Prison Hiatus

Yeah, yeah I hear ya – what’s the point of recapping a show that aired two weeks ago? I don’t have an answer for that, nor do I have a legitimate excuse for why I waited two weeks. But if my inbox is any indication, there are at least a handful of you who can’t live without the recap, no matter how silly it is at this point. Do you even remember the “Fall finale?” I didn’t, so I re-watched it last night and got pissed off all over again. I could try to convince you that I purposely waited on this recap in an effort to bridge the months until the show airs again… But you wouldn’t believe that, would you? Sigh. For what it’s worth, let’s get to it, shall we? (The first seven paragraphs below were written way back when the show aired.)

I’ve been a big Prison Break backer throughout the season – hell, even before the season started I was giving it props based on buzz alone. And while there were no nip slips or spoiled blonde kids from Southern California on the show, I know that hundreds if not thousands of TVgasm readers have been watching along with me. So what does FOX do to thank us for our viewership? Let’s put it this way: FOX is T-Bag and we’re nubile young petty thieves with firm buttocks and pretty cheekbones. And we’re alone. In a darkened room. And FOX is feeling really, really feisty.The network has a history of pissing its viewers off – and I won’t even touch their “News” channel. The first season of “24″ was rife with random long breaks throughout, “Joe Millionaire” did something that upset its viewers (I forget), and don’t even get me started on Babes. Why they ever cancelled that is beyond me. So how was the “Fall Finale” of our exciting little show? It was “lapdancerificâ€? – frustrating, exciting, aggravating, and left me wanting more. And I only have to wait until f’ing March to be satisfied. Stupid FOX.

The show opened with Abruzzi lost in a Wellbutrin commercial. Not really, but in his near-death fuzzy state, he imagined lush green hills and bright sunlight above – rather than the reality he was suffering through. That is, a slashed neck, blood pouring all over, Dr. Tancredi offering little to no hope, and the cold, gray, unforgiving skies above Chicago’s Fox River prison. A helicopter appeared and whisked him away. Abruzzi will certainly be missed – he was a rather complex character and the anticipation of him actually kissing one of the people he close-talked was always compelling drama. But he ain’t dead yet – and later phone calls to the hospital proved inconclusive as well.

Of course, somehow T-Bag got away with the heinous act on Abruzzi and was already milling about with his boys; Suge (C-Note) Knight, Westmoreland, Michael, and Sucre. (This will be the last time in which I refer to C-Note as Suge, because his name was finally uttered doing the episode.) T-Bag, upon watching Abruzzi being taken away, drawled, “And then there were six.” C-Note replied, “As far as I know, it’s five.”

That’s right, because Lincoln was busy being beaten up by the guards in solitary confinement. With his execution set for 36 hours hence, it wasn’t looking good for the innocent lug to join his brother’s escape plans. Not that it mattered to anyone other than Michael, of course. C-Note was clear about his intentions – “We must go NOW!” This didn’t sit too well with Michael, who told C that he had “vastly underestimated” him. The interplay and acting among the prisoners is very well done, I must say. Things were going from bad to worse for Michael, as now Westmoreland and T-Bag were agreeing with C-Note as well.

Later back in the cell, now even Sucre was backing up C-Note’s idea. Every hour they don’t escape is another hour a guard could find the tunnel. Sucre told Michael that he had to accept that his brother was a dead man and as hard as that was, he simply had to make the break that night. This prompted Michael to stare forlornly at his tattooed bicep – perhaps wondering why in the world he permanently scarred his entire chest, back, and arms for a few pieces of info and a failed attempt to save his brother.

Out in the free world, Nick was recovering nicely at the hospital. Wow, the dude lost a ton of blood a day ago after being shot point blank in the back, and yet here he was – alert, jovial, and making urgent work-related phone calls. I guess there’s hope for Abruzzi yet! One of Nick’s calls reached out to a colleague who was ready help stay the execution should Veronica’s informant (Agent Pussy) come through. After last week’s episode, I brazenly hypothesized that Agent Pussy would be murdered before getting the pertinent info to Veronica… You’ll have to wait and see if I was correct, but at least now I can call him, “Agent Star Trek Ensign Pussy” and have it make sense. You see, that was my air-name back in ’96 on my college radio station and I bet a friend I could work that into a recap somehow.

Out in the prison yard, C-Note made a phone call home. Except he wasn’t C-Note (or even “C-Note”), he was Master Sergeant Benjamin Miles Franklin calling from Kuwait. (Get it, Benjamin Franklin = C-Note.) He had smuggled in a state of the art voice transmogrifier – otherwise known as a handkerchief – so that his wife would be under the impression that he was calling from the Middle East. It turns out that C-Note is married to perhaps the dumbest woman in the greater Chicago area, for she is under the impression that her husband is serving in the military in the current war. In her world, postcards from Iraq that arrive with Chicago, IL postmarks on them make sense. Anyway, C told his wife that he was being shipped home very soon and that he’d see her before she knew it. Fortunately for him, his wife is as unfamiliar with television and newspapers as she is with geography and logic.

