning off electricity to the house that the boys are targeting. Michael asks when Linc had a chance to learn about electricity. Without looking up from his work, Linc replies, "I used to steal copper wire from transformer boxes, then sell it on the docks, make a couple of bucks." He pauses, then adds, "You were at school, of course." The thing I like about that comment is that I'm not quite sure if it's meant to convey that Linc kept his shady activities below Michael's radar because that's how he took care of his brother, or if he sort of resents that he was doing whatever it took to get a few bucks while Michael moved into the white-collar world.
So then Michael turns his attention to T-Bag, who is watching the blonde woman with the intensity my cats turn on the mice they're stalking. T-Bag gives Michael a too-open smile and says, "I was only looking, pretty! What's that old chestnut? I can look at the menu, doesn't mean I'm going to eat." No, but I bet you'll look at someone else's plate and go, "You gonna kill-- I mean, eat that? Mind if I do?" Michael reiterates that there will be no killing for fun during this $5 million excavation. T-Bag insincerely promises to behave.
Linc announces, "We're good. Now it's up to the kid." On cue, the scene changes to the car rushing back to the assigned meeting spot. Tweener is totally rattled. As Michael and T-Bag examine the stuff in the trunk, astute student of human nature Lincoln notices that Tweener is sweating, trembling, and panting. He heads over and asks softly, "What?" Tweener tries to play it off. This is a mistake, as all of Linc's discretion is now gone; he lifts Tweener up by the throat, slams him into the back of the car, and loudly repeats his question. Tweener stammers, "Okay, check it: this fool came in the shop, he was actin' all shady, he got a bad vibe, so he picked up his cellie phone and went to make a call, so I popped him." Linc grabs Tweener and shakes him like a rag doll, screaming. "Speak the King's English! Don't make me be your Henry Higgins, because I don't want to become accustomed to your face!" Or perhaps I'm just fantasizing that everyone else finds the phrase "cellie phone" as irritating as I do. The guys are really flipping out because there was a call to the sheriff. Not that they have any Monday-morning quarterbacking to do on this decision. Linc pulls them together and says they've got to move on this now.
Cut to the blonde coming to the door. A blue-shirted Michael turns around and drawls, "Sorry to bother you, ma'am. Is your electricity out?"
Mahone has wandered into the gas station garage where Harold Jenkins works. He asks for Jenkins and introduces himself. In tones of outraged innocence, Jenkins immediately protests, "I'm staying 50 feet away from her at all times. What the hell else does she want?" Mahone is all, "Oh, I have no interest in your sordid little domestic dramas. Tell me about D.B. Cooper." Jenkins cannot believe anyone is still interested in that. Mahone says, "There were some discrepancies in the statement you filed 20 years ago. In the report, it's noted that you said he filled up at 7 AM. But on another occasion, you said he filled up at 7 PM. Which was it?" Jenkins shrugs that it was both. Mahone can barely believe this: "He gassed up twice? Full tanks, both times?"
Cut to Michael, skillfully BSing the blonde. It is so cute listening to him try to assume a folksy accent and failing. After the blonde puts up some nominal resistance via some skeptical eyebrow-arching and a few questions, she eagerly invites Michael and company inside. It's all over the moment Michael fixes his baby-blues on her and says, "We're ready to turn your juice back on." The blonde flutters her well-manicured talons and coos, "My juice?" Radiating sincerity and looking like a Cub Scout wearing his dad's overalls to Career Day, Michael replies, "That's right."
Meanwhile, Mahone is still blithely ignoring the crazed killer on the loose in the Badger State so he can babble about D.B. Cooper's car. He excitedly tells Wheeler that D.B. Cooper is Westmoreland, and Westmoreland had a 1965 Chevy Nova with a 16-gallon gas tank. Mahone casually notes, "Back then, a Chevy that size got approximately eight miles per gallon." Yes, and people smoked like chimneys and thought it was funny to make jokes about how "sexual harassment" meant you weren't getting any at the office, and thought high-fructose corn syrup was a dandy sugar substitute. It was a dark time. Then Mahone carries on about what sort of strange behavior would cause someone to fill up twice in the same day, does a little math, and concludes that Westmoreland was burying the money some 64 miles away from the gas station. Guess what's within that 64 mile radius? Tooele, Utah.
