Just In The Nika Time

As a service to you, dear readers, I didn’t watch this week’s episode of Prison Break until Tuesday evening. Why? Because Monday was my birthday and I wasn’t exactly in the most stable state of mind to watch the show as intently as I need to for TVgasm. Chalk that up to a few Citadelle gin martinis (slightly dirty, with blue cheese stuffed olives -pretentious enough for you? Rest assured, I drink beer 99% of the time I drink. And usually crappy beer at that.) Also on Monday night my beloved, beleaguered, besuddenlyshitty Philadelphia Eagles were busy getting beaten by the DallASS Cowboys – thoroughly ruining my birthday. Sigh.

But you don’t care about me – you came here to read about the racism, rapes, murders, conspiracies, and the ingenious escape plans of the “Prison Break” crew. Each week there seems to be a different tone to the episode – the all out violence “Action flick” feel of the long forgotten “Murderous Riot of 2 Weeks Ago,” last week’s “Hallmark Channel” feel… This week, the entire show was full of humorous dialogue with a rather lewd reference to a rare type of sexual act. That’s right, a good old “Rusty Trombone” was thrown in for good measure. Have I mentioned how much I love this show?Last week ended with a rather cryptic reference to Michael’s “wife,” whom I tabbed a “Sexy Latina.” Well, I was wrong on both counts. We learned that his wife, Nika, is really not all that sexy and being from Prague, she doesn’t even know what a quesadilla is. Something is definitely fishy about the whole wife thing, because Michael is still busy flirting with Dr. Tancredi – a woman more on his level. The good doctor had saved the origami flower he made for her and seemed to take pleasure in checking Michael’s shirtless deep breaths. Was something actually wrong with his lungs? Or was Tancredi simply aiding her fantasy about his deep breaths pressing his chiseled sweaty chest lustily against her own supple pert bosoms; dreaming that he slowly slipped his rock-hard manhood into her slippery love tunnel?

Hello?! Harlequin?! You have my number! Guccione? Al Goldstein?

Cabin Update: Out in the middle of nowhere, the Mighty Quinn was preparing to surprise Nick, Veronica, and LJ. Remember he had somehow pinpointed their location via tracing her IM. He produced a random piece of sandpaper and proceeded to give himself the most brutal shave ever. I initially thought he was simply trying to ingratiate himself with Veronica… By sanding down one cheek, he’d be able to win her over saying, “Look Miss, you and I gotta stick together! With the looks and jeers we get for our mutual disturbing inverted cheeks!” Alas, he was merely trying to give the impression that he’d been in a car accident. Boring… At least he avoided getting caught in a cougar trap. (“24″ is only a couple months away!)

On the work detail, tensions were running high. No one likes T-Bag and his racist digs were only exacerbating the problem. After Abruzzi called him “Sergeant Sodomy,” and told him to get digging to give Suge Knight (I don’t think the show has ever told us the black guy’s name yet, so I’m sticking with his doppelganger) a break. “Oh, I don’t know, it’s too dark in that hole,” referring to Suge’s skin tone.

Suge didn’t skip a beat, replying, “Are you telling me that there’s a hole in Fox River you don’t want to get into?” Damn, that was a good one. That’s the 2nd clever pun Suge has said – but apparently humor is not something T-Bag enjoys (well, with a name like “T-Bag…”) and he got up in Suge’s grill. Nothing came of it, but Suge did call the Italian Abruzzi, “Fusilli” which made me chuckle. Like Fusilli Jerry. See, now some of you are chuckling too.

A guard came and announced that Scofield had to leave the group for a conjugal visit from his wife. This, of course, caught the others by surprise; Michael had never mentioned anything about a wife! Bellick was also taken aback – but he was even more taken by the Eurotrash appeal of Michael’s wife. In fact, he knew he had seen her somewhere before. Michael didn’t bang the woman (Nika) but rather got a credit card from her that she had smuggled in. Michael bid Nika adieu with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

OMG! Like, Dr. Tancredi totally saw the kiss and she was like, totally pissed. (Laguna’s over, right?) Bellick was also unusually interested in the whole situation and pressed Michael on his marriage and experiences in “that romper room with that Euro.” He told Michael that he recognized Nika and that he was determined to figure out from where.

If that weren’t enough, the boys on the work detail team were equally inquisitive. But before Michael’s post-coital return, T-Bag serenaded Suge with that ol’ slave ditty, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” When Suge didn’t join in, T-Bag chided, “Awww, c’mon, I thought you were a musical people.” Not skipping a beat, Suge responded, “Boy, you hit the trailer park trifecta: Racist, pedophile… And stupid.” Suge then proceeded to walk over to T-Bag, pantomime putting a coat onto the Bagger and while acting out the snapping up action said, “Snap, snap, snap, snap!” Oh yeah, it was ON!