C-Note’s son, however, was fully aware of his pops’ plight and spoke with him in private. When asked if he still had that Escalade, he responded, “Is Michael Jackson still white?” Zing! Jokes aside, the son agreed to have said Escalade at the pick-up point that night for the escape, Michael and Lincoln be damned.

But wait! In his cell, Michael turned to Sucre and announced, “Ok, let’s do it.” And with that, he performed a Satanic rite by slicing open his bicep and letting the blood slowly drip down his arm in order to please his dark master. Well, he did slice open his arm, but apparently not for the Evil One, but rather to remove a tiny black jujube he had implanted in there previously. Ummmm, okay. The prison priest visited with Michael and explained that Lincoln will be saved if he asks for forgiveness even at this late juncture. Ain’t Christianity great? Michael appeared to me to have been acting like the priest’s words were comforting, and he gave him a rosary to take to his brother.

Despite the gravity of the situation, our man Michael still found time to flirt with Dr. Tancredi. He had to see her in order to get his self-inflicted arm slice patched up but he seemed more intent on trying to get a piece of ass. She was initially cold to his advances, but warmed up a bit when he held her hand and stared into her eyes. If he had made the effort to look away from her gaze, he’d have noticed a janitor replacing some supplies. For he was not just any ol’ janitor, he was ol’ Eagles Eyes Joe, Janitor-Extraordinaire. How do I know this? You’ll find out later.

At 4PM, the work crew was summoned to the guardroom to resume doing nothing, which is what they’ve become quite adept at in the last couple weeks. Meanwhile, the priest spoke with Lincoln in solitary and passed on the rosary. Outside, death penalty protesters surrounded a news van while Veronica drove up to spill what she knew to the media. Unbeknownst to her, two secret service women had followed her there and were keeping close tabs. In fact, one of the agents was none other than Lynn Kresge. Who? Lynn Kresge, the graceful, classy, whip-smart and tough-as-nails Presidential Advisor from the second season of the television series “24,” that’s who. (That’s the shit you get when I have to watch a show twice.)

Veronica strapped on her set of balls and gave the local Chicago FOX affiliate quite an exclusive interview (where were all the other networks, one wonders), blowing the top off some of the murders associated with the Lincoln Burroughs case. She mentioned her “inside informant” and promised that the conspiracy to frame Lincoln was about to be exposed. Amazingly, the evil Vice President of the United States, (no, not the real evil VP, but the one on the show) was watching from DC and told Agent Kellerman, who was also in DC at the moment, to take care of the informant issue. Tick-tock, Agent Star Trek Ensign Pussy, tick-tock.

Now alone in his cell, Lincoln fiddled with the rosary and found a secret compartment containing… Containing the little black jujube that Michael stuck in there. There was note that said, “Eat 8:10.” Just then, some technician tested out the electric chair and deemed it kill-worthy. (I know, I know, Illinois has lethal injection, but we’ve forgiven the show for all its inaccuracies, right? Like the one where Veronica visited her doomed client and was locked alone with him in his cell.) She did her best to put a positive spin on the situation, even giving Lincoln a loving kiss on the mouth. All I know is that she must really love him – not because she’s had her life completely ruined because of him, but because she kissed him on his nasty death row mouth. Blech.

With all the drama at the prison, there was also some out in the ‘burbs. Agent Kellerman appeared at Agent Pussy’s wife’s door (hey, how’d he do that?) to find out where his partner was. The wife tried her best, but her lies were easily exposed by the boxes and boxes of packed items all over the house. Now, we know that her husband told her he was going, “Up to Wrigleyville,” and nothing more. So even if she spilled those beans, Wrigleyville is still a fairly large part of the city. But shit, for a guy who can get from DC to Chicago in a matter of a couple hours at most, finding Agent Pussy in the labyrinthine maze of uptown Chicago shouldn’t prove too difficult.

At that time, Lincoln was ingesting the little nugget Michael had secreted him. The work detail was able to stay on the job past their cutoff time because they had purposely busted a pipe and flooded the room. Michael convinced Bellick that the threat of mold was so great and so dangerous, that they simply had to clean up the damage now rather than waiting. The whole plan was coming to fruition and the last piece of the puzzle was getting Lincoln out of solitary.

