Prison Break: Cops and/or Robbers

Part of the fun with Prison Break is that you’re not meant to take it all that seriously, and yet it gives me more heartburn than anything else on television. Except maybe the news. Or anything that contains the words “Heidi” or “Spencer.” The point is, damn, people! More corpses this week, and more close calls, and the “dun!”s just keep on comin’. Plus, Linc in a police uniform, which is just as amusing as it sounds.

“NO LIGHT! LINC NO SEE! LINC SCARED!”

4.04 Eagles and Angels. Sara does an awful lot of thousand-yard-staring out into the harbor, huh? Poor thing, everyone she knew before she started making googoo eyes at Michael Scofield is dead, except for one. Yeah, um, got some bad news for you there, doc. It’s actually zero, but she’s got a few minutes before she finds out about that. For now she’s falling back on the googoo eyes thing, and who wouldn’t, with Michael promising yet again that someday they’ll sail off into the sunset together. Stop promising stuff, Michael! Do you know what the mortality rate is on this show? Knock on some damn wood! She also reminds us that she was a serious no-foolin’ alcoholic not too long ago (Aw, that’s how Kellerman got ahold of her, was AA meetings. Stop reminding me of Kellerman, show, and those Private Practice ads on the tvgasm front page aren’t helping.) That exposition does not bode well for her, but for now they’re all cute and he makes her laugh and Sucre totally ruins the moment by telling Michael they found something, thus reminding everyone that they’re all living in a secret Warehouse of Justice trying to bring down the Legion of Corporate Doom, Inc., otherwise they all go to prison. So that’s kind of a buzzkill.

They’re squinting at the grainy cellphone video Michael took of the supersecret superspy supervillain meeting from last week. They can’t make out any license numbers, but they do notice that one car has a diplomatic plate from Turkey. Mm, turkey. Amusingly, Bellick is jibber jabbering about how Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance (the six Ps!) but no one cares. He wants to start thinking about the break-in, but Michael reminds him that it’s moot until they have all the cards. They decide to do some recon at the Turkish consulate.

Ha. T-Bag is trying on his new identity in the mirror. “Cole Pfeiffer, how are ya? That’s Cole Pfeiffer, P-F-I-E-dammit!” He psychs himself up, drawing imaginary guns at his reflection, and spends a few minutes fine-tuning Cole Pfeiffer’s salesman laugh. I have to tell you, I’m liking the stache, but I can’t figure out who he reminds me of. John Waters? Schneider from One Day At A Time, which probably aired ten years before most of you were born? I will spend this entire season trying to figure it out and it’s going to drive me bonkers. Ideas?

Why, I’d buy anything from this charming mustachioed fellow!

Linc, Michael, Mahone and Sucre are stalking the car with the Turkish plates. Michael puts the Data Sucker Upper on the dash and tries to get close enough to copy it, but they keep losing the signal, even though they’ve kept close to their guy. Well, turns out their guy isn’t their guy at all. Their real guy is actually the consul’s attractive, heavily guarded wife, Lisa. So progressive! Way to break through the Evil Glass Ceiling. One of her security guys looks at Linc all squinty-eyed like he knows he doesn’t belong there. Mahone notices the extra attention and they leave empty-handed. And empty-Data-Sucker-Uppered.

Back at the Batcave, Sara is studying the Bulletin Board of Truth as Roland confidentially tells Bellick he agrees with his rant from earlier, and he’ll back Bellick up if he wants to part ways with the others. He offers his knuckles for a Terrorist Fist Bumpâ„¢ and Bellick totally leaves him hanging. Why you wanna burn all your bridges, Brad? I don’t see anyone else offering you fist bumps. Sara’s phone rings and it’s Self, and she already looks kind of terrified just hearing his voice, cause it can’t be good. He tells her Bruce Bennett was found dead this morning. But he went to this totally awesome imaginary picnic first, I swear! She’s stunned and I want to hug her.

Okay, so we’re now in General Baldy’s office, which presumably the boys followed Lisa to. She rolls her luggage into his office for some reason, and he tells her he won’t keep her long. “The value of the kip is at ten,” he says. “I’ll let you know when it’s at 15. At that point you’ll have to leave immediately.” Now, initially I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, at all, until I went frame by frame and noticed he’s playing with some foreign currency, and sure enough, the kip is the national currency of…Laos! The cadaver frog from last week’s inscrutable metaphor! Dun! Yeah, I still don’t know what’s going on. Anyway, she says she can leave now, but he tells her to go to her “event” she has scheduled tonight, keeping up appearances, you know. She kisses him on the cheek before she goes, and I get the feeling it makes a crinkly crepe paper kind of noise. Unsettling.

The A-Team spots her coming out of the building but she’s guarded, nay, triangulated, by the kind of security you don’t fuck with. They won’t be able to get close enough, so they just sit there dejectedly sipping their lattes. But hey, who’s that handsome mustachioed gentleman across the courtyard? It’s T-Bag, here for his first day of work. And ohhhhh, cool, we figured GATE was relevant somehow, but they’re actually in the Company’s building, or they are the Company, or something. So Whistler really did have a plan, and we know where the break-in is supposed to go down before the boys do. Anyway, T-Bag makes “aw crap” eye contact with them, and they’re all like “Oh, not fucking EVEN!” and a chase ensues. That is one nimble little sex offender! He tosses the bird book into the bushes while no one’s looking, since he’s smart enough to know how bad they want it. When they finally corner him, Linc is seething. Michael, the Linc Whisperer, “tschhhh”es him down and reminds him they need T-Bag alive. They fight over who’s angrier at whom. T-Bag thinks he wins, because Michael left him for dead three times by his count. “Congratulations, you got yourself a turkey!” Ha. That’s a bowling joke. I had to google it. Anyway, he feigns ignorance about the bird book, so Linc pats him down, which sounds like a delightful experience really. All the shoving and yelling has attracted the attention of a random cop, so they have to go their separate ways, but not before Linc gets in a nice sucker-punch to the kidney. Heh. T-Bag retrieves Whistler’s book and composes himself for his meeting.

Agent Wyatt, whose name I finally just looked up, is on the phone in an LA motel telling some unseen Company drone to keep an eye out for Sara. Quick props to Cress Williams, whose IMDb page reveals a truly impressive “Hey! It’s That Guy!” resume spanning over a decade. Thirteen episodes of 90210: Original Recipe! I didn’t think there was a black person on that show for the entire run of the series, let alone thirteen episodes.

“Hey! I’m That Guy!”

Wyatt calls Baldy, updating him about Sara, and ha! General Baldy, CEO of Nefarious Dealings, LLC, has the exact same Pantech C300 I used to affectionately call my Comically Tiny Phone. Others called it the Zoolander phone. I miss it very much, but it doesn’t really say “Grrr, I’m scary and important” so much as “I have tiny hands and I text a lot.” They do a good job of hiding it, but really, he might as well be using a Hello Kittyâ„¢ Princess Phone with a ringtone that’s just a Japanese teenager giggling. I gave the prop department props (sorry) last week for giving Sara a giant purse like she’s always had, but any self-respecting supervillain would have an iPhone, guys, duh. Anyway, Wyatt is “softening up” Gretchen, but he doesn’t get why he can’t just kill her. Baldy wants her alive until she talks. Oh, and one more thing, could he pencil in another cold-blooded assassination? Apparently someone from the Company is sniffing around Scylla. Dun! (Prison Break: bringing you the most “dun!”s per hour since 2005, guaranteed!)

Back at the Warehouse of Justice, Sara is hiding in her boat, furious with herself about Bruce. She sobs to Michael that it’s her fault he’s dead. Michael says no, the Company killed him, not you, it’s not your fault. What he fails to say is “Actually, pretty much all of this is my fault, so you’re off the hook, and yikes, sorry about every single person you knew being dead, my bad!”

A disheveled Cole Pfeiffer shows up for his appointment at GATE, where he’s greeted by a receptionist with so. much. cleavage. Interestingly, Booberella already has a message for Mr. Pfeiffer – Mr. Xing called for him. He flips through the bird book and sure enough, one of the pages has Mr. Xing’s phone number on it. Curiouser and curiouser!

“Welcome to GATE! My boobs are delighted to meet you.”

Michael calls Self, asking about Bruce. They’re saying it’s suicide but they both know better. And I watch too many true crime/forensics/guys killing their wives type documentary shows, because the first thing I think is “He was shot in the back of the head from 2 feet away! No way they rule that a suicide!” Self says to watch his back, cause if Bruce knew where they’d hidden everybody, there’s a good chance the Company got it out of him. Michael wants him to figure out what exactly they have to break into, so they can be ready when they have all the cards. Ooh! I know, I know! Self says he’s got a guy looking into it, presumably the same guy Baldy sicced Wyatt onto earlier. Michael’s like, oh, and also this kookoo batshit nuts murderer is running around with Whistler’s Secret Bird Book of Mystery. So there’s that.

Roland finds a press release online about Lisa The Cardmistress – turns out she’s quite the philanthropist, and is being honored at a shindig tonight for a charity called, wait for it, Eagles and Angels. So yay, they can just go to that! Except Mahone knows that it’s a charity for cops killed in the line of duty, and maybe being in a room almost entirely full of police officers complicates things a bit.

Self’s pal Jasper is a little nervous about the double-agent thing he has going with the Company, and with good reason, it turns out. He doesn’t want to talk about Scylla over the phone, so Self will meet him at home. Also meeting him at home? Agent Wyatt and his itchy trigger finger.

Apparently we have a plan, because Michael, Linc, Mahone and Sucre are breaking into, um, some apparently forbidden corner of the Warehouse of Justice, stealing magnets out of stereo speakers. I love it when we get into McGyver territory! Meanwhile, at GATE, Mr. White is terribly sorry he won’t be around to watch Cole do his magic, selling whatever it is he’s so awesome at selling! In the meantime T-Bag will be babysat by Andy, who doesn’t seem entirely sincere, and I can’t decide if that’s because he’s in on it and/or expecting Whistler, or jealous of the new guy, or just completely baffled by the ridiculous little man in front of him. He didn’t see in the paperwork that Cole was handicapped or he would have made the necessary adjustments. Cole replies, of course, that he prefers to think of himself as handi-capable. Do actual handicapped people ever say that? I’m genuinely curious. Anyway, Cole has a corner office “as requested,” and Andy says a little suspiciously that he wonders how a guy he’s never even met at a convention falls out of the sky breaking sales records. T-Bag is all “well, if you believe in GATE as much as I do, it’s easy to sell whatever the hell it is you people sell here!” Once Andy is gone T-Bag notes that his office number is also scribbled in amongst Whistler’s birds. Cool, so Whistler requested that office for a reason, probably Scylla-related. Neat. I like that T-Bag is finding out exactly what Team Justice wants to know, and he doesn’t even know what he’s sitting on. But we do! Nicely played, writers.

“I’m really depressed and I referenced my alcoholism earlier for no apparent reason, but I’m sure those things are unrelated. Go ahead and leave me alone with my crippling guilt and regret, I’ll be fine.”

Sara is sitting on the steps of the SS Minnow, having flashbacks of how nice Bruce was to her and what a complete clusterfuck this has turned out to be. She gets up suddenly, grabs her enormous purse, and stalks out of the Batcave and into the kind of bar that you would expect to find in a warehouse district in LA. Oh dear. Well, at least it’s not heroin! She orders a club soda and sucks it down like she expects it to get her drunk and she’s annoyed with it for not complying. The nice middle-aged lady bartender asks how long she’s been sober. Three years and three months, Sara says, and I won’t bother doing the math there, because time works differently in the Prison Break universe and that’s just something we have to come to terms with. The bartender congratulates her and she’s like, yeah, thanks, double bourbon neat please. Bartender lady is genuinely concerned and sad but pours it. I love that Sara drinks the manliest drink possible. I personally am a Girl Drink Drunk. She sort of smells it for awhile and a skeevy guy across the bar says “cheers, honey!” Christ, can’t a dead girl have a potentially devastating crisis of conscience without getting hit on?

Self arrives at Jasper’s a little too late. And by “a little” I mean probably about 9 millimeters! Wyatt just put a bullet in his head like five minutes ago, is what I’m getting at.

More McGyver awesomeness as Sucre cuts a fence while Linc, impressively spry, clambers up to some security cameras, which he disables with the speaker magnets. Once they can go by unseen, they break into yet! another! warehouse! Turns out it’s full of police uniforms, complete with a box o’ shields. I watch a lot of cop shows, so I can say “shield” instead of “badge.” Next thing we know, Officers Michael, Mahone and Linc are all dolled up in their dress blues, mingling amongst eleventy billion real cops at the aforementioned shindig. Mahone looks like a cop. Michael looks like the incredibly hot lead in a high school production of Cop Rock. Linc looks so uncomfortable he might as well be wearing fuzzy pink footie pajamas. He also looks like he can’t possibly see anything. Officer Michael somehow plants the Data Sucker Upper under Lisa’s table and tries to call Sara, but she’s too busy pouring her sad lonely little heart out to the bartender lady, who listens as any self-respecting hole-in-the-wall bartender should. She’s still swirling her bourbon around. Skeevy McGee over at the other end of the bar slinks over all “you gonna drink that?” He and his permed mullet are offended when Sara shoos him off, so he reaches into her giant purse and steals a credit card out of spite. Bruce Bennett’s credit card, with which he proceeds to settle up his tab. Yeah, I’m sure that’s not on anybody’s evil radar or anything. Dammit. Bartender lady asks Sara what Bruce would want her to do with that bourbon. Ooh, she’s good. It works, and Sara stays perilously balanced on the proverbial wagon for now.

Officer Linc is pretty damn conspicuous, especially when he has to take his hat off for a Moment of Silence. The same security guy from earlier spots him, and this time he’s sure something is up. Linc hurriedly shuffles out and he follows. He calls Bellick for some backup, which, hey, I guess you take what you can get. Meanwhile, the Data Sucker Upper is doing its work, but Lisa gets a call before it’s done. Baldy: “The kip is at fifteen.” Riiight. He emphatically shuts his comically tiny phone.

“OMG my new phone is soooo cute!!!! “

So now Lisa has to leave, right in the middle of the data suckuppage. Linc makes it outside but he’s cornered by Security guy, who points a gun at him and says “Lincoln Burrows!” Cool, I didn’t expect that, I thought he was just being all diligent with his bodyguarding duties. Linc halfassedly denies it for a second, but Security guy marches him down to a murder-friendly corner of the courtyard and spells it out: “I work for the Company, Burrows! Any last words?” Well, Security guy has some last words: “Nggghhhhh! Rrrrgh! Mmmppghh!” Which is what he says when Bellick totally sneaks up and shivs him in the flank. Check you out, Bellick, coming through in a pinch! Linc finishes him off and calls Michael all “ruh roh!” So now they have to stall Lisa long enough to suck up her slice of Scylla, which sounds SO dirty, plus they have to clean up this mess somehow. Michael tells Linc not to move the body, then sneaks the Sucker Upper back into his pocket and heads over to stand around in Lisa’s general vicinity for a couple of minutes.

And how the tables have turned for Gretchen, who is chained to a chair and looks like shit on a cracker. She’s still denying she knows anything about Whistler’s plan, no matter how nicely Wyatt asks. Their pleasant conversation is interrupted when sure enough, one of his minions tips him off that Bruce’s credit card was just used at a bar in San Pedro. He hangs up without even asking what bar, because he’s just that smooth. Dammit, Skeevy McGee, I hope you and your perm end up being collateral damage. Gretchen is working on something though – looks like she’s digging a nail out of the chair maybe? She’s a tough cookie!

Officer Mahone stops Lisa’s remaining guard on their way out, whispering that they have a DOA outside and he thinks it’s one of their guys. Mahone needs him to ID the guy – hey, why doesn’t Officer Scofield, er, Mathers, fill in and hover around Lisa’s purse for a few minutes? In another one of those things that will presumably matter eventually, Lisa notices that Officer Mathers’ nose is bleeding. That happened in the premiere, then he had those flashy headaches last week, so I think we can all conclude that he’s obviously been abducted by aliens who implanted a chip in his brain. That explains so much! Michael gets a text that Roland’s got the data, and Mahone returns with the guard who hurries Lisa off. She’s looking at Michael more than necessary, but who can tell if that’s because she recognizes him or just because he’s dreamy.

“Well well well, Officer Mathers, aren’t you a tasty treat!”

Poor, poor lonely sad Sara is in the bathroom at the bar, sobbing. So sad. She pulls Michael’s origami flower from her giant purse, which also sounds kind of dirty, and it comforts her, as it represents the very last person on earth she cares about. Meanwhile, Wyatt is holding up a picture, asking the bartender if she’s seen this woman, and the first thing I think is “Hey, that’s Bruce’s photo he cut in half! That is so uncool!” The bartender swears she hasn’t seen her, and luckily Sara decides to leave through the back door.

The fake cops make it back to the Warehouse, where Self is waiting for them, promising them that the whole “public daylight homicide” mess is taken care of. And sure enough, Baldy is being briefed that it was an assassination attempt on the Consul, and Lisa’s guy valiantly got in the way. Self tells Michael he had a guy on the inside but he’s dead too, and right before he was going to tell Self where their break-in is. D’oh. They’re closing in and now he’s empty-handed, but Michael says they go ahead as planned, nothing changes. As he’s walking off, Self tells Michael that no matter what happens, “I like your style.” Aw.

And speaking of where they’re supposed to break in, T-Bag is kickin’ back in his fancy office. He knows he’s stumbled upon something big, he just doesn’t know what. As he stares at the word “XING” in Whistler’s book, we cut to New York and a couple of random Asian guys. My carefully honed intuition and years of TV-watching experience tell me that the guy who says “Cole Pfeiffer did not arrive for our meeting!” is Mr. Xing. Mr. Xing, incidentally, is shitting bees. The other guy is all “so you don’t have Scylla. Ah well, no harm done, you tried your best! Let me buy you an appletini!” No, of course not, he stabs Xing in the gut. “I’ll be in LA if anyone needs me” he tells a shadowy figure.

“Aw, buck up there, Tiger! Stabbing complete strangers is just part of growing up. Now who wants ice cream?”

Linc asks Roland if he got anything from Lisa’s phone while he was sucking up the Scylla data – calendars, contacts – and he’s all “nope, and let me hurriedly close these seventeen windows containing exactly the information you just asked about.” Why exactly would do that? Linc shrugs it off and goes over to Bellick, who, lest we forget, is a sad sack at heart. He’s really shaken up by what happened with the guard, and Linc thanks him for stepping up. Mahone quietly asks Roland for some help finding the guy who killed his kid. Can’t really say no to that, can you, Snarky McSmartass? Mahone has the police report describing a 6’4″, 220lb African American guy. Oh no! Watch your back, 3-time NBA All Star Olympic Point Guard Dwayne Wade! He shows Roland a sketch of Wyatt.

Sara’s walking along the wharf, wearing Crocs, but the sound guys gave her some nice girly “click click” footsteps anyway. Michael calls and asks if she’s okay, and she says, like she means it, “yeah, I think so.” She tells Michael that he’s what’s keeping her going right now, and he’s all she has left, and that scares her. Aw. It scares me too, dammit! He reminds her that at least they’re together, and maybe they can take a break from saving the world from evil and find some time for themselves tonight. She smiles and says she’s on her way, and dun! So is Wyatt, a few yards behind her.

Nooo, the Warehouse of Justice cannot be compromised so soon! Where will Michael write things on glass with multicolored dry-erase markers? Where will they tack up printouts of things? Any chance they’ll just ambush Wyatt within the first five minutes? And how long can Cole Pfeiffer remain utterly, thoroughly clueless before someone notices? Until next week!