Prison Break Recap: “Bolshoi Booze”

Title: “Bloshoi Booze”
Original Air Date: 10/13/2006
When we last saw our favorite convicts, T-Bag was about to get re-captured by the cops, Sara was facing Kellerman’s gun, and we found out that there’s a mole in Linc’s dad’s gang of anti-government Robin Hoods. How will everyone wiggle out of these situations? (you have no doubt that they WILL escape, so the question is just HOW…)

THE COPS ARE CLOSING IN ON T-BAG! He’s cuffed to the radiator, his gross hand just begging to be ripped off and left behind. The cops bust through the door…and T-Bag is gone. Where is he? Well, you know that weird smell coming from your radiator when you first turn on the heat in the fall? Next time, better double check it, because you might just find…T-Bag’s rotting hand resting between the radiator and the wall. Yup, he managed to disconnect his hand from his body to save himself from going back to prison. Can’t say I blame him. In fact, I kind of admire him – in fact, I admire both T-Bag and that mountain climber who cut off his own limb to get out of the rock canyon alive. I’m pretty sure I would not be willing (or able) to amputate a body part to save myself.

Michael is in a hardware store buying a case of fishing reel oil in small vials, along with a GPS system. When he realizes he can’t pay for everything with the amount of cash he has, he decides to just buy the oil…and then steals the GPS system. When the store owner tries to stop him, Michael pushes him down and as the man begs for Michael not to hurt him, he runs from the store. Just when I’m thinking that our Fox River Golden Boy is turning bad, Michael has a crisis of conscience and begins thinking of all the people who have been wronged as the result of his escape plan…Sara, the people in the bank he “robbed,” his mail-order bride, Warden Pope. It’s all getting to be too much for him. He sees a church across the street and decides to take refuge and confess his sins.

Linc’s dad fills him in with a little bit more background information: see, the President is a “schill” for corporations whose only goal is to make as much money as possible. Also, the government has the ability to trace and catalog every piece of electronic information exchanged in this country (gives me chills), and they just happened to intercept some White House communications for a few weeks after 9/11 (can anyone say “wire tapping”?). Seems that in one of those exchanges, they heard a conversation involving one Terrence Steadman – the same Terrence Steadman who had supposedly been killed by Lincoln a few weeks before the call. For some reason we don’t yet know, that call was taped and given to Sara’s dad (who, remember, is now dead), and everyone believes that Sara is now in possession of that taped call, which makes Sara the absolute center of this whole thing (who knew? Michael thought he was just using the good doctor as part of his escape plan, and it turns out she’s an unknowing pivotal player in the whole game). An intruder breaks into the house during this conversation between Linc and his dad. Linc and the intruder scuffle, and Linc stabs him. But just when we think Linc is going to join the “but he really does belong in prison because he’s done something bad” club, the blond woman – we find out her name is Jane – kills the intruder. For good. He’s really dead now. So Linc, technically, didn’t kill him. Another near-miss.

Sara and Kellerman are in a motel, where he has secured her with duct tape (yet more uses). He confesses that his name is not Lance, and he’s not an addict (really?), but he will make her some pie after this whole thing is all over (and even while he’s interrogating her, I’m still a sucker for the “I’ll make you a pie” promises he gives her). He asks her repeatedly about the recorded conversation; she says she doesn’t know what he means. He fills up the tub. Ruh-roh.

In the confessional, Michael confesses sins of righteousness and believing that the end justifies the means. He explains that he was trying to save a man’s life. He tells the priest of watching a man bleed and die as a child, and admits that he liked it, and it created a black hole within him. He priest encourages him to turn himself in because only God can give and take life; Michael’s only response is that we all have our crosses to bear. He’s crying, and he looks so genuinely anguished that I want to reach through that tiny confessional window and hug him and tell him that I have a plan to make everything right. But I can’t, and I don’t. When we next see Michael, he’s 76 miles from the Mexican border. He’s carrying a box that contains…Oscar Shales’ head (ah! Just kidding. But did you believe me? Of course you did! That head-in-a-box joke never gets old. To me, I mean).

Mr. Kim springs Mahone from the cage where Michael left him after last week’s showdown after the car chase. Mr. Kim tells him he has a couple of hours to figure out Michael’s Bolshoi Booze tattoo, and he hopes he’s “properly motivated” to do so. Mr. Kim’s nasty demeanor would properly motivate me to do lots of things, and when he mentions Mahone’s son, too, Mahone loses it and looks psychotic. Mr. Kim looks happy about this – that’s the Alex Mahone he needs right now. Psycho. Both of them.

