Episode 10 - The Legend
22 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: The gang insist that Bellick be given proper burial and they all remember him in their own ways. Michael collapses and Sara takes him to hospital where they diagnose him with a brain tumour. Sucre steps on a land mine and Lincoln and Gretchen try to stop him from being blown up. T-Bag discovers that Trishanne is working with Self and gives a GATE sales pitch. Mahone heads off to find the man who designed the Scylla security system (David Baker).
The Good: There is a lot of good detail to enjoy in this episode.
Bellick’s death really seems like a big deal by the end of the episode. It’s good that the writers emphasise the importance of death on the show. Sucre finally gives us a more detailed explanation of how they escaped from Sona (401) and how Bellick earned his affection. T-Bag using the news to give emotional resonance to his sales pitch is an interesting touch and a passable attempt to humanise him.
T-Bag gets quite a starring role here. He smartly looks into the backgrounds of Gretchen and Trishanne, showing the instincts which have helped him to succeed this far. Trishanne mentioning Whistler by mistake was a well written and plausible mistake for her to make. The big question though is how Don Self knew about GATE (see The Unknown). It makes sense that T-Bag is asked to lead a sales pitch and helps make it more plausible that he could be seen as an employee (despite the bizarre number of people wandering into his closet during working hours). One of the rarer moments of very real looking acting comes when Mahone rushes through GATE and barges into the closet with T-Bag screeching “What are you doing?!”
Mahone’s meeting with David Baker is interesting, though brief. Baker is the face of guilty Company workers who have tried to ignore their part in helping the Company do wrong. We don’t get enough time to fully develop this idea but the idea of individual morality helping to bring down the Company is a story which mirrors our heroes struggles and so is worth telling.
The doctor recognising Michael is a nice nod to the reality of his notoriety (gained from his prison break in season two).
The Bad: I haven’t commented on Michael’s illness much this season. The trouble with sickness in television shows is that it hardly ever has lasting effects for major characters in action shows like Prison Break. I doubt any viewer really believes Michael is going to die from a tumour in the middle of a daring escapade. And of course the symptoms tend to come and go as they suit the plot and so they undermine the reality of what is going on. Michael’s sudden need for surgery on the eve of Scylla being moved is therefore a very contrived plot device.
T-Bag’s fondness for Bellick also seems contrived. I don’t have a problem with the writers showing that death having an affect on T-Bag but he is a brutal killer and he needs more context for this behaviour to seem real. It’s clear that T-Bag has been somewhat humanised by the writers over the seasons but he still helped kill Andrew Blauner a couple of episodes ago and he has little affectionate history with Bellick.
The Unknown: Don Self claimed that he didn’t know where the Company kept Scylla. He claimed he didn’t know it was contained within six cards. Yet now we learn he planted an agent at GATE waiting for “Cole Pfeiffer” to show up. We know he was working with Whistler (401) but he seems to know more than he has let on.
Best Moment: Trishanne saying the name Whistler by accident. T-Bag knows immediately that she is lying and suddenly their deal has become a lot more interesting.
The Verdict: Much of the tumour and land mine stuff feels like filler to me. Prison Break and television shows in general make it clear that beloved characters won’t die ignoble, sudden deaths. But aside from the forced drama, the rest of the episode fills in some interesting details which help drive the story forward.
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