Wr: Zack Estrin
Dr: Bobby Roth
Synopsis: Familiar faces turn up as Michael tries to take down the Company.
Review: Prison Break has a mere two hours to go to satisfactorily tie up its disparate loose ends and rescue itself from the brink of disaster; since its return early last month, the show has struggled to keep itself afloat, passing Scylla around from person to person, forming détentes and breaking them minutes later, and generally sending everyone on wild goose chases, running around the streets of Miami with virtually no rhyme or reason. While last week's instalment saw things improve slightly, it still had its fair share of problems. Unfortunately, these aren't completely ironed out in 'Rate of Exchange', but the upward trend certainly continues. Zack Estrin's script has a distinctly solid structure that grounds it in the sort of intense dramatic tension that made the series successful in the first place. The narrative begins in duality, juxtaposing Sarah's kidnap by Bagwell and the General with Christina's holding of Lincoln, but weaves the two together with Michael as the common thread. This dilemma is an incredibly palatable one, giving the plot considerable weight because it tugs at the heartstrings; after all, we care substantially about these characters. Furthermore, given how irreconcilable it appears that the situation is, and the fact that we are approaching the programme's absolute end-game, a certain level of unpredictability is created. Just about anything can happen now; there are no contractual constraints or ratings considerations to take into account. As Bagwell creeps lasciviously around Sarah, we believe that he might just get his way; when Christina jams her high heel into Lincoln's badly injured stomach (a wonderfully graphic moment, by the way), we buy into the notion that she might get to see her adopted son join the choir invisible.
Estrin builds upon this already palpable level of suspense with the inclusion of several two-hander character scenes that address certain psychological considerations. Michael's confrontation of Mahone, in particular, works exceptionally well, calling out Alex's tendency to 'play the field', and his subsequent redressing of the balance by agreeing to assist Scofield, while a little transparent (c'mon... who didn't see right through that double cross for the triple cross that it really is?), gives the issue a satisfying pay off. T-Bag's perverted 'foreplay' with Tencredi is also superbly written, becoming progressively eerier and more troublesome with every word, although it is rather difficult to believe that he would spend such a lengthy amount of time talking about what he's going to do to her rather than actually doing it; a plot decision that ultimately allows for Michael to rescue his girlfriend. Um, convenient, much? And then there's C-Note and Sucre, whose miraculous inclusion in the story just as things are coming to an end actually manages to work. There's a logic to the events that C-Note describes and when we hear that the name of their benefactor is Paul, and catch a glimpse of 'the ring', it seems to confirm that old favourite Kellerman is responsible for the reunion... but we'll reserve judgement on that until it's confirmed. Anyway, this looks set to only intensify an already substantial level of tension in the impending finale and, at the end of the day, it means we all get to salivate over Amaury Nolasco's hot ass a few more times before the end. Yum yum yum.
(Let's pause for a second to briefly consider that butt, huh?
Delectable.)
The episode's remaining two/three-handers don't work quite so well, however. The inclusion of Don Self just seems like an exercise in futility, as if the episode under-ran and so the writers plugged the gaps with whatever pointless gumf they could find. Oh sure, Michael Rapaport is excellent as usual, perfectly conveying the character's smarmy self-centeredness, but his scenes serve no essential purpose other than to let the outstanding William Mapother, of Lost fame, in on the fun for a little while. The Homeland Security agents get nothing out of the guy, so any pursuit of Linc and Michael by the long arm of the law is not advanced by this strand of the plot, and ultimately, Christina's lackey shows up and kills him. Well, colour me indignant but would it not have been far easier, and more believable, to have him die from the injuries that would be sustained by jumping out of a really rather tall building? And then, of course, we have Christina, who just becomes more and more laughable with every passing line of dialogue. If she isn't mawkishly beating Lincoln's self-esteem into the ground with lame lines like, "the dumb one got caught, the smart one got away, I'm beginning to see a pattern", she's completely abandoning her strong, collected nature and gesticulating all over the place, pulling the kind of face that a six year old would respond with if you asked them to 'look angry'.
