MY SHATTERED NERVES!!
The way an episode in a series usually works is like this:
There is build up and intrigue throughout the episode, kinda like foreplay. You can feel the angst and tension mounting.
As the end approaches, you feel the rising crescendo, you can her your heart beat in your ears and feel it pulsate in your mouth. Your eyes widen, your breath quickens, you grip your pillow tighter and then suddenly it’s the climax.
The tension that has built up slowly flows from you and you let out a huge sigh of relief. And there’s usually enough thread left hanging around for you to wonder what’s going to happen next week.
Not so with tonight’s episode of PB.
I was riding a rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish and you can’t believe how relieved I was when the credits rolled because I don’t think I could have handled much more.
Things were happening at a frenetic pace and just when I thought I couldn’t keep up, it ended. And then I had to watch it all again just to make sure I didn’t miss anything while my eyes were closed. That being said, I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
Episode 5 starts with a flashback of Michael sitting in his tattoo parlor, having some more ink added to his body. The focus is on 3 names being etched onto his arm; English, Percy and Fitz
Back at Fox River, Warden Pope is talking to those 2 Secret Service Agents, Kellerman and Hale. He tells them that unless Michael has done something he doesn’t know about, there is no way he is being transferred. One of the agents tell him that everyone has done something that they don’t want people to know about and then hands him a folder with the words TOLEDO and his name on it.
Pope says his wife already knows about Toledo and one of the agents says maybe she doesn’t know about everything. Pope opens the file and in it there is a news paper article and a pic of young boy lying in a pool of blood.
The SSA assures Pope that he WILL find a reason for Michael to be transferred.
Michael, Lincoln, Abruzzi & Sucre are all doing PI work in the yard and one by one they find an excuse to go to the shed so that they can hold a meeting.
Abruzzi wants to know what’s going on and Michael says that they’re the guys that are all breaking out of Fox River Penn. Abruzzi is upset and says he doesn’t want anything to do with that Rhino (Lincoln). Lincoln is up in his face warning him that if he touches his brother again he’ll break Abruzzi’s face.
Abruzzi is surprised to hear that Lincoln and Michael are related but before any more heated discussions take place, Michael brings up the reason for the meeting.
“ We have a decision to make. English, Fitz or Percy. Way I see it, if we’re gonna pull this off, we need to take one of them out”
Now I don’t know if he means take one of them out WITH them or take them out as in ‘Take them out” mafia style. I also don’t know who the hell these guys are.
When Michael & Sucre return to their cell, Warden Pope is sitting and waiting for Michael.
Pope seems to think that there is more to Michael than what he is letting on, Michael is worried about the leaking toilet so he doesn’t seem to be taking much notice of what Pope is saying.
But when Pope says he is being transferred Michael begins to panic. He tells Pope that the reason he asked to be incarcerated at Fox River pen is because his brother is there and begs Pope to just give him the 3 weeks until the execution.
Pope says that Michael is up against bigger fish than him. I had a good chuckle at that because everyone calls Michael, Fish. But I quickly sobered when Pope said that Michael was shipping out the following day. Obviously whatever happened in Toledo was enough to convince Pope that his Taj Mahal project could take a back seat.
Lincoln and Michael are in the chapel and Michael tells Lincoln about his plans for getting to the roof. Lincoln is quite upset.
He tells Michael that Michael has given him something that a man on death row shouldn’t have, and that is hope.
Michael flashes back to when they were kids and I presume that it’s after the death of their mother.
A young Lincoln tells a Michael that he has to have a little faith.
Back at Fox River Penn Michael tells Lincoln the same thing.
Veronica and Nick are talking about the surveillance tape and they notice a few irregularities in the tape, like the fact that there is no recoil when the shot goes off.
Nick says he “knows a guy” who can tell them about tapes that have been tampered with.
News of Michael’s transfer has spread and Abruzzi is worried. Michael says he has everything under control and that he still needs the key by 5.
Michael then sits down and talks to Westmoreland and he asks him if there is any way to block a transfer. Westmoreland says he needs to write a motion claiming that the transfer is a violation of his rights. Apparently they HAVE to hear his motion and it could take a while and until then he HAS to stay at Fox River Penn.
Michael files the motion and it is handed to Pope.
