Episode Report Card Sobell: A- | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Agent Kellerman -- Not Dead!
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.15.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We learn that Michael rigged Mahone's Scylla model so that it was supposed to explode once his mother got a hold of it. But that bomb fails until Mahone triggers it, so by the middle of the finale, Michael is 0-for-2 on bombs that are supposed to blow up his mom. Good thing he went to jail for armed robbery instead! Anyway, Linc and Mahone manage to escape after the blast, and they meet up with Dr. Sara and Michael.
BUT I am merely stalling to whet your appetite for the good stuff. Sucre and C-Note come back! And they come riding to Michael's rescue! WITH KELLERMAN! (Quoth Mr. Sobell, "I have never seen you light up like that for any man." Also, I believe my delighted squeals were responsible for several local dogs howling in agony.) Kellerman's working with Aldo's old buddies, and he's arranged for the U.N. to have Scylla since no one country should have that much power.
So. Michael has Linc again -- and the poor guy needs medical care. There is an attempted caper at a hospital, but Mahone gets arrested by the agents who are babysitting Don Self. That's the only win those agents get. While Don Self manages to survive his chemically-induced heart attack, he tells the agents to kiss his ass in terms of giving them help. So their incentive to get him any medical care is gone.
And while that is going on, the receding-hair henchman convinces Dr. Sara and Michael that perhaps they should head back to the condo, where General Von Baldy makes more dire threats and it's all very repetitive until Sucre and C-Note drop in all ninja-like, exhibit heretofore unseen marksmanship, and rescue the non-bad guys.
Then Michael is planning to kill General Von Baldy, but Dr. Sara and Sucre manage to talk him out of it, because they're convinced that Kellerman has the power to clear everyone's names. As they're all leaving the condo, Sucre nobly sacrifices himself to be arrested by local law enforcement so everyone else can escape. Michael is appropriately agonized. What an emotional rollercoaster he's on!
Especially since his mom shows up at Michael's secret hideout, guns a-blazing. Christina grabs Scylla from the kitchen cabinet where it's been hiding. And then she correctly pegs Michael as someone who is completely incapable of killing anyone when they need killing. But -- ha ha HA -- while Christina is busy taunting Michael, Dr. Sara manages to sneak up behind him and drop her future mother-in-law. This is the second person that she's killed for Michael. It's turning into a habit between these two.
Dr. Sara then ushers Michael out the door to drop off Scylla with Kellerman. Naturally, he gets abducted by two gun-wielding flunkies. Except -- ha ha HA! -- they are Kellerman's gun-wielding thugs. And Deus Ex Kellerman tells Michael everyone has been exonerated. Hooray! It's a happy ending for everyone.
And indeed, here is how it all ends: General Von Baldy is arrested, presumably for war crimes. Michael, Linc, Dr. Sara, Sucre, C-Note and Mahone all get to sign magical get-out-of-jail-free agreements. Then they vote on T-Bag's fate: he gets to go back to prison. But he gets gum!
Then Michael and Dr. Sara are walking on the beach and he tells her, "I want you to know, I will totally be a hands-on dad." And it's really adorable, right up to the moment his nose begins bleeding again. Stupid One World Conspiracy doctors and their inability to remove tumors right the first time!
Four years later ... Mahone mails Pam a birthday card, because we see he's moved on to Lang. The man has great taste. Linc has a surf shop in Panama, and he's happily settled down in Panama. Sucre's an adoring hands-on daddy. Don Self is a vegetable. Also, something appears to have happened to his mental acuity. C-Note is now gainfully employed as a UPS deliveryman. Kellerman has become a congressman -- you just know when the CIA comes to brief them on waterboarding, he'll tell them how to do it better. General Von Baldy's getting the chair, and dying with no dignity whatsoever. T-Bag's in Fox River, terrorizing inmates who are talking about the captivity of negativity. And we see that Dr. Sara's a radiant single mother; she and Michael had a son, who is also named Michael.
Then we see that Sucre, Linc, Mahone and Dr. Sara have met up at Michael's beachside grave in what I assume to be Panama. Linc then makes me a little teary by placing a white origami swan atop Michael's tombstone. Then everyone walks off into the sunset one by one, and we read the stone: Michael J. Scofield, 10/8/1974 - 11/4/2005. Husband, Father, Brother, Uncle, Friend. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So the episode starts with Michael and Dr. Sara merrily burning off an entire Triassic age's worth of fossils in their SUV as they sigh over how happy they are. Michael promises, "Some day, weeks will go by -- maybe even years -- when it won't even cross our minds." Dr. Sara adds, "We'll come home and talk about work. And what we want for dinner. Movies --" "Nursery schools," Michael interjects. Dr. Sara is like, That's right -- I AM pregnant! and she gets a look of bug-eyed panic for a moment before remembering that assembling the crib will be no problem thanks to Michael's supergenius spatial skills. The upshot of this scene is they're both really looking forward to family life.