Michael is now telling the extremely attentive blonde that the defective cable runs right beneath her garage, so he'll be digging up the floor to get to it. The blonde astutely asks, "Who's going to pay for this? What about the clean-up and the repair?" Good for her! I wouldn't let anyone go ahead until I saw paperwork, but I say that from the lofty vantage point of a woman who had to deal with no fewer than four different sets of clean-up crews and insurance appraisers after my house flooded last winter. As Michael assures her the company will cover all costs, T-Bag sits on a work bench and twiddles a screwdriver like he's figuring out the optimum point of entry. It's wrong to be amused by that, but I am. Anyway, Michael's trying to wrap things up, but to his pique, it's T-Bag who seals the deal by coming over and drawling in the blonde's ear, "We better get started, ma'am. Wouldn't want a pretty little thing sitting in the dark tonight now, would we?" The blonde purrs, "That depends on who I'm sitting with." Did the writers watch a lot of pornography before writing this episode? Because otherwise, there's no excuse for this type of dialogue. Michael tries to get the blonde out of the house, warning about the noise, but she eyes Linc's vast and gleaming half-naked chest, then assures them all, "It's too hot for that now." The minute she's gone, the boys set to work. Tweener comes in and announces, "Yo, we gots company." Why can't the English teach their morons how to speak? Anyway, the company in question? C-note and Sucre. The non-delight on C-Note's and Michael's faces is completely mutual.
Commercials. So this guy held up a toll bridge because he had to get his KFC on? If that happens on the Bay Bridge, it'll be a race to see what hurts him first: the fried grease or the people behind him in line.
When we get back, Michael's getting snippy with C-Note: "Let me explain it to you: We're trying to run something here, and we can't have people just walking in off the street." Eyes wide with feigned guilelessness, C-Note asks, "So you want us to leave and then you can just mail us the check?" Michael Blue Steels at him in reply. Then he heads over and talks to Sucre, saying, "I know you trust me, and you know I'll cut you in on that money. But the two of you being here right now jeopardizes everything." However, since Sucre has apparently gone over to the dark side courtesy of Darth C-Note, he is unmoved by Michael's argument. He tells Michael he's not going anywhere. C-Note then moves in for the kill, pointing out, "Ain't we did this dance before? I say I want in, you say no, then I threaten to tell somebody about what's going on here. Then you decide to play nice and we're one, big happy family. Why don't we just stop wasting time, all right?" All Michael can do is stand there and marinate in self-reproach for not having figured out how to handle this after the first time it happened. Oh, and flash the Blue Steel. On the other side of the room, T-Bag appears to be lost in thought.
Having maneuvered his way into Team Escarpara: the Reunion, C-Note can now move on to other things, namely expressing his surprise that T-Bag is still alive. "And kicking," T-Bag adds. Well, that's good; it's not like he's going to be much with the hand-to-hand combat anymore. Linc wants to know how C-Note found them. C-Note begins boasting, "If I can do rapid deployment of satellite communications all over the world --" but before he can finish that thought, the blonde comes back in again. She has a look on her face like she's going shopping in the Man Store during the two-for-one sale. The addition of extra inventory takes her by surprise. Michael attempts to explain it away with, "I had to call my supervisor. He sent them right over. This job is a top priority. We want to get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible." Sensing that she's not sold yet, both Lincoln and C-Note do some strategic muscle-flexing. Michael presses, "Well, Jeanette, like I said, there's a lot of work to do and it's going to be noisy." Jeanette doesn't care. Michael finally gets her out the door. The Greek chorus -- AKA Tweener -- spells out the situation using the popular vernacular of the day: "This is not good. We got her up in our grill, checking in all the time?" T-Bag throws himself on the bomb(shell) and volunteers to keep Jeanette occupied. Michael snarls a bunch of warnings about how T-Bag is to play nice and not cram a screwdriver into anyone's skull or anything. T-Bag insouciantly replies, "Who are you, Sister Mary Frances? I know how to play nice."
