In my Heroes column and on my blog, I’ve been discussing this – in my mind – completely unfounded belief that Heroes is on the verge of cancelation. People go on and on about how the ratings have gone down, but consider this: Is anybody out there proclaiming that Prison Break is a show in crisis? I mean, they’re on Fox, a station notorious for not giving their programs much of a chance before axing them. Fox also has a long line of hit shows to fall back on (which NBC does not). Perhaps most significant, this past week, Heroes LOST 330,000 while Prison Break gained 175,000 – yet Heroes STILL brought in over two million more viewers.
People are so dramatic when it comes to Heroes.
But this column isn’t devoted to Heroes, it’s about Prison Break. Last week I complimented the way Bellick’s death was handled, and that continued into this week. Sure, the St. Brad stuff got a little heavy handed at times (T-Bag fondly reminiscing about Bellick was perhaps the biggest stretch), but I thought it was an overall sweet way for his character to be remembered. I was especially pleased with the way Mahone refused to deliver the goods unless Bellick’s body was brought to his mother. And I liked Sucre’s feeling of responsibility to contact Mrs. Bellick.
I do wish, though, that they devoted this sort of attention to rehabilitating his character when he was alive. Really, he spent practically all of this season as background furniture. But that’s really just nitpicking at this point.
I’ve noted many times before, but I think it’s worth repeating: this season has worked best when the characters are separated into smaller groups. We had Sucre and Lincoln together, loosely aligned with Gretchen and T-Bag. Then we had Michael and Sara together, and Mahone on his own. The Michael/Sara stuff was probably the weak link of the episode, but I found it mostly inoffensive. I did actually appreciate the fact that somebody recognized Michael, who is supposed to be a fairly high profile fugitive at this point, if I’m not mistaken. I don’t for a moment believe that they’d actually kill off Michael, but I do think there’s one interesting possibility: What if, following his brain surgery, Michael loses the ability to decipher these puzzles?
Speaking of puzzles, I got a kick out of Sucre’s line, in response to Michael and Mahone figuring out the architect code, “who else other but you two would see that?”
Oh, and I actually really liked the twist that the receptionist is actually a secret agent. A while back I had complained that an f’n office secretary was accepted into this super secret organization. This at least makes sense of that otherwise peculiar decision.
While I’m not a huge fan of T-Bag and Gretchen being included in on this mission, I did enjoy their performances this episode. At his core, T-Bag is supposed to be a smooth talking, quick thinking guy. It was nice seeing him use his instincts to get out of a potentially troublesome situation. Likewise, I also like how they’re making the viewers guess when it comes to Gretchen’s allegiances. Is she playing both sides? Is she going to turn on Michael and Lincoln? Is she just using T-Bag? Is her rejoining The Company a farce in order to get information? We really can’t be sure.
And next week, it’s the dripping sweat scene from Mission Impossible 1! See you then…
Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, and Smallville. You can visit his blog at A Case of the Blog.
