Story Time: Prison Break 0304: Good Fences

As much as I’d like to open with an overly cruel comment about Prison Break and David Fincher, I just can’t (well actually I can, and have).
After the first three episodes took us a slow stroll through exposition-ville (that’s right, I make new random words at will) this episode elected to at least attempt to further the storyline of our Panama-locked compadres.

To firstly address the elephant (or head as it were) in the room, the writing team should be commended for something of a pretty ballsy choice. The fact that it couldn’t be avoided given off screen complications (children are complications right?) should be taken into account, but come on, the old head in the box? That’s a reasonable departure from Breaks usual conservative use of shock violence. This, combined with Bellick’s “Back-a-chino” (I’m just assuming it was coffee for the sake of that horrendous attempt at a pun) made for a pretty violent episode.

Outside the prison walls, the good country of Panama was also treated to its fair share of horrors, with the car restoration community in particular feeling a deep sense of loss. Whilst he was involved in these shenanigans, Lincoln kept a kept quiet profile throughout this episode.
It’s interesting to at see something of a different facet of Lic’s traditional one dimensional ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ method of achieving goals. We see him chat away with the woman who killed Sara, and then hand over the much sought after “Birds of the Northwest Hemisphere” book with no fight, later presumably carpooling with her to visit the grave digger. I mean come on, taking two cars would have been irrational, something which was no place in this show,
Side Note: This Birds book is seemingly available anywhere, is like Suresh’s book in Heroes? Is it the Da Vinci code of the Break universe?
Of course, acting in a violent manner would have had pretty severe ramifications for his son, but has Lincoln ever been one to think two steps, or even one step ahead?

On the brother side of the barbed wire (heh, see what I did there) Michael’s slow fall from bonafide Bauer competitor to being almost totally inept (reminiscent of Police Cops) seems to be coming to an end. Although his dumbing down was perhaps necessary to the ‘on the run’ conceit of the second season, but I for one and glad to see that he’s back to his old scheming self.

The rest of the Fox River crew have also been settling into their old skins. T-Bags attempt at climbing at the Prison Chain o’ command is an interesting one, not only because it would make a great spin-off. It also opens the possibility for a interesting relationship between him and Mahone, something hinted at in the fading minutes of the show, with Mahone the obeying parasite to T-Bag’s ever disturbing overlord.
Mahones drug addiction in general promises to be reasonably engaging B-Story, especially now that he’s very much aware that he’s on the out with Schofield’s plan, and it’s up to him to get himself out, whilst continuing riding on the good time train (that’s my crappy euphemism for drug use. Clever, no?)

Of course, Good Fences also served up the typical Prison Break faux-surprises (or fauprises). Did anyone not foresee the dramatic reveal that Schofield wasn’t hiding anything in the electric box? Or the fact that Sucre was going to step in and help? And, it it just me or are disturbingly sweet all male reunions ‘in’ this season, with last weeks reunion in Heroes between Noah Bennett and the Haitian stirring deeply confusing feelings in this viewer.

Even though Good Fences shrugged off many of the problem the season initially encountered, it’s still rooted in the deep Break tradition of the big set up, with the coming weeks holding some interesting questions. The most obvious being how exactly is Michael going to act when he inevitably discovers that his one and only bit the big one?

As usual with Break, the Prison is just as much an integral character as any other (as implied in you know, the name and all), and the happenings inside its walls are inherently more interesting than what’s going on outside. None of the these characters are proving particularly engaging, but this is perhaps to change. After all, this season’s premise depends much more so on outside help, rather than Schofield individually masterminding a plan within the confines of prison.

Goodnight Rose.