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Kellerman demonstrates how he got the nickname "magnificent bastard" in this episode. He helps Dr. Sara find out the hard way that his name is not Lance and he is not an addict. What he is: Someone who will cheerfully tie you up and shove your face into a filled bathtub. And he may -- or may not -- be Dr. Sara's killer. The show ended with him dithering about drowning her, but Dr. Sara not exactly hip to his internal torment because she's asphyxiating underwater.
Michael will not be riding to her rescue because he is busy recovering from his own near-death experience. It appears wanted drug smugglers are unamused when you swap out their medical-grade nitroglycerin for sugar water. Fortunately, Sucre manages to save the day -- looking totally hot while doing so, I might add -- and the boys get the proper coordinates for their plane. At the last minute, Linc and Aldo (a.k.a. "Dad Ex Machina") show up. L.J. has been parked with Jane, presumably to keep her company until she meets the same fate all other women in his life have.
Also, T-Bag is back to his old unidextrous ways. Yet despite losing his hand -- again -- he is an unstoppable killing machine. Geary is now dead, and T-Bag has a receipt with Bellick's credit card information on it. Once Bellick is no longer a person of suspicion in Geary's death -- and he will be, thanks to the death threat he left on Geary's phone -- he will still have to worry about Manos, the hands of fate, getting him.
Finally, Mahone is very penitent. Very penitent and hot. This new attitude is a result of an impromptu performance evaluation with Kim, in which Mahone loses his temper, hotly. And then calls his ex-wife and says sweet things to her over the phone that are A) hot, and B) making everyone wonder if perhaps he is not long for this world. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Prison Break: it was like an episode of WWE Smackdown. There was the malicious tag-team bullying (Geary and Bellick teaming up against T-Bag). There was betrayal and scurrilous dispatching of rivals via head wounds (Geary and Bellick). There was a diva getting in the ring and getting a fat lip for her trouble (Linc and Jane). And there was a cage match! Naturally, the face (Michael) prevailed over the heel (Mahone). All this show needs now is for everyone to run around wearing shiny spandex tights and nothing else.
When we open this episode, T-Bag is still tethered to the radiator by his bad hand. Shrieking with rage and fear, he kicks at the metal radiator cover. The sirens sound louder (i.e. they're coming closer), and he ceases his rage-aerobics to check the door, on the off-chance that the sirens are but a clever ruse to draw attention away from the cops stealthily creeping into the foyer. It turns out the cops are not so much "creeping" as they are "rattling the door," and it baffles me that Bellick didn't leave the thing unlocked with a note reading, "Help Yourselves." T-Bag looks down at his hand as the police open the door ...
And then all we see is the empty house -- except for T-Bag's little pink paw stashed behind the radiator! Won't the future owners of the house be thrilled to discover that on move-in day! Also: I'm kind of bummed that Dr. Gudat's fine work was for naught; it makes his death seem even more pointless. Also, ewwwww. There is a hand cooking on the radiator.
Meanwhile, in Maljamar, New Mexico, Michael is busy trying to buy a case of fishing reel oil at Ray's Sporting Goods. He's doing this because it comes in the same small vials that the nitroglycerine came in. Michael adds a GPS locator to his tab. "You must do a whole lot of fishing," the elderly clerk observes amiably. "A lot of fishing ... but not a whole lot of catching," Michael mutters darkly in response. His tab comes to $96.23, and that is when Michael discovers that he's broke. Things like buying two junkers and paying for the no-tell motel room where Dr. Sara ditched him will do that to you, I suppose. So Michael just offers to buy the reel oil, and when the clerk wanders off, Michael attempts to walk off with the GPS system.
The old guy moves with surprising speed, sprinting across the floor of the store and grabbing Michael's arm to tell him to pay for the GPS locator. Michael knocks the clerk back into a display of Igloo coolers. Frankly, if you're going to be knocked into merchandise in a sporting goods store, better the hollow coolers than the bowling balls or ski poles. The guy rolls over and says to Michael, "Just take it. Please. Don't hurt me." A guilt-stricken Scofield takes a leisurely jog out of the store.
He then takes his sweet time trying to find an alley in which he can hide out. Michael then leans against a wall. The faces of those he's wronged float before him. (And do you know how long I've waited to be able to write that sentence? I am positively giddy with gratification right now -- because I was able to write it and it was true! I can now end my recapping career. There are no more peaks to scale.) And once we've gotten what amounts to a selective recap of the last 32 episodes, Michael looks up and notices a church's steeple in the distance. Please, please tell me he's going to go undercover as Father Michael. And please tell me he steals a friar's cowl for Sucre. Because that would be like Cannonball Run meets The Fugitive and who among us hasn't yearned for that hybrid?
