Concise description of the imposing conflict greets us this series finale as Mahone lays out the by the numbers strategy Michael should use to get his loved ones back. Lincoln Burrows is bleeding to death, listening to Evil Mom spout nature vs. nurture arguments of child development. Sara Tancredi is being harangued by General Krantz about the futility of her past actions and her and Michael’s traits of heart over practicality. T-Bag forces her to take his outturned pocket in a surprisingly heterosexual turn of character, the first of the first season throwbacks.
Sucre turns back up, enlisted by a mysterious man. Agent Self awakes in a hospital bed, questioned by FBI agents. A well chosen shipyard sets the scene for Mahone and Scofield’s last stand. Predictably, a pesky innocent bystander (the bitter beer face guy, I’m fairly sure) alerts the cops. Evil Mom is magnanimous, and tells her goon to only shoot Michael in both knees, but don’t kill him. The mother son connection is completely unbelievable between these two, zero chemistry. Surprisingly, Michael fatally blows up a bad guy with a bomb meant for his Mother. Finally, he is on the hardcore train. The return of season 2 veteran character C-Note is a good surprise. He’s trying to ensure staying out of jail by having the brothers recaptured.
It’s easy to forget that Self has killed a lot of government agents, and the FBI thugs start torturing him. “What is this, Gitmo?” Self asserts amusingly. General Krantz is getting impatient, and T-Bag is commiserating about his future with the Company. More painful one-upsmanship and empty threats are going on between mother and son (seriously). Burrows lets Michael know about Sarah’s pregnancy, and offers himself up as sacrifice. There is supposed to be reflective themes about the importance of family and the blood ties that are binding these characters; yeah, whatever.
Mahone is a Monday morning quarterback, “What about my wife” nonsense. Michael is ‘done making plans’, his main character trait reversed for this exciting ‘yawn’ finale. Scofield does a good job breaking down Mahone as a fair-weather friend eager to ensure his own fortunes. Finally, some honesty! Burrows looks pretty pitiful dying, Evil Mom yelling at him about being a horrible mother and actually referring to herself as “Lady Macbeth”, before sticking a stiletto heel into his wound. Prison Break is entertaining, but Shakespeare it is not, certainly not bland old Evil Mom.
C-Note knows who’s a player and who’s a punk, and pulls Sucre into his play. Evil Mom is feeling a noose pull around her neck as her prospective Chinese and Indian buyers get restless. Man, Evil Mom has a lame cell phone too, what is an evil genius like her doing with an $80 Nokia you get for free with the basic plan?
The General tells Scofield once the exchange is made, he and Sara can live their lives unmolested. He then tells T-Bag he is going to kill Michael, and to go ahead and molest Tancredi. T-Bag decides that raping Sara is actually better revenge than killing Michael. If this were the superior show about prison, Oz, it would have happened, but this show wouldn’t have the guts for a move like that in a million years, so there’s zero tension.
Michael gets proactive and scales the General’s building to save Sara. Michael seems very very Macguyverish rope climbing. Michael takes out T-Bag, but holds back killing him, guess he’s not so hardcore after all.
The General’s leverage is gone, but there is still the nagging problem of Burrows. Poor Lincoln is sitting out his own season finale. Michael got hardcore again, he’s a regular Unabomber, and blows up Scylla in an assassination attempt on Evil Mom. Lincoln is saved, and the rest of the leverage is gone.
The true twist is the reappearance of Season 1 Evil Secret Service Agent Kellerman! One of the best characters of the show, I thought for SURE he was dead! He’s working for the forgotten anti-Company group that Scofield’s father was vaguely working for, with oblique connections to the U.N. “Don’t worry Michael, just deliver Scylla to the U.N. guy, you can trust us!” Mahone gets arrested, the gang gets captured again by the General, who kidnapped Lincoln’s old season 3 girlfriend, guess there’s some leverage again. C-Note and Sucre easily take out the security at the General’s base and rescue them all.
Still, after everything, Michael won’t pull the trigger and kill the General! Granted, it’s a nice reuniting of the remaining Fox River escapees, for the 30 seconds it lasts. Evil Mom makes an assault on the gang’s secret base, her lame-o henchman like sitting ducks in front of C-Note’s rain of hot lead. Sucre gets pressed by the FBI, but gentle Spanish guitar music lets us know he won’t betray his friends. Michael and his Mom are at gunpoint over Scylla, would have been nice if this moment had built up over all four seasons. Now, a standoff between Michael and Lincoln or Michael and Sara, or Michael and T-Bag, that would have been a payoff. Well, Sara kills Evil Mom when Michael’s gun conveniently misfires, saving him from matricide. Of course, Michael lamely got shot in the process.
Kellerman wants the last piece of Scylla, and is obliged. General Krantz is arrested, and Evil Mom is dead.
What happened to this show? A simple yarn about breaking your bro out of prison turned into a nefarious tug-of-war among shadow criminal organizations. Strong long term narrative turned into twist-of-the-week nonsense. All we get is a crappy deus ex machina that allows every character to walk away unscathed. At the very least, T-Bag’s Ephesians quotation isn’t enough to keep him out of jail. All I wanted was his death, and the show couldn’t even deliver that much solace. But the lameness doesn’t end there, as Michael and Sara walk on the beach, talking about parenting styles. Michael is so excited about parenthood that he gets a nosebleed…
Here is how the gang ends up; Mahone hooks up with his old FBI partner for some second marriage action. Lincoln moves in with his Panamanian hottie. Sucre spends some time with his cute-as-a-button daughter. Don Self gets the short end of the stick, living life as a vegetable in a wheelchair. C-Note doesn’t fare much better, a UPS worker living in a lame suburb. Agent Kellerman is a congressman? Confronted by the wife of his dead Secret Service partner who spits in his face? Didn’t Chris Matthews bring up the fact he was arrested, and then broken out of federal custody resulting in the death of police officers? Krantz gets executed, in the electric chair? T-Bag ends up in prison, with a fresh young inmate to violate. Michael and Sara’s kid skip through a town square, and the whole gang gathers for the final of final acts. Is the last twist ballsy? No, it’s just a quick way to add a little conviction and drama to a limp ending. The whole thing reeks of random finality, tossed out of the happy ending hat.
Goodbye forever Prison Break.
Well, I thought it was goodbye forever, but Prison Break: the Final Break comes to DVD this summer with a new two hour adventure. We’ll see
I still have the last two episodes on the DVR, this is a show that is just making me finish watching it. But a new 2 hour adventure, why make me have to track that down now also just to feel some sort of completion