The prison alarm screams and the flood lights fill the yard.
The guards have Manche face down and he’s begging for his life. C.O. JJ yells into his walkie-talkie, “We got a 1098! Inmates over the wall!” JJ wraps his arm around Manche’s thick neck and demands to know who else was involved. Manche gives up the names, “Scofield, Burrows, Sucre. That Vanilla Ice Kid, Bagwell, C-Note, Abruzzi and that bug-eyed J-Cat.” JJ presses him for more and Manche solemnly says, “Westmoreland.”
Pope storms into the infirmary and asks how many inmates escaped. C.O. JJ tells him eight. Pope walks into Sara’s office to see the window gone and the bars removed. His eyes drift down to Westmoreland sitting lifeless in the same place Michael left him.
A-Wing is filled with the sounds of celebrating inmates who know Michael and the P.I. crew are on the run. Pope pushes through the second tier and into Michael’s cell. The toilet is removed and the hole into the wall is exposed. He walks back out onto the tier and looks over the inmates. C.O.s Patterson and Mack run down the tier, “Warden, they just found Bellick.”
Two guards pull Bellick out of the hole. He immediately asks for his shotgun and a C.O. tries to tell him that Pope is already giving orders. But Bellick cuts him off and yells, “Did I stutter? Get me my shotgun!” Bellick fumes and the C.O. flips Bellick his shotgun.
Bellick walks out of the sally port to a crowd of guards surrounding Warden Pope. He’s barking orders over a bullhorn, “Those men made a choice when they went over that wall. And that choice was to become a threat to society again. Some of them are convicted killers. Our job is to ensure the safety of the general population, which means that if we need to bring those men down in order to maintain that safety, then we’ll do it. We’re playing for keeps now, gentlemen.” Pope tells them if the cons are on foot they’ll be about a mile away and if they secured a vehicle, they could be ten miles away. Squad cars and SUVs speed away into the night.
Keeping their heads low and deep in the brush the eight cons hide feet from the sally port. C-Note tells Michael they need to move, but Michael says they have to wait until all the guards are ahead of them. But Sucre points out several K-9 units approaching their location. The dogs are placed into a truck without incident. Michael whispers, “They can’t smell us!” Suddenly, the dogs bark furiously and claw at their cages. Abruzzi grabs Michael and strains, “But they can see us!” The C.O.s draw their weapons and move towards the barking dogs. They shine their flashlights in the brush, but the cons are gone.
The eight men run through the thick forests surrounding the prison.
Veronica drives along a dark road in her rental car. She calls Nick and leaves a message on his phone, “Hey Nick, it’s me. Look, I just landed in Montana and I’m about an hour outside of Blackfoot. And this house, it’s got something to do with Terrence Steadman’s murder, I know it. And if whatever is here can help free Lincoln, then I wanted to say thank you. Bye…” At the other end, Nick’s body is heaped against a chair with a bullet wound to his head.
Vice President Reynolds tells Brinker that she can’t properly fund her campaign without Company help. Brinker is doing her best to sever the ties with Reynolds, but the Vice President is insistent and wants to know why she’s not being backed. Brinker tells her that she’s unable to effect what happens inside the Oval Office and the Company needs someone who can. Brinker says, “You can’t get things done. It’s that simple.” Reynolds defiantly replies, “Maybe you don’t know me so well.” Brinker suggests that Reynolds should drop out of the race, or the Company will do it for her.
Lincoln holds open a gap in a barbed wire fence. Tweener runs in too quickly and slices his hand on the wire. When Haywire approaches, Lincoln grabs a handful of his white jumpsuit and tells him to take it off. But Haywire can’t, he’s not wearing anything underneath. Abruzzi pushes Haywire through, they’ll deal with Haywire later.
The men come upon an old mill. With Abruzzi leading the pack, he kneels and looks over the property. Sucre and C-Note ask Abruzzi where the van is. Abruzzi says, “Ye of little faith,” then runs off. The others follow.
The men find a large blue van parked inside. Abruzzi tells Lincoln to drive, and Michael smashes the tail lights to make the van harder to see. Tweener moves his hand after resting on the wall and he leaves a bloody print. Inside the van, Lincoln asks Abruzzi where the keys are. Abruzzi tells him their in the garbage and Lincoln orders Haywire to go get them.
When Haywire jumps out of the car, the rest of the inmates pile in. While Haywire digs through the garbage, Abruzzi hands Lincoln the keys. Lincoln starts the van and speeds past Haywire.
C.O. Stolte updates Pope on the manhunt. They have set up traffic check points and added the names of the escapees to the passenger watch lists at nearby airports. In addition, they’re setting up surveillance and wiretaps on the houses of the inmate’s family members.
Pope turns and address a man investigating the door to the infirmary. The man tells Pope, “Door wasn't forced. Lock wasn't picked. Far as I can tell, they basically just walked right in.” An orderly nearby says it’s impossible because the doors are locked every night, unless someone left it open for them.