Kathleen Quinlan seems to have let all semblance of credibility fall by the wayside, choosing instead to portray this most sinister and duplicitous of women as a sort of comic book villain, complete with every cliché in the depressingly well-worn book. She spits her dummy out when things aren't going her way, knocking everything off her desk and screaming "you just cost me 3/4 of a billion dollars!" at Linc in the most ridiculously over-the-top manner possible. It's hard to invest in the legitimacy of her threat to the survival of our heroes when you just want to laugh at her. And as if Quinlan's portrayal wasn't problematic enough, certain elements of her story also cause the eyes to roll, particularly the fact that she has people everywhere who can fix things at the drop of a hat (yes, I know she has significant Company connections but come on, finding Self, 'securing Pam'... this is all just too easy), and that, in the pre-credits sequence, when she's engaged in the stand off with Michael, she walks right up to the tripwire but doesn't make the additional step into it, despite being clueless as to its presence, which is just about the most cliched thing I've seen all year.
While it certainly has its problems, 'Rate of Exchange' is, nevertheless, a decidedly enjoyable episode. As Prison Break's penultimate hour, it succeeds in ramping up the tension, taking the stakes about as high as they can go, and keeping the viewer engaged in Michael's very palpable plight for the duration of its forty five minutes. There are some wonderfully written exchanges between characters, several decidedly intense moments and even the reintroduction of a few familiar faces to boot. It's far from perfect - Kathleen Quinlan's ludicrously hammy portrayal of Christina makes certain of that - but hell, at least it isn't 'The Mother Lode'. 7.1
422: 'Killing Your Number'
Wr: Matt Olmstead & Nicholas Wootton
Dr: Kevin Hooks
Synopsis: Michael makes one final attempt to get Scylla and destroy the Company.
Review: Okay, let's get one thing straight before we begin: despite its occasional cheesiness, the 'four years later' segment of Prison Break's swan song is a very brave and satisfying piece. The five minutes at the end of the episode provide a sorrowful, but logical, adjunct to this most troubled of shows. Michael's death certainly tugs at the heartstrings, and it's made all the more potent by the lack of a single tear, or mournful word, from any of the cast members involved. For once, the show's writing staff actually have the courage of their convictions, making a bold decision and not retracting it moments later; although, arguably, the fact that it takes the very last scene of the very last episode for them to manage this is eye-rolling enough in itself. Still, no point in rubbishing the best thing about 'Killing Your Number', even if those hilariously clichéd glances at the sky from C-Note, Bagwell and just about everybody else involved in the montage really make you want to throw things at your television screen. No, we should savour the writers' success, celebrate the fact that by taking the road less travelled, by giving us a happy ending with an asterisk, one that is flavoured with a sprinkling of melancholy, they make the final moments a truly rewarding experience. There sure isn't much else worth savouring, that's for sure.
Let's face it, Olmstead and Wootton's script is a mess. It lacks the kind of focused narrative structure that allowed the previous episode, Zack Estrin's 'Rate of Exchange', to engage the viewer's interest. Instead of channelling the story through a single entity with a single goal, who finds his loyalties conflicted, 'Killing Your Number' resorts to Prison Break's favourite tactic in recent memory: letting everyone run around like a bunch of headless chickens, chasing each other from one end of Miami to the other, all in the name of retrieving Scylla or saving the world or whatever other worthless garbage passes for motivation in this gigantic hotchpotch of a plot. The narrative feels exactly like what it is: a series of stop-gaps on the way to running into Kellerman, where everyone with a vested interest in the 'world-changing' device gets a chance to have the upper-hand, see it taken away and then try to reclaim it again. The problem, essentially, is that there is no substance to events, no real consequence to anything that happens (well, until about thirty minutes in, that is). Significant developments occur but they are resolved within seconds, cast aside in favour of the next spectacle which, predictably, will have minimal impact on anyone or anything. Take the cliffhanger from 'Rate of Exchange' as an example: the detonator was seen counting down from 19 seconds and then, at the beginning of this episode, Mahone is given a throwaway piece of dialogue that indicates that it has 'failed'. Huh? We don't even get to see it? However, instead of this leading to a struggle to escape from the dastardly clutches of Christina, Mahone is able to magically karate chop and kung fu kick (any King Blues fans read these reviews? No? Reference lost then...) his way out of certain death, tamper with the device a bit and leap completely out of harm's way, along with a seriously ill Lincoln, before the thing explodes right there, in the office. Realism? Just what is that, exactly?
