Michael sits in the infirmary. Nurse Katie enters and begins to prepare Michael’s shot. As Michael looks to the infirmary waiting room where Sara averts his gaze, Katie explains that she will be taking care of him today. Suddenly, there’s a commotion in the hallway. Katie and Sara greet Geary, who brings Tweener in on a gurney. There’s food all over his chest and he appears to be having a seizure. Then, in the middle of the chaos, Tweener locks eyes with Michael through a window and gives a wink and a smile. Michael looks to Geary, his wrist now bare. Michael smiles.
Veronica has moved her chair closer to a wood burning stove inside the cabin. She holds the plastic cuffs that bind her hands as close as she can, hoping to melt them. When she hears the bolt on the door, she quickly moves away from the furnace, and Quinn enters. Quinn begins his interrogation anew, telling her that it’s her fault that people around her are dying. “If you had just minded your own business, people like Leticia Barris wouldn’t have a mouthful of maggots right about now. Your fiancé wouldn’t be lying in his apartment waiting for the smell of his rotting corpse to let the neighbors know something has gone horribly wrong.” He stands and grabs an oil lantern from the wall, threatening to light her on fire if she doesn’t cooperate. He unscrews the cap, but before he can turn back, Veronica stands and smashes the chair against Quinn’s face. Quinn collapses to the ground.
Veronica charges into LJ’s room and frees him from the chair. The two scramble into the wood shed to find a barely conscious Nick. Veronica grabs Nick’s car keys and throws them to LJ who turns and sprints to get the car started. He jumps in the driver’s seat, but the ignition wires have been ripped out. BANG! The rear window shatters. LJ looks back to see Quinn standing 20 yards away, gun raised. LJ takes off into the woods.
Westmoreland taps the gold watch on the door or Michael’s cell, “A gift from my cellmate.” Westmoreland then tells Michael, “I want in.” Michael tells Westmoreland in a measured tone that everyone involved in the escape is bringing something to the plan. Westmoreland offers to bring money. Michael replies, “I seem to remember several conversations that ended with ‘I am not D.B. Cooper.’” Westmoreland claims that he was lying. But Michael says he’s already researched Westmoreland’s earlier claim that he was in jail during the time of the Cooper hijacking and found it to be true. Westmoreland informs Michael, “Turns out my father and I shared more than a weakness for easy money. We also shared a name. Charles Westmorland senior was the one locked up that day. Now do you want the money or not?” Michael doesn’t respond, not quite ready to believe a man who has no proof other than his word.
In his cell, Michael makes sure the coast is clear, then begins to assemble a strange device using the gold watch, the shoelaces, the black socks and the mini tape recorder.
The dig continues inside the guard room. This time T-Bag is harping on Sucre and the laziness of “the Latino population.” Sucre notes that the lazy people aren’t the ones working two jobs; the lazy ones are the people at home collecting unemployment. T-Bag turns to C-Note, “You gonna let him talk about your people like that?” But C-Note doesn’t take the bait. He simply walks up to T-Bag and warns, “We may be a team in here. But just so you know, it’s every man for himself.”
Out on yard P.I., Michael sneaks away from his work group over to a spot beneath the infirmary window. He squats down and digs a small hole. He slips the tape recorder device from his pocket and puts it in the hole, but before he can finish burying it, a C.O. barks orders for him to return to the rest of the group. As Michael walks away, he looks back and sees a piece of the device poking out above ground.
LJ and Veronica each run through the woods, trying in vain to find the other. Veronica stumbles into a clearing. Quinn emerges from the woods, gun trained on her. As he walks towards her, he explains that the Russian mafia doesn’t kill their target, but kills their friends and loved ones instead. “Speaking of people you love... what exactly is Michael Scofield doing in Fox River anyhow?” Veronica tries to keep Quinn walking towards her because between them is a concealed well opening. Quinn sees it, amused at Veronica’s feeble attempt to lure him into the well. But mid-sentence, LJ explodes from the woods and shoves Quinn from behind, sending Quinn down the well.
Michael paces in his cell. In the ground beneath the infirmary, the watch strikes ten. This triggers the mini tape recorder to begin recording. Above the device, a couple of guards walk over it, and narrowly miss stepping on it.
Bellick sits at his desk, holding Nika’s file open and looking closely at her photo. He looks up and smiles.
Later that night, Bellick struts into a strip club. A scantily clad woman greets Bellick by first name. He nods and continues into the club as an announcer invites patrons to welcome Jasmine to the stage. Bellick halts as Jasmine emerges. A smile spreads on his face as he finds what he came in search of: Nika, a.k.a Mrs. Scofield.
Quinn looks up out of the well and makes a call on his cell phone. He barks at Kellerman, “Come get me! I’m in New Glarus!”