Then we bounce to Trinidad, Colorado, where Aldo Burrows is taking advantage of this family reunion to explain the plot of Syriana to Linc using small words. Or maybe he's merely saddled with explaining the One World Conspiracy: "It's about corporate interests taking over the government, buying elections, fighting wars. People dying so they can turn a profit. We're trying to stop it." Linc asks, "What are you, a bunch of spies?" Nah, they're members of Moveon.org. Aldo calls them all "a handful of senators, congressmen, people like me who once worked for [The One World Conspiracy]. People willing to expose the president for what she is." Livin' large on her husband's TV show one network over? That's hardly grounds for impeachment. Nah -- Aldo has the sweetly optimistic idea that if he brings down the president, he will bring down the One World Conspiracy. He then explains that he'll be bringing down the president via Linc. Let's hang on every ponderous word: "About a week ago, we finally got a break. An NSA analyst sympathetic to our cause finally worked his way up and got clearance at the Echelon program. E-mails, cell phone calls all across this country, everything transmitted goes through Echelon. It's cataloged, interpreted, then stored for Homeland Security. Nothing is missed by it. Nothing. Including -- by accident -- for a few months after 9/11, the White House. The analyst got his hands on a phone conversation the president had with Terence Steadman -- two weeks after you supposedly killed him. Now, the analyst tried to get this information out of the building. It turns out someone else was snooping too -- someone else wanted answers about the president." Rather than drop the pronouns for proper names and explain to Linc and L.J. that Governor Tancredi was snooping, found the evidence and was subsequently killed for it, we get some flashback scenes of Governor Dad looking appalled as he beholds his laptop.
While Aldo carries on and on and on -- we hear him outside -- Kim's little stooge among the Second Banana Conspiracy decides now would be a fine time to begin killing his coworkers. As the spree continues, Aldo continues talking. Linc is now wearing an expression that suggests there are moments when he misses the quiet of his death row cell. Aldo finally sums up, "The tape is still out there. And judging by how hard they're going after Sara Tancredi, I'm pretty sure they think she has it. I think they're right -- she's the key to this whole thing, Lincoln."
Amazingly, although Lincoln has not been able to hear any one of a dozen different bodies dropping with a thud, the sound of a spent bullet shell alerts him that's something's up. He then rises and, in a sequence that is incredibly hot to even me, a non-Dominic Purcell fan, does the following:
1. Makes the silent sign for "Zip it."
2. Silently directs Aldo and L.J. out of harm's way with one movement.
3. Manages to dance between three different bullets, and
4. Go Linc the Sink on the stooge. Seriously, he puts his head down, charges like a rhino, and beats the guy into week. Seriously! Expect to see the stooge on Monday in the cold open, looking confused.
The stooge makes a desultory effort to kill Lincoln with a cleaver, but you don't stop a rhino when he's charging. Linc stabs the guy, but it's Jane's shot that kills him off. She's looking a little jacked-up over having to shoot her former colleague. That's a nice, subtle nod to a past history not explored, and I like it. Behind Aldo, L.J. has an expression like, "I am so glad you paid that bum to beat me up, because if you did it, we'd be wheeling me and my body cast everywhere. Linc looks back at L.J. He is dismayed for one of two reasons: because he's embarrassed that his son now knows that he doesn't know how to zip his sweater over his broad, shiny chest, or because his son saw him going rhino.
Commercials. Boy, your left hand is the one that rocks the cradle. Your right is the one that's responsible for helping enslave Africans and finance Al Qaeda's operations. At least, that's what I got out of the Blood Diamond preview.
When we come back, we're at a motel with a sign only Jimmy Buffet could love. We quickly zoom inside, where Kellerman is busy duct-taping Dr. Sara's legs and telling her, "I would imagine you're feeling slightly betrayed right now." I would imagine it's not a good time to ask where she got those cute flats right now, too. Having finished binding Dr. Sara to a chair, Kellerman moves the chair so itâs facing the bed, then sits down on the bed and says, "As you can see... Hi, my name is not Lance and I am not an addict." It is so wrong to be amused by this. And yet, here we are. In his calm and friendly voice, Kellerman continues, "There is one thing about me that should mean a great deal to you right now: I am reasonable. If you tell me what you know, you get to go. And then maybe, when this is all behind us, we get to grab a piece of pie for old times' sake." Then, in an oddly hushed and gentle manner, Kellerman leans in, muttering, "Okay? Come here... " and pulls off the gag.
Dr. Sara immediately says, "I don't know where Michael is." Kellerman says shortly, "This isn't about Michael." Somewhere in his cage, Mahone screams, "Oh, yes, it is!" Kellerman continues that it's about Governor Dad, who left Washington "with something that didn't belong to him, and we need it back." "And you killed him for it," a surprisingly composed Dr. Sara says. Kellerman vigorously and sincerely protests that he didn't, then adds, "But I hope that his death properly illustrates the magnitude of the situation that weâre in right now." Cut to Dr. Sara thinking, "We? The only way 'we' would be in this situation is if you were the one tied up and the safety word was 'disclosure.'"