The van speeds down the back roads. T-Bag asks Abruzzi why he insisted that Lincoln drive and Abruzzi sit in the seat he’s in. Abruzzi doesn’t answer and moves his fingers underneath T-Bag’s seat searching for the handle of a small pistol. T-Bag’s moves his hands underneath his shirt concealing that he has affixed one side of the handcuffs to his left wrist. Before Abruzzi can pull the trigger, T-Bag reaches out and cuffs the other side to Michael’s right wrist. Abruzzi says that won’t stop him and forces the muzzle against T-Bags temple. T-Bag warns that if John pulls the trigger, then he’ll have to drag T-Bag’s dead body with him and that could jeopardize Abruzzi getting Fibonnaci’s location.
Abruzzi holds T-Bag as Michael searches for the key. T-Bag holds the key in his teeth, and then swallows it before they can pull it out. “Oops,” he taunts Michael and John.
The silhouettes of two men are working in a laboratory. One man explains, “This glycoside saxitoxin hybrid goes to work in the blood stream instantly,” as his hand moves across the beakers before him. Miles away, in her hotel suite, Vice President Reynolds looks over work at her desk. The man continues, “Five minutes is the outside limit even the strongest cardiac muscles can continue to function. After that, massive cardiac arrest with no chance of survival.” Reynolds looks over papers, making notes. He adds that toxicology tests will find nothing, the death will appear to come from natural causes. The man turns and holds out the beaker. He looks to the other man and questions, “This is high treason, you know that, don’t you?” The other man says nothing, then leaves.
Bellick scours the mill area with a team of guards. They find Tweener’s bloody hand print and the dogs have the scent. Another C.O. shows Bellick the broken tail light as Patterson brings over a local man who says he saw a blue van parked there earlier.
The tension grows between Abruzzi and T-Bag until Michael snaps and tells them to shut up. Michael tells them they’re about five miles from the airfield. C-Note leans toward Abruzzi and whispers, “Your jet better be there, Mr. Mafia. You feel me?”
The pilot of Abruzzi’s jet listens to this walkie-talkie and is growing increasingly nervous about the police response in the area. Maggio stands nearby, popping pistachios in his mouth.
Pope grills nurse Katie about the infirmary door being unlocked. Katie defends that she certainly didn’t leave the door unlocked. Pope asks if it was Dr. Tancredi, and Katie does her best to protect Sara but Pope knows she’s hiding something. Pope tells her she’ll be an accessory to the escape if she doesn’t tell him. Katie, ashamed that she’s betraying Sara, tells him, “Sara had a thing for Scofield.”
As the van continues, Sucre quietly says that all he wants to do is touch Maricruz’s belly and connect with his baby. Lincoln alerts them to a police roadblock ahead that cuts off their path to the airfield. Lincoln rolls the van off the road. Tweener panics and the cons go over their options. Michael sees a dirt road not far ahead and Lincoln moves the van towards it.
The cons bounce around the inside of the cab. Michael is growing tired of being wrist locked with T-Bag and tells him he’s going to get the key one way or another. The van lurches to a stop. The wheels spin in the mud and the men jump out to push it.
A man in a suit pushes a case of water bottles into the kitchen of a hotel in Washington D.C. A guard asks to see ID, and the two men with the cart flash badges that read “SECRET SERVICE.” The guard nods and the men place the water bottles on a table intended for an upcoming speech.
The van is stuck and Lincoln jumps out of the driver’s seat. Michael tells them that the airfield is about two miles from where they are and Abruzzi says they need to move. After the cons take off, Michael grabs Tweener. “This is as far as you go my friend,” Michael tells him. He tells Tweener that he’s lucky he hasn’t told the other men what he knows and tells Tweener to go. Tweener knows Michael is right, and runs off on his own. T-Bag looks down the road, “We got trouble, Pretty!” Michael and T-Bag sprint off to catch the others.
A helicopter buzzes overhead, searching the brush with its spotlight. The cons run blindly through the woods. They crash through the tree line and suddenly stop in their tracks. The cons stand on a rock ledge over looking a rock quarry, the ground is two hundred feet below them. For a moment it’s quiet, but the helicopter is coming back.
The cons press their bodies against a rock outcropping as the helicopter races over them. C-Note yells out, “There is no way we’re going to make two miles like this. Not with that bird up there!” Sucre looks down to the base of the quarry and sees a small mobile home next to a beat up old car. He yells back, “We are if I got something to do with it!”
Inside a garage next to a rustic Midwest farm house, a young girl stands next to her bike on a workbench. She spins a wheel and listens to the clicking sound of a playing card smacking the spokes. Behind her, Haywire watches through a dirty window.
The air strip controller walks up on Maggio and the pilot. Maggio turns to talk with him, at the same time he draws his gun from his coat pocket and keeps it behind his back. The controller tells them there’s no traffic allowed after sundown. Maggio tells him that they had some mechanical problems and that they’ll be on their way shortly. The controller turns and walks away and when he’s clear from Maggio’s view, slides a cell phone from his coat. He quietly tells someone, “Hey, it’s me. We got an unidentified aircraft out here at Goose Park. Think you better have a look at it.”
Sucre sits behind the wheel of the beat up old car on the floor of the quarry with Lincoln looking over his shoulder. Sucre boasts that hotwiring that old car will be easy for him.
