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Oh my God, of all the disturbing things I viewed in this episode -- brutal torture, T-Bag's histrionics, the death of a regular -- I believe the one that will have me lunging for a bucket of bleach to wash out my mind's eyes the very minute I finish this recaplet? Took place at the 38-minute mark, when General Von Baldy called Gretchen "my girl" and then planted a wet, passionate smooch on her. There are not enough capital letters or vowels available for the "aieee!" I want to type right now. Also, the good men and women who soldier in the fields of psychiatry have not yet invented the professional vocabulary that can explain this relationship. He orders her tortured, she reiterates by … swooning. Also, he probably fathered her child. Again, not enough vowels in the world for the "aieee!" I want to type. To Gretchen's partial credit, she appears to gather some of her senses back and claims to be working as a free agent, but General Von Baldy correctly interprets this as her version of "Plenty of other guys have been asking me out."
Also, this episode was backstory central. Part One: We find out that Don Self is a bereaved father and widower -- his wife died during complications in childbirth and the baby was lost too -- so he's pretty much okay with ushering Dr. Sara out of Team Scylla HQ and letting Mahone torture Agent Blots Out the Sun. Mahone is fiendishly good at this sort of thing, and perverts a heart monitor to make sure Agent Blots Out the Sun is kept in the maximum amount of alert agony. Mahone makes Agent Blots Out the Sun apologize to Pam, then fits him with cement cufflinks and shoves him off a pier in mid-monologue. We'll see if this does anything for his peace of mind.
Part Two of backstory central: We find out all about Brad Bellick this week, as his observation of Mahone's paternal grief and Lincoln's solid determination have given Brad two insights. First, he's wasted his life as a bully who didn't cultivate any positive human relationships. Second, his dad died when he was a small boy, and he's spent his entire life feeling the loss. Why should we feel so much sympathy for Bellick? Hmmmm.
Team Scylla gets the idea to use the vast warren of atmospheric tunnels below the GATE corporation to dig through a water pipe and get to Scylla. Michael's tumor decides to act up, so Sucre totally covers for him. (For all that Dr. Sara and Michael are sweet together, she is going to have to realize that she will be sprung on parole from the Prison of Love because the Michael/Sucre bromance is a life sentence). Bellick and Linc manage to turn off all the water in Los Angeles for an hour so that Michael and Sucre can drill through to Scylla, then all four guys are working on setting up safe passage through the cross-section of a massive water pipe (I think), but then with one thing and another, the water comes back on and the newly-sympathetic Brad decides that dying for a good reason beats living a purposeless life, so he makes sure the passage is safe and gets crushed by a mighty flow of water in the process. Wade Williams, you will be missed. Let's hope Bellick's sacrifice hasn't been in vain, as the One World Conspiracy is planning on moving Scylla within the 24 hours.
Also this week: the po-po have come sniffing around GATE corporation following Andrew's disappearance, so T-Bag spends much of the episode slinging southern-fried bullshit at the detectives and bullying Trish into covering his footsteps. His crafty scheme works. Of course it does -- if you cut T-Bag down, he only rises up stronger.
Check back on Monday for the full detailed recap. Until then, look back at the most ridiculous moments.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The episode begins with Linc punching a tied-up Agent Blots Out the Sun back at Team Scylla HQ. He's hoping to soften up Agent Blots Out the Sun so he'll call General Von Baldy and say, "I've killed everyone." Agent Blots Out the Sun politely tells Linc to keep on pounding, because he has no intention of doing his bidding. Lincoln's like, "Okay!" and so we get LINCOLN SMASH! After a bit, Bellick comes in and fussily drags Linc off. He's escorted over to the table, where Dr. Sara asks, "Believe me now? Beating him isn't going to work." No, but judging by the amount of sweat Linc's pumping out, it's a hell of a workout.
Linc then sets up the premise for why they're keeping Agent Blots Out the Sun alive: they want him to call General Von Baldy and claim that Team Scylla's dead. Michael is skeptical this can even work: "You don't think a trained military veteran is going to hear the fear in [Agent Blots Out the Sun's] voice? They're going to know he was coerced." Linc is like, "Give me a little more time with him," and Michael gently lets him down with "I hear you, Linc, but he can't make the call if he's unconscious." Bellick reminds everyone that whatever they decide to do to Agent Blots Out the Sun, they'd better do it quickly, because Mahone's not going to wait forever. We then cut to Mahone, who's looking worse than we've seen him all season.
