Lincoln closes his eyes and flashes back to cooking breakfast with a young LJ. LJ asks his dad why they can’t have breakfast together every day. Lincoln explains that it’s because LJ lives with his mother. But Lincoln promises that when they do have breakfast, it will always be very special. Lincoln proceeds to the stove to make another batch of blueberry pancakes.
Abruzzi walks up behind Gus, sitting at a table of thugs. “Take a walk,” he tells Gus. Gus leaves without a word and Abruzzi, now fully back in control, deals a hand of cards.
Across the yard, C-Note walks up to Michael and sprinkles a handful of broken concrete the table in front of him. “We got a lot to talk about, don’t we?” Without answering C-Note, Michael sweeps the concrete off the table and moves away without explanation. C-Note assures Michael that he’s not done with him.
On P.I. duty, Michael updates the crew on the status of the hole. They’ve made it through the hardest part and he tells Sucre, Abruzzi and Lincoln that they’ll be into the pipe by Friday. T-Bag slithers in and announces bulls are on their way. They quickly cover up the hole just as Bellick marches in with C-Note. C-Note insists that he’s on this P.I. detail. Abruzzi denies him, but C-Note walks purposefully toward the escape hole and stands directly on the plaque covering it. A nod from Michael tells Abruzzi there’s no other way to placate C-Note – he’s on the P.I. team.
Nick and Veronica still wrestle over where all the EcoField money went. Nick reaches over and turns up the television, where the Vice President announces her candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. Veronica comments that the amount of money missing from EcoField could “run a small country.” On TV, a news reporter states that the Vice President has the largest campaign war chest in history and is therefore the odds-on favorite to win her party’s nomination. Nick turns back to Veronica. “Maybe not a small country…maybe this one…”
Outside the cabin, Quinn stands hidden in the trees, watching Nick and Veronica through the windows.
Prison Break
Episode 111 - And Then There Was 7
11/14/2005
Another day begins in the grim confines of Fox River. Michael walks over to his cell’s sink, splashes water on his face and takes a deep breath.
He flashes back to a few months ago. Inside a high-end jewelry store, Michael removes his sunglasses and indicates, “That one.” A salesman removes a platinum wedding ring from the display case. The salesmen comments, “She’s a lucky woman.” Michael holds the ring up and observes it. “Yes. She is.”
Back in the present, Sara shines a flashlight into Michael’s eyes during his infirmary visit. Michael notices that she still has the origami flower he made for her. She claims she kept it because she’s a “pack rat,” but Michael smiles as he sarcastically notes the lack of clutter in the doctor’s office. The joking takes on a flirtatious tone as Sara notes, “Well, you should see my apartment.” Michael replies, “Haven’t even had our first date and already you’re inviting me in. And here I thought you were a nice girl.” Sara puts a stethoscope to Michael’s chest and asks him to breathe in and exhale. The two lock eyes, the sexual tension between them escalating until Katie, Sara’s nurse, interrupts their intimate silence. “Sara, we’re backing up out here.” Sara snaps back to reality and leaves the office to get Michael’s insulin shot. As soon as she’s gone, Michael removes two tubes of toothpaste from his pockets and squats near the grate on the floor. Michael squeezes the Copper Sulfate and Phosphoric Acid into the drain. When that’s done, he stands up and looks into out the window. His eyes follow the telephone wire hanging over the yard and then down to a pair of C.O.s walking their rounds. He focuses on a section of the grass directly underneath the infirmary.
Frustrations are running high in the cabin. Veronica’s fear for their safety is increasing and she notes that all she wants is to free Lincoln. Nick tells her there are now larger issues to deal with besides Lincoln. While exonerating Lincoln is what prompted their involvement, the situation has escalated and there is more at stake now. The Vice President used millions of dollars from Ecofield research grants to fund her campaign for the Presidency. This battle no longer ends with saving Lincoln Burrows. But Veronica tells him that for her, it does. Nick walks off, fed up with Veronica.
Outside the cabin, Quinn looks in from his hiding spot among the trees. He raises a piece of sandpaper and begins to press it hard against his face, scraping a large section of his cheek.
Inside the guards’ room, on P.I., the team furthers their progress digging the hole. Abruzzi orders C-Note to stop working in the hole and to switch with T-Bag. T-Bag can’t pass up a chance to take a racially motivated verbal stab at C-Note and the two get in each other’s face. Lincoln plays referee and steps in before the two can throw any punches. C-Note wonders aloud why Abruzzi hasn’t had to do any of the hard work yet. Abruzzi tells him it’s because he’s handling things on the outside. That makes him management. C-Note isn’t entirely pleased with this structuring of authority, but before he can do anything, Sucre swings in through the front door and tells the gang that a C.O. is headed their way. They quickly take their positions and cover the hole in what has become a well practiced dance. The C.O. walks in and looks around until he sees Michael. “Scofield. Move it. It’s time for your conjugal. Your wife is here.” The rest of the crew, including Lincoln, share a confused look, but Michael just coolly walks outside.
