The Fall season begins with a bang as Prison Break returns from it’s Summer vacation (same thing for students as school starts for everyone too, yay!). Today also marks the first of my TV recap posts which will include some synopsis, some opinion, some insight, and a good deal of screencaps. Overall, I thought that the season 2 premiere for Prison Break was pretty good, but not as good as season 1 yet. Running away from prison doesn’t seem as intriguing as breaking out does it? To set the scene, it takes place roughly 8 hours after their “prison break” from Fox River Penitentiary. The current groups are Michael, Lincoln, Sucre, Abruzzi, and C-Note in one group, T-Bag running around with his left hand chopped off by himself, and Tweener and Haywire each running around separately as well (Haywire might still be riding his bike with a football helmet though). All in all, these guys are aptly named the “Fox River Eight”.
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The question everyone is probably asking themselves when they see the beginning of the episode is, “What happened in the 8 hours between the end of season 1 and the start of season 2?” Surely something happened other than Lincoln growing in his beard at an astronomical pace and Abruzzi getting a fresh haircut. Did they not use their helicopters well or were those dogs they sent out unable to smell them? Also how did T-Bag survive 8 hours with his hand chopped off when people that slit their wrists die from much less damage. I didn’t see him use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, so he can’t possibly lose that amount of blood and not die (although I thought his chopped off arm looked like Luke Skywalker’s arm after his hand got chopped off too).
Amazingly (or unamzingly if you actually paid attention to the opening of the show) Dr. Tancredi is still alive after her overdose of morphine at the conclusion of season 1.
One of the nice additions shown right at the start is the introduction of FBI Special Agent Alexander Mahone. So far he seems like a pretty bright guy that looks like the main antagonist for our heroes. In stark contrast to Captain Brad Bellick, he seems like he really understands how Michael is thinking. I look forward to his work in uncovering what all those tattoos mean without having Michael tell us himself. The question is if some tatoos are double entendres for other significant things he might need to reference in the future, but evade the FBI and Mahone.
I was happy to see that the humor incorporated into the show is still working as well as it did in season 1. Something that 24 and other serial dramas (other than Lost) lack are the witty comments and situations that the characters go through. Particularly in this episode, T-Bag’s assault with a deadly screwdriver to steal a guy’s cooler and hat to Dr. Marvin Gudat’s Veterinary Clinic, T-Bag in general keeps the show light-hearted even with a violent overtone.
Then comes the big shocker. Veronica is killed in the first episode a la David Palmer and Michelle Dessler in season 5 of 24. Of course, there’s no way we would be seeing Terrance Steadman running free, but getting Veronica killed effectively leaves Michael and Lincoln as the last “good guys” of the starting 3 (or 4 if you want to include Nick Savrinn in season 1). In juxtaposition to season 1, it’s a bit ironic that it turns out that Dr. Tancredi lives and Veronica dies. Personally I found her pretty annoying anyway and to think it was going to be so easy to stop a government conspiracy is just wrong.
Overall, I really can’t think of any other way they could start the season. It’s going to be tough to match the first season, but I really hope they pull it off. As the title of the episode says, it really is a “Manhunt“.
[Update] If you missed any episodes on TV and don’t want to download the episode via bittorrent, FOX.com has streaming episodes of Prison Break on their website. No excuse not to watch it now! 
I think Abruzzi (aka Slippery Pete) will get caught first because he has suspiciously short pants.
Kevin wrote on August 25, 2006 at 10:40 pm:
You mean these trousers?
What about the Genius guy. The investigator is going to die in like a finale i think
Jason wrote on August 26, 2006 at 9:54 pm:
I think Haywire will get caught eventually and help out Agent Mahone figure out Michael’s tatoo.