Oh, and it's only natural that Christina manages to survive the blast. We couldn't kill her off at the ten minute mark, that wouldn't be dramatic enough. No, she needs to pick herself up and dust herself down, shaking the flames, bruises and second or third degree burns off herself in the process, so that she's fit and well enough to go mindlessly chasing after Michael in her high heels. And then, when she does meet her maker, in a confrontation that's straight out of 'Trite Espionage 101', she manages to utter the single most horrible line of the entire 2008/09 season when she bleats, "you were born a Scofield, but you'll die a Burrows". Oh please. Hand me the sick bucket, I think I'm about to regurgitate my internal organs. Speaking of objectionable dalliances with death, the fact that Self manages to survive his second brush with the Grim Reaper in as many weeks is just ridiculous. Surely Christina's lackeys would be able to quickly put an end to the man when they have such easy access to the hospital? And the idea that they deliberately paralysed, rather than executed, him doesn't make any sense; why risk him still being able to write and therefore communicate with others? What benefit is there in keeping him alive in any shape or form? None whatsoever and frankly, there's no point in this element of the story either. It's utterly redundant time-filler that is of little interest to the audience. In the end, it seems that its only purpose is to provide the plot with a thoroughly contrived way of uniting Ethan, sorry William Mapother, and his fellow Homeland Security agent with Mahone and Sucre (oh come on, they just so happen to go to the same hospital AND see each other?), thereby throwing another curveball in the direction of our protagonists so that the race to Kellerman can be littered still further with difficulty.
Speaking of Kellerman, what a deux et machina this is, eh? Prison Break retcons itself again with a horribly throwaway piece of dialogue that is supposed to explain his miraculous return from the dead but actually just makes his entire story all the more objectionable. He was 'rescued' by the same organisation that was helping Michael and Linc's dad overthrow the Company? How long is it since we've seen those dudes, huh? What the hell have they been doing all this time? Why haven't they been in contact earlier? When Michael raises this very legitimate concern, he is simply brushed off which, rather than being an organic piece of scripting, is just an easy way around a very icky plot hole. Look, the brothers' benefactor manage to arrive just in the nick of time! He's even got a nondescript, barely-explained UN attaché with him who can magically exonerate everyone of everything they have ever done at the push of a button! Well, how's that for timing, huh? Please. This truly is pathetic, stretching so far beyond the realms of credibility, it doesn't even bear thinking about.
Frustratingly, this penchant for having the most convenient of events occur 'just in the nick of time' runs rampant throughout the episode. When the General confronts Bagwell in the wake of Sarah's kidnap, he places a gun to the guy's head, apparently ready to put an end to him... but just before he can pull that tricksy trigger, Sucre calls Sarah's phone! He's quite literally saved by the bell, with the call containing just the leverage that T-Bag needs to dodge the General's bullet! Sigh. Later, when the General shows Sofia to Lincoln, live and in glorious technicolour from Panama, just as the brothers need to make the fatal decision between her life and the delivering of Scylla, the very second that Krantz demands their answer, Fernando and C-Note storm the Bastille and manage to turn the tables within seconds, giving Michael and Linc just what they need to overcome the situation! Groan. (Oh and as an aside, where is LJ in all of this? Not only would it have been nice to see Marshall Allman again because, you know, he's worth salivating over and that, but wasn't he being looked after by Sofia? Wouldn't it have been advantageous to the Company to use both of them as leverage?) And then there's General Krantz's remarkable escape from the handcuffs he's been placed in by our protagonists which, as if to add insult to injury, is then supplemented with the sudden arrival of the cops... just as he's about to leave the building, right before he can make his escape! These occurrences are so far beyond believable that it's insulting.
Instead of treating us with a modicum of intelligence, Prison Break's writing staff seem to think that we are willing to simply switch off our common sense when watching the show, turning into a bunch of catatonic vessels for their lazily written, useless claptrap. Well sorry guys but it just doesn't wash, especially when it's the final hour, when you should be distilling everything that the show's about, what made it such a resounding success in the first place, not hastily cobbling together the kind of overly-convenient, hole-ridden story that would embarrass a primary school pupil. 'Killing Your Number' manages to be a fitting conclusion to the programme's final run of episodes, containing all the problems that it's been fraught by since Don Self's turn in 'Selfless', but as the closing instalment of the show altogether, it fails spectacularly. There is very little here of the Prison Break that roped us all in in season one, that beguiled us in season two and even, that reignited our interest and emboldened our faith in the first half of this year. While the final five minutes seem to stay true to its spirit, the remainder is just a hopeless mess, a pointless run around marred by a series of howling deux et machinas. Thank God it's been put of its misery before it could get any worse. 4.2
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