TV Review: Prison Break – “Going Under” Might Have Lost the Plot

After all the highly energetic episodes that we were subjected to in the last few weeks of Prison Break, this week’s episode “Going Under” was a less energized one, with far fewer action scenes. However, although we were still provided with some interesting moments, the series might’ve have lost its plot in the last five minutes.

This episode starts with Scofield (Wentworth Miller) at The Company’s medical facility, undergoing an operation to remove his tumor, during which time he has an out of body experience and meets Charles/DB from season one (played by Muse Watson). While bantering with Charles, and with subtle hints from him, Scofield discovers that Scylla doesn’t have anything to do with The Company’s past infractions, but rather Scylla deals with the designing of a solar cell to harness all of the sun’s energy. Hence the heavy price attached to Scylla.

Elsewhere, Mahone (William Fichtner) is being escorted by Lang (Barbara Eve Harris) and Mark, and uses a bathroom break to avail himself of a piece of piping that he uses to break through the car window and escape. Lang finds herself holding a gun to him, but decides to trust Mahone and lets him go.

Meanwhile, Linc (Dominic Purcell) and Sucre (Amaury Nolasco) are in pursuit of Self (Michael Rapaport) and Gretchen (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe) in order to get Scylla for the General, so that they can secure the operation for Scofield that will save his life. Knowing that T-Bag (Robert Knepper) has been captured by The Company, Self and Gretchen realize they are in danger of being caught as well, and instead they try to meet the Scylla buyer at another private location. However, Linc and Sucre, with the help of the Company’s tracking, locate them and a shoot out occurs which leaves Self wounded and Gretchen is held at gunpoint.

Up until the last five minutes, “Going Under” was cogent and coherent, as well as thoroughly enjoyable. However, this episode suddenly took a very bizarre twist in the last five minutes with Sucre promptly announcing, out of the blue, that he’s had enough and wants to go get a normal life, and then he says goodbye to Lincoln and walks right out of the series. One would’ve thought, as one of the original Prison Break cast, Sucre would’ve been given a better sendoff, or at least would’ve had the chance to wish a tearful goodbye to his amigo, Scofield. All we got was a half-baked explanation and goodbye between Lincoln and Sucre, which somehow didn’t feel satisfying as a final scene for Sucre.

And the very last scene of this episode was even more out of place, with Lincoln revealing to Scofield that their mother also worked for The Company, and that Lincoln was therefore going to do the same, and work with The Company to get Scylla in exchange for their freedom. Scofield tries to convince Lincoln that he can’t possibly get something as important as Scylla into the hands of the Company, but his words fall on deaf ears, and Scofield is left as the only good man standing as his brother walks away.

Essentially, this episode offers the explanation that Scylla has to do with designing a way to harness all of the sun’s energy. The question remains though — what does this new plot development have to do with the Company’s earlier twist of destabilizing the Kip, in order to cripple the economy of Laos? It seems to me that the producers and writers have somewhat lost the plot, or forgotten about developments they started to create earlier. This careless action of losing plots has pretty much plagued Prison Break from the second season onwards. Twists and developments were created, and then sneakily abandoned and forgotten about when the writers had too much on their plate to fulfill.

In any case, this episode delivered some excitement, until the last few moments took a deep turn into discordance and incongruousness. Let’s hope that next week brings about some light to this puzzling final scene, otherwise it’s only fair to declare that Prison Break has clearly lost its plot… once again.