So then we have a little exchange where:
10: Kellerman prints "Where is it?"
20: Dr. Sara prints, "I don't know what you're talking about"
30: Goto 10
40: End
Kellerman finally breaks the routine and tells her that there's a , presumably unpleasant step involved, but I'm still stuck on why he didn't just clear up this little communication gap by explaining that "it" is the keychain drive upon which these incriminating conversations are stored. We see him move to this step, which involves drawing a bath in a large, deep, beautifully tiled tub. So he's going to give her a bubblebath. Is that where we're going with this?
Michael is going to confession. I'd make a joke about how one conspiracy per show is enough, but I neither read nor saw The DaVinci Code, so I'm not exactly sure exactly how that whole Catholics-and-conspiracy conceit works. I can only say personally, the only conspiracy I have been involved in was the one in which my family tried to convince my grandmother that the chicken she was eating one Friday night was fish. (Nana never cottoned to Vatican II, you see.) But other than that, I got nothing.
Now, where were we? Ah, yes -- Michael is admitting that this is his first confession in s long time. The priest asks, "And what are the nature of your sins?" I hope the priest has an hour or ten. Michael says, "I'm not really sure." The priest is all, "Bzzzt! Try again, sinner." Michael replies, "Righteousness? Believing the ends justify the means." The priest would like know what those ends might be. Michael whispers, "Saving someone's life." The priest now wants to know what those means are. Michael replies, "I've broken just about every law you can name. But it's not just what I've done. It's what others have done, because I let them, because I was doing what I thought was right." Michael, perhaps your biggest sin is pride, for your mistaken belief that your decisions can completely obliterate the free will of others. Michael mutters, "I should have known better this time." The priest jumps on that: "This time?" Michael whispers, "When I was a kid, I watched a man bleed out and die. And I was glad, because he deserved it." The priests says something to the effect of "Who gave you the right to decide who lives and who dies?" -- see how it all comes back to pride? -- and Michael plows on that when this happened, "There was this dark space inside of me. And I knew that it was wrong. But here I am." The priest tells Michael, "There is a way to stop this. Surrender your will to God." Oh, how we all laugh with irony at the thought of the control-freaky, defiant Michael simply shrugging and saying, "Que sera, sera." Michael protests, "If I surrender now, I lose everything I love." The priest counters, "But do you lose your soul in the process?" Michael counters, "We all have our crosses to bear."
And then, if the idea of Michael Scofield comparing himself to Jesus didn't put you off your feed, chew on this: Linc is now playing Lady Macbeth. He's washing his hands over and over as a wide-eyed L.J. asks if he's okay. Linc grumbles, "It's never going to stop. They're going to keep coming after us." The dead stooge's mobile phone rings. Linc heads over to answer it. Aldo -- the man ostensibly devoted to taking down the One World Conspiracy -- asks him not to, lest they get useful information off the call. Linc opens the phone. Kim proves he's not what they call a "detail-oriented" evil mastermind, because instead of saying hello and confirming that Stoogie's answered the phone, he just blurts out, "Is it done?" Linc replies, "You are." In his car, Kim rolls his eyes as he identifies Lincoln. Linc continues, "Your man's dead -- just like anyone else you send to take out my son." Kim tells Lincoln that really, this is all about him and "there's a very simple way for this to end." Linc snarls, "Yeah, me staring at your dead eye with my hand around your throat." Kim snaps, "You don't even know who I am." Then he clicks the phone shut and tries to convince himself that it's true.
Meanwhile, on county road 17, a mere 75 miles from the Mexican border, Michael's being dropped off by the man he bummed a ride from. Now, he heads into the desert wearing a charcoal long-sleeved t-shirt and dark red pants. This is what happens when Goths go on Outward Bound.
