Tuesday 15 May 2007

PRISON BREAK 2.18 - "Wash"

Tuesday 15 May 2007
14 May 2007 - Five, 10.00 pm
WRITER: Nick Santora DIRECTOR: Bobby Roth
CAST: Wentworth Miller (Michael Scofield), Dominic Purcell (Lincoln Burrows), William Fichtner (Agent Mahone), Paul Adelstein (Agent Kellerman), Sarah Wayne Callies (Dr Sara Tancredi), Rockmond Dunbar (C-Note), Amaury Nolasco (Sucre), Robert Knepper (T-Bag), Reggie Lee (Bill Kim), Wade Williams (Bellick), Camille Guaty (Maricruz Delgado), Conor O'Farrell (Agent Miller), Taylor Nichols (Dr Eric Stammel), Tina Holmes (Kristine Pace), Wilber Fitzgerald (Bruce Bennett), Joseph Nunez (Manche Sanchez), Cynthia Kaye McWilliams (Kacee Franklin), Karl Makinen (Derek Sweeney), Kevin Dunn (Cooper Green), Barbara Eve Harris (Lang), Jason Davis (Agent Wheeler) & Marshall Allman (L.J)

After hearing audio that could blow the conspiracy open, Michael, Sara and Lincoln try to get it to a reliable source. Meanwhile, T-Bag has therapy, Sucre finds refuge with Maricruz and C-Note helps Mahone...

Prison Break is getting quite adept at stretching itself. While season 1 was carefully orchestrated and early-season 2 was a wild rush, the latter half is straining now. The simplest beats of the ongoing story are now given entire episodes to play out themselves out. Here, having finally secured evidence to expose the government conspiracy (in the shape of an audio conversation on a datastick), the entire episode hangs on the arrival of Cooper Green, a man trusted to help bring down President Reynold's administration.

While the story is stretched to fill time, it's as entertaining as usual. Writer Nick Santora is quite adept at making the smallest moments extend themselves without testing your patience (see the tasks Cooper Green goes through just to get access to Michael's location). It also helps that C-Note's situation helping Agent Mahone in return for his family's care is the first time a subplot has been genuinely interesting for quite a few weeks.

Sadly, Robert Knepper continues to face tiresome and, frankly, irritating treatment as T-Bag. Here, the paedophile attends a therapy session, purely to steal the identity of his therapist, who he bares a passing likeness to. It's silly and not in an enjoyable way Prison Break can get away with, although maybe this will open new doors for his character. It's sad to see one of season 1's most entertaining villains treated so poorly in season 2.

Sucre's subplot is barely worthy of mention; suffice to say the Latin lothario is shacked-up with sweetheart Maricruz. Someone should tell her the Fox River Eight have a way of attracting trouble, so it won't be long before their love nest is uncovered.

Overall, Wash is enjoyable and certainly not a bad episode, per se. It also climaxes with a double-whammy of shocks to lift fatigue and make sure you tune in for episode 19. As the season enters the home-stretch, I'm hoping the writers will stop stretching minor incidents into entire episodes and resume packing plots with more developments. I think audiences already sense a mad scramble for a way to end season 2 and make season 3 essential viewing. I don't envy them that task, but I'll be watching to see how this escape bid pans out.