The Regularly Scheduled TV Show Blog

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Prison Break, Ep. 4. Hooray, they broke through!

What can I say? I am back on the Prison Break bandwagon. Last night's episode was great. Although they did fall back on some tired cliches, they executed them well enough for me to allow such uses. In the episode last night, we saw the relationship between Scofield and the Warden flesh out, the hate grow between Scofield and the Head Guard, the interactions between Scofield and his current and former cellmates, and the fleshing out of the whole conspiracy angle.

The episode began with a Burrows nightmare scene, in which he is taken from his cell a month early, put into the electric chair, and right before the switch is thrown, he wakes up. A pretty intense opener, although cliched. But again, it got my attention and made it known 'People, this guy is gonna die if Scofield doesn't do something'. Which, you know, is the whole premise of the show. And the events in this episode delivers on that premise like no tomorrow.

Since Scofield now has a insomniac cellmate, his digging has slowed to a crawl. His cellmate, Haywire, has noticed that Scofield's tattoos are a pattern, which he surmises is actually a maze. Scofield has to find somehow to deal with Haywire and does so by asking Abruzzi for items. Abruzzi gets him what he needs (some kind of chemical mixture) but also offers Scofield a shank to finish his 'problem' of Haywire effectively. Scofield declines, noting, "There are smarter ways." His smarter ways entail the following: taking Haywire's toothpaste since he is evidently an obsessive compulsive; and, when confronted by Haywire about his tattoos, slams his head multiple times against the bars and gives himself a gash, calls to the guards for help since Haywire is "attacking" him. Guards thinks Haywire's gone crazy again, take him away. Problem solved. Cliched, but hey, still worked for me.

Next problem: how to get Sucre back in? Oh hey, remember how I knew the whole girlfriend thing would come back? It sure did. Turns out Hector visits Sucre and informs him that his girlfriend is now HECTOR's girlfriend. Of course, now Sucre wants back in on the plan. And now with Haywire out of the way, we're back on track. Cliched again, but I think I don't have a problem with it since it facilitates the real stuff. Scofield breaking out.

On Scofield's tatt is a illustration worded as, "Cute Poison". And, as we all know, that is code for something else and it turns out to be code for some sort of corrosive agent, which Scofield procures from the many stockpiles of chemicals (again, is there really this big of a black market in prison? Seriously, some econ student would do well to study prison economies). With the stolen toothpaste tube and his own filled with both parts of the corrosive agent, he pours them out into the drainage duct in the infirmary, which begins to eat away at the duct. Back at his cell, he shows Sucre that he has removed the toilet and has been digging away at the grout between the bricks. He asks Sucre to create some noise, and then kicks his way through the wall into a back hallway behind the cells. Finally! We're through the back! Hooray! I've waited through all the cliches and the horrid character development for this. We have progress. The most interesting aspect of the show has just ramped up a notch and the tension has me waiting for next weeks show. What tension? Let me tell you what tension.

The tension of the conspiracy theme of the show. Note before, how I lambasted it, and called it mediocre. They even have their own version of the cigarette smoking man, the Vegetable Cutting Woman. I thought the execution of the conspiracy was horrible. Now we have Veronica Donovan (now representing Burrows) who's enlisted the help of a death penalty specialist, both of whom are beginning to find the inconsistencies of Burrow's case. Now we have the Secret Agents snooping around Donovan's house, and now we have the added twist. The Conspirators now know Scofield and Burrows are brothers and have done something about it. At the end of the show, Agent #1 shows Agent #2 a letter of transfer. He has issued a transfer order for Scofield out of the same prison as his brother, Burrows! How is Scofield going to break his brother out from another prison? Finally the conspiracy theme has added something to the show and not just another figure in the shadows. The show has grabbed me back in and I can't wait to see next weeks show. I need to find out how he gets out of this one! And in the end, that means the show has done some good.

If you've missed this show, check IsoHunt.

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