Cut to Mahone staring at his gun. It pains me to type this, but it looks like he's trying to work up the nerve to use it on himself. Fortunately, a low rattle alerts him to the delightful possibility that he'll be able to shoot someone else instead. Even more delightful is the possibility that Mahone will be shooting Kim. Or perhaps he'll just be on the receiving end of a lot of smirking. Kim says cheerily that he's here to pick Mahone up. Mahone replies shortly that he had called Kellerman. Kim says opaquely that Kellerman is busy right now. Mahone rasps, "Can you open the gate? And I need a new vehicle." Kim replies, "There's something you should know about me: I don't like being out in the field. I only do so when there's been a screw-up. And I'm out in the field, Alex." Mahone is not too impressed by this implied job critique. Kim smirks some more and tells Mahone that they've got the lead as to where Michael and Linc will be reuniting: "It's a place called Bolshoi Booze. That mean anything to you?" Mahone shoots back, "Yeah, it's one of a hundred tattoos on Scofield's body." Kim asks Mahone what it means. Mahone admits he doesn't know, and Kim replies, "You'll need to figure it out in the couple of hours. If Lincoln Burrows crosses the border, he'll be out of your jurisdiction, and you'll be of no further value to us." Mahone doesn't crack. He stares hard at Kim and says, "Open. The. Gate." Kim makes Mahone say he'll get Scofield, Burrows, "and all of the rest of them." Then, Mahone assumes, he'll never have to deal with Kim or Kellerman again. Kim lets Mahone out of the cage while smarming about how he wants to make sure Mahone's "properly motivated." Among Kim's motivational techniques: reminding Mahone that he knows about Oscar Shales, then adding, "And then you can go back to Colorado and visit your son Cameron. He's five, right?" And with that, it looks like Linc won't be able to choke Kim to death because Mahone's doing it. Mahone snarls, "Don't you ever mention his name again." Kim tries to save face by gasping, "There he is. That's what I wanted to hear."
And now that Linc's worked so hard to reunite with L.J., it's time to blithely hand the boy off to Jane. Aldo assures them all, "You can trust her." Linc swallows this whole. Good to see he exhausted his supply of suspicion in the episode. Jane says, "I know this is hard, but it will work out. You have my word." Linc thanks her for that, and Jane adds, "Be careful." Linc doesn't bother to dignify that with a response. He heads over to tell L.J. he has a new guardian. L.J. points out, reasonably enough, that he doesn't even know Jane. Linc blithely assures him, "She's all right. She's been working for Dad for a while." And again, he had trust issues with his dad as recently as last week, so why the sudden change of heart? Anyway, Linc assures L.J. that he'll see him again soon, and L.J. says, "Isn't that the same thing your dad told you?" I may actually miss L.J. if he keeps delivering the zingers at this rate. Linc points out that he means it, then hugs his son.
Back out in the desert, Michael walks some more. Despite being fully covered up by dark clothing and carrying no water whatsoever, he appears not to be suffering from heat stroke.
Meanwhile, Mahone sits in his new ride, parked by the side of the road and trying to figure out if "Bolshoi Booze" is an anagram for something or what. After a while, he decides to turn his attentions to the infinitely less agonizing task of calling the ex-wife with whom he parted on acrimonious terms. Since Pam's not home, he leaves a message that seems to suggest he's not quite resolved to the whole not-married thing. Then he goes back to being frustrated. How fortunate for Mahone that he happens to see a photograph of the tattoo when it's backward and upside down in the mirror, so we can see that "bolshoi booze" is actually a way of encoding the GPS coordinates 32° 00' 9" latitude and 104° 57' 09" longitude. Simply flip "ez oo b oih sl ob" in a mirror and you'll see the l33t-speak alphanumerics. We cut to Michael at the exact spot right as we go to commercial.
Commercials. I'm going to have to go see that prison movie just for Will Arnett, I think.
When we get back from commercials, we see that Michael's actually squatting in front of a derelict cabin. A truck rolls up. A sweaty Michael stands up and greets the guy we used to know and love as Detective Cavaliere over onCSI. Jose Zuniga is one of my favorite That Guy actors. Without preamble, Jose -- known here as "Coyote" -- asks if the cardboard box contains Michael's payment. He adds, "Medical nitroglycerin." "As promised," Michael says. Vincent tries to make a little small talk about how hard it is for him to get this kind of medical-grade nitro, even with his contacts. Michael's all, "Yeah, yeah, now pay up with the airplane." Coyote replies, "They call me a couple of hours before with the drop-off point. It keeps the DEA off our backs. So it's going to be a while. You might as well stay out of the sun." Coyote then calls to his "cousins" to hop on out of the truck too. I have a bad feeling about this.