Meanwhile, in Cedar Grove, Haywire walks off a main drag and right into a tribute to Frankenstein when the unlocked house he ducks into for shelter turns out to be occupied by a sweet and trusting old blind lady. She calls out, "Billy? Is that you? Billy? Is that you?" Tweener thinks for a minute, then replies, "Yes?"
Back in Utah, Jeanette has whipped up a pitcher of lemonade, then put it on a nice little tray along with some glasses and a bottle of whiskey. She sashays into the dining room where T-Bag is sitting, and he doffs his cap as he drawls, "Thank you kindly." Giving him a flash of cleavage, Jeanette asks, "How did you get out of working?" She brings back a bucket of ice and a pick as he makes up some cock-and-bull story about being the union crew chief. He tells her he'll check on his crew in a bit. And then T-Bag checks out Jeanette's little rear. I don't mean to cast aspersions on Jeanette -- who is, frankly, quite the Mrs. Robinsonian looker -- but isn't she about six times older than T-Bag's usual crushes? Anyway, as she pours, he sucks his teeth in what is either the bloodlust or the plain old lust. Going by the way his tongue falls down to his shoes after Jeanette takes the ice pick to the big ol' chunk of ice, I'm guessing it's the bloodlust.
Then Jeanette pours a little Jack in her lemonade. After minimal prodding, T-Bag consents to two fingers of whiskey in his drink too. The two drink, and the expression on T-Bag's face approaches rapture. He says, "It's been a while." Because Jeanette is the type of woman who can turn any line into an opportunity to play femme fatale, she arches a brow higher and coos, "Yeah?" I'm telling you, this entire plot has to have been lifted from a Vivid Videos production. All we need now is the cheesy synthesizer music.
T-Bag rasps that "whiskey always makes me feel... irascible." Jeanette whispers in reply, "I don't know what that means, but I do like the sound of it." Jeanette is probably one of the people who doesn't do well on Reader's Digest's "It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power" feature. She then runs her finger along T-Bag's shiny, grimy, unshaven face. T-Bag grabs her hand and sniffs mightily. Okay, we are about to head into that whole Cape Fear finger-sucking territory and I do not want to go there.
Fortunately, all T-Bag does is inquire as to whether Jeanette's wearing "Angel" perfume. She surely is. Then Jeanette purrs, "It reminds you of an ex, I take it?" Going by the look on T-Bag's face, it reminds him of the ex that put him behind bars. She presses, "Was that good memories or bad memories?" Suddenly sporting a leaner, hungrier look, T-Bag whispers, "Both."
Out in the garage, the boys are not busy licking each other's hands and talking about perfume-triggered flashbacks. They are digging, and it's all very manly with the sweating and the grunting. Michael asks Sucre if he talked to Maricruz, and Sucre snarls, "I don't want to talk about it." He is so totally channeling Anakin Skywalker. Just say no to Darth C-Note, Sucre! As Tweener heads outside for some water, Michael takes the chance to sidle up to Sucre again and remind him, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate leads to suffering." Oh, he does not. Instead, he sparks a fan frenzy of speculation by telling Sucre, "If, down the road, you're in trouble and need help with anything, europeangoldfinch.net. It's what we can all use to communicate. Post a note on the message board." Sucre asks what it's called, and Michael repeats the URL. An eavesdropping C-Note asks, "That's a bird, right?" Meanwhile, the one convict who has not been sitting around jawjacking about websites -- Linc -- has actually struck the base of the silo. The guys fall to digging and quickly unearth the silo's foundation. "Hells, yeah!" Tweener says. Michael whispers, "Thank you, Charles." Awww! Now all they have to do is dig under that. You know, speaking as someone who recently dug under a lot of concrete, that sounds like a giant paint in the ass. Then again, I didn't have a crew of beefy escaped cons doing the digging for me.
