Gretchen, the unmoving, unemotional antagonist of the program, who wouldn’t even flinch at a puppy being killed, acts all queasy and weak kneed as soon as the General looks at her with his puppy dog eyes. Again, this proved to be running inconsistent with what we’ve been made to believe about Gretchen. Unless it’s all Gretchen’s ploy to pull the carpet from under the General, for now it seems that Gretchen has a heart that belongs to the General, and is so taken with him she’s willing to believe anything he says, which is totally not in keeping with her character and personality.
The only halfway engaging scenes were between T-Bag (Robert Knepper) and the cop who had come down to question him, and between Mahone (Willian Fichtner) and Wyatt. Fichtner shone as always, as he tried to bring some reconciliation into his life by treating Wyatt to the same experience his son went through. It’s always a pleasure to see Fichtner at work, although the scene was a little too dragged out and extended a little too much. T-Bag had excellent lines this week, but the dialogue was wasted on a sub-plot that led nowhere relevant.
All in all, this episode was dreary and lacking in thrills. Prison Break needs to return to what it does best, which is use Scofield’s acumen and sagacity at full capacity because that is the pleasurable and thought-provoking machination missing in this episode.
Article comments
1 - Grim
As critical analysis goes the article is well crafted, but I disagree with most of your points. The show is no longer in a prison, so coming up with what ever they have now is pretty amazing. Its taken a whole new dimension, therefore instead of Michael having a sudden flash of brilliance being the only climactic moment of the show, we have a lot of other things to look forward to. Albeit those moments on their own were nothing short of brilliant TV.
I'm someone who finds that prison break exceeds even well on the outside as Season 2 blew my mind.You talk of Brad Bellick going out of character. But we have been seeing this gradual change for a long time now. He's always had his good sides. Especially from what we saw in Season 3.He was never a one-dimensional character.Helping out Sucre,then vouching for Mahone when he got locked at the LAPD.
And Michael's situation is obviously what a lot of us had been thinking about for some time now.He's had to be in a state of constant pressure to make life or death decisions for such a long time now. Anyone would crack under such circumstances.Though the show does show it to be a hereditary problem.
And I doubt there has ever been an episode of Prison Break that lacked thrills,except maybe that review episode in Season 1.