I have a bad feeling about Dr. Sara's bubble bath too. For one, there are no bubbles in the tub. For two, it doesn't look like Kellerman's made plans to join her. For three, it doesn't even look like he's planning to untie her first. Dr. Sara fixes her trepidation-filled look on the plug at the bottom of the full bathtub. As Kellerman dumps out Dr. Sara's messy purse -- argh! It kills me every time I see it -- he walks through the timeline of Governor Tancredi's last hours. Frank Tancredi accessed the information, made a few calls on his mobile phone. He asks Dr. Sara, "What did he say to you." "Just that he was coming back to Chicago." Kellerman stops rummaging through Dr. Sara's purse leavings long enough to look over and say amiably, "Good. You're being honest. Good." He then asks if Dr. Sara can explain the goings-on in the half hour between Governor Dad's landing and his arrival at home. She cannot. Kellerman asks, "Did your father give you anything?" Dr. Sara says, "Do you think I'm withholding information because I like hanging out with you? If I knew something, I'd tell you. I don't know anything about any of this!" Kellerman asks a little snidely, "Really? Then why did you give your father the file on Lincoln Burrows? Why did you open the door for Scofield and help him escape? Why did Scofield send you those coded notes? Why did you come to New Mexico to meet him?" I can't decide if he's peeved because he thinks she's lying, or if this is part of his pre-show routine. As Kellerman continues working himself into a fit of righteous interrogation, Dr. Sara looks over at the contents of her purse on the countertop -- among them, lots of gum, some dental floss and some hand sanitizer, so nice job, prop guys -- and realizes that the key she took off her dad's body leads to whatever it is that Kellerman wants. Kellerman says, "Don't try to float a babe in the woods routine by me. It's really going to piss me off." And then, just in case the line he uttered wasn't filled with enough foreshadowing, Kellerman grabs Dr. Sara by the back of the head and forces her underwater. He keeps her there just long enough for her to begin panicking underwater, then hauls her up, dries her off with a perverse solicitude, then tells her, "We're going to have to come to some sort of understanding."
Oh, great, an hour of water torture. Between last week's episode and now this Esther Williams-meets-the-Marquis-de-Sade plot twist, I wonder if this is just Fox softening the ground for the inevitable workplace sitcom based at the Abu Ghraib prison.
In drier plotlines, Wheeler's confirming for Mahone that yes, Michael tattooed GPS coordinates on himself. Looks like Mahone's headed to the middle of the New Mexico desert.
And in the middle of the New Mexico desert, Coyote is bitching and moaning about how the Mexican healthcare system is only slightly more screwed up than the U.S. one, and it's hard out there for a fugitive with a heart condition. Michael's all, "Look, I don't do this every day. I just want to get the information on that plane, then move on." The goons behind him look as though they'd like to suggest an alternate agenda. Coyote replies, "Is that it? ... Because I know who you are. But we can't go within a hundred feet of a U.S. marshal to collect the reward, because we have American and Mexican warrants on our head. But this plane to Panama?" He stops, invites the increasingly edgy Michael to sit down. Michael reluctantly does so. Coyote then sits, then asks, "This is all for your brother?" Michael confirms that it is. Coyote says skeptically, "I got four brothers, two in prison. Accept a call, yes. But break them out? Pffft. Loco." Michael smartmouths that Linc gave him a baseball mitt for his fourteenth birthday. "I owed him," he finishes. Coyote grins mirthlessly as he says, "You're a better man than I am." Michael superciliously replies, "Time will tell." You know, for someone who was all torn up inside a mere thirty minutes ago, he's bounced back remarkably fast. Michael turns to check out the goon squad behind him, both of whom look like they follow a life philosophy that values knowing how to break bones over knowing their anatomical names.
Things get even tenser when Coyote observes casually that he thought medical nitroglycerine came in glass vials, not plastic. For a fraction of a second, Michael's wearing his patented "Oh, shit" expression, but he smoothly recovers, explaining, "The guy I bought it from says he packed it in plastic to protect it in transportation over long distances, to prevent a fire or explosion." It's pretty evident Coyote's not really buying this. One of the goons then heads outside, and the other is preparing to help Coyote do a little quality control test. "It's the best available," Michael says coolly. Coyote replies, equally calmly, "I don't doubt it."
Meanwhile, in a parking garage somewhere, T-Bag has managed to find a change of clothes and a discreet location where he can whimper over his stump without attracting the attention of passersby. I don't even know why the producers bother with this charade when it's becoming ever more apparent that T-Bag is actually made of liquid metal like the Terminator. The whole reason we're seeing this scene is so that we can establish that T-Bag's able to track his ill-gotten, temporarily mislaid fortune, because he planted a tracking device in it. Of course he did -- in addition to his super healing powers, T-Bag is also a strategic genius, remember?
And in another part of Kansas, Bellick is busy blaming an innocent ethnic group on his own mischief: "Some black male, early twenties, jumped me from behind. I didn't get a good look at his face." The woman quizzing him, Detective Slattery, is not buying the story at all: "He jumped you from behind?" "That's what I said," Bellick replies. "Yet he managed to make contact with your forehead," she points out. "That's right," Bellick says. "With what? A boomerang?" she asks. I like Detective Slattery. Bellick says, "I'm a retired prison guard outside Illinois. How 'bout showing me some professional courtesy, honey?" Slattery gives him a look to let him know she's not sure which is more ridiculous: his attempt to make them professional peers, or his ridiculous sexism toward someone who could make his life very hard. Bellick, naturally misses this eloquent message. He then calls Geary and growls into Roy's voice mail, "You thieving son of a bitch. You better get down on your knees and pray to God I don't find you, because if I do, mark my words, I'm going to gut you bow to stern."