Nika strolls to a dark corner of the club where Bellick is sitting. She offers Bellick a private dance but he wants to chat. He asks if her husband knows about her working there, but Nika claims she’s not married. Bellick leans forward. “I hope you’re lying for the sake of titillation, otherwise your little visit to Fox River this morning would have been breaking the law, Mrs. Scofield.” Nika, a bit rattled, says that it’s better for business if she says she’s not married. Bellick isn’t interested and wants to know more about what Michael wanted in exchange for her green card. She continues to mislead him, but Bellick threatens to have her deported. Nika cracks, saying that all he wanted from her was a credit card. She gets up and walks away, disgusted. Bellick mulls this piece of information.
In the chapel, Westmoreland sits next to Michael in a pew. Westmoreland whispers, “Dorothy Andrews Elston Kabis. United States Treasurer in 1971, the year of the DB Cooper hijacking. DI19258A, first number in the series of bills used for the ransom drop.” Michael, still unimpressed, tells Westmoreland, “All that proves is that you did the research – same as me.” Westmoreland stands up and passes Michael a Bible before walking out. Inside the Bible, Michael finds a one hundred dollar bill with a serial number that matches the one Westmoreland just recited.
In the yard, Michael digs up the device. Sara calls to him from the other side of the fence. “So you’re married.” Michael tries continue his flirtation from the other day, but Sara cuts him off. Sara wants to know all of Michael’s secrets, but Michael stands silent. She tells him that being a prison doctor, she expects to get attention from inmates. But she’s enjoying it with Michael, and that’s dangerous. There are too many questions surrounding Michael. She can’t trust him and therefore she demands that all their interactions from now on remain strictly doctor/patient. As Sara leaves, Michael tells her, “The questions you have about me, there are answers.” Sara just keeps on walking.
“Quinn!” Kellerman yells as he and Hale approach the well. Quinn calls back and asks what took them so long. Hale explains that they tried to call him to get an exact location, but they couldn’t get through. Quinn apologizes, revealing that his phone’s battery had died. Quinn attempts to reconcile with Kellerman, but Kellerman is not one to forgive a grudge. He drags a large piece of wood over the top of the well. Quinn begs for Kellerman to stop, but his cries soon become muffled. Hale tells Kellerman that they can’t leave him in the well. Kellerman responds, “He’s the only one who knows we don’t have the Burrows kid. The only one.” When Hale tries to argue, Kellerman threatens to put Hale in the well too.
In their cell, Sucre looks on as Michael pulls out the mini recorder, checks his watch and pushes play. There’s nothing but the sound of wind as Sucre paces the cell. After a seemingly unending silence, the sound of keys jingling is picked up by the recorder. Michael explains the significance. “Footsteps. Guards’ footsteps. And eighteen minutes is how long we have between each time the guards pass underneath the infirmary window during their rounds at night.” Michael leans back, another item on his list checked off, “It means four days from now, on the night of the escape, we’ll have eighteen minutes to get the bars off the infirmary window, and get all seven of us across the wire and over the wall.” Sucre looks worried. Seven people over the wall in eighteen minutes. “Is that doable?” Michael answers, “Yes.” But doubt darkens his expression.
Inside the guard room, Michael stands off to the side. Lincoln approaches him and asks him what the problem is. Before Michael can answer, Sucre strikes the metal pipe that they’ve been working so hard to reach. The team sets aside their differences long enough to celebrate having taken one more step toward freedom. Lincoln presses Michael about what’s on his mind. Michael says there is good news and bad news. The good is that Westmoreland and his money are now part of the plan. The bad news, “I did the math. I figure it’s going to take at least five minutes to get the bars off the window in the infirmary. And two minutes each for us to make it across the wire and over the wall. We’ve only got eighteen minutes. We’ve got too many people. One of them has to go.”
Michael looks over the elated faces in the guards’ room, one of which will not be able to go on the escape.
Prison Break
Episode 112 - Odd Man Out
11/21/2005
Michael, five years younger, adjusts his tie in a streamlined office of an architecture firm overlooking the Chicago cityscape. The interviewer across the desk comments on Michael’s impressive resumé, then asks why Michael is interested in architecture. Michael speaks with a quiet passion about structure, design and function. The interviewer appears impressed in the young engineer in Michael and asks, “What about the future? Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Five years later (in present day), Michael crawls through Fox River’s old sewer tunnels. He locates the hiding place where he stashed his bag of belongings stolen from the Receiving and Discharge room. He pulls the black suit coat he wore in his job interview out of the bag, folds it under his arm and continues on his way. He encounters a pipe that shoots off to the left. Michael removes a single button from the jacket and throws it down the new pipe. The button clatters down the pipe’s gentle downward slope. Michael nods, then tosses the jacket down the pipe and slides down after it.
He emerges from the sloped pipe of the very bottom of a huge vertical drainpipe resembling a silo. Michael’s attention is straight up: eighteen feet above him, a slotted grate with light streaming in from above. Michael kneels on the ground and tears open his suit jacket. From inside the stitching, he removes a thick nylon rope and a heavy-duty plastic bag. He puts the suit in the bag and knots one end of the rope around it, creating a bundle. Then, he stuffs the whole bundle into a small metal porthole in the base of the silo wall. He looks up again at the grate, well beyond his reach.