Meanwhile, at the One World Conspiracy's HQ, Lisa's delivering the bad news to General Von Baldy: it'll take them three days to move Scylla. General Von Baldy's not down with that, and Lisa seethes, "Respectfully, this is not as simple as unplugging a laptop and moving it to another room. The data on Scylla is too delicate --" General Von Baldy rolls over her explanation before it can degenerate into the kind of specificity that would require massive ret-conning in upcoming episodes, but Lisa does not back down: it's taking three days. Anything else would be a miracle. Just then, a flunky comes in to say that Agent Blots Out the Sun is not returning any phone calls, and oh, whatever shall they do? General Von Baldy snaps that the flunky can just keep calling, and in between ringy-dingies, he can draft a press release calling out Michael and Lincoln, so at least the public can be reminded that these fugitives are still at large and need to be captured. General Von Baldy finishes by shouting, "I want it impossible for them to walk down the streets of Los Angeles without being recognized!"
Back at Team Scylla HQ, Don Self comes by and asks "I assume we haven't made much progress with our friend over there?" Michael lazily drawls, "Any suggestions?" "How about we talk to him?' Don Self replies. Sucre says, "Great. You wanna give him some milk and cookies while you're at it?" Don Self rolls his eyes, then slams down his briefcase while he says, "How about some nice conversation?" Going by how both Linc and Dr. Sara recoil, I'm going to guess there's not an emergency sleeve of Nutter Butters in there for emergency conversations.
So Dr. Sara waltzes into the storage area where they're holding Agent Blots Out the Sun. He sneers, "So they sent Florence Nightingale to get me all ready." She replies that she's here to tend to him because she's still a doctor, and because she'd like to try and prevent him getting tortured if necessary, "So I figured if you and I had a talk--" "You'd make me see the light," Agent Blots Out the Sun asks lazily. He does know how to get to people fast, doesn't he? Dr. Sara points out, "If you don't call [General Von Baldy], you're as good as dead." Agent Blots Out the Sun replies, "I've already been many things a lot worse than 'dead' in my life, doctor. You better have more than that to threaten me with." She doesn't.
We cut to Michael fidgeting outside -- I love that they've kept his nervous-hands thing as a consistent character tic through all four seasons; it may well be the one last shred of continuity in this show -- and Don Self reassures him. Michael's not having it: "[Agent Blots Out the Sun] is a trained killer." Don Self tells him to quit being such an old woman and get back to work. Michael then asks what happened to Roland's body, and Don Self lightly says, "He's been 'reconfigured' and given a permanent resting place." Hee! Lincoln says, "Good. Take his bowling shirts and the rest of his crap with you when you leave." Bellick is like, "Respect for the dead?" and Linc is all, "You did not have to share a car ride to and from Vegas with him. He is not a good travel buddy -- and that's even before he tries to sell you out!" Or something to that effect.
Michael brings everyone back to the project at hand: getting to Scylla via the map in the bird book. There's a walkway that connects the GATE headquarters to the Scylla site, but it's bisected by a big, mysterious-looking pipe block in the middle. Michael notes, "Whistler marked it with an 'X', so I'm thinking it's some kind of wall or impediment. That's why we're going down there prepared -- tools, thermal lances, sledgehammers." Sucre's like, "And once we get through the wall, then what?" Michael testily points out that he is not psychic and does not know all, plus it doesn't help that Gretchen has the relevant pages, and Lincoln sort of face-palms at this news. Sucre reasonably asks, "What's her game in all this? If she wants [the One World Conspiracy] to go down, she should just give us the pages." Don Self says, "I'm going to deal with Gretchen when the time is right, okay? You guys go down to GATE and get started. I'm going to stay here and make sure we get what we need [from Agent Blots Out the Sun]." Michael looks troubled by that. Why, Michael? Do not weep for Agent Blots Out the Sun, for he is already dead.
We cut to GATE, where T-Bag is clucking for everyone to hustle inside before anyone can ask "Cole Pfeiffer" what he's doing with a bunch of beefy, bald guys. While he's opening up the trap door in the storage room off T-Bag's office, Michael snaps at T-Bag to stay in his office and keep people away from the entrance to the underworld there. T-Bag says, "I'll stay in my nice, air-conditioned office, Pretty, and you can crawl down into your little hole now." As Michael heads down the ladder, T-Bag dramatically intones, "Go ahead, craaawl!" I realize the odds of this ever happening are tiny, but wouldn't it be awesome if some amusement park did a Prison Break ride and we had an audioanimatronic T-Bag head pop out intoning, "Go ahead, craaaaawl" as a roller-coaster car plunged into blackness? You know -- like Pirates of the Carribean, only with less eyeliner. The other cons follow Michael down.