Bellick got voice mail because Geary's in a comparatively plushy hotel suite. As the Fox "News" anchor provides exposition in the background about how President Reynolds is dogged by questions about Lincoln's escape from custody, Geary pads around in a bathrobe, checking the multiple bottles of Ripple chilling in ice buckets all over the room. We get a shot of the Fox "News" screen. Even if that organization's election-spinning weren't enough to call its media credentials into question, I do wonder what it thinks it's gaining by lending its name, look and feel to a completely fictional TV show. Ah, well, silly me and my questions about "ethics" and Fox "News."
Anyway, there's a knock on the door, and I say aloud, "Please don't let there be a hooker waiting on the other side." And the powers that be show me that it's unwise to make vague pleas. Because, true, there is not a hooker waiting on the other side of the door. There are three hookers waiting on the other side of the door. And one of them looks like Li'l Kim, c. a long time before the surgery binges.
In a non-hooker-y plotline, Linc is busy telling Aldo how he's hated him for the last thirty years, running out, not knowing Michael blah blah blah. Aldo says shortly, "I've seen Michael before." Lincoln says, "Not in the papers, Dad." He then adds, "I'm trying to work out what kind of a man abandons his family. Now I'm doing the same damn thing." Over on the driver's side, the thought bubble appears over Aldo's head: "Abandons his family? Who saved you from the electric chair? Who staged your van-breakout last episode? What am I, chopped liver?" Aldo promises Linc that he'll see L.J. again. He also tells Linc they'll be meeting up with Michael in about three hours.
Unfortunately, Michael is going to need Linc's rhino-like abilities sooner than that, as Coyote's goon has just determined that all that medical-grade nitroglycerin (C3H5N3O9) is in fact sugar (C12H22O11) and water (H20). Michael feigns innocence: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm not a chemist. The guy I bought it from swore it was medical nitro. We both got screwed." Coyote's all, "We, kemosabe?" Michael pleads, "I just want to be out of here, okay? And you just want your payment. My brother's going to be here soon. We'll work something out. Just name your price" You know Michael is in desperate straits when his Plan B is "I'm going to let my brother kick your asses." Coyote whips out his gun and says angrily, "I already named my price. You didn't come through!"
Commercials. I like how the same show that has the Blood Diamond ad also has the Kay Jeweler one too. Every kiss begins with K? So does every kill.
When we get back, the balder of Coyote's two thugs is scanning the horizon outside the cabin. When he turns around, he runs right into someone's fist.
Meanwhile, Coyote is holding a gun on Michael, demanding to know, "When is your brother going to get here?" "You were planning on turning us in the whole time," Michael realizes. Coyote uses his outdoor voice to repeat his question: "When is your brother going to get here?" SUCRE answers that by bursting into the room with the outside goon's purloined gun. Sucre! Call me gullible, but the minute the outside goon got punched, I was like, "Yeah, that's Lincoln's M.O." Sucre! Also, it is all very hot how he and Coyote are busy shouting threats at each other in Spanish. Then Sucre actually makes good on his threat by winging Coyote. The older guy goes down like an American automaker's stock. Within seconds, Michael and Sucre have all the guns in the room, one wounded Coyote and a panicky goon. The two former cellies grin at each other.
And now, back to the water torture with Dr. Sara and Kellerman. As Kellerman heats up an iron, he carries on about how baffling it is for her to put herself out for Michael and Lincoln. Dr. Sara replies, "Are you surprised that there are people out there who will stand up to people like you? Are you that far gone?' Elaborately rolling his eyes, Kellerman tells her, "That's cute. Sad. But cute." Then he decides that the only thing more disorienting than fake-drowning someone is doing it with a side of electrocution. We then get a lot of close-ups of Dr. Sara screaming in pain underwater, because nothing says "entertainment" and "advancing the plot" like "explicit and suspiciously sexualized images of brutalizing a human being."
Speaking of morally dubious titillation, we're back on the Geary plotline. We open with the brunette hooker asking, "A Cleveland what?" Geary assumes an air of world-weariness and says, "Don't worry. I'll talk you through it. And we got a glass coffee table right here." The Li'l Kim hooker says flatly, "Hell, no." The blonde hooker stands up and says, "I'll do it for a thousand." Geary manages to barter her down to $750. We cut to the brunette hooker shaking her head with a "Better you than me, sister" look. As Geary goes to the closet to pull a wad of cash out of the duffel -- stupid! He should have put the cash in his pockets ahead of time, because what's to stop the hookers from getting curious about the magical closet that makes money? -- he notices that there's a blinky device nestled among the bundles of bills.