Michael's in a good mood, saying, "We'll get the money, hit the back roads --" but Tweener quickly takes care of that by saying, "We gots to stop in Tooele first and gas up the ride." You see, he didn't gas up the car following his little adventure in head-banging at the hardware store because he was too rattled from the experience. Michael commands, "I want you to go back into town. I want you to gas up that car. And I want you to pick up a dozen White Castle sliders while you're at it. And I want you to find me a pony." Or something along those lines. Tweener whines, "Why do I gots to do it?" Because if you don't, the meaty paw Lincoln has just wrapped around your trachea will squeeze shut? Tweener heads out. Michael heads into the house to check on T-Bag and Jeanette. They're dancing in the kitchen and laughing away, so it appears they're doing okay.
Back in Wisconsin, Haywire's taken advantage of his surroundings and gotten a shower and some clean, non-crazy-person clothing. In another nice Frankenstein touch, his pants are far too short. The blind lady says, "Billy? Billy!" Haywire replies, "Yeah?" The woman says, "I made you a sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off, just like you like." Haywire promptly crams the sandwich into his mouth. The blind lady continues chattering: "I'm so glad you came back. I don't want to say, 'I told you so,' but that was just not the girl for you." Haywire looks up with an expression last seen on Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein. He's fascinated by a pedestrian little oil painting of a windmill to a lake and a blooming tree. Haywire asks, "Where is that?" The lady replies, "It's Holland, where I grew up. You know that." Haywire is positively riveted. Through a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly with the crusts cut off, he says fervently, "It's beautiful." The lady enumerates the charms of the Netherlands: "It's so peaceful, so protected from this crazy world." Speaking of being unprotected from the crazy -- she's just grabbed Haywire's hand and immediately figured out he isn't Billy. As Haywire heads into the kitchen, the lady grabs the phone she just happens to have nearby and whispers, "Operator, there's an intruder in my house!" Haywire hears this and turns around. He's got a knife in his hand, and we hear very ominous music, so that can only mean one thing...
That's right! It's time to cut to another scene. We're back at Wood's Garden Center ("Reap What You Sow") and Mahone's chatting up the sheriff. He basically recaps the last few episodes for the sheriff, who is all, "Sorry, but I tune in for How I Met Your Mother." He finishes with, "Mr. Mahone, I bet you my lunch money there's nothing amiss around here." I hope the sheriff can eat his crow for free, because Mahone's just spotted that damn baseball bat on the floor, noticed a few tiny flecks of blood, and concluded that he should break into the place and check it out. As the sheriff protests, "Mr. Mahone," Mahone makes the zip-it gesture so we can all shut up and listen to the two bound-and-gagged hillbillies mmmmphing for help. The minute Mahone rips the gag off Mulletman, he grunts, "They're here! Those escaped convicts! They're here in town." Mahone's eyes bug out with his intensity, and we go to commercials before we even get to see if he holds the sheriff to his lunch-money bet.
Commercials. Ads with cats stuck in trees are only funny if you've never actually had to extract one of the ungrateful beasts from its arboreal prison.
Back in the Badger state, we get a cops-eye view of the living room. They're entering it cautiously, and they see that the blind lady's laid out on the couch. However, her chest is rising and falling. The guys enter cautiously. We get a shot of the blind lady's face -- it looks like she has some sort of contusion on one side, so many Haywire knocked her out? She calls out, "Who's there?" The cop answers, "The police, ma'am." I love how his little arm tattoo "M" is all visibly showing -- it makes him look like he's one of those male strippers who dresses up like a cop. Anyway, the stripper-cop asks what happened and the blind lady answers dazedly, "There was this strange man. I made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I thought he was Billy." It must be so tiring to be a cop and hear this sort of disjointed narrative all the time. The guy goes to roll his eyes and happens to notice that Haywire cut the picture of Holland out of its frame, then jammed the knife in the frame.
