- The clock is ticking for America’s favorite inmates, the cons on Prison Break. Actually, the clock is ticking in two different ways after tonight’s great episode. First and foremost, only two new episodes remain before the show runs out of new ones to air due to the interminable writers’ strike. Secondly, the clock is now ticking on Michael Scofield’s plan to escape from the Panamanian hellhole known as SONA. The collapse of the escape tunnel under the prison’s inner wall last week that served the purpose of killing Lechero’s former lieutenant Sammy but also set the escape plan back severely put the would-be escapees in a bind. The episode this week began with the six of them - Michael, James Whistler, Lechero, Bellick, T-Bag and Mahone - discussing how to get their scheme back on track. Just as they got back to digging, a rainstorm created a whole new problem. The water seeping into the ground turned the dirt over the hole into mud and caused the sinkhole the group had been fearing. As a result, Michael was forced to accelerate the schedule for the escape from the next day to the night before. That set a chain of events into motion both inside and outside the prison. On the outside, Michael’s brother Lincoln and Whistler’s girlfriend Sofia were pulled into an impromptu meeting with Susan/Gretchen Morgan, the Company’s representative in Panama. After Sucre, working as an informant for Gretchen, revealed that Michael was having second thoughts about breaking Whistler out, Gretchen wanted to reinforce the need to stick with the plan. She uses a hot iron to burn Sofia as Whistler is forced to listen on the phone. Meanwhile, Michael is busy at SONA figuring out a way to make it out of the prison that night. He settles on knocking out the power to take out the lights but the presence of backup generator is problem. The lights will go off, but with the generator, they’ll come right back on. Using Lechero’s cell phone and Sucre’s access to the grounds as a member of the prison ground crew, Michael gets the information on the make and model of the generator, calls the company that made it and finds out that there will be a 30-second lag between the power going out and the backup generator kicking in. Speaking of kicking….Michael also looks like he’d like to dropkick the annoying Panamanian kid wearing the Tracy McGrady jersey who he’s befriended in SONA. The kid keeps begging to get in on the escape plan, but Michael refuses. However, the kid’s persistence wears him down and by episode’s end, T-Mac is part of the escape. Before the escape can go down, though, Gretchen wants Whistler to give up the mysterious coordinates he has that the company needs. What the coordinates are for, we don’t know. But when pressed, Whistler tears the sheet with the coordinates written on it in half and gives half to Gretchen and promises to other half when Michael, Lincoln, LJ and Sofia are safe outside SONA. However, Sucre is also in need of help, the others just don’t know it. His boss at the prison, a member of the Panamanian military, learns that he’s a wanted man and Sucre is detained. He does, however, manage to sabotage one of the jeeps responsible for night patrols outside the prison, bolstering the escape plan. Inside the prison, though, politics and infighting threaten to undermine it. T-Bag is intention stirring the pot and forms an alliance with Lechero that results in Lechero pulling a knife as the escape begins and threatening to kill Whistler unless Lechero and T-Bag get to go through the escape hole first. Mahone resists T-Bag’s goading and also turns down an offer from Bellick to partner up. As the episode comes to a close, Lincoln hijacks a bus and crashes it into a light pole near a prison, setting off a chain reaction that knocks out the power at SONA. The lights go out and Michael gives the order to go as things come to a close for the week. Next week we’re going to find out who escaped, who got left behind and more details on the Company and its grand conspiracy. However, with only two episodes left (damn you, writers and networks), the plug is going to get pulled prematurely on what has become a fantastic season of PB. So until next week…..