And just as T-Bag comes out of the storage closet, he runs into his big boss, White, who asks, "Cole? What the hell is going on here?" One presumes it's because White just heard his crack salesman channeling Gollum and croaking, "Go ahead, craaaaaawl" to nothing in particular, but it turns out that White is exercised over Andy's resignation fax. White continues that he's so worried, he's contacted Andy's fiancée, and she hasn't heard from him, and T-Bag dissembles, "He's probably on a bender somewhere." White protests, "[Andy's] a boy scout! None of this makes any sense, Cole. But I tell you what -- I'm going to look into it." Cut to T-Bag looking as if he wished Gretchen and her piano wire were standard equipment in any office.
We then cut to the subterranean nest of tunnels below GATE, and I see that the showrunners have saved on production costs by filming this scene in total blackness. Seriously, we see an occasional flash of Michael's head, a few flashlight beams bobbing around like fireflies, and nothing else. There's a dull roaring sound; Sucre is the only one who asks what it is.
We don't find out just yet, because we cut to Gretchen in a hotel room, primping herself. By the by, she's wearing a very nice, silky blouse in a sort of dusty cocoa -- it's really working on her, and it matches her residual bruises. I love a good, multitasking wardrobe item. Her phone rings; it's T-Bag and he's panicky: "While you're nowhere to be found, there's sleuthin' going on here regarding the whereabouts of one Andrew Blauner." Gretchen does not even stop applying mascara as she drawls, "And?" "And if I'm going down for this little homicide, I'm not going alone. We're going together like traffic and weather," T-Bag says. Gretchen tells him to chillax, as nobody will ever find a body. As she puts on some painfully high heels, Gretchen asks, "Where are Scofield and Burrows?" T-Bag points out that they're upholding their end of the bargain -- "Which begs the question: what the hell are you doing?" Gretchen picks up a gun and plays with it as she coos, "Me? I'm getting ready for a meeting." And I hate to throw props to Gretchen here, but having sat through my share of meetings lately, I'm beginning to think that maybe, there's a place for firearms as a means of effective agenda management. One can only endure so much PowerPoint, after all.
Dr. Sara's still chatting with Agent Blots Out the Sun. She notes that his phone's just ringing off the hook. Agent Blots Out the Sun replies, "That's right. They're wondering [where I am]. And the longer they do, the more danger you're in." Dr. Sara -- who has been through her fair share of peril -- is unfazed. She tells Agent Blots Out the Sun to call the general and say what Linc wants him to say. Agent Blots Out the Sun asks, "Then what? You'll let me go?" Dr. Sara says, "No. But Don Self will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a decent facility without the death penalty." Agent Blots Out the Sun correctly dismisses this as a fairy tale, then continues to mess with Dr. Sara's head by implicitly reminding her that her Hippocratic oath means she can't really stand by while Mahone kills him. "So, please, let's you and I figure a way out of this mess that works for everybody," Agent Blots Out the Sun says. Dr. Sara suddenly looks very indecisive. Let's hope it stops there: it'll be awkward if Michael has to keep stopping Mahone from killing his girlfriend after she lets a child murderer waltz away.
Outside the cell, Don Self is picking away at his keyboard, probably updating his Twitter stream ("donself: Wishing I were @ the Yankees game, fewer sweaty crazy people there") while Mahone sweats and looks crazy over in a corner. After a time-lapse montage of Mahone getting sweatier and crazier, he finally heads toward Agent Blots Out the Sun's holding pen. Don Self dives from his laptop (having moved on from Twitter to taking the "Which 80s movie are you?" quiz on Facebook) and restrains Mahone while Agent Blots Out the Sun impassively looks on. Don Self begs, "I know this is hard, and I know what you want to do, but I'm trying to do something here and you need to deal with that reality." Mahone brings out his argument-trumper with "Have you lost a kid?" but, oh SNAP, Don Self can come back to that! He says, "Yeah. I did too. My wife was pregnant, and there were complications, and the doctor messed up, and she..." Don struggles to compose himself, and Mahone pulls back a little from the edge to listen. Don tries again," And they both..." Mahone's calmer now, perhaps thinking about what didn't happen when Pam successfully delivered Cam. Don Self finally says, "They didn't make it. Okay? So I understand." Mahone asks him, "What would you do if you were me, and that man -- he's right there, he's right there. What would you do?" Don Self says, "I don't know what I would do. Look, I'm giving you my word, when the time is right, I won't stand in your way." Mahone corrects him: "When the time is right, I won't let you." Don Self's okay with that.
