Lincoln sits in his cell, quietly praying and prepping himself for his final hours. His cell door slides open and a group of C.O.s move in. Lincoln asks to see his brother, and C.O. Stolte says he can see him in final visitation. Another C.O. moves to shackle Lincoln, but Stolte holds him back and tells Lincoln, “ It’s your last day, Linc. I’d prefer to keep you out of cuffs as much as possible, but I need some assurances.” Lincoln nods and gives his word that there won’t be need for restraints. Stolte takes out a small leather satchel.
Veronica stands in a courtroom before Judge Kessler. “From the outset, Your Honor, Mr. Burrows' case has been tainted by a conspiracy characterized by destruction of evidence, distortion of truth and witness intimidation.” Opposing counsel Peter Tucci objects. He declares that Veronica has no proof behind her claims. Nick jumps in and offers that a video forensic analyst argued the authenticity of the parking garage surveillance video that showed Lincoln assassinating Terrence Steadman. Tucci again quickly interjects that of course, the tape no longer exists. Both Nick and Veronica battle Tucci’s every claim while Judge Kessler listens intently. Veronica tells the Judge that she saw Agent Kellerman shoot and kill her informant, Agent Danny Hale in an attempt to continue the cover up. Tucci presents a document to Judge Kessler, from the Secret Service, stating that there have never been agents with those names enlisted in the Secret Service. Finally, Judge Kessler is fed up with the bickering and declares, “Do either of you have any evidence that is admissible? Even just tangible? Your claims, if true, are terrifying. But anything, or anyone, that could verify your story is either gone, missing or dead.” He needs a few hours to consider both sides.
An electrician peels the dead rat out of the high voltage box for the electric chair. C.O. Geary asks if this is a regular occurrence, the electrician confirms, “Yeah, they’re attracted to heat when they’re cold. Plus, they got collapsible vertebrae or some deal. So they can squeeze through a crack yea big if they’re determined.” The electrician explains that if the rat’s tail touches metal while it’s chewing on the wires, it’s enough to short out the fuse. Bellick wants the fuse changed immediately, but the electrician says he has to notify the state and fill out paperwork. When Bellick tries to get the electrician to look the other way, the electrician resists and says they could all lose their jobs and be brought up on charges. Bellick tells him that only the three of them know. The electrician and Geary both reluctantly go along with Bellick’s plan.
In his cell, Michael checks his watch. Six hours until the execution. Bellick appears at Michael’s cell door and tells Michael that his brother is on the way to final visitation. Bellick watches Michael carefully. “You look surprised.” The lights flicker through the prison when the chair is tested again. Michael exits his cell, head down.
Stolte finishes shaving Lincoln’s head, and thanks him for keeping his word, “We’ll be moving you to final visitation soon.”
Michael paces in visitation, waiting for Lincoln. The door opens, and Lincoln shuffles in, his hands and feet shackled. While one C.O. removes the cuffs, C.O. Patterson attempts to discreetly hand Lincoln a sort of diaper and asks Lincoln to change into it. Lincoln refuses, then turns and smiles at Michael. The C.O.s leave and Lincoln tries to make the best of the situation by joking about his freshly shaved head. Michael starts asking about the appeal, but Lincoln just wants him to stay quiet and accept that the execution is going to happen. He doesn’t want to waste any more time on hoping something happens, and instead, just wants to share memories with his brother.
LJ stomps through Nick’s apartment, Veronica close on his heels. She’s telling him that he can’t go with her to see his father. There will be cops and security everywhere and LJ is still considered a fugitive. Nick’s cell phone rings; it’s Lyle with Judge Kessler’s ruling. Nick looks despondent and Veronica knows their appeal was denied. There’s a knock at the apartment door, Nick sends LJ to the back room and cautiously opens the door. It’s Sara. “Are you the attorneys for Lincoln Burrows?”
In final visitation, Lincoln and Michael play cards. Lincoln grabs a piece of blueberry pancake, but can barely stomach it. Veronica arrives and immediately embraces Lincoln. She reluctantly tells them that they lost the appeal. Veronica also reports that Sara came by and agreed to talk to her father, Governor Tancredi. Veronica tells Lincoln that she couldn’t bring LJ, but she calls LJ on her cell phone. She gives Lincoln the phone. Lincoln tells LJ that he wants him to stick close to Nick and Veronica. LJ tells his father, “I had a dream last night. You and me were working on a house, pounding nails. And in the dream it felt like we were both older. It was really clear, the whole dream. When I woke up, I knew that today wasn’t going to be the end. We’ll see each other again, Dad. I know it.” Lincoln closes his eyes as he cradles the phone.