Within a few minutes of eating the pill thing, Lincoln curled up in a fetal position, face screwed up in pain. “Michael, what have you done to me,” he whispered through the excruciating feeling. All I could think was that the little black pill was none other than Vegemite concentrate. For those of you who have been to Australia and have ingested that horrid black paste, imagine what it would be like if you concentrated a whole bottle of that into one little jujube? The result would be exactly what we were seeing happening to Lincoln. And if you’re Australian and/or actually eat that crap, don’t even try convincing me that it’s edible. Worst. Food product. Ever. And I’ve eaten some sick shit in my life.

As a result of the Bicep Vegemite Jujube (God, I’ve given the kids a lot of good names for their new bands, haven’t I?), Lincoln was rushed to the infirmary for treatment. Tancredi was still on duty and merely told him that he had food poisoning and to wait it out. Alone. That’s right, death row inmate scheduled to die in a couple hours, allowed to lie around the infirmary alone. I’ve been to icebergs with more security than this prison.

“I’ve been to icebergs with more security?” That’s a strange reference, but I like it. I mean, can you think of anywhere else on earth with less of a chance of having any sort of security force? Eh, I figure that I can make these random risky jokes this deep down on a two-week-old recap. And while I’m at it, maybe now is a good time to admit I kinda dig Shakira – there, I said it. I had to get that off my chest. Did you see on SNL the way she can move her midsection while keeping her chest and butt completely stationary? Hubba hubba.

Okay, only a few minutes to go in the episode so this is where the action always progresses too fast to keep up. In Wrigleyville, Agent Pussy met with Veronica on the set of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Both Veronica and Pussy cast a weary eye on each other as they danced their way through the fog machines and stage lights towards each other.

Agent Pussy explained that he had information that would lead to the downfall of the entire conspiracy. He had mapped out everyone involved and named names – important names. He explained that Lincoln didn’t kill the VP’s brother, in fact, no one had… He was STILL ALIVE!

Just as Agent Pussy was about to hand Veronica the three pages that would expose perhaps the most corrupt government plot in history, a car approached from behind. Without giving her the envelope, Pussy told her to quickly go hide behind a car if she wanted to live. My god! It was Kellerman!

Kellerman walked up to Agent Pussy and demanded to know just what the hell he was doing. Um, not much to say, just, “Hanging out all alone in this foggy alleyway with stage lights at either end, trying to clean up the city’s rat problem?” Kellerman wasn’t having it and pointed his gun at Pussy’s head. He found the envelope with the three pages of names and witnesses and facts regarding the whole conspiracy. Uh-oh.

Kellerman was pretty darn upset that Pussy had named him personally in his epiphany. So upset, in fact, that he proceeded to summarily shoot Danny in the head, leaving him for dead in the alley. Veronica, of course, witnessed this whole terrifying little episode from about 7 feet away from behind the only thing she could have been hiding. But enough about them, there was some escapin’ goin’ on up at Fox River Prison!

C-Note’s son arrived at the prison with his friend and awaited the escapees. They pretended that their Escalade was broken down as they looked out for the crew. Two young brothers in a new SUV right outside the prison’s walls were about as inconspicuous as… As the giant hole in the floor of the guard house that the five escapees were now crawling down into. Prison guards shooed C-Note’s idiot son away (they were literally right outside the prison gate) and they had no choice but to comply.

Michael led everyone through the pipe, up the 20 feet of rope into the supply room – these guys must’ve kicked ass in gym – and then they prepared to go up into the infirmary where Lincoln was recovering. Almost there… D’oh! The pipe that Michael had so artfully corroded over the last several weeks had been replaced with an industrial strength HUGE new steel pipe! Eagle-Eyed Janitor Extraordinaire had somehow done a week’s work in mere hours (after quitting time, mind you – time to find a new union, buddy) which left our hero and he pals stranded. Michael made a few feeble attempts at removing the new pipe while a frustrated Lincoln looked down into the pitch-black grate.

Their improvised lever broke, which brought the attention of a guard on patrol! T-Bag was pissed and was threatening Michael’s jugular! Lincoln was still scheduled to die in an hour or two! Veronica was trapped behind a car in Thriller Alley with murderous Kellerman! Warden Pope’s anniversary was a couple days off and the jury was still out – would his wife like the Taj PopsiclestickMahal?

Alas, we must wait until March to get some resolution on these issues. I have a couple “Prison Break” related posts to try to bridge the gap a bit, so look out for them. And in the meantime, enjoy the 9PM timeslot on FOX these days; I hear “Nanny 911â€? is just great. Yeah, right – I think the FOX exec who made this decision should be forced to listen to Michael Jackson music 24-7 while wearing nothing but a Star Trek ensign uniform and sent to a deserted iceberg with nothing but Vegemite concentrate to eat.

Until March…