Prison Break returned tonight from a brief exile-by-baseball, and tonight it succeeded in making me feel really dumb.I'm referring to the ending, in which it was revealed that the man chasing the fugitives, Mahone, has ties with the overall conspiracy. I felt completely dumb for not figuring this out before. So much else has tied up in the conspiracy -- why not this element too? And then there was his cryptic line from the last new episode ("I've got nothing against you, but they do."), helpfully repeated for us in tonight's re-cap. It just seems so obvious now. I guess I'm just not working hard enough to figure out "what's going to happen next."
What I did figure out far ahead of time was that Sucre's apparent betrayal of the group was a set-up orchestrated by he and Michael. And cheers to T-Bag (even while I'm booing him in that love-to-hate-him way) for double-crossing (triple-crossing?) them. Now he's off to tie up loose ends from season one. Should be very creepy.
Meanwhile, we have Dr. Sarah out on the run, and LJ and Linc finally reunited. Excellent -- a potentially more interesting storyline coming in to replace one that was a little dried up. (The latter being "solo LJ," I mean.) And we got to see some good "buddy moments" between Michael and Sucre before those two split up again.
In all, I'd say it was a good episode of Prison Break.
It was also a good episode of Studio 60, though perhaps a bit too unfocused. There was wonderful stuff in all the distinct storylines going on. Tom's trouble with his family (and the unexpected connection to Afghanistan), Jordan's drunken desperation for a friend, Simon and Matt's interesting look at race in comedy, Cal's encounter with a blacklisted writer... it seemed that even though I was enjoying all the stories, they were all getting a bit of the short shrift. It's not that I think any one of them could have existed in an episode on its own -- certainly not. But maybe with just one or two fewer story threads, the remaining ones could have been explored more deeply.
Studio 60 sits out next week. It was due to have been a re-run anyway, and NBC has decided to test drive another struggling new show, Friday Night Lights, in its time slot. I'm hoping this doesn't end up being further bad news for the ratings-challenged Studio 60.
3 comments:
Studio 60 was awfully preachy this week, wasn't it? I mean, as usual, I agree with all the positions taken, but... black comedy, Afghanistan, blacklisting, that's heavy stuff for one episode.
Did you notice newly-pregnant Amanada Peet's affection for her long coat? Why was she wearing a coat like that in West Hollywood anyway?
At least Studio 60 is a solid, if not great, show while Friday Night Lights puts me to sleep (and I really like the concept of FNL).
I think this was my second favorite episode of Studio 60. Yes, there were a ton of disparate storylines, but I liked the way they were all handled and I felt that all characters were given good material and gave good performances.
That said, given the ratings, I think it's much more likely Battlestar Galactica makes the move to network TV than Studio 60 stays on it.
Prison Break was very good and I, too, was completely suckered in. I even bought the betrayal -- I could always blame it on the cold, but I think I'm just dumb that way.
FKL
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