In a stately government building, Sara urges Governor Tancredi to review the information she took from Nick and Sara. The governor reminds her, “ Being tough on crime and being pro-capital punishment is a philosophy I believe in. It’s also a philosophy I campaigned under and was elected for.” Sara, realizing she’s fighting a losing battle, bitterly shoves the case files to her father. She tells him, “I have to go back to Fox River. I have to be there when they kill this man. The least you could do is review his case. If it helps, pretend it didn’t come from me.”
Time is almost out in final visitation and Lincoln grimly contemplates that the world will remember him as an assassin. He quietly mutters, “I didn’t do it.” Then he explodes with anger, shaking the table and screaming, “I DIDN’T DO IT!” Warden Pope walks into the room, flanked by C.O.s, Lincoln’s time is up.
The C.O.s march a shackled Lincoln towards the room with the electric chair. C.O. Stolte rushes in with a cell phone and hands it to the Warden, “It’s the Governor!” The Pope listens carefully, then closes the phone. He stands before Lincoln and breaks the terrible news. “The Governor has reviewed your case, fully. He’s not granting clemency.” The execution will go forward.
The Governor stands in his office, overlooking the city. The Vice President creeps up behind him from the darkness, “You’ve done your country and your party a great service. It will not go unnoticed.”
Lincoln and the C.O.s walk over a thick yellow line painted on the floor, Bellick moves between Lincoln and the others and tells Michael and Veronica that they can’t go any farther. Veronica softly asks Bellick if she can have one last second with Lincoln, and he obliges. Veronica slowly moves to Lincoln, now crying, and hugs him. She whispers, “I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.” She moves back behind the line, and Pope orders Michael’s cuffs to be removed. He hugs his brother one last time, and then retreats behind the line.
Lincoln’s life flashes back, his friends, his family, his loves. In a memory, Lincoln’s voice echoes, “ I came in here a man. Give me the strength to walk out of here a man.”
The door opens and Lincoln is faced with the electric chair.
Prison Break
Episode 115"By the Skin & the Teeth"
Airdate: 03/27/2006
The clock on the execution room wall reads 11:58 PM. Only minutes before Lincoln Burrows’ execution, Bellick and Pope stand off to the side as two C.O.s strap Lincoln into the chair. Lincoln clenches his hands around the arms of the chair and breathes deeply as the C.O.s attach the final bolts to the headpiece.
Warden Pope nods to Bellick to open the curtain to the viewing room, revealing Michael, sitting on the other side of the glass. Lincoln’s jaw tightens. He scans the people in the viewing room. An older man, off in the corner, removes a baseball hat to reveal salt and pepper hair. Lincoln squints at the man, a trace of recognition in his eyes. Lincoln quietly urges his brother to turn around, but the headpiece restraints restrict his speech. Michael can’t figure out what his brother is trying to tell him.
The C.O.s drop a black hood over Lincoln’s face and step away from the chair. The Pope checks the clock while another C.O. mans the switches that activates the electric current into the chair.
A telephone inside the execution chamber rings and the red light on faceplate blinks furiously.
Without warning, the C.O.s close the curtain.
Michael jumps to his feet, “What’s going on?” He looks to Veronica for an answer, but she has none. He steps closer the window and looks into the black, “What the hell is going on in there?”
Michael anxiously waits in the final visitation room with Veronica. Finally, Warden Pope enters, escorted by a guard. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through all this,” he offers. After another tense moment, the jingling of chains and shackles intensifies. Lincoln numbly pads around the corner, guided by a C.O.. Michael asks what happened and Pope tells him that new evidence has surfaced that Judge Kessler felt warranted a delay of the execution. Veronica quickly exits, heading out to get more information from Judge Kessler. Once she’s gone, Lincoln, still in shock, asks Michael if he saw the man in the room. Michael is confused by his brother’s question and says he did not. Lincoln moves forward and grits his teeth, “It was dad…” Michael says that it’s not possible. There were only a few people in the viewing room, Michael contends, and why would their father return now, nearly thirty years after he left them? But Lincoln is sure. He saw their father.
“Why is he still alive?” the Vice President furiously asks Agent Kellerman and Samantha Brinker. Kellerman tells her that new information has been leaked to the Judge. The Vice President and Brinker are quick to point the finger at Kellerman’s deceased partner, Agent Danny Hale. Kellerman counters that if Hale had given Veronica anything of value, she would have brought it to Judge Kessler during the appeal. Kellerman frankly implies that the leak could have come from The Company. The Vice President orders them to find the leak.