Michael then returned in the midst of T-Bag again regaling us with his impressive vocabulary (“Vexing,” “Equitable”). However, it was Suge who dropped the best vocab lesson on America: “We’re all working here while some girl is playing on your rusty trombone.” Wow, did he really just say that? For those of you with a sheltered life, here is what slipped through* the FOX censors. FOX: Fair and Balanced and Rimjoberific!

[*The link is to a Wikipedia definition. Kinda sorta work safish.]

That evening, Michael nonchalantly “escaped” into the prison walls again with the new “credit card” Nika provided. The card was actually a security card that allowed Michael to slip into the storage room where all the prisoners’ possessions were held. In no time, he found his own box but seemed upset that something was missing. Hmmmm.

Cabin Update: Quinn convinced Nick to open the door and let him inside. As a manner of thanks, Quinn proceeded to shoot Nick in the back. Well, hey, why mess around, right? Quinn ain’t no Batman villain. OR IS HE???? Dunh dunh dunnnnnnnh. Quinn is SO badass, he was able to shoot Nick in an area where he would merely bleed to death, rather a more dignified instant death. This way, he could use Nick’s life as leverage when dealing with Veronica and/or LJ. He tied them up and duct taped their mouths shut. Then Quinn laid out the situation – in his father/salesmanish way, of course – to Veronica; “Which is more important? The guy waiting to die on death row or the guy wishing he’d die on the woodshed floor right now?” I think that’s called “Compassion” in Quinn’s Badassian world.

Getting nothing from the stone cold Veronica, Quinn then went to work on LJ. What did the boy know and whom had he told? (The true answer was nothing and no one, but still…) When LJ didn’t give up any info, Quinn slapped him upside the head for good measure and then went to see if Nick was more forthcoming. He even got in a good dig about how Nick’s only helping Veronica to get in her pants – something I’ve been assuming for weeks now! Quinn rules. Alls I know is that she better give Nick a nice long rusty trombone after all this nonsense is over.

Back in prison, Cliché-Old-Guy-With-Cat Westmoreland introduced Michael to his new cellmate – none other than Tweener, the wannabe wigger kid whom T-Bag was sweet on last week. It was actually a rather enjoyable little scene, with Tweener affecting his best “street” poses and Ebonics. Michael learned that he was an adept pickpocket and even gave Tweener a pass on his rampant double negatives. Michael is so much nicer than I am.

Later, after Michael witnessed a fat pasty guard wearing the gold watch he found missing from his possession locker earlier, he approached Tweener with a proposition. Score that watch off the guard’s wrist and he may get a chance to join the Abruzzi led work detail. May. When Michael asked if he still wanted to be part of the group Tweener replied, “Does my momma have big breastesses?” Michael was somewhat confused by the question but Tweener helped him out by confirming that indeed, Mrs. Tweener is well endowed. This was some funny shit – and one uncomfortable white boy fist bump later, the two had a deal.

After a slightly forced scene in which Westmoreland is told that his sister is dying of esophageal cancer within a few week, but that he can’t get furloughed to see her until after she’s dead, there was another wondrous scene in which a now bitchy Tancredi (who was ignoring Michael due to his dalliance with his “wife”) had to treat a vomiting, seizuring Tweener. Oh no! What’s wrong with the odds on favorite heir to be the next Brian Austin Green? Aha! It was all a ruse to tussle and score the stolen watch from the guard holding him down – as his little vomitty wink to Michael showed.

Oh Tweener, You Had Me at Hello, Yo

Cabin Update: While Quinn was giving Nick some rather involved anatomy lessons regarding just what the bullet had done to Nick’s musculoskeletal system, Veronica was freeing herself from her constraints. Quinn got tired of boring old nearly dead Nick so went back to work on Veronica. Having gotten nowhere with physical torture, he shifted to psychological beatdown: “If you hadn’t gotten involved in this whole thing, Leticia Barrett wouldn’t have a mouthful of maggots right about now and your fiancé wouldn’t be waiting for the stench of his rotting corpse to alert his neighbors.” Nice. I’ll bet Quinn gives Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld each a boner.

Remember that Veronica had no idea until that point that both Sebastian and Leticia were murdered. Her rage was palpable and then… She rose up and whacked Quinn across his skull with her chair! She then gave Quinn a pile driver and then a figure four leglock for good measure, freed little LJ and dragged Nick’s near-dead carcass across the floor. LJ runs to the car! LJ tries to start the car! Car won’t start! A stumbling bumbling Quinn shoots at LJ! It misses but breaks a car window! LJ runs into the woods! INTENSE!

