The vet tries to get away and T-Bag catches him and holds some kind of implement to his throat. He delivers an extra-creepy speech: "Now, you did me a solid, so I'm gonna return the favor. This can go down humanely if you don't fight, but if you pull a stunt like that again, it's gonna get inhumane right quick. Your call. But one way or another, I am puttin' you down, doc." Ugh. This actually kind of made my skin crawl.

But wait: Let's get back to how stupid this is. That magical hand surgery had to take at least an hour, right? And I know that T-Bag refused the anesthesia, but surely there was a moment here or there when the vet could have slipped out of the room and then out of the clinic. Or used the phone. This guy was never a prisoner; he's not locked in; T-Bag showed up with no gun and one hand floating in a cooler, having lost tons of blood, and now he's lost even more and he's just been puking. You mean to tell me that there was no point over the course of the past hour when this vet could have made his escape? Or did he not think he needed to? Maybe he thought T-Bag was just a nice guy in some kind of totally understandable situation. Or maybe he thought that the Hippocratic Oath, or whatever oath vets take, obligated him to sew on this psycho's hand, just as a favor. All righty then. Moving on.

At the courthouse, L.J. has a visitor. We're supposed to think it's going to be Link in his brilliant lawyer disguise, but it turns out to be Agent Mahone. Mahone tries to pull some Jedi mind tricks on L.J., opening the conversation with an homage to how smart Michael and Link were to pull off their escape. Huh - trying to psych out a messed-up fifteen-year-old. Mahone really is a Zen master. Unfortunately, it doesn't work and L.J. remains snarky. Mahone asks L.J. to help the FBI bring the escapees in peacefully by going on TV and pleading with them to come home. L.J. points out that the government has set both him and his dad up for murder, so he's not inclined to cooperate. Mahone gets mad and tells L.J. to save himself and not to sacrifice himself for his dad. Then he delivers a veiled threat that he is going to make sure that L.J. gets a really nasty cellmate if he doesn't cooperate. Wow, threatening a fifteen-year-old with ass-rape. That's some top-shelf FBI work right there.

By the way, L.J. is the oldest-looking fifteen-year-old I've ever seen. I'd say he looks more like twenty-six. So if you feel, as I do, that this show already encompasses more than its fair share of pedophilia allusions, it should be pretty easy not to mentally cast L.J.'s plight in those particular terms.

Maybe next Agent Mahone will threaten to bust L.J. for buying beer for all of the other high-school kids.

Tweener tries to buy a train ticket to Utah. He gets really nervous when he sees someone reading the paper with his picture on the front page. He finds out that there are no trains to Utah until tomorrow, so he asks how far he can get today on $45.00. I've got news for you, Tweener: You cannot get too damn far on Amtrak for 45 bucks. I would say that's worth about a two-hour train ride, at least over here in the Northeast corridor. I think if you want to get from St. Louis to Utah, you're going to have to do a little fundraising. Anyway, Tweener abandons the whole transaction and bolts because he's afraid he's about to be recognized.

Link calls the courthouse and asks for L.J., pretending to be Nick and reciting Nick's "bar number" as proof. Hey, does that really work? I have never heard of this practice of criminal lawyers identifying themselves by their bar numbers. It seems like a really dumb idea, because, well, because of exactly what is happening in this scene. Also, hasn't Nick been dead for at least a couple of days? I guess word hasn't reached the courthouse? L.J. gets on the phone and it's kind of cute how he smiles when he realizes it's his dad. L.J. tells Link that he's heard he's going to be sent to an adult facility in Kingman, Arizona. He asks whether Link has heard from Veronica, who didn't show up for court today. Link lies and says no.

L.J. tells Link about the visit from Mahone. Then Link gets to the point of the call and delivers a coded message: "On the third, look out for Otis Wright. Until then, keep your head up." L.J. looks as confused as I do. He says he loves his dad. (This whole time he has been pretending that he's actually talking to Nick, for the benefit of the guard standing by.) Link hangs up and tells Michael it's time to go. As they drive away, he drops his cell phone out the car window. (On purpose.)

Posted by Amanda on August 30, 2006 2:11 PM