PRISON BREAK Recap: Season Premiere – “Orientacion”

Title: “Orientacion”
Original Airdate: 9/19/2007

Tonight we welcomed Michael Socfield and his band of merry men back for the third season premiere of PRISON BREAK. And what an episode it was! I know I gave you a sneak peek earlier, but here’s the full recap. Don’t get used to these. We aren’t going to be doing lengthy PRISON BREAK recaps this season…more like small reviews. But since it’s the first episode of the season (and it’s the only show I have to recap tonight) I figured I could indulged just this once. Let’s dish on what went down.

Picking up where we left off last season, we find Michael Scofield locked up in Sona, a Panamania prison where the worst of the worst criminals are sent when other jails won’t take them. Sona is nasty, and not in that Paris Hilton kind of way – I mean really nasty and dirty. I felt like I needed a shower after watching tonight’s episode just to get the stink and the grime off of me. (Ok, so I guess it is the same kind of nasty that is Paris Hilton after all.)

During his first few days of imprisonment, Michael is doing his best to keep to himself and the attention off of him. He looks on in horror as he takes in his new surroundings. There’s very little water, food, and the inmates are killing each other for what almost passes as sport. It’s hot as hell, but since Michael is covered in tattoos (that are no longer relevant to the to the storyline…and Wentworth Miller doesn’t want to sit in the makeup chair everyday putting the fake tats on) he has to always sport a long sleeved tee or sweatshirt despite the other inmates sweating in their tees and shorts.

Sona is a scary place to be, and I’m glad that the director’s explored that. It’s easy to forget with all his badass scheming that Michael Scofield is not a hardened criminal. He’s just a guy that has found himself in some pretty sucky circumstances after trying to help his brother. Michael’s is truly frightened to be stuck in Sona but he knows that showing his fear inside the prison means certain death.

On the outside, Lincoln Burrows, now a free man is working with the American consulate in Panama to get his brother our of jail. The lawyers aren’t sure they can alleviate all of Michael’s issues in Panama, but they can at least try to get him moved from Sona. They promise Lincoln that Michael will be transfered within 24 hours.

Lincoln brings the good news to Michael who seemed relieved but a bit pre-occupied. He needs to know where Sara is. Lincoln says he’s not sure but at the urging of Michael vows that he’s going to do whatever it takes to find her.

Back in Sona, Michael has various encounters with his old friends. Mahone approaches Michael with the idea that it would be in both of their best interests if they worked together behind the prison walls. Seeing that Mahone killed Michael’s father, tried to kill Michael a bunch of times and that he was once aligned with the people that first framed Lincoln, Michael isn’t too eager to share friendship bracelets with Alex.

Former Fox River prison warden, Brad Bellick, isn’t having the best time during his Panamania vacation either. Deemed an outcast by the other Sona prisoners, Bellick is weakened by his lack of food and water and is left stumbling around the prison in his filthy diaper-like tighty-whities and fashioning a bunch of open wounds. The bully becomes the bullied as Bellick is forced to drink water from a puddle of mud before starting his day as the local janitor of Sona’s version of the port-o-potty alongside his friend, another weak prisoner.

After the guards deserted Sona the prisoners took over complete control. It’s during Michael’s reluctant “orientation” that he first meets Lechero, a mysterious man who dictates and enforces the laws of Sona. But it seems that Michael is already known within the prison walls. Lechero doesn’t seem to pleased to have a prison so famous for escaping prison in “his” jail. Michael says he’s not there to make waves but still manages to piss Lechero off when he defends a fellow inmate being beaten by Lechero’s men.

Knowing what it takes to get by in prison, T-Bag does his best to kiss Lechero’s ass and it works as he’s brought into the leader’s inner circle quickly.

Michael gets a visit from an American who claims he can help him break out of jail. Not interested in putting his trust in strangers, Michael rejects his offer and sends the man on his merry way.

Upon returning to the quad, Michael is confronted by a fellow inmate who, at the promoting of Lechero, claims Michael has stolen his drugs from him. Michael denies the allegations, but has no defense when the planted drugs are found under his mattress. According to prison law, issues between men can only be solved one way – an old fashioned courtyard brawl. Michael refuses as he claims that he’s going to be transferred before the fight can take place, but much to his dismay he’s told that refusing is not an option.