As he says, "What the hell?" there's another knock on the door. One of the hookers mutters, "Cops!" but as the door bursts open, we see that it's T-Bag. He's wearing a hoodie and loaded for ass-kicking. He points at the hookers, makes an impatient gesture, and commands, "Leave." Ah, Robert Knepper, walking away with the scene again. The hookers sensibly do as he says. Then Geary proves he really is a moron, because instead of grabbing the nearest bottle and clubbing the battered, one-handed man into submission before calling 911, he just gibbers and panics and leaves the bottles of booze to T-Bag, who promptly turns it into a weapon.
In New Mexico, Michael and Sucre have managed to tie up everybody who is not them. Sucre's pacing around with the gun, asking Coyote where the plane's going to land. Coyote invites Sucre to kiss his ass. As Sucre and Michael stand together and explain why they're still lingering here -- "Without that plane, we're screwed" -- Coyote bleeds all over the place and his non-bald goon frets sweetly, "He's losing too much blood. He'll never make it." "You should have thought of that before you tried to kill us," Sucre snaps. I like this new, smarter, ass-kicking Sucre. The goon begs some more and Sucre asks Coyote for the plane location one more time. The goons beg Coyote to tell them. Coyote and Michael exchange defiant looks, then Coyote says the plane will land on Finley Road, off highway 8. The bald goon's all, "Happy? Now let us go." Sucre's all, "Speaking of going ... " and that touches off a fresh round of panic among the guys in the cabin. Wow, these goons are really, really loyal. Forget the joking about Michael-n-Sucre 4-ever. What we have here is a polyandrous gang. The goons, sensing that Michael is marinating in Catholic guilt, focus their pleading on him. It is effective. Michael stands there and looks agonized. Sucre rebuts, "Let's go! Michael, if we were bleeding, he would not lift a finger and you know that." The non-bald goon insists in a tiny voice, "That's not true!" Hee. Sucre continues making his pragmatic arguments, all of which bounce right off Michael's sweaty skull. The non-bald goon begins begging more loudly until Sucre screams at him to shut up. Michael continues to dither over the morally correct thing to do when you've tied up the guys who tried to kill you after you lied to them about the contraband you had arranged as payment for your illegal flight. It's a complicated issue.
We go from Michael's conflicted face to Dr. Sara's pained one. She's got her eyes closed and it looks like she's trying to hold it together. Kellerman says, "Sara, I care about you." Some people say it with flowers, he says it with near-drowning experiences. As he smoothes her hair off her face with his rubber-gloved hand, Kellerman says, "This is not what I wanted, Sara." She jerks her head away so she doesn't have to endure his touch. Before Kellerman can explain how this hurts his feelings, his phone rings. It's Kim, who asks brightly, "What's going on with Sara?" "My usual first-date stuff," Kellerman replies. Oh, he does not. But for all that I think these scenes are sick, sick, sick, I do have to give Paul Adelstein plaudits for his portrayal here: the sincere and warm way he delivers his lines coupled with the ruthless economy of the torturing motions is great characterization. Instead of being completely repelled by him -- as I was by T-Bag during his Dr. Gudat scene, or by the cartoonish brutality Geary and Bellick served up -- I'm paying attention to these interactions because I feel like Kellerman's got a back story we're getting over the course of this plotline.
Anyway, we take a break from the water sports to listen to Kim and Kellerman's conversation. Kim figures that Dr. Sara's outlived her usefulness, and Kellerman says, "Well, she knows something --" "You disobey me, you are done. Do you understand me?" Kim snaps. We cut to Kellerman, who looks uneasily at Dr. Sara as Kim shouts, "Put her in the ground, Paul!" We cut to a close-up of the trembling, harrowed Dr. Sara right before commercials.
Commercials. Thank you, TobaccoFreeCA, for that haunting image of a cowboy bursting out of a camel's hump. This hour didn't have nearly enough eye-popping scenes in it.
We cut to a shot of T-Bag in the hotel suite. He's cleaned up somewhat, and is chilling to the strains of "Mama Tried." The pack full of money is resting on the floor to him. T-Bag eats another little amuse bouche, sips some champagne, then opens up the backpack. At the top is the plastic bag containing the remainders of the items that the Bozo Fetts had used to torture T-Bag. In that bag? A receipt with Bellick's credit card number. T-Bag begins to grin.
Meanwhile, the Passion of the Scofield continues. Michael eventually decides to cut Coyote loose. Sucre snaps, "You're doing it wrong! He was going to call the cops, get his buddies or something --" "He's not going to make it!" Michael replies. And since we all know Michael once watched a bad man bleed out and it made him all dark and hurty inside, he's going to avoid repeating that bit of personal history. Michael applies first aid to Coyote's shoulder, then unties the goons and orders them to get Coyote to a hospital. And then, shocker of shockers, they do. Me, I would have taken the few minutes necessary to disarm Michael, take Sucre out, and then hit the E.R., but I guess my goon vindictiveness standards are unreasonably high.