We cut to Bellick gossiping about Mahone with Linc, who says only, "The guy's hurting." I am not the greatest fan of Linc as a character, but kudos to the writers for making him a big enough man to be empathetic to another father's loss. It makes Linc more likeable. Bellick says, "That's more than just hurting -- that's pain. I've never cared about anything like that. I look at what I've done with my life, beating on cons at Fox River, chasing money, trying to keep my own ass out of prison... " We come to a dead end, which I am sure is in no way symbolic of any impending plot twists in any way. Now the guys have to climb up a ladder and then they'll be on a raised walkway that runs under a courtyard; on the other side of the walkway is the entrance to the Scylla bunker. Sucre hears the low rushing noise again, but nobody can identify that.
Then Sucre, bless him, lays out the rest of the episode's caper: "Just so we're clear, we get to go up that ladder, head toward that noise [that] we don't know what it is, but if we're lucky, we basically get to walk smack into the [One World Conspiracy] HQ." Michael grins, "Sounds about right. You up for it?" Sucre smiles back at his brohomie: "Oh, yeah." Michael can't help but smile back.
Meanwhile, Agent Blots Out the Sun is still working on Dr. Sara: "I am no different from that man over there who wants to kill me. Alexander Mahone was forced to do things by the [One World Conspiracy] and so was I, but I know people, people in government, people that can help you and Michael. I can give you a phone number. Arrangements can be made. All you have to do is trust me, and this will all be over." Gosh, Agent Blots Out the Sun says that like it's such a bad thing to share a loft-like space with four bald, beefy guys and one crazed ex-FBI agent. What girl doesn't dream of shacking up with her beloved in such style? Dr. Sara finally walks out. As she locks the pen again, she says, "There's honor."
Back in the GATE office, T-Bag is conferring with Trisha to see if White has anything new to say about the missing Andy. She's all, "Now that the police are on the scene, he just might." T-Bag has no time to escape, because LAPD detective Connor Merrick has just collared him for a little quiz about Andy, and T-Bag has no choice but to play along.
So the four expeditionary members of Team Scylla are now on the catwalk, and in the time-honored tradition of these things in TV and cinema, there's hissing and steam and crappy lighting. As they continue to head toward the mystery noise, Sucre's holding his side (where, presumably, his still-healing bullet wound is giving him trouble), and when they finally get to the impediment wall thing, Michael pegs it: "It is where the sound is coming from. This is one of the main conduit pipes for the L.A. water supply. Thirty thousand gallons of water rushing through this very spot, every second." Bellick wonders if maybe there's a way to get around the giant pipe, but Michael quickly disabuses him of that notion. Michael's proposed solution: dig down beneath the pipe. Out comes the sledgehammer.
Upstairs, T-Bag is trying to BS his way through his confab with Detective Merrick -- who has helpfully noticed things like incongruities as to where the fax came from, and the fact that the last time Andy's car was seen, there was a woman driving it -- while Team Scylla makes all sorts of a ruckus below him. T-Bag tries to float the "Maybe Andy was cheating?" balloon, but Merrick says, "From what I heard from his other coworkers, that wasn't too likely." Then he goes for the kill: "From what I've heard from other people, you and Mr. Blauner didn't get along. Would you mind talking about that?" T-Bag's false good cheer dries up.
Back at Team Scylla HQ, Don Self is sitting in front of his laptop and explaining to all of us that "a few years ago, a partner of mine did the same move on an enemy combatant we picked up at the Mexican border." Dr. Sara is looking at his screen all, "It's delightful that you're a red-haired lady in World of Warcraft, but I really don't see what MMPORPGs have to do with -- oh, wait, I'm looking at the wrong window." Don Self explains, "This guy didn't want to talk, he didn't know anything." We see that Don has been editing together Agent Blots Out the Sun's voice into one seamless sound file. While Don Self continues to play with his software, Mahone looks at Agent Blots Out the Sun and has a brainstorm. He asks, "Is that ambulance you got us still out back?" Sure is. Mahone's off to poke around for something.
Cut to the expedition team learning the hard way that sledge hammers are not the most effective tool for breaking up a smooth concrete floor. Bellick tells Sucre, "I got almost a decade on you and I'm not sucking wind." Sucre points out, "I got shot, Brad." "Oh, yeah," Bellick remembers. Hee! Anyway, back to the failure to dig: Michael notes that the cement's been reinforced with granite, so not even a jackhammer can get through it. Sucre says, "Maybe we should go back to the warehouse and find another way?' and Michael shouts, "There is no other way! This is it! This is where our plans lead. This is the way to Scylla." Linc's all, "Come again?" Then Michael blows everyone's mind by summoning the Blue Steel and saying, "We can't go over it, we can't go under it. But maybe we can go through it."