- Good riddance, Bob Knight. The General has resigned as the head basketball coach at Texas Tech, and while many around the basketball world laud his career and salute him as he rides off into the sunset, I’m not sorry to see him go and I’ll enjoy college basketball more without his surly arse around. Yes, he has maintained a high graduation rate for his players at every school he’s coached at and many former player praise him for all he’s done to help them. I’m not denying he’s done a lot of good and in a big way, I’m simply saying that the big pile of positives does not cancel out or negate the scores of awful things he’s done and said to hurt people and embarrass those who put their trust in him. I could go on for days listing these incidents, but choking former player Neil Reed in practice, using a bull whip on former player Calbert Cheaney, throwing a flower vase across the room at a secretary in the athletic department offices at Indiana University, telling interviewer Connie Chung that, “If rape is inevitable, why doesn’t the woman just sit back and enjoy it?”, throwing a chair across the court, punching a police officer in Puerto Rico and verbally berating and assaulting an IU student who made the “mistake” of greeting him with “Hey Knight!” in passing on campus highlight those problems well enough. It’s awesome that he influenced so many young guys in such a profound way, but that doesn’t give him carte blanche to act like a classless ass and a boor the rest of the time. Good riddance, Bob. I had to laugh when I heard that he told his staff at Texas Tech that, “I can’t do it anymore. After 42 years (of coaching), I’m tired.” Tired of what? Assaulting people? Sticking your foot in your mouth? I’m tired too, Bob. Tired of your act, that is. Adios, jerk.
- Funny, I thought those Nigerian fraud schemes of wealth and prosperity via the Internet didn’t actually work. I mean, who’s stupid enough to buy what some fraudulent loser is trying to sucker them into by sending thousands of dollars to a stranger for the promise of an unclaimed royal fortune in Africa? As it turns out, unclaimed Nigerian wealth isn’t the only scheme tied to that particular country when it comes to Internet fraud and stupidity. Shannell Monique Mosley, 33, of Houston decided that it would be a good idea to leave her eight kids with little food and no money so she could travel to Nigeria to marry a man she met on the Internet. She was arrested as she got off an Air France jet at George Bush International Airport in Houston and now faces charges of child endangerment and child abandonment. Too bad you can’t be charged for being a moron, because she’s get a life sentence on that one. I don’t know how old her kids are, but since she has eight and you have to figure a year per kid, I’m guessing at least one or two of them are teenagers. However, that doesn’t qualify them to be substitute parents while you waste money they badly need for food, clothing and shelter on a plane ticket to meet some stranger you fell in “love” with online who lives in Nigeria. Are you freaking kidding me? Unless this is the guy behind that Internet scam story and he really does have a royal fortune waiting for him, you need to focus on raising your kids, lady. Stop getting knocked up when you don’t have the money or intelligence to raise the kids you already have and stop flying to other continents to marry dudes you’ve never even met face-to-face.
- The Writers Guild of America has reached a working contract agreement….with The Film Department and Intermedia Films. I’d love to tell you the deal was with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, but those negotiations are still slogging along. These two interim deals allow writers to go back to work on projects with the two aforementioned entities, but a deal for the striking writers as a whole is still a bit down the road. Last week, an upswing in negotiations raised hope that this TV season could be salvaged, but anyone who bought into that is just naïve. The strike is now more than three months old and shows no signs of ending. This has become one of those situations where, when it’s over, there truly will be no winners, only losers and victims.
- A big part of what’s great about Mars Volta has been that they’re not a band for the mainstream. They’re odd, enigmatic, arty and unusual and for those reasons, they will never be hugely popular on a grand scale but will always remain a great band. Their newest album, The Bedlam in Goliath, is perfect evidence for that statement. A bevy of guest musicians add to the band’s already awesome sound, including Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez remains a magician with a guitar, and his chops along make this album worth listening to. Progressive rock may be a passé genre in the eyes of some, but Mars Volta takes it and infuses its own blend of punk, hardcore, funk and psychedelic goodness. Aberinkula is the signature track for the album, but the sound varies enough that you can’t really encapsulate it in one single song. I know I rip on a lot of albums that come out because they’re mainstream crap that is over-produced, bubble gum pop without imagination, thought or real musicianship, but this is one album that is none of those negative things. It’s an amazing sonic experience and you’ll be glad to have it in your collection.
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