However, the moral of this show is that little acts of virtue are rewarded, because Coyote gasps out that he lied about the plane's location; it's actually at the Mile 7 marker on Rte. 4. The plane will touch down at sunset for a whopping five minutes, then head to Oaxaca, Mexico. Setting up the narrative tension for the few episodes, Coyote adds, "You miss it, you're out of luck."
Speaking of out-of-luck, it's Bellick exiting the E.R. just in time to hear a bunch of EMTs talk about the guy who bled out on the trip to the hospital -- "Roy Geary, just an out-of-stater." Bellick slams to a halt, then heads over to check out the gurney. Geary's got a bloody scalp, but it looks like it's the slit throat that did him in. Some EMT asks if Bellick knows him. "He's a friend of mine," Bellick says. Detective Slattery appears at his elbow to ask, "Do you mind answering a few more questions?"
We then zoom west again. Mahone's sitting in his car when the phone rings. He picks up; it's Pam. The camera pulls up on Mahone's face, seamed with regret and longing, as he tells Pam, "I know things got ugly toward the end. I got ugly. But I wanted you to know that there were circumstances... it was better that you and Cameron, that you were not with me." Pam asks, "Why are you telling me this now?" Fighting back tears, Mahone continues, "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it different. We'd still be a family. I'd give anything for that." We switch to Pam's face and the dawning realization that it really wasn't her, it was all him. Mahone tells her he just wanted her to know. Pam's all, "Okay, what's going on?" and Mahone lies, "Nothing... I'm sorry, okay?" Pam offers to come get Mahone and he says wryly, "Wouldn't that be nice, huh?" Pam insists, "I'm serious. Where are you?" Mahone blinks back tears and says, "One more thing: if you hear anything in the media... " He can't bring himself to finish that thought. Instead, he wraps up with, "I love you. Give Cam a kiss for me, okay?" Then he snaps the phone shut, puts his gun in his hand and gets out of the car, ready to walk along the same path Michael did earlier. And oh, how ironic that he's lost both his soul and everything he loved. Nicely played, writers.
Michael and Sucre come out of the blood shack. Sucre is not berating Michael, which is sort of a pity because if ever there were a time where it was appropriate for Sucre to bitch and second-guess, now would be it. Michael says to Sucre, "I'm glad I told you about this place." Sucre replies, "I'm glad I figured out how to work a GPS. Could you make it a little more difficult time?" Michael replies softly, "Now, we're even." "We're even," Sucre agrees. Before this conversation can get any more awkward, Linc and his unbuttoned shirt burst into view. He and Michael shake hands, then Linc admits, "I brought someone." He calls, "Dad?" and Michael wheels around with some trepidation on his face. Aldo comes out. Michael gets a sick, stunned look on his face. We get nice shots of Lincoln and Sucre -- both of whom are taken aback by this reaction -- and a shot of the anxious Aldo's shoulders slumping in disappointment. Michael finally pulls up his icy composure and says, "We've met before." We cut to Aldo, who looks remorseful.
Speaking of remorse... Kellerman's dried off and is having that moment we've all faced in the office: the realization that we don't always like our jobs. After a long time meditating over what to do , he vaults from the bed and rushes into the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the tub, Kellerman says urgently to Dr. Sara, "This is happening right now, okay? Don't make me do this. Don't make me do this." (Side note: I find it very interesting how this echoes his interaction with Hale, where he always seems to have to work himself into a blame-the-victim mentality before offing someone he seems to like.) Dr. Sara's got the thousand-yard-stare going. She says tremulously, "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you." Trying to muster the necessary outrage he needs for follow-through, Kellerman shouts, "You wouldn't? Really? Are you that stupid? Are you that stupid? Because NOW,YOU'RE GOING TO DIE! You're going to die! And all you had to do was tell me what your father gave you!" Sniffling, Dr. Sara says, "I know my options: I can not tell you and die, or I can tell you and still die." Kellerman says a little desperately, "No! Wrong! Come on -- Sara, smarten up. For once in your life, please." He looks at her, his big brown eyes radiating sincerity. Dr. Sara looks through a curtain of wet, tangled hair and rasps, "Go to hell." Good on her. Kellerman smiles wistfully, then moves with a practiced motion and presses her face down to an inch above the water. He says, "Drowning is horrific, don't get me wrong. But once you give in, you just let the water into your lungs, and there's a certain euphoria, I hear. I guess as a junkie, maybe you'd appreciate that." Dr. Sara whispers the serenity prayer to herself. Kellerman continues working himself into the blame-the-victim argument he'll need for expiation. He snaps, "You did this to yourself" and pushes Dr. Sara underwater. The last shots of the episode are the stylized close-ups of Dr. Sara screaming as she gasps for air underwater.