Bellick stands in the frisk room, eyeing the mysterious “Mrs. Scofield” with interest, but she doesn’t respond to his attempts at small talk. A female C.O. gives the all clear and Mrs. Scofield, a.k.a. Nika, walks by him. Bellick asks, “She look familiar to you?” But the female C.O. hasn’t seen her before.
Nika walks into the conjugal room where Michael is waiting. He smiles when he sees her; there’s warmth and compassion between the two. Michael notices she’s still wearing the ring he gave her. Nika responds that she’s worried about him and wears it as a reminder. Nika asks if there’s anything more she can do to help, but Michael asks only what they agreed on. She nods, reaches under her blouse and removes a gold credit card. She hands it Michael, wondering, “Why would you need a credit card in prison?”
Sara and Katie walk down the stairs of the infirmary building discussing the latest budget cuts. The governor has taken additional money away from the prison’s health care, and Katie comments sarcastically, “Maybe he thinks he cuts enough, they won’t be able to afford you.” When they reach the bottom, Sara turns down the hall and halts in surprise when she sees Michael embracing Nika. Nika gives Michael a kiss on the cheek and leaves. Sara, stunned, quickly walks the opposite way.
Back in the frisk room, Michael endures the post-conjugal frisk procedure as Bellick looks on, shooting disrespectful remarks Michael’s way in an effort to provoke him about his wife. Bellick goes so far as to taunt Michael with, “Damn if I don’t recognize her from somewhere. Maybe she visits some other con? Killing two birds with one bone, catch my drift?” The other C.O. finishes his search of Michael. Michael keeps his mouth shut. He grabs his clothes and walks out of the room.
T-Bag swings his shovel in the hole while the rest of the men pour the concrete rubble behind the newly lain sheetrock. T-Bag continues to bait C-Note. C-Note’ retort, claiming that T-Bag has won the “redneck trifecta.” Earns a laugh from the entire crew. T-Bag throws down his sledgehammer in frustration. “You know, it vexes me that somehow I’m made out to be the bad guy in the room. Not like the rest of y’all are incarcerated for stealing Girl Scout cookies.” Abruzzi notes, “None of us murdered the Girl Scouts in the process.” Sucre jumps in the front door again with a giant grin on his face, he tells them that Michael is coming back from his conjugal. Sucre asks Michael why he never said anything about a wife, but Michael silences Sucre with a sternly toned, “Later.” The others have concerns, too. Upset that Michael scheduled a conjugal in the middle of P.I., Abruzzi asks, “While we’re digging this hole, what are you doing?” Michael smiles. “Goin’ shopping.”
Back in their cell, Sucre makes sure the coast is clear and Michael reveals the credit card from the stitching in his jacket. Sucre warns Michael that if the guards catch him with that, he’ll be done for. But Michael isn’t worried, they won’t be catching him with a credit card. Michael peels the backing off the credit card leaving only a piece of white plastic with a magnetic strip. Michael flashes back to his apartment where several instruction manuals to security systems are spread across the desk. Michael places a white card into machine that allows him to program a pin number onto the card. When the programming is complete, he applies stickers to the card to make it look like a credit card.
Back in the prison, Michael goes about his routine of surreptitiously climbing up through the catwalks. He makes his way until he reaches a door at the end of the hallway. Through the door’s window, he looks across the way to another door with a sign that reads, “RECEIVING AND DISCHARGE.” When the coast is clear, he opens to the door and removes the card from his pocket. He swipes it through a security device on the wall that resembles the device Michael studied in his flashback. The Receiving door pops open. Inside the room are rows upon rows of shelves, each one with labeled boxes on them. The boxes each contain the belongings of the inmates that were taken off of them the day they entered prison. Michael begins to scan the boxes, looking for his.
Veronica starts, hearing a knock on the cabin door. She walks into the living room and wakes Nick and LJ up. Before they can discuss what to do, a voice cries out from outside the door. “Help! Please! I was…I was in an accident!” Nick, Veronica and LJ whisper between them, trying to decide on a plan of action. Veronica finally convinces Nick and LJ to let the stranger in. Nick keeps his gun close to him and opens the door to find Quinn, bloodied and limping. He claims that he was in a massive car accident. Nick turns his back to get a medical kit and Quinn shoots Nick in his right shoulder. As Nick’s body lies motionless on the floor, Quinn tells a shocked LJ and Veronica, “No one’s going anywhere.”