T-Bag, dressed for P.I., stands at the phones in the yard having a light-hearted conversation. When he looks up, he locks eyes with Abruzzi, who’s walking towards the guards’ room for P.I.. T-Bag squirms, then whispers into the phone, “ But, uh, things are getting pretty tense, like they fixin’ to collide. You know what I mean, Jimmy? There’s a potential, situation.”
Michael and Lincoln carry tools across the yard. Michael tells his brother that he found their access to the infirmary building, but he’ll need extra time to find out how they’ll get up a twenty foot vertical drain pipe without a ladder. He needs to skip P.I. to do it. It’s dangerous to leave P.I. and risk getting busted by the guards, but they both know that Michael has no choice. Michael then reiterates the conundrum they face; all seven men involved in the escape will be unable to make it over the wall in the eighteen minutes between the guards’ yard rounds. They turn the corner and halt to discover C-Note leaning up against the wall. “Mind if I share that with the rest of the class?”
Inside the guards’ room, C-Note continues, “ Apparently, College Boy here did some math, and figured out we got one too many clowns in the car. One of us is in here digging, but his seat ain’t guaranteed.” Michael can’t deny this. They need to cut someone from the escape. Sucre throws his shovel down. He’s not digging if he’s not going. Abruzzi mutters that they all know who shouldn’t be included. And as if on cue, the door opens and T-Bag walks in. He senses the conspiracy against him and announces an insurance plan that cements his spot on the escape. “I called up my man on the outside, and I told him our plan. And I told him, in all likelihood, I’ll see him next week.” T-Bag continues, saying that if his contact doesn’t hear from him five minutes before the escape happens and twenty minutes afterwards, the contact will blow the whistle on the entire escape.
Exiting P.I., Abruzzi assures Lincoln that despite T-Bag’s announcement, Abruzzi has plans of his own. Abruzzi will take care of T-Bag’s man on the outside as well as T-Bag himself. At the back of the line, C-Note falls into step with Sucre, hinting that among the escapees, their positions are the most precarious. Michael needs Abruzzi’s plane and Westmoreland’s money, but Sucre is only involved because he was in the right cell at the right time. Sucre, however, trusts Michael. C-Note continues prodding, “Really? How much has he really told you, anyway?... He probably says, the less you know, the better, right?” C-Note leaves Sucre, telling him that he’s happy to break out with Sucre before the rest of the group goes.
On the walk back, Michael turns around and sees a squat yellow hydrant with a wheel crank jutting out from the ground in a remote corner. But Tweener’s sudden arrival interrupts his thought. Tweener asks when he’ll be let on P.I.; Michael had promised to look into it if Tweener stole his watch from Geary. But Michael tells him that it can’t happen right now. Tweener walks away, frustrated and alienated by yet another inmate in Fox River.
Quinn’s stolen car pulls up to the emergency entrance of the New Glarus Methodist Hospital. LJ drives while Veronica keeps pressure on Nick’s bullet wound. Nick has lost a lot of blood, but he’s lucid enough to tell her that if he is admitted to the hospital with a gunshot, the doctors will call the police and blow their cover. “They can’t find the bullet,” he says and begs Veronica to dig it out of the wound. Shocked, but scared, Veronica reaches towards his bloody shoulder.
Alone in the infirmary before his appointment with Sara, Michael jams a mop handle into the grate where he has been pouring corrosive chemicals. The force makes a small hole in the pipe below. Michael produces an origami crane from his pocket and drops it down the grate. Michael watches the crane tumble through the air and flutter into a room below. Michael turns as Bellick’s voice booms from the entrance of the infirmary.“Where’s Scofield?” Michael jumps up, puts the mop back and takes a seat in a chair just in time for Bellick to saunter into the exam room. Bellick informs Michael that he has just searched his cell, but couldn’t find Michael’s credit card anywhere. Michael remains stoic as Bellick explains that he learned of the credit card’s existence from Nika, Michel’s wife. Sara enters as Bellick continues to needle Michael. “ Whaddaya call a girl who gets married to a felon to get into the United States? Why’d she hafta come here anyway, no strip clubs in Whazistan?” Sara instructs Bellick that her infirmary is not a place for him to perform an interrogation. Bellick objects, but complies with her request. Once he leaves, Michael pleads for her understanding as she prepares his insulin. “He’s had it out for me since the day I got here.” Sara doesn’t respond; she simply preps his arm for the shot. Michael tries to go into greater depth as to why he married Nika. She curtly tells him he doesn’t need to explain anything to her. Michael exhibits an uncharacteristic vulnerability when he softly tells her, “But I want to.” Sara avoids his eyes and leaves the room.