And now, the boys launch into another sketchy plan: while Linc is given a spray can of something and the bird book map, he's told to go do "it," but he won't have a lot of time to do "it" and he has to be careful. Meanwhile, Sucre and Bellick are prying up a narrower passage of pipe. Bellick heads out with Linc.
Aboveground, T-Bag is basically boring his interrogator to death as he tries to deny loathing Andrew. White comes in at the end of another of T-Bag's florid monologues with Andy's travel schedules, and that's when Bellick and Linc decide to pop out of the closet. White asks reasonably, "What's this?" Sadly, neither Lincoln nor Bellick have the presence of mind to reply, "Shit! We're not in Narnia anymore, are we?" but Bellick does manage to improvise with a line about getting more bracket joints for the shelves. T-Bag then smoothly lies to his boss and the detective about how he's getting shelves installed in the closet on his own dime, because he's a giver like that. Bellick takes off with "Wait up, Manuel." He's doomed. You know why he's doomed? He's getting the best lines this week.
Now it's Don Self's turn to get in the cage with Agent Blots Out the Sun, who asks him, "You're going to talk to me now?' Don Self says, "Me? No -- we're done talking, but you're not." He pushes a button on a digital recorder and we hear the sound file: "They're all dead. It's over." Then Don heads out with Agent Blots Out the Sun's phone. Mahone comes back in, and asks Don Self quietly, "Can you take a walk?" Don Self just happens to need a god leg-stretching, so he agrees. He also prods Dr. Sara outside. She huffs out -- I guess nobody reminded her that Agent Blots Out the Sun brutally tortured and killed her surrogate father Bruce a few episodes back, or else she wouldn't be on such a high horse.
And in this week's "Plotline that can be summed up in one paragraph" paragraph, because I have a weak stomach for graphic depictions of torture: Mahone tortures and kills Agent Blots out the Sun. However, I am sure you want the gruesome details, so... it turns out that Agent Blots Out the Sun has a truly cheesy lion king-style tattoo on his chest, and we know this because Mahone rips open his shirt and puts on the sensors for a heart monitor. Then he says, "My son's autopsy report said he'd been shot twice. Once in the stomach. [sobs] Why? Just -- [grabs Agent Blots Out the Sun's throat] in front of my wife! And then a full five minutes later, right in the..." Mahone can't finish. He just points a finger to the spot immediately above the bridge of his nose. The upshot is clear: Agent Blots Out the Sun deliberately extended the child's suffering. Mahone decrees, "You, too, will suffer. And when you can't stand the pain anymore, you'll make a phone call for me. You know, Scofield said that torture wouldn't work because [General Von Baldy] would hear the fear in your voice, but the thing is, I want the person on the other end of the call to hear the fear." Then he discloses how he'll break Agent Blots Out the Sun: through acupuncture. No, seriously: "The most sensitive nerve endings are [at the tips of your fingers]. That's why acupuncturists avoid placing needles anywhere near them, because opening up the nerve endings in a fingertip, even a little pinprick, can result in quite a painful hot flash. So a five-inch needle being driven up the length of your finger--" Well, even Agent Blots Out the Sun has to scream at that. But lest Agent Blots Out the Sun actually pass out from the pain and gain a moment's release, Mahone's going to use the portable heart monitor he's rigged up to watch Agent Blots Out the Sun's vital signs, and thus calibrate his acutorture so as to keep Agent Blots Out the Sun conscious and in the maximum amount of pain. After we've seen a few scenes where Agent Blots Out the Sun is in horrific pain, Mahone monologues: "Acceptance is important, Wyatt. I had to accept that my son is gone. And you have to accept that your life -- your very short life span ahead of you -- is just going to be filled with agonizing pain. At least, until you do what I've asked of you. And then, then the pain will go away." He smiles a little, but if Mahone thinks the pain will go away for him or Pam, he's deluding himself.
But wait! The shot is of Mahone calling Pam. She is not exactly thrilled to hear from him, but Mahone ignores that and says, "Somebody needs to tell you something." He then holds the phone to Agent Blots Out the Sun's mouth, instructing, "You call her by her first name." We see Agent Blots Out the Sun whispering, with great difficulty, "Pam ... I'm ... sorry." Mahone takes away the phone and retreats, telling Pam, "It's over, and I love you." Pam starts crying, and we flash back to Mahone, repeating, "I love you." He closes the phone and clasps it tightly, then turns back to Agent Blots Out the Sun. We then see a car pull up at the end of a pier, and a gun-wielding Mahone gets out. He pulls Agent Blots Out the Sun out of the back seat; the other man's wrists are threaded through the holes of a cinderblock and chained together. He slouches toward the end of the pier, shirt covered in blood, stupid from pain. Mahone gives Agent Blots Out the Sun one last, level look. Agent Blots Out the Sun tries one last head trip with, "You and I are the same, Alex. We've done things --" and Mahone gives him a look like, Shut up before shoving him off the edge of the pier. We see Agent Blots Out the Sun sink in the water, and then we zoom up to Mahone, who's looking relieved that that's over, but also surprised that murder didn't really address any of his larger issues.
