Monday, October 30, 2006

Adversaries

It was a low-key night of television, with most of the shows taking a week off. But the one show I follow that was new tonight, Prison Break, was at its absolute best.

Within the span of a single episode, they deftly juggled multiple plot threads: Michael's investigation of Mahone, Linc on the run with LJ, Sarah cracking the code and heading to her rendezvous, C-Note's reunion with his family, and T-Bag's attempt to track down the woman who sent him away.

As I said, it was all handled well, but two of the plot lines were excellent in particular. The first was the Michael plot, which culminated in his taunting phone call to Mahone. It was great to see Michael put on the "black hat" for a change, and get under Mahone's skin just as thoroughly as he'd been crawling under Michael's. These adversaries don't directly interact much with each other -- but when the moments come where they do, it's great that they're as well done as this.

And then there was the T-Bag plot. How perfect is it to have Bellick be the one to catch up with him? You almost don't know who to cheer on in this situation, since you've got the two slimiest, love-to-hate-them villains on the show pitted against each other. I suppose I can't really be pulling for the pedophile murderer to get the upper... er, hand... but still. I suspect we'll see them both take bites out of each other, which is the best of both worlds.

And while I found the Linc/LJ story the least satisfying of the lot, it had one of the trademark cliffhanger endings that made season one of Prison Break so strong. How in the hell are the writers going to get out of this situation?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great, great episode. Maybe the best so far in season two.
I especially liked Michael's scene with Mahone's ex-wife. It was quite slimy and creepy, but it was refreshing to see that with a reverse angle.

Can't wait for next week!

FKL