Westmoreland wants in on the escape now! He says he really IS D.B. Cooper after all! INTENSE! Okay, I’ll stop now! But I can’t! I’m stuck! Oh my God!

Yes, you read that correctly… Westmoreland came crawling to Michael stating that he is/was the real D.B. Cooper (if true, that’s just stupid) and if Michael lets him join him for the escape, he’d give up a bunch of the money he’d stolen. Whatever… I think Michael actually made up the esophageal cancer story for some reason, but who knows. Michael was more interested in the gold watch that he dismantled, fitted it with the tape recorder he’d stolen back from his possessions locker and created some sort of timer-recorder device somehow. Michael had now joined the ranks of Maxwell Smart, MacGyver and Mr. T. Truly the upper echelon of television heroism.

Cabin Update: LJ escaped Quinn’s attention in the woods! Veronica was now staring down the barrel of his gun! Quinn approached Veronica and Nick with venom in his eye! He stopped at the lip of the dry well… He mocked Veronica’s fear and false hopes of his falling into the well… And… And… And LJ sprinted from the forest and hip checked Quinn into the 15 foot or so well! INFRICKINGTENSE! Quinn was dazed and left with a broken leg, uttering only, “Uhhhnnh.” No word on whether or not Buffalo Bill would make his skin into a shirt, but if you want to send him a Get (out of the) Well card, you can do so c/o FOX, the Rustiest Tromboniest network I know.

As usual on this show, the last 10 minutes or so visited all the various plot lines in rapid-fire succession. I’ll try to keep up… Michael was able to bury his little watch/recorder/phaser/thingamajigger in some fresh sod he was laying for some reason. Bellick got a yen to see some titties and went to the local strip bar – but ah! He was there on business (aren’t we all, really) because he’d remembered that THAT’S where he’d seen Nika before! But wait… While on stage, her name wasn’t Nika at all – it was Jasmine! Thwarted, Bellick went home.

Gotcha! That joke was stupid unless you’re one of those losers who go to strip clubs and believe that their stage names are their real names especially after you pay them 25 bucks for a lap dance and look into their eyes and say, “Ok, what’s your real name” and they say “Jasmine” and you say, “But really, what’s your real name and they say “Jasmine” and that she thinks you’re really cute and what do you do for a living and oh, isn’t that so nice and that she’s dancing to put herself through college so she can do that exact same thing in a year or two. Ahem. I read that somewhere.

Anyway, Nika tells Bellick she’s not married before she knows who he is – after all, Bellick was rocking a mock turtleneck, which, if you’re trying to look like a dude who goes to strip clubs alone… Perfect. Bellick pulled out his prison guard badge to scare Nika into confessing why she’s helping Michael. Stupid foreigner – she actually believed a prison guard badge carried weight and mentioned the credit card she smuggled in for Michael. At that, every mall security guy watching made a mental note to listen more intently for Eastern European accents near the legwarmer store.

Westmoreland “proved” he indeed was D.B. Cooper by producing a C-Note with a serial number within the known series stolen by Cooper. I guess this is supposed to be really cool… but somehow it’s not working for me. Amazingly, the unrequited love storyline between Tancredi and Michael sorta is… but for now, she’s pissed at him for having a, y’know, wife and all. Michael provided her some lame ass excuse – but we all know it’ll work out just fine. And my oh my they’d have some lovely children, wouldn’t they?

Cabin Update: Quinn was lucky enough to be able to get a cellie signal in the bottom of a well in the middle of nowhere. He had the fortune of getting through to his friends Special Agent Kellerman and Special Agent Pussy, the Secret Service guys he’s been “supervising.” Aww, that’s nice, they’ve come to rescu – er… I mean, they’ve come to spit on Quinn and cover the well back up pretty much guaranteeing a long, slow, torturous death. (Can’t forget my favorite line of the show; when Kellerman appeared above Quinn and his broken leg at the bottom of a well, Kellerman sarcastically asked, “So, uh, how’d it go?” That got a tiny little fist bump from me, but no one saw it, I swear. I’m not that dorky.)

In the final scene, the boys reached the pipe and all got very excited. Everyone except Michael and Lincoln, that is. Michael had used his watch/recorder/batphone thing to gauge the minutes between guards walking by the area they’d be escaping. 18 minutes was all they had and by Michael’s calculations, their escape crew was one escapee too many.

The end. Did I mention they said “Rusty Trombone” on Prime Time TV?