Rate of Exchange / Killing Your Number

The ride has come to a complete stop; Prison Break's final episode has aired. (Well, there's that strange two-hour straight-to-DVD thing arriving in July, but let's not count that.) I wouldn't say that it punched out strong, but that's largely because they'd dug such a hole for themselves in the back half of this season that there was probably no clawing all the way out of it. At least they improved for their finish.

It was nice to bring some old faces back for the final curtain, particularly Sucre and C-Note. Somewhat so Kellerman, who was at least last shown not as definitively dead as head-in-a-box Sara, so hey, why not say he was still alive? Linc's squeeze Sophia was a bit of a whatever; I'd have much preferred to see LJ rather than just have him talked about, but I guess you can't have it all.

There were still some hokey moments, like people running all over Miami bleeding, tearing parts off the Scylla circuitboard for the 47th time, and villainous threats by the shovelful. But there were also some good scenes, like the full-on slimy T-Bag taunting Sara, Sara ultimately being the one to take out evil Mom Christina, and Mahone actually getting one more chance to show his cunning and kick some ass.

I'll forgive the sudden convenience of a miracle stack of immunity agreements to get all the characters off the hook. (Even that plot point we've visited before, at the end of season two.) You can't very well end the show with everyone on the run forever.

How they did choose to end it was with a flash-forward. (Or flash-to-present, if you will, since four seasons' worth of Prison Break actually took place in the span of only a few months of story time.) Most of the "where they are now"s were not particularly surprising, yet each was appropriate enough.

I did like the return of Mahone's partner Felicia as his new love. Really, she stood by him through all sorts of crap throughout the series, so that just makes sense, when you get down to it.

T-Bag wound up back in prison, of course. But it's interesting to think that it may not really be all that much of a punishment for him. He always thrived in the prison environment (in both seasons one and three), and his little coda scene illustrated this well.

So then, Michael's end. On the one hand, it's basically crap that the same surgery that cured Mom and kept her alive another 25 years to do evil didn't work for Michael. On the other hand, I think it's actually the right ending for Michael. It really just made me wish they'd never "cured" him in the first place, so his death would make more sense. From a story crafting perspective, it does make sense. From day one, his character was all about making sacrifices for others, getting thrown in prison to help his brother. So it's perfectly fitting that he should end up dead while all the others live happily ever after. He didn't quite actually sacrifice himself for them, but I think let's call it close enough.

Ultimately, I think Prison Break can now go down in the book with shows like Alias, blazing meteors that streaked brilliantly across the sky at first only to flame out. One outstanding season, one fairly good season...

And two other seasons.