Michael tells Sucre about the motion that he has filed and immediately wants to go into the wall so that he can see if he can get to the roof. Sucre points out that the lights are on and everyone had a bird’s eye view as to what they were up to.
Michael arranges for Sucre to do some laundry and hang it up in their cell so that it can obscure everyone’s view. Once he is hidden from sight, he goes into the walls.
He ends up in a corridor which has pipes and ducts all over the show. He follows a pattern on one of his tattoos so that he knows which path to take. He climbs upwards to see just how long it will take it to get to the roof.
While he is there, a maintenance man walks in and lights a cigarette. Michael hides himself RIGHT ABOVE the guy and you can see the drops of sweat pouring off Michael’s face as he strains to keep himself quiet. A bead of sweat works its way down his face and is about drop onto the maintenance guy.
In the meantime, Sucre is panicking. He is marching up and down the cell, muttering to himself and finally he cannot take it anymore and goes to the hole behind the toilet and starts calling to Michael. By now I am panicking and telling Sucre to shhhhhhhhhhhh.
Luckily no-one can hear him, not even the smoking maintenance guy and as Michael’s sweat drops off his face, the maintenance guy turns and walks out.
When Michael emerges from the hole in the wall, Sucre is beside himself, saying that The Ricans (Puerto Ricans) have high blood pressure
Outside in the yard, Abruzzi had arranged for another inmate to attack one of the guards. A fight ensues and the inmate makes a grab for the keys on the guard’s belt.
At first I think he is trying to grab the keys and when I see his hands are empty I think that he has failed.
What he had actually done when he grabbed the keys, was take a soap impression and created a mould. With all the commotion going on, Abruzzi manages to grab and hide the soap mould.
Back in Abruzzi’s cell, his cellmate is making a key by melting a toothbrush into the soap mould. Ingenious if you ask me.
Veronica and Nick manage to get hold of “the guy” that can analyze the video tape and he confirms that has indeed been doctored. Unfortunately there are no “footprints” which means that they cannot get to see the original footage.
But the analyst does manage to find something they can work on. By the sound of the gunshot he has deduced that the sound coming from the video was not the actual gun shot because in a garage like that, you would definitely be able to hear an echo.
Veronica wants to know whether he will testify in a court of law, and he says he will only testify if he can get his hands on the original tape.
Now I ask you, if they had the original tape and it proved that Lincoln didn’t shoot the guy, would they really need this guy to testify?
Veronica and Nick go and see if they can obtain the original surveillance tape of the murder. But as luck would have it, the record room in which the tape was being stored had been flooded. The night before a pipe had burst, destroying everything in the room, including the tape.
Nick says it’s too much of a coincidence but Veronica says that they didn’t even know that they were going to need the tape until a few hours before. It was not logical that someone would destroy it the night before they knew they needed it,
As they approached her apartment, Veronica says that at least they have their copy of the tape. Just then they see that her apartment door was slightly ajar.
Nick rushes in to make sure everything is OK and Veronica follows. She notes that everything is still in place and then suddenly rushes toward her cupboards. She starts searching for something and then she realizes that their copy of the tape is gone.
She says it’s impossible for anyone to know because the only people who knew where it was her & Nick. She then looks at Nick as if to say it could very well have been him.
Back in Pope’s office, Michael is busy working on the model of the
Taj Mahal. Pope says it was nice of him to come back there after Pope had nearly had him transferred. Michael is curious to know how come Pope was willing to let him go, given the fact that he knew Pope needed him there to finish the project. Pope avoids answering and says that it’s time for them to leave.
Michael says that if he lets go of the model, the thing will collapse as there is still some glue that needs drying.
Pope allows him to stay in his office so that he can wait for it to dry. His secretary and a guard where in the outside office and they would see that everything was locked when Michael was done.
When Pope is gone, Michael releases the structure and attempts to open a door that leads into the corridor. Unfortunately it is locked.
Just after 5 we see Abruzzi pushing a trolley outside in the corridors and inserting and turning a key.
Michael hears the lock click open, he turns the handle and the door opens. He walks into the corridor, closes the door behind him, locks the door and takes the key with him. He falls into line with other prisoners as they walk back to their cells.