Veronica’s eyes are wild with fear; her mouth is taped shut with duct tape. Across the room, LJ is bound in the same fashion. Quinn digs into Nick’s pockets, removes the pistol, then drags LJ into the bedroom and closes the door. Quinn slowly moves back to the couch and begins his interrogation of Veronica. “Do you know how many pints of blood the human body has? The answer is ten. Ten pints. And how many do you think prince charming over there on the floor has left? Eight? Going on seven?” Quinn tells Veronica that if she tells him everything they know about Lincoln’s case and anyone else they might have told about the findings, he might consider letting her go in time to save Nick. “You decide whose life is more valuable. The man waiting to die on death row... or the man wishing he’d die out in the woodshed.”
Hidden safely in the prison bowels, Michael begins going through the bag from Receiving and Discharge. As he removes the items from the bag. he flashes back to his first day at Fox River. As a C.O. recites the things he’s placing into Michael’s bag, Michael, in the present, sets them down on the floor of the bowels. “One suit, black. One pair of socks, black. One pair of shoes. Shoelaces. One small tape recorder. One gold watch.” Everything is there… except the gold watch. Michael crumples up the empty bag in frustration.
In the cabin bedroom, Quinn strips the tape off LJ’s mouth. In a very paternal manner, he promises LJ that he will gladly clean up this mess that LJ has made. Quinn goes on to ask if Lincoln, a convicted felon many times over, is a man worth dying for. If he’s a man worth putting Nick and Veronica’s lives on the line for. LJ refuses to give Quinn any information, so Quinn puts the tape back on LJ’s mouth and exits the room.
Walking along the yard’s fence line, Westmoreland tells Michael about his new cellmate. “Some new fish. Ran a bump and swipe on an off duty cop. Fast hands, faster mouth.” Then, speak of the devil, Tweener bounces towards them. Westmoreland introduces Michael to Tweener, who immediately asks to be part of P.I.. Michael tells him it’s full right now and Tweener, disappointed, heads off. Once Tweener’s out of earshot, Michael asks Westmoreland if he’s ever heard about things being stolen from Receiving and Discharge. Westmoreland laughs. “Bulls steal from the personals all the time.” Michael presses for more information, but Westmoreland wants to keep his nose clean of whatever Michael is up to. C.O. Patterson yells to Westmoreland from outside the fence, “Pope wants to see you.” Before Westmoreland walks away, he tells Michael that there is one C.O. who is a notorious thief.
C.O. Geary walks down the hall with a file in his hand, and Michael’s gold watch strapped to his left wrist. He hands the file to Bellick; inside is a copy of Michael’s marriage license. Bellick studies the file with relish. “Says here they got married the day before Scofield robbed that bank.” He wonders why Michael would do that.
Through the fence line of his pen, Lincoln worries about how long it’s been since his last communication from LJ and Veronica. Michael doesn’t respond; he trains his focus across the yard on Geary and the watch on his wrist.
Nick is propped up in the woodshed, a pool of blood on the ground. Quinn sits next to him, still trying to glean exactly what evidence Nick and Veronica have gathered. Nick’s fingers slowly creep towards a loose log on the ground. Quinn notices and tells Nick that the bullet damaged the muscles in his shoulder and there’s no way he’ll be able to move his arm enough to hit Quinn with the log. Nick makes his move anyway and immediately screams in pain. Quinn smiles. “Come on, Nick. Mr. Project Justice. We both know why you’re really here... don’t we? And it ain’t to save Lincoln Burrows’ life.”
Michael walks into Westmoreland and Tweener’s cell where he finds Tweener rapping out a song he has written about his experience in Fox River. Michael asks Tweener if he wants in on P.I. work. Tweener says of course and Michael asks for a favor. He knows Tweener has fast hands and hopes he might be able to steal the watch back from Geary. Michael fills Tweener in on the type of watch. Tweener reveals that it’ll be a hard swipe, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do the job. “That just means I’m gonna have to get whimsical on this ficky.”
Westmoreland enters Pope’s office and sits down. Pope removes his glasses and heaves a sigh. “Your daughter is very sick, she’s got esophageal cancer,” Pope grimly tells Westmoreland. His daughter only has a few weeks to live, but the Department of Corrections won’t let Charles see her because they feel he might still be a flight risk. Westmoreland is stunned, and Pope continues to say that Westmoreland will only be granted a furlough to see her at her funeral. Westmoreland can’t believe this logic. “You’re telling me I’ve got to wait until she dies before I can see her?”