Getting back to the rest of the episode, we head back to One World Conspiracy HQ, where General Von Baldy is about to review the "Get them! Form an angry mob and hunt them down!" press release devoted to Michael and Linc. Before he can, he gets a call from Agent Blots Out the Sun's phone. Don Self plays the recording "They're all dead. It's over," and General von Baldy purrs, "Good work. Your payment will be left where arranged." Don Self hangs up, and General Von Baldy tells the flunky and Lisa, "This is no longer necessary." (By the way, I totally think that he's on to Don Self's ploy; that "payment arranged" thing might have been a test.) But before anyone can get too festive, along comes a gun-wielding Gretchen. She casually mentions to General Von Baldy, "The access code to the covert entrance is still both your daughters' birthdays." General Von Baldy coolly orders everyone out of his office, saying, "It's okay. She won't hurt me." Lisa takes a little extra prodding to leave, but once she does, the General coos to Gretchen, "I knew you'd come home."
The rapid humanization of Bellick continues, as he and Linc stop by some control box outside and Bellick asks how Linc's holding up away from LJ. Linc shrugs that he's fine, since he knows LJ's a smart kid, and Bellick says, "I could see it. I see how much you love him. My dad died when I was a little kid. He was a good father--" "Let's just focus and get this done," Linc says. "This thing," as it turns out, is sabotaging the manual override on the LA water system so that it shuts down water to the good people of Los Angeles.
We cut to Michael and Sucre. Sucre's suspended the smaller pipe -- which will be big enough for the men to snake through -- so it's perpendicular to the big one. Michael's drawn a circle on the side of the big pipe. It's now clear that the guys plan to run the smaller pipe as a pass-through. Linc and Bellick had to shut off the water so that Michael and Sucre could use their blowtorches to cut the holes in the pipe, and presumably thread the smaller, pass-through pipe through the bigger one before the water comes back on. However, they've only got about 60 minutes to do 90 minutes worth of work, and Michael's tumor has picked this very moment to act up. Michael no longer has any hand-eye coordination, and then he collapses into a fit of some sort. Sucre, bless him, is all, "Papi, talk to me! What's wrong?"
By the scene, Michael's recovered enough to protest that he's okay, but Sucre's not fooled: "You're a lot of things right now, my friend. 'Okay' ain't one of them. I may not be the smartest guy, but I hear things. Sara and your brother have been talking about you not feeling well. I'm just saying." I'm saying it's wrong that Michael's hetero lifemate is hearing about Scofield's condition from Michael's girlfriend. Where is the love? Michael tells Sucre, "I need your help, so please, just cover for me." Because Sucre is also doing time in the prison of love, he graciously complies. (Note to writers: I do not care if you the end the season by having Michael's tumor burst out of his skull like an alien baby or something. I would applaud it as a bold storytelling move. But kill Sucre, and I will fire this show from my TiFaux, I swear I will.)
Upstairs in General Von Baldy's corporate lair of evil, the general is pouring two drinks while he puts the moves on Gretchen: "I know you better than you know yourself... when I first met you, you were a 20-year-old girl who had just been dumped by the Wheeling police academy for failing her psych evaluation. Where those good ol' West Virginia boys could only see an emotional disconnect, with traces of sociopathic tendencies, I saw a Machiavellian streak that would make failure an impossibility. I had to let [Agent Blots Out the Sun] do what he did, because I needed to know what my little bulldog would have known about Whistler and his plans for Scylla." Gretchen is still holding a gun on General Von Baldy, but he's about ten inches away from her personal space and getting closer. Gretchen is teary and furious: "I told you that I knew nothing. You should have believed me." The general completely misses the evidence right in front of him and deadpans, "I knew you'd never take it personally." Then he gently takes the gun away and says, "Because you are, and have been, ever since I took you under my wing, my girl." Then he -- eeeeeeeew! I'm sorry, I need to describe the -- auuuugh! It's just that he -- uuuuurgh! Blearrrrgh!