Then Mahone calls, all panicky, and Michael tells him he'll just have to trigger the detonator manually. Mahone swallows his panic and manages Christina's temper tantrum while also managing to launch the bomb. He really is cool under pressure when he's focused. Christina eventually concludes that Mahone's lying about Scylla and orders Slick to "kill the junkie." Unfortunately, she doesn't know that Mahone's had the same One World Conspiracy combat training Slick has. Within seconds, Mahone has armed the bomb, kicked both evildoers to the ground and taken shelter with Linc. And the bomb goes boom.
As does General Von Baldy's temper when he comes back to the loft, and discovers Dr. Sara gone. He's revived T-Bag for the express purpose of berating him, then prepares to kill him. But first, an employee evaluation: "Men in my employ anticipate. They cover their bases. They refuse to fail, which you seem to be with unyielding consistency --" And we are all saved by the bell. It's Dr. Sara's phone. T-Bag answers and Sucre confusedly asks, "Who the hell is this?" Where are his phone manners?
Well, they're not in Miami, which is where C-Note and Sucre happen to be now. T-Bag spins a yarn about how Michael, Dr. Sara and Linc are all being held hostage by evil mastermind Christina Scofield, and if C-Note and Sucre meet him in a certain park at a certain time, he will give them the whole sad story: "We should get together and pool our resources." T-Bag manages to bargain for his life by pointing out, "I do have a sit-down with Scofield's friends in an hour. You got no better hand, General."
Michael and Dr. Sara have just swung by Christina's office to behold the carnage. They also pick up Linc -- who, even with his collapsed lung, manages to insist, "No hospitals! Hospitals mean jail!" -- and Mahone. The latter is pretty sure that bomb took out Christina and Slick. However, Christina had pulled Slick on top of her in the face of the blast, so we see now that her fingers are twitching. OF COURSE.
T-Bag is now at the park, his One World Conspiracy back-up stooge sitting a discreet distance away, and he hails Sucre with, "You are a sight for sore eyes, my friend." Sucre cuts him off with "Can the reunion. Where can I find Michael and Lincoln?" T-Bag drawls, "Admittedly, they're in dire straits." Sucre asks incredulously, "Are you deaf?" and T-Bag lets his hubris wreck his advantage for the second time in a day with, "Unlikely, amigo -- I just heard the dime drop on your sorry ass. From the bench over my left shoulder? The gentleman in the Wayfarers? Just like in Fox River: you never thought things through. Now are you gonna name the friend who said he'd show up and help out the brothers?" Sucre calmly says, "No. You're gonna hand over Sara's phone, or I'll break your face." T-Bag crows, "You accuse me of being deaf, but you're the one who's going blind, Puerto Rican. The man's a [One World Conspiracy] operative trained assassin." Sucre cocks a skeptical eyebrow and we see that in the time it took T-Bag to get that feeble insult out, someone has either put the man under with the Vulcan nerve pinch or rabbit-chopped his neck. And now C-Note's got a gun in T-Bag's back; he says hello with, "What's up, Jetho?" T-Bag does not ask why discriminating against poor, uncultured and predominately rural Caucasians is apparently America's last acceptable prejudice. Sucre tells him, "We're a long way from Fox River, T-Bag. Let's go." And C-Note calls Paul to tell him they've now got Tancredi's phone.
Just in case you were excited about this forward momentum on the plot, hold on: the show has thoughtfully provided you a break in the form of finding out that Don Self did not, as one previously hoped, die. He is being labored over by a team of medical professionals while the two most competent federal agents ever to appear on this show have managed to assemble and digest a complete roster on Team Scylla. "Self was into something nasty," they conclude. Really? Don Self indicates via finger waggling that he can hear Agent Franco's questioning, so Franco barks at the medical team that Don Self isn't going anywhere. (I find this odd only because when I was in the hospital last month, one of the first things the nurses had me do after I came out of my brain surgery and shook off the anesthesia was to walk up and down the corridors, so they could see how well I was recovering. And as I slowly sauntered back and forth I passed a hospital room in which a patient was handcuffed to the bed while one officer stood guard on the door and the other hung out at the bed while the doctors and nurses did their jobs. So I'm thinking the whole law enforcement/medical treatment thing is not so much the either/or situation depicted here.
Back at Michael's lair, everyone is sort of like, "Holy crap! We've blown up Christina and Linc's still got a collapsed lung and oh my gosh, Michael, whatsoever shall we do with Scylla?" Michael's like, "What the hell -- let's destroy Scylla." Linc is like, "Sold! WHEEEZE." Just before Michael smashes it to Kingdom Come, his phone rings. We hear the coolly amused tones of the awesome Paul Kellerman saying, "Hello, Michael. You're a tough man to get a hold of." Michael and I both exclaim, "Kellerman!" Now guess which one of us is spitting venom and which one of us is cooing happily.