Lincoln and LJ part ways; Linc is headed to meet up with Michael, and LJ stays behind at the “compound” (I love that word…I don’t know yet what qualifies something as being a compound, but I imagine illegal activity has to be involved somehow, so this qualifies).

Purely by accident, Mahone figures out that the Bolshoi Booze tattoo is really a GPS longitudinal coordinate for a spot in the desert. He’s on his way. Michael’s already there; he’s meeting a bunch of thugs in a cruddy shack in the desert to give them the “nitroglycerine” vials he purchased at the store previously, and in turn they will set up a plane to Mexico for Michael, Linc and Sucre. This just doesn’t seem smart. But Michael’s the man with the plan. Well, he used to have a plan, so I still trust him. But meeting thugs in a crappy shed in the desert seems iffy, at best. The main thug is playing coy, wanting to know why his medical nitroglycerine is in plastic vials and not glass. He knows something is up. Remember, the real nitroglycerine was hidden in the botanical garden and recovered by the feds several episodes ago.

Kellerman is still threatening Sara and going through her purse. She seems nervous about this – is she afraid he’ll find what he’s looking for, or does she just not want him to see her tampons? Before we know for sure, he holds her underwater in an attempt to get her to spill the beans.

T-Bag is alive and on the run, Bellick is in the ER after getting knocked out by Roy, and Roy is hanging out with hookers in a high-priced hotel room. He’s trying to convince them to do something particularly untoward on the glass coffee table, and they tell him it will cost extra. He goes to his big bag o’cash to get more for them, and finds that T-Bag has put a tracking device in the bag of money, just like the big boys do when the bad guys rob banks. And then T-Bag shows up in the hotel room. Ruh-roh again. T-Bag kills him, and Bellick sees poor Roy on a stretcher as he himself is trying to leave the ER – but not before a cop there has “more questions” for him.

Turns out Michael’s nitroglycerine vials are filled with sugar water. Main thug guy is pissed and holds a gun to Michael’s head…but then Sucre, who figured out Michael’s note from a couple episodes ago, busts in and shoots the bad guys! (the bad guys who didn’t escape from Fox River, I mean…sometimes the label “bad guy” can be so confusing, especially with this show). Sucre and Michael tie them up and plan to head for their plane, but Michael’s conscience kicks in again. One of the thugs is bleeding badly, and Michael wants to untie them so they can get to a hospital. Sucre argues against this, but Michael wins, the bad guys leave, and Michael and Sucre are close behind them.

Sara and Kellerman are still in the motel room, and it’s not for some afternoon delight. Kellerman is upping the stakes: he turns on the iron and partially submerges it in the tub with Sara. This guy really wants that tape. Kellerman talks to Mr. Kim, who tells Kellerman to kill Sara. That Mr. Kim is a hoot – always sitting in the back of his limo, telling other people to kill anyone who doesn’t cooperate with the plan. He has the easy job.

Mahone calls his ex-wife, and it’s definitely a good-bye call. It’s obvious that he’s not sure he’ll make it out alive when he meets Michael for their showdown in the desert, which is where Mahone is heading. He apologizes and tells her he loves her before heading to the coordinates. Michael and Sucre are there, and Lincoln meets them, bringing with him a surprise guest…their dad. Michael is obviously emotional about seeing him, but it’s not because he’s never seen him, like we originally believe. ”We’ve met before,” Michael says upon seeing him. And the desert sandstorm that is this show’s backstory gets even thicker.

More Kellerman and Sara. He’s more desperate now, needing this information he believes she has and yet obviously not wanting to have to kill her. Still, she’s not buying his nice guy act.

“Go to hell,” she tells him (I love that bad guys always hear this line before they get what’s coming to them in scary movies, and even though that’s not what happens hear, I still like hearing it).

And then he lets her go to flail, face-first and limbs tied, into the tub.

Michelle is the frazzled mother of two very young kids. In lieu of taking a shower every day, she writes TV recaps for GMMR to keep the remaining shred of her sanity intact. This also helps her justify her insanely intense TV-watching habit, which was spawned in her early childhood because she was allowed to watch an unlimited number of”Sesame Street” episodes when she herself was a preschooler.