Okay, I can get through this: General Von Baldy kisses Gretchen in a most un-fatherly way, and she KISSES BACK, and he keeps repeating "my girl." I mean, I realize my job as a recapper is to crack wise with, "Ah, it's another night in the Douglas/Zeta-Jones household" or something similarly lighthearted, but honestly, all I can do is look at this and recoil with an gaaaaiiigh. I didn't realize "sociopath" was a synonym for "sexually benighted."
Hey! Speaking of sexually benighted sociopaths, here's T-Bag bugging out over the police crawling all over the office. He grabs the dishy Trisha by the arm and asks if she can use her computer to access GATE's records. Trisha says, "If I access the files as a network administrator, it means I can see the files in a non-PDF format." T-Bag grabs her arm tighter and says, "I don't know what that means, but I assume it was a yes. So you let your pretty little fingers do the walking across the keyboard, and you get me my sales records." Trisha protests that T-Bag is hurting her arm, and T-Bag replies, "And don't make me hurt any more of you. Now go." Is it wrong to be amused that Trisha's hiked her necklines way, way up since she fell in with a criminal element? Who would have thought that being at the mercy of killers would give a girl a case of the modesty?
Sucre welds away while Michael sits on a floor and sees double. Seeing two of Sucre? Where can we sign up for that tumor? Anyway, Sucre's made a hole in the pipe and crawled inside it. Now Michael directs Sucre to use his belt to measure the diameter of the little pipe, then go over to the opposite wall of the big pipe, draw a circle, and begin making the second hold. Oh, and they only have thirty minutes to do it.
The scene has Sucre and a shower of sparks, and then it all stops because his propane torch or whatever is now out of fuel. Michael manages to find one of the two holes he's looking at, and he gets inside the pipe to help Sucre sledgehammer a hole on the other side.
Linc and Bellick arrive just in time to watch Michael and Sucre fail to guide the suspended, heavy pipe through the hole. They also bring news: "We heard on the radio that the DWP is going to have the water running in ten minutes." Well -- guess the boys will have to guide that pipe into place in nine. Michael gestures to the smaller pipe and says, "This sleeve is too heavy for us to guide inside the pipe. Two of us are going to have to go inside and guide it through that other hole." Linc volunteers, and so does Bellick, eagerly. Michael tries to step in, but Bellick says, "No offense, college boy, but this sucker's heavy. You're going to need a little bulk down there." Michael concedes. He hands over some wood to help brace the sleeve, and bids the guys to get out in a hurry.
Back at the corporate lair of evil, General Von Baldy asks, "How's Emmy?" Gretchen's not looking at him as she says, "I didn't come here to listen to you pretend to care about her. Or me." That little girl comes from Gretchen and General Von Baldy? Good God, she's a one-person case study in the power of nature versus nurture. Gretchen turns around and faces General Von Baldy to say, "I came here to tell you that I'm a free agent now. The community that we run with know[s] that I'm alive and available. I can just as easily work for one of them as I can for you, so the question is: What's your offer?" General Von Baldy calls her on her "You know, I could date any other guy" schtick, and purrs, "It's not a time for grudges, Gretchen. It's a time for coming together. The salad days are fast approaching. Laos worked perfectly. Soon, the populace will turn to us -- the leaders of the military, finance and energy -- to right the ship. And then, we'll rebuild this country in our own image. And when we do, I want you there beside me, as my number two, as I always promised." I do believe General Von Baldy is the first person since Sara Crewe to use "the populace" in a wholly unironic way. Awww! Who was a little general in boarding school, even when nobody else believed him? Von Baldy, that's who! However, I have this warning for Gretchen: Go get an iPod and listen carefully to the lyrics of Joe Jackson's "Number Two (Won't You Be?)" There is a cautionary tale there, especially since Von Baldy's giving you a song-and-dance about how Lisa means nothing to him. Also, regarding this scene: Aaaaaaigh. Blergh. Huuuuuuurl.
Michael and Sucre continue to try and guide the sleeve through the hole, in a sequence that is completely and utterly devoid of any homoerotic subtext whatsoever despite all the sweaty men straining and grunting and shouting, "Keep going! Keep going!" Well done, Prison Break. That takes talent. Anyway, the thin sliver of wood propping up the sleeve is groaning dangerously, which is Linc's cue to say, "I don't know how long that's going to hold." There's more sweating, straining, grunting and pushing, and that is when the wooden plank breaks, causing the big, heavy sleeve to fall down into the even bigger drainage pipe. Lincoln helpfully points out, "It broke!"