When Pope gets home, the two SS Agents are waiting for him. They want an explanation as to why Michael had not been transferred yet.
Pope explains about the motion that Michael has filed but the SS Agents are relentless.
They talk about TOLEDO again and tell Pope that his wife might have forgiven him about the affair but she will not forgive him for keeping his child from that affair a secret.
Pope demands that they leave and they warn him to lose Michael’s motion.
After they leave we see Pope shredding some papers, which I assume are papers regarding to Michaels motion.
The good Doctor Sara pays Lincoln a visit to give him a medical. She notes the irony of checking him to see if he’s healthy enough to be executed. GO FIGRE. I wonder how sick you have to be before they decide to heal your first and then kill you.
Sara asks Lincoln some questions about his family and their medical history and she reveals that she knows that she knows that Michael is his brother. A fact she also only learnt about recently and she wonders if Michael is there to be near him before his death.
Michael is back in his cell. He checks the time and it’s 5:44 when the cell doors close.
He tells Sucre that it’s time and Sucre starts to panic (the Rican Blood pressure rises a notch or 2) Sucre is worried about count (Prison Speak for body count, when they check to see if everyone is still there)
He wants to know what Michael is up to but Michael tells him he’s better off not knowing.
Michael disappears back into the hole in the wall and works his way through the corridors.
As the doors open for count, Sucre is checking his watch wondering what Michael is up to and where the hell he is.
When Bellick reaches their cell he sees that Michael is missing he sounds the alarm and lets everyone know that they’ve got a runner.
We hear alarm bells going off and search lights flashing. Michael is sitting on the roof checking his watch.
The guard outside Pope’s door radios Bellick to tell him that Michael is with him in Pope’s office but when he checks the office, Michael is nowhere in sight.
Michael is on the roof and we see police cars drive past Percy Avenue and English Street. Fitz Street is the only one that has no traffic going through it at all. (SO THAT’S what it all means)
Pope was in the chapel while all this commotion was going on. He was speaking to the priest about how he ran away from his responsibility, his son.
When the alarm bells went off, Pope rushes back to his office to find out what is going on. He opens the door and Michael is kneeling on the floor holding up the Taj Mahal.
Bellick storms in and demands to know what Michael is doing there. Pope pulls him off Michael and says it doesn’t matter any more because Michael Scofield is no longer their problem. He was being transferred to another facility in the morning.
The next day Sucre is called out but Michael is told to wait for his transfer.
Sucre says that it cant end like this and Michael tells him that they would have used Fitz.
Sucre asks a barrage of questions before being dragged off by Bellick.
That’s when the music starts – it’s Alexi Murdoch’s ORANGE SKY And as Michael walks away he takes his bolt and puts it under Sucre’s pillow along with a paper duck.
He is cuffed and chained as he walks down and Sara watches him from the infirmary window.
Well I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky He walks past Westmoreland holding his cat.
Yes I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky He walks past Sucre who is leaning against the fence and past Abruzzi, who instructs one of his henchmen to call his wife to tell her to take the kids and get out of the country.
With my brother standing by. With my brother standing by
He walks past Lincoln and stops briefly to look at him and say he’s sorry.
Pope is watching from his office window as Michael is being led away by Bellick. When they reach the gate Bellick hands Michael over to another guard and just when you think he’s going to get on the bus, Pope stops them and says that Michael has filed a motion and he is staying at Fox River Penn.
You can see that the 2 SS Agents are waiting in the car to make sure that Michael gets on the bus and when he doesn’t, they have to phone THAT WOMAN again.
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The woman with the house out in the middle of nowhere, whose face we never get to see.
You see part of her face and once again she is in the kitchen.
I tried to analyze what we can tell about her by looking at her surroundings. And so far all I can see is that she possibly has a young child. The inside of her fridge tells me NOTHING.
She is disgusted that they have failed and say that they must look at the cause of this whole problem, Lincoln, because apparently the chair isn’t the only way to take a man’s life in prison.
Pope goes home to tell his wife all about his son.
Michael and Lincoln are in chapel and as he walks past his brother, Michael squeezes his shoulder to let him know that everything is going to be OK.
I was drained when the show ended. Drained, I tell you.
I don’t know what next week holds but I seriously CANNOT wait.