Peter Tucci, the Vice President’s council, and Veronica sit before Judge Kessler in his chambers where the Judge explains why he granted the stay. He received a folder with two pieces of paper inside. “One is Terrence Steadman’s autopsy report. In it, his appendix is noted as present and unremarkable. The other paper is an operative report from when Mr. Steadman was twelve years-old. The procedure was an appendectomy.” Tucci is suspicious of the evidence’s authenticity, Veronica wastes no time requesting that Lincoln’s conviction be overturned. The Judge says that he’s delaying the execution for two weeks while he analyzes the reports and exhumes the body of the Vice President’s brother. Tucci shouts that an exhumation is a drastic step, but the Judge defends that it’s the only way to be sure that the body in the ground is actually Steadman.
Michael stands at the phones in the yard. Veronica eagerly fills him in on the events that took place in the Judge’s chambers.
Back in his cell, Michael stands with his arm out the front doors, using a mirror to check the location of the guards. He has filled Sucre in on all the events involving Lincoln, and Michael tells him that he’s not going to wait around hoping that the body is not Terrence Steadman’s. If they have two more weeks, Michael wants to get back to work on their escape plan.
Pope stands in the door of Lincoln’s Ad Seg cell. He’s never seen anything like this before; Lincoln clearly has people you will do anything to get him out of Fox River. As the Warden turns to leave, Lincoln asks Pope who was in the viewing room for his execution. Warden Pope flips through a stack of papers and tells Lincoln, “those present were your brother and attorney, Dr. Tancredi and three reporters. Two women and one man.” Lincoln inquires about the man, Pope tells him, “Reporter from the Headline Press. William Prall. You know him?” Lincoln says no, and hangs his head, sad and confused. Pope calls for a guard, who shuts the Ad Seg door.
Sucre holds a mirror while Michael, shirtless, scans the tattoo on his upper right shoulder blade, looking for another way out. Sucre wonders why Michael didn’t just have “Route 66” hidden in the tattoos, and Michael tells him that he had to plan for contingencies. Michael thinks he’s found a new way out, but it’s going to be very dangerous.
Michael, T-Bag, C-Note, Sucre and Westmoreland, decked out in winter P.I. gear, spread salt over the sally port road and clean up the snow around it. After some small talk, Michael gets down to business. As they work, Michael tells them they’re still going out through the infirmary and starting in the guards’ room. Michael tells them the only way to get to the infirmary now is to go through the Psychiatric Ward. Unfortunately, Route 66 will only take them halfway there underground. The rest of the way, they have to cover on foot, above ground. C-Note eyes the three towers surrounding the yard. If they show their faces, they’ll be like ducks in a shooting gallery. But there’s no other way.
Back in their cell, Michael tells Sucre that he has to go back into the walls. He needs to find a way to the psych ward and see the pipes and sewers beneath. Sucre shares C-Note’s concerns about the towers, and Michael agrees. Across the block, Sucre’s cousin, Manche Sanchez, pushes a laundry bin across the catwalks. Sucre tells Michael he might have an idea.
The Vice President speaks at a press conference, she tells the press, “My family and I are more than dismayed by Judge Kessler’s decision to allow the exhumation of my brother.” As she speaks, Nick and Veronica stand by as a small crane lifts a very badly rotted coffin from the snow covered ground. The Vice President continues her passionate speech, saying it’s a stunt by Lincoln’s defense council to put a negative spin on the memory of a good man.
Veronica and Nick comment how convenient it is that Steadman asked for a “green burial.” It is very environmentally friendly, but also a great scheme for someone who wanted to conceal a corpse’s identity.
Sucre and Manche walk through the laundry room. Manche denies Sucre’s mysterious request. Manche wants nothing to do with it and fears what might happen if either of their mothers find out they got in trouble in Fox River. Sucre reminds Manche that he owes Sucre a favor. The two bicker back and forth, reminding each other of old favors, until Sucre pulls his trump card. “The donkey,” he says sternly. Manche is shocked that Sucre would stoop to that level and reminds Sucre that they took an oath to never tell anyone about that incident. Sucre threatens, “Don’t make me break it.”
Lincoln, asleep in his cell, dreams of the past. He is a small boy, walking with his father towards the grand entrances of Wrigley Field in Chicago. Young Lincoln and his father sit close to the field, his father tells Lincoln to watch a nearby pitcher who warms up before the game.