Fortunately for Team Scylla, nobody in the GATE offices heard them. That's possibly because Empty Suit White is being buried under a metric ton of T-Bag's southern-fried horsepuckey, as T-Bag is busy blaming all his accounting discrepancies on the now-departed Andrew. T-Bag sorrowfully explains the checks clearing with "[Andrew] must have been money-laundering for God only knows what criminal exploits. The point is, if the good officer gets his hands on the papers, you know you are going to be up to your eyeballs in IRS auditors. I suggest you go tell [the detective] that you found some irregularities in Mr. Blauner's expenses, writing off personal matters, et cetera. This will explain why he disappeared, and we'll placate the po-po." Empty Suit White has a look like, "People actually say 'po-po' outside The Wire?" but he agrees to the charade." And that is how T-Bag gets away with (being an accessory to) murder. Again.
Down in the bowels of the tunnels, Team Scylla has no success in pushing the sleeve back up and threading it through the hole where it needs to be. Linc and Bellick hear a low rumble in the distance, and Bellick nervously notes that the water's coming back on. Linc says they've got to get out of there, and Bellick plaintively protests, "But then we'll never get Scylla!" Linc counters that they have no choice. Bellick squares his jaw and says, "You don't. I do." He then hops back into the big pipe; over the faint roar of the oncoming water, Linc inquires (at the top of his lungs) after Bellick: "What are you doing? What are you doing?"
What Bellick is doing is lifting up the sleeve so that it can slide into the hole on the other side of the vast water main. Once he fits it into place, he'll be trapped in the pipe. We cut to Michael and Sucre panicking because they think the guys are trapped; they don't know that Bellick's inside, guiding the sleeve to Linc on the other side. Wait -- now they do. Michael bellows, "Brad! Drop the sleeve and get out of there!" But Bellick's determined to make sure that something comes of this boondoggle. Linc begs Bellick not to do this, but Bellick shoves the pipe up with "You have a son!" He then rouses Michael with "Scofield! Push it through!" Michael and Sucre do. And then all that's left is for everyone on Team Scylla to sit outside the pipe and listen to the thundering sound of the water as it surges through. We get a shot of Bellick standing in front of the sleeve. He hears the water, turns to meet it head-on with a squared jaw. Then, as the water swoops around the pipe toward him, he falters for a moment, then closes his eyes with fresh resolve --
We see everyone outside the pipe slumping as they're washed in leaks. At least Bellick's death gives the end of his life the kind of greater meaning that was lacking in everything leading up to it. R.I.P., Brad Bellick. The writers used you as a stand-in for all sorts of character flaws, and the arc of your redemption as a human being was approximately 42 minutes long, and therefore slightly eyebrow-raising. But however poorly served Bellick was by the writers, he was magnificently played by Wade Williams, and I will miss seeing Williams spin gold out of straw in his scenes.
Has everyone finished discreetly sniffing into their hankies? General Von Baldy calls everyone into his office with dismissive talk about how he was never in danger from a pissed-off, gun-wielding sociopath, and Lisa comes back in looking like she could murder Gretchen with her bare hands. When General Von Baldy asks what's the haps with Scylla, Lisa glares at Gretchen as she says, "I'll tell you in private." "You can tell me in front of Gretchen." We cut to Gretchen faintly smirking. Lisa would rather not update anyone on Scylla just yet, because she needs to try and make a threat to Gretchen first. But Gretchen's not having any of it, and the General breaks their little staring contest by reminding everyone that they're supposed to be concerned about Scylla. Lisa says happily that she got the safeguards in place faster than expected so "We can move Scylla tomorrow, if we wanted. But now that [Agent Blots Out the Sun] has eliminated Scofield and Burrows, there's no need."
Gretchen tries not to sound surprised as she asks, "Scofield and Burrows are dead?" "Dead as Latin," General Von Baldy replies. Gretchen then narrows her eyes at Lisa, which leads me to speculate that Gretchen intuited how easy it was to fool the head honchos of the One World Conspiracy, and she's fine with letting Lisa work off bad intel. General Von Baldy says dismissively that "if a couple of boys from Illinois can get that close, it's time to mix things up." Oh, I hope we have a future episode where he wakes up (alone, please), screaming that "I've just had a horrible dream about a couple of boys from Illinois being elected president and named chief of staff!" Anyway, the One World Conspiracy plans to move Scylla sometime in the 24 to 36 hours.
And somewhere below the building, Lincoln says hollowly, "He wouldn't climb out. He just wouldn't climb out." Ever the optimist, Sucre asks, "Where does that pipe lead to? Maybe we can find --" "No," Michael interrupts. He continues, "No. He's gone."
Now! So long as season one characters are on the chopping block, what say we bid adieu to implausibly-superpowered unidextrous sociopath T-Bag? Anyone? Anyone?
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