Michael and T-Bag sit and rest nearby and C-Note kneels next to them and asks if Mexico is a place for a man to raise a family. Michael says it will certainly be dangerous and they probably won’t have much of a life. C-Note says that at least it will be a life and there’s no way he’s leaving his family behind.
Sucre pulls wires from the steering column with a big smile on his face. John and Lincoln watch as Sucre sings, “Red’s the juice. White’s the ground. Strike ‘em together and we blow this town...” Nothing happens, the engine doesn’t even click. Abruzzi walks to the front of the car and flips the hood. The three of them look down into an empty hole where the engine should be.
Haywire creeps into the garage and moves towards the girl. She sees him and backs away. Haywire pauses and stares at the girl. Then, he flips her bike off the table and moves towards the entrance. On the way out, he grabs an old fashioned football helmet from a shelf and smashes it down on his head. He apologizes to the girl, and then pedals into the night.
Bellick stands at the front of the ditched van giving Pope an update, “Engine’s still warm. And I’m not seeing any other tire tracks out here. They’re on foot. And judging by how hot this engine is, they haven’t gotten far. Five, ten minutes ahead of us at the most.” In a command center at the prison, Pope marks off Bellick’s location on a giant map. He traces the roads with police units near Bellick, then somewhat relieved says, “Brad, this could be over quicker than we thought. We got ‘em boxed in.” Bellick smiles and hangs up the phone.
C.O. Stolte enters the command center and gives Pope a status about Sara. None of the staff spoke with her; she left suddenly in the afternoon, and then returned for about an hour. She’s not answering her phone and the Chicago police are obtaining an emergency warrant to enter her apartment. Stolte pauses a moment, then asks Pope if he’s going to call the governor about his daughter. Pope knows he has to do something, but this isn’t the time.
Patterson tells Bellick the dogs picked up two trails, and they head in opposite directions.
Veronica walks around the back of the home in Blackfoot. She slides close to the house and looks inside the kitchen. Veronica stands outside watching Terrence use a blender to turn vegetables into juice. Terrence leaves the kitchen and Veronica tries the backdoor. The door opens and she quietly moves into the kitchen then slowly walks through the rest of the house.
Vice President Reynolds stands behind a podium before a group of reporters. She finishes a statement about tax cuts, then reaches over to grab a bottle of water. A reporter asks her a question as the Vice President twists off the top. She answers the man’s question, then brings the bottle up and takes a drink. In the back of the room, a man begins moving from reporter to reporter whispering something in their ears. One by one, the reporters hurry from the conference. The Vice President tries to call order, but she’s stopped by a secret service agent. He whispers in her ear and the bottle of water slips from her hand.
Lincoln and C-Note sprint ahead of the group as they come upon a farm. Sucre and Abruzzi follow them into a barn, but T-Bag and Michael are dragging far behind. When T-Bag and Michael finally enter the barn, Lincoln and Sucre close the doors behind them. Lincoln grabs T-Bag and forces him down on the hood of a car parked in the barn. Sucre grabs a pair of rusty garden shears as T-Bag struggles to get free from the group. Sucre clamps the rusty blade down on the metal chain between the cuffs, but the blade is too dull and doesn’t do a thing. “Guess it was just meant to be, hey now fellas?” T-Bag taunts them. Behind T-Bag, Abruzzi raises an axe over his head then sinks the axe blade into T-Bag’s wrist. T-Bag screams wildly.
The others circle around, stunned at what Abruzzi just did. “He’s lucky I didn’t take this to his head,” Abruzzi says with satisfaction. Sucre stutters, unable to grasp what happened. Outside, the farmer stands near the barn with a shotgun, “Hello?” he calls out. The farmer racks his shotgun, and then walks back to his house still suspicious about the scream he heard. Lincoln tells the crew to move; Sucre hesitates and argues that they can’t leave T-Bag. T-Bag shakes on the ground, his severed hand lying close to his face. Sucre knows he can’t stay and follows everyone out.
Bellick charges through the woods surrounded by dogs and C.O.s. At the same time, Tweener sprints through the woods until he comes to a road with a line of cars being delayed by construction. Tweener hears the dogs behind him and looks to the road at a horse trailer. He dashes across the road and climbs into the back. A construction worker waves the cars through, Tweener is in the clear.
Pope calls the governor and prepares to tell Governor Tancredi the news about the escape and his daughter. When the governor answers, Pope apologizes for calling him but before he can finish, Tancredi cuts him off, “I suggest you turn on your TV, Warden,” then hangs up the phone.
Pope hurries to his office where Becky and the C.O.s are standing around a television. A news anchor reports that the President was admitted to a hospital where he then suffered a massive heart attack. Doctors were unable to save him. The anchor continues to say, “And keeping with protocol, Vice President Reynolds is in an undisclosed location, being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.”
Vice President Reynolds stands in the hotel kitchen holding one hand in the air, and the other on a Bible held by a local judge. She takes the Presidential oath surrounded by aides and secret service men. Kellerman stands proudly behind her. She excuses herