Fall of the Taj Mahal

Welcome to my first attempt at recapping Prison Break. Umnata did an awesome job last week, and I just hope I can get from A to B without dropping the ball. I have never recapped a show this dense, or, actually, any show that wasn’t completely mindless drivel. If I get stuff wrong, please let me hear about it! Anyway, I’m excited to be here. On with the show.

Previously: Lincoln learns that L.J. has been arrested for the attempted murder of the evil Secret Service guy and is also being charged with the murders of his mom and stepdad. Geary, the crooked prison guard, accuses Bellick of also being crooked; Bellick spits back that he doesn’t get caught, meaning that Geary is dumb enough to get caught. Michael ditches Tweener during the escape, and Tweener hitches a ride toward St. Louis in the back of some dude’s truck.

Still previously (this update was long, but I appreciated it): C-Note confronts Michael about the $5 million that Westmoreland, a.k.a. D.B. Cooper (?!), hid in Utah before he bit the big one. Veronica totally gets killed while she is on the phone with Lincoln. Abruzzi chops off T-Bag’s hand, and T-Bag forces some poor innocent South Asian vet to sew it back on. Michael tells Link about the getaway car he has set up for, well, just the two of them. The FBI dude, Agent Mahone, almost catches the escapees at the cemetery, because he has Wentworth’s crazy tattoo all figured out.Now, no longer previously, Mahone is on the phone in what appears to be a backyard. I know that this actor’s name is Bill Fichtner and he was in Invasion, but I have never seen that show, and all I can think about when I look at this guy is that he’s a perfect Christopher Walken lite. Not just his appearance, but the way he moves and everything too. To summarize: He’s awesome.

Mahone asks to have the Mexican police set up some checkpoints fifty miles inside Mexico. He also says that Warden Pope should be cut out of the loop. While Mahone is on the phone, we keep getting this weird close-up of a birdbath in the yard. He hangs up and walks over to the birdbath in this significant, weighty manner. He stares into it. He sees his own reflection. That’s deep. It’s almost as though he’s trying to see inside of his soul. Do you think maybe we’re supposed to get that Mahone is a DEEP and REFLECTIVE guy?

O, Birdbath, when wilst thou reveal thy holy mysteries unto thy faithful servant?

Wentworth Miller is standing in a public place wearing a stupid disguise. I mean, he’s wearing the same suit he had on last week, but he’s doing this ballcap-and-glasses thing that is only ever done by people in disguise, or else possibly by Matt Damon. He’s reading a newspaper. It has a headline about the manhunt for himself and his colleagues. He watches some guy unloading some picnic stuff from the back of his minivan.

Meanwhile, Link and Sucre and C-Note are hiding in a dark and dingy little room, and they’re starting to argue. C-Note is breaking it down for Sucre about the fact that Wentworth and Link are going to leave them hanging. Abruzzi is just listening, which you know is totally the smartest thing to do. C-Note starts to talk smack about how maybe he and Sucre will just go and get the $5 million themselves. Link loses his temper and some minor scuffling breaks out. This is such a horror-movie cliché, how these guys in a tense situation and a small space start to turn on each other, thereby leading to their own demise. Just then Michael busts in. He looks like a total dork in his stupid hat and glasses. He makes them stop fighting, because he is their Charismatic Leader.

(By the way, I started out calling Lincoln “Linc,” and then all I could think about was Link from The Legend of Zelda, so I just changed it to “Link.” I like to play the Legend of Zelda music in my head when he comes onscreen.)

The minivan guy discovers that some stuff is missing from the back of his minivan. Turns out that that sneaky Michael has run off with the minivan family’s pic-a-nic lunch, just like Yogi Bear. Cut to Abruzzi scarfing down the minivan family’s chicken. Ah, nothing like a nice meal to calm everyone’s nerves. It doesn’t last long, though, because Abruzzi quickly starts calling C-Note and Sucre “amateurs.” Meanwhile, Link sees in the paper that L.J. is about to have a hearing.

Michael comes over to the three disposable crooks and totally cuts them loose, handing them some cash. He tells Abruzzi that he still isn’t going to tell him where Fibonacci is. Huh? Wasn’t that part of the deal? But Abruzzi doesn’t even want to know. I don’t get it. Anyway, the Three Stooges act peaceful about being paid off and ditched. They speculate about what happened to the other three guys – Tweener, Haywire, and T-Bag – and wonder whether T-Bag is dead.

T-Bag is not dead. He’s busy getting his hand sewed back on with no anesthesia, by a vet in a small-town vet’s office, on a moment’s notice. I have to agree with everyone who has commented that this is one of the most redonkulous things ever to happen on this show, or possibly, on any show. On the other hand (gong!), this vet can now open up a side business called “Dr. Patel’s Walk-In Hand Reattachment Emporium.”

T-Bag looks at his freshly sewed-on hand. Are we supposed to believe that this hand is actually going to work, and not just turn black and drop off again within a day or two? So, in other words, the vet reconnected all of the bones, muscles, tendons, veins, arteries, and nerves? Damn. T-Bag’s hand looks pretty gross and he responds to the sight by hurling in his own lap.

This vet’s day just keeps getting worse.

Michael tells Link that it’s time to go – a quick stop in Utah to pick up the loot, and then it’s off to Mexico. Link tells Michael about L.J.’s hearing. Wouldn’t you know it, he doesn’t want to vanish and leave his kid in the lurch. Of course Michael can’t really argue with this, even though he tries. Link says they have to snatch L.J. from the courtroom today – after that, he’ll be in prison and then they would have to, well, break him out. He points out that Veronica (a.k.a. Duckface – thanks, Umnata) already got snuffed. Michael says they will have to get L.J. later because right now, “There’s no plan in place.” I’m starting to get the feeling that this Michael guy is kind of anal. Can’t do anything without a whole damn elaborate plan. I bet he’s no fun at all for a spontaneous night out on the town. He’d be all, “Hang on a second, before we can leave, I have to have the coordinates of the restaurant tattooed on my ass in the form of a fake phone number.”

The Three Stooges say their goodbyes to Michael and Link. There is an especially touching hug between Michael and Sucre. Aw – roomies! Sucre says that he will “die trying” to get Maricruz back. Uh … foreshadowing much? It’s sad, I like Sucre, but I have rarely seen a character so obviously marked for a heartbreaking death. The Stooges walk off into the sunset. Michael is then forced to agree to Link’s utterly insane plan to snatch L.J.

We’re back at Fox River. Bellick and another guard are bitching about the escape. Bellick says this proves why you should never let women in the military, the police, or the prison-guarding profession. Unfortunately, he kind of has a point. It’s not like Dr. Tancredi made some mistake that anyone else with her job, male or female, would also have made. No, she screwed up because she had the hots for a sexy inmate and he hypnotized her with his piercing blue eyes. Thanks for setting womankind back fifty years in the workplace, Dr. Tancredi! Bellick calls Tancredi “Dr. Sweet Cheeks,” which sounds like something Mel Gibson would say. Pope interrupts to tell Bellick that they have been pulled off the case, and the FBI is in charge now. Bellick is not cool with this. Pope says that the two of them have been called to a meeting at the Department of Corrections.

Tweener is hanging out in a train station in St. Louis. He pickpockets a guy’s wallet and contemplates stealing the identity of one Scott Holbrenner.

In the garage where the getaway car is parked, Link calls the courthouse pretending to be a reporter so he can get the time of the hearing. He tells Michael that it’s at 3:00 and that he has a plan to pose as L.J.’s attorney. Yeah, that should work. Meanwhile, Michael succeeds in starting the car.

Pope and Bellick are getting grilled by a panel of suits in a room filled with dark wood bookshelves. Looks like Pope is getting skewered for being such a patsy. Pope says that he trusted Wentworth. He doesn’t explain about the popsicle-stick Taj Mahal. Gee, whyever not? Bellick is also on the hook, for the fact that the prisoners were able to dig a hole in the floor while they were on work duty. Pope says that prisoners always work really slowly, so it wouldn’t have seemed weird that they were taking forever to finish their actual work. Yes, but that doesn’t really answer the question of why no one was ever watching them.

The panel takes it up a notch, asking Bellick if it’s true that he sold the right to supervise the work detail to the highest bidder. Pope seems to actually think that Bellick is being falsely accused. Then Geary walks in as a surprise witness, and Pope and Bellick both appear to be scared shitless. Remember, Geary was actually guilty of shaking down the inmates, but our escapee pals also set him up for allegedly abusing Wentworth, with the whole burned-guard-shirt deal.

I smell a rat.

Geary tells the panel that Bellick sold the work detail to John Abruzzi. Bellick is squeezed into admitting it, although he says he had no reason to suspect that an escape plot was in the works. Pope just looks sick. I actually feel sorry for him. The panel sends Bellick and Pope out into the hallway; Geary has a total shit-eating grin on his face. Out in the hallway, Pope is just disgusted; he has nothing to say to Bellick.

The hand-sewing vet is cleaning up his workspace. T-Bag’s hand is nicely bandaged. The vet offers him some antibiotics and painkillers. He says that for his dog and cat patients, he recommends these be coated in peanut butter, but for T-Bag, that shouldn’t be necessary. Oh, this guy is about to come to a bad end. He tells T-Bag he can leave, and the Bag says, “Oh, I’m leavin’. You’re not.” Ah, the good old criminal-on-the-run, sew-me-up-and-then-I-kill-you routine. Seriously, why do the doctors in these situations always cooperate with the criminals? They never let them live in the end.

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.)

Oh, Christ. I had hoped we’d seen the last of the vet and the Bag, but we have not. Instead, the vet has been stripped to his shorts and tied up on an exam table. So I assume he cooperated in this? Because if not, that magical hand is really healing rapidly. The vet tells T-Bag that his acts in this lifetime are going to determine his fate in the next. T-Bag says that he is “more a here-and-now type.” However, he nonetheless counters with an alternate spiritual belief: the Native American idea that when one warrior kills another, he absorbs the spirit of his victim. Under this theory, the vet is about to become part of T-Bag. This is just about as comforting as you’d expect it to be. T-Bag proceeds to put the vet down by lethal injection. I’m sorry, but I just cannot get over the way that this bleeding one-handed freak has managed to completely subdue this able-bodied man without any realistic threat of force. GAH.

Did I do a good enough job of tying myself up for you, Mr. Bag?

Michael goes into a hardware store to get some supplies. Link waits outside on the sidewalk, which is not the best plan, because some woman recognizes him and hails a passing cop. Um, dude, it probably would have been better to go in the store with Mikey or else wait in the car. I’ve heard that sidewalks are not the greatest of hiding places. Link realizes he’s been made and goes into the store to get Michael, just as the cop walks in behind him.

After the commercial, the store owner leads the cop over to where Michael and Link were standing, but of course they’ve zipped out the back door or something. Unfortunately for them, the cops have found their car, and they are forced to abandon it. This doesn’t sit well with Mr. Gotta Plan Everything, but the more devil-may-care Link doesn’t seem too fazed.

Elsewhere, Tweener is posing as a college student on campus. He’s wearing a St. Louis Tech sweatshirt – this was the school of some guy who was standing behind him in line at the train station. Wait, did he steal that guy’s clothes or something? I’m so confused. Tweener studies a ride board and snags the number of a girl named “Debra Jean Belle” who is driving to Utah. I love how everyone on this show just calls it “Utah,” as if there were only one place in the state that a person could go. It might make sense in the context of talking about going to get Westmoreland’s money (assuming that Michael does know the actual location), but if you are advertising on a ride board, don’t you need to say a little more about where you are going than just the name of the state? I mean, if you just say, “Hey, does anybody need a ride to Utah,” then all you’re going to get is the sketchy drifters who don’t really care where they end up. Oh, wait. Nice job, Debra Jean Belle. Tweener steals the whole flyer so that no one else can take her up on her generous offer.

Back at the meeting of the Department of Corrections, Pope gets three months’ probation and Bellick gets canned. It seems a little odd that they didn’t even try to find out whether Pope knew what Bellick was up to. I mean, I know he didn’t, but shouldn’t the buck stop at the top? Three months seems a bit light, considering everything that’s gone down on Pope’s watch. I can’t believe the taxpayers are going to be too psyched to have him running Fox River again after he spends a few minutes in the timeout chair.

Bellick is really freaked out, because he’s worked for Fox River since he was eighteen. Well, you should have thought of that before you turned all corrupt, mister. However, it does seem a little off that he doesn’t get an appeal or anything. Isn’t this a government job? Then Pope proves himself to be an even bigger idiot than we already knew, by saying that if Bellick is fired, then he quits, because he won’t abandon one of his own men. DUDE. You just found out that this guy was taking cash bribes in exchange for allowing a mafia boss to run the entire work program at the prison. Now you’re falling on your sword for him? This is even dumber than leaving a convicted felon alone in your office so he can build a popsicle-stick Taj Mahal for your wife. No, on second thought, it might be a tiny bit less dumb than that. But it’s close.

Outside the courthouse, Link tells Michael that if Michael winds up back in Fox River, Link isn’t coming to bust him out. I guess that was supposed to be a joke, but it seems pretty freaking ungrateful nonetheless. Then Link tries to give Michael an out from this new harebrained “bust out L.J.” plan, but Michael doesn’t take it. They go up the courthouse fire escape or something.

Gotta love the security at this courthuse. And yes, that extra Wentworth and see-thru Link were really in the shot. I smell a Brett Ratner.

There is a creepy scene of T-Bag washing up in the sink next to the dead vet. I start to wonder if the vet is actually still alive. I mean, it’s not like T-Bag would know what exact dosage of cat euthanasia to shoot into this guy. Of course, the vet has been so cooperative in his own demise, he probably directed T-Bag to a calculator in his desk drawer, told him his exact weight in grams, and explained to him how to do the math to figure out the dose.

Mahone is harassing L.J. again. He says he knows that L.J. recently took a call from Nick; L.J. says that’s covered by attorney-client privilege. However, Mahone breaks the news that Nick was found dead an hour before the phone call. Aha. L.J.’s eyes get very big. Mahone plays a recording of the call and asks who Otis Wright is; L.J. says he doesn’t know. Mahone issues some more threats.

Link and Michael are on the roof of the courthouse. They have a duffel bag – I guess this is all stuff they either bought or stole from the hardware store, because supposedly all of their stuff from before that was in their car. Michael has a yellow plastic water gun, and he spray-paints it black while Link does something with some ropes.

Inside, L.J. is being steered down a hallway after his meeting with Mahone. Mahone is walking along behind him. As L.J. and his guard wait for the elevator, L.J. notices the number three and realizes that “On the third, look out for Otis Wright” could be a reference to the third floor. He remembers his father saying “Until then, keep your head up,” so he looks up and sees a sign that says “Otis Manufacturing.” Oh, come on now. So apparently Link has OCD-level knowledge of the courthouse, in the same exact way that Michael had OCD-level knowledge of the prison, but at least Michael helped renovate the prison and then planned the escape for months. We’re supposed to believe that Link notices these types of details and plots out these types of clues on a moment’s notice? Also, is L.J. really that smart?

Apparently so, because L.J. next realizes that he should make sure he gets on the elevator on the right (“Wright”) and then misses the other elevator by pretending that he has to tie his shoe. As he and his guard get onto the “right” elevator, Mahone notices the Otis sign and shoos the guard off, saying that he’ll escort L.J. himself. Bummer.

After the commercial, Mahone starts to ruminate to L.J. about the “Otis Wright” clue, but he doesn’t have to wonder about it for long, because Michael and Link immediately appear on top of the elevator (removing a ceiling panel) and threaten Mahone with their fake gun. It almost works, but they end up dropping the fake gun and it makes a piddly little plastic sound, so Mahone stops cooperating. He offers Link a deal whereby if they give themselves up, L.J. can walk. Not too convincing, if the state actually believes L.J. committed those two murders. There’s a whole big struggle and ultimately L.J. does NOT get away through the ceiling. Nobody gets hurt or anything.

The elevator opens up at the next floor and Mahone busts out and tells everyone that Scofield and Burroughs are in the building. Michael and Link get away by stealing a furniture truck out front. They got shot at, but no harm, no foul, or so we think.

Bellick is at home. He’s very depressed over the loss of his job. Cry me a river, buddy. Maybe he’ll kill himself. I’m not going to be too broken up about that. But then – aw – we find out that he lives with his elderly mother, and he can’t bring himself to tell her that he lost his job. Okay, this is sad. His mother leaves the room and he assembles a shotgun.

Pope is in his office. Hey, there’s the popsicle-stick Taj Mahal! Oh, how I missed you. He picks up one of those cardboard boxes that people on TV always use when they’re “cleaning out their desks.” I don’t think that Taj Mahal is going to fit in there, Pope. Suddenly I realize that we are going to see the Taj smashed to smithereens. It’s been begging for it ever since it was first conceived in the writers’ apparently drug-addled brains. You see, the Taj is no longer a symbol of Pope’s love for his wife. Instead, it has become a symbol of his betrayal by his beloved Michael Scofield. Sure enough, the normally peace-loving Pope approaches the Taj with his fists clenched in a menacing manner. We get a flashback to all of the love between Pope and his boyfriend Mikey, and then another flashback of the manner in which it all went so very, very sour. Oh, Wentworth, how could you do this to me? Pope grabs a lamp and gets to smashin’.

Take that, landmark of world architecture!

T-Bag walks out the door of the vet’s office. He’s very neatly attired, I guess in the vet’s clothes. We see that the sign outside just says “Clinic – Dr. Marvin Gudat”, and then a tiny little “D.V.M.” Yeah, I guess that’s the source of the whole initial confusion where T-Bag thought he could get his hand sewed on there. Hey, Dr. Gudat, you might want to consider putting something on your sign that will actually let people know that you’re a vet without them having to decipher those fancy letters after your name. Might be good for business. Oh, never mind – you’re dead. T-Bag steals the vet’s car and checks himself out in the mirror. He looks almost respectable – he seems to have done his hair, complete with fresh highlights. He dials up OnStar and asks for directions to Utah. Argh! AGAIN, people – if you are asking for DIRECTIONS to Utah, you probably need to give just a little bit more information.

The Bag is lookin’ sharp.

Tweener meets up with Debra Jean on campus for the ride to Utah. It’s all very awkward as he tries to do his best impersonation of an actual college student with legitimate business in Utah. Debra Jean is fresh-faced and adorable, i.e., ripe for the victimizin’.

Bellick is pointing the shotgun at his own face, but just in the nick of time, his mom yells out from the next room that there are now cash rewards on the escapees’ heads. The payouts are 300 grand for bringing in Lincoln and 100 grand apiece for the others. Huh – Sucre is worth the same amount as Michael, and the same amount as a psychopathic multiple child rapist and murderer like T-Bag? Seems a bit unfair. The news of these cash rewards appears to give Bellick a reason to live. Somehow I don’t think he would actually qualify to collect, given that (a) until this morning, he was a law-enforcement officer whose actual job was to track these guys, and (b) he was slightly complicit in helping them escape. But hey, if it puts the spring back in his step, then that’s all that matters. He puts the shotgun down.

Some cops surround the truck that Michael and Link stole, but for the thousandth time, it magically turns out that they aren’t in the place where the cops thought they’d be. They’re on foot, a little ways away. And oopsy – turns out that Link has a bullet wound in his leg, and they can hear sirens approaching.

L.J. is strongarmed out of the courthouse and driven away in a correctional van. Mahone sees the blood spilled outside the courthouse and realizes that either Michael or Link is wounded. He tells his men to alert all the hospitals, because Michael and Link will either turn themselves in, or else they’ll die. Seems like he’s assuming a lot without knowing what body part got shot, but okay. And that’s the end of the show. Slightly anticlimactic, if you ask me. On the plus side, there was no sign of the president or the Secret Service. This is good news because that storyline totally confuses me. And the best news of all is that Nick and Veronica are both still dead.

Previews: Michael and Link show up at some hot chick’s apartment asking for help. Dr. Tancredi gets arrested. C-Note shows up at his little girl’s school. Sucre gets pulled over. A car blows up, and we are teased with the news that someone has broken out of prison, only to end up dead at the bottom of a ditch. My guess would be Haywire, since the show seems to have abandoned him anyway, but let’s face it, most of these guys are disposable. See you next week!