Back on the outside Lincoln is on the hunt for Sara, and it doesn’t take long to find her. But sadly for them both he finds her in a morgue. Or at least someone the authorities believed to be Sara – it wasn’t her. Now normally I would be really excited about this reveal but since we already know that Sarah Wayne Callies isn’t returning to the show I don’t know why the producers feel it necessary to put off the inevitable.

After watching his starved “friend” killed by the guards for trying to escape, Bellick is left to handle clean-up duty on his own. While burning the trash in the prison sewers, Bellick encounters a man hiding behind a wall. The man shares some rat meat (which until he said it was rat meat I grossly mistook for human flesh) with Bellick and in exchange Bellick promises to pass on two notes handed to him from the mysterious man.

During his search for Sara, Lincoln gets a call from LJ saying that both he and Sara are in Panama, and Lincoln should meet up with them at the hotel. Yeah, I found that suspect right away. If LJ and Sara were in Panama, and both had been separated from Linc all this time, wouldn’t they just meet up right away? Why would they make dinner reservations at a fancy place for later that night? Hmmm. Well my suspicions were soon confirmed as a sexy woman approached Lincoln at the bar and told him that Sara and LJ were not joining him for dinner as they are being held hostage. This woman seems to want something from the brothers – namely another Sona prisoner, a man named James Whistler. Knowing what Michael’s capable of, she tells Lincoln that Michael has one week to find Whistler and break him out of prison or Sara and LJ are dead. Oh snap!!

Easier said than done. Whistler was accused of killing the Mayor of Panama, and in doing so pissed off a lot of the Panamanian-born inmates. Fearing for his life, Whistler disappeared within the prison and in turn Lechero put a bounty on his head. The first man who finds Whistler gets a get out of jail free card. Again, not to be nitpicky but if these prisoners only had to hunt down some guy in order to get out of prison why would they bother doing anything else.? All their energy should have been put into finding Whistler, no? Lazy bastards!

Lincoln comes to visit his brother at Sona, and Michael hopes that he brings news of a transfer (he so does not want to fight that big old muscle dude). Michael is shattered when he finds out that not only are Sara and LJ are in danger but he is the only one that can save them – and to save them he must remain in prison (cue the song playing in Michael’s head: “you had a bad day, you’re takin’ one down, you sing a sad song just to turn it around”).

As Michael’s fight approaches, Mahone tells him that he must go for the kneecaps right away if he stands a chance at winning. I say that Michael just lay down and play dead until the bid bad bear goes away, but that’s just me. As the whole jail gathers around the two men, Michael declares that he’s not going to fight and stares in defiance at Lechero who is looking down from his prison veranda. As his opponent looks up to see Lechero’s reaction, Michael busts his kneecaps and the man falls to the ground. Michael continues to beat him until he can’t stand. Assuming the fight is over, Michael attempts to walk away but is soon informed that in Sona only one man can leave the circle alive. It’s either kill or be killed. His opponent rises aided by a knife that someone in the crowd has slipped him. A scuffle ensues and the knife is lost and just when it’s do or die time (and I mean that quite literally), Mahone jumps in, grabs the knife and kills the guy on behalf of Michael. Way to prove your loyalty, Alex. The opponent is dead, and Michael lives another day in Hell.

Moments before the fight began, Bellick placed the cryptic notes into the pockets of both Michael and his adversary. When the dead bodies are dragged outside the prison walls, a woman who had been screaming to see the body of her dead husband immediately starts searching through the pockets of the deceased until she finds what she’s looking for…the note from the mysterious man behind the walls. Now if the man only knew some origami we might be in business here.

So Michael is in Sona and his only chance of surviving is to find Whistler and break him out. At least when Andy Dufresne and Red got out of prison they were given some much needed R&R in Zihuatanejo. Michael hasn’t had a day off in quite some time and it doesn’t look like he’s getting a break anytime soon.

And that’s that.

What did you think of tonight’s season premiere of PRISON BREAK? Are you excited for the season ahead or do you think this show should have quit when it was ahead (the S1 finale!) Thoughts?