Back in Tooele, T-Bag is busy regaling Jeannette with tales of the filthy, filthy things he used to do with his ex: "And after the kids had gone to sleep, we'd take a bath, a looooooooong bath. And afterwards, I'd just sit there and watch her... do her routine. She'd rub her lotion on, comb her hair, dress up in her night-time fineries." (Nota bene: This is the point in the episode where my friend Erin walked into the room and asked, "What the hell is that woman doing? Is she actually writhing?" Why, yes, Yes, she is. EWWWWW.) The two of them are busy flirting with each other and it's all very creepy. Jeanette eventually asks, "Why did it end with that lady you were talking about?" Whoopsie! Flirty time is over. T-Bag grabs his lemonade and takes a swig before answering, "We just went our separate ways." He neglects to add, "Because she saw me on America's Most Wanted, then turned me in." Jeanette wants to get the vibe back so she and her breasts ask T-Bag, "Do you know what the best cure for a broken heart is?" T-Bag sucks in his breath, licks his lips, then purrs, "Do tell." Jeanette says, "Get back on the bike. Whatever bike it is." T-Bag gets a thoughtful look like, Would that be the raping-and-killing-little-kids bike? Or just the general killing-people bike? Because lady, I've been riding that one all season.
Jeanette then leans in even further and asks T-Bag, "Speaking of that... can you do me a favor?" T-Bag's eyebrows go all squirrelly as he contemplates the possibilities here, and he replies, "I'm certain of it." Jeanette whispers, "Come here." (My friend Erin: "God! It's turned into a soft-core porn... they weren't doing all this in prison, were they?" Me: "Well, not voluntarily.")
T-Bag leans in and Jeanette tells him, "You have to be very discreet." T-Bag replies, "They don't come any discreeter." Is that even a word? Jeanette then asks, "Can you ask that big guy, the one that doesn't speak much? Would you go in there and ask him if he would like to have a drink with me after he punches out? Please?" What, did Jeanette never graduate to the big-girl school of asking people out? Does she just pass notes: "Would you like to sleep with me? ( ) Yes ( ) Maybe ( ) No."
Well. T-Bag does not take well to being the wing-man. He rears back as the music gets all ominous, then asks, "You've just been playing me this whole time, haven't you?" Jeanette wheedles, "Don't be like that. Would you just go ask your friend?" T-Bag's eyes slide to the ice pick. I think he'll be getting back up on the stabby bicycle soon.
We then switch to some grocery store in Chicago. Dr. Sara's busy getting produce when her phone rings. On the other end, Governor Dad says frantically, "I've been trying to reach you!" She tells him she's been meeting with her defense attorneys all day, and asks if he's in Washington. Governor Dad says, "I am, but I'm coming home on the flight! Plans changed, okay?" As Dr. Sara sniffs a grapefruit, her dad continues urgently, "Sara! Do you remember that man I met at your apartment? I want you to stay away from him." Sara incredulously asks, "Lance? From my group?" Governor Dad replies, "That's him! He is not who he says he is! I found out some other things too! You were right." As Dr. Sara takes all this in, she turns around -- and runs into Kellerman. What, did someone over in the bagged-salad section say his name three times? As Dr. Sara's dad says frantically, "Sara!," her eyes bug out and she blurts, "I gotta go."
And now, it is time for Tweener's day to get EVEN WORSE. That poor idiot. He's at the gas station, and as we see him walking toward the door to pay, we see the cashier looking at something. Tweener walks in, the cashier's on the phone saying, "Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah." Doing his best not to blend in with white-bread America, Tweener greets the cashier with, "Yo." The cashier attempts to stall him, Tweener replies he's in a hurry, and then Tweener notices the cashier has broken into a flop sweat. He notices the phone on the counter and realizes there's a law enforcement type on the other line. Then Tweener notices the guy's looking at a big ol' Wanted poster, featuring his pretty mug in the upper left hand corner.
With a gasp of horror, Tweener opens the door and begins running, right as the local police arrive. As he's running away from them, he runs right into the grill of the SUV Mahone is piloting. The camera goes all jerky, with the escapee's-eye-view of the whole confusing scene, as Tweener tries frantically to find a way out of this. He ends up sprinting for his life through some backyards, scrambling over fences and stumbling across streets. Mahone pursues him via SUV. Tweener pushes through a gate, passes a dog (that declines to give chase) and rounds a garage corner. As he does, Mahone runs into view. How the hell did that happen? Did he teleport? Use a set of jet pack shoes? As Tweener sprints toward the end of an alley, Mahone raises his gun and fires a shot. We see Tweener hit a fence. Mr. sobell looks up hopefully at the prospect of Tweener having been killed by Mahone.
Unfortunately for Mr. sobell, Tweener is alive and well. Mahone orders Tweener to his knees. Nearly sobbing with exhaustion and disappointment, Tweener sinks to his knees. Training his gun on the back of Tweener's skull, Mahone demands, "Where are they?" Tweener's confused. "What?" he asks. Mahone realizes that sometimes, you have to speak slowly to Tweener: "Where... are... they?" he grits. Tweener is standing between him and his reunion with Mind Mate Michael, after all.
Back in Jeanette's garage, C-Note grumbles, "One hand or not, I think Hillbilly needs to be in this garage digging?" I can't decide if he's just sowing discord because a fractious group is easier for him to control, or if he's trying to prod Michael into keeping an eye on details. Either way, Michael hops out of the hole and goes to see what's going on. As he leaves, C-Note smacks him on the hinders with his cap and says, "Good man." I find that weirdly endearing. That's probably wrong.
Michael and his pick hammer go wandering through Jeanette's house . He notices the scattered ice on the dining room carpet, then panics a little. Michael sprints up the stairs -- again, I think it's just so great how his toes grew back and he's got total agility -- and flings open the door to Jeanette's bedroom. A very much alive and unperforated Jeanette looks up from her lipstick-application and asks Michael what the hell he's doing. Michael stammers, "I'm sorry, Jeanette. I didn't see you downstairs, I heard something, and I apologize for --" "She's got the hots for the big, strong one," T-Bag spits as he sidles up to Michael. More urgently, Michael apologizes and says they'll all be returning to work now.
However, now that Jeanette's ploy to get in Lincoln's pants has fizzled, she's decided it's time for the boys to go. I personally would not want anyone to leave until they had fixed the floor of my garage -- that's what locking doors are for -- but I am also not in the habit of cockteasing a crew chief in the hopes that he will pimp one of his workers out to me. Michael does not take being asked to leave well. Jeanette is insistent: "I think you are finished, okay? And I want you to leave my house now."
Down in the garage, the guys hear a car pull up. Lincoln orders Sucre to check it out. Sucre creeps out of the side of the garage and sees a cop car parked in the driveway. He rears back, then heads into the garage to tersely tell the other boys, "Cop."
Up in her bedroom, Jeanette hears the car pull into the driveway, then peeks through her blinds. As she says, "Thank God," the boys rush over to see what she's grateful for. That would be the lady cop who's walking up the drive. As Jeanette wheels to head downstairs and let the cop in, T-Bag pounces and grabs her by the neck. As he holds her hostage, with a sharp tool pressed against her throat, T-Bag snarls to the inexplicably shocked Michael, "She's on her way out with us, Pretty." Jeanette gasps, and T-Bag presses Michael's pickaxe against her throat. So with ONE HAND, he managed to grab Michael's tool and put Jeanette in a submissive hold? I tell you, Dr. Gudat inadvertently gave the stringy little pervert superhuman powers. ["Also, 'grab Michael's tool'? You have been recapping T-Bag too long." -- Joe R]
Anyway, T-Bag shows that he does not cotton to the wing-man gig with the same zest as he does the murdering gig when he snarls, "Don't you say a word, you old whore, or I'll cut your throat." Faced with this new complication, Michael falls back on what he does best: he stares.
Tense! Will Tweener sell out? Will Kellerman do something nasty to Sara? Will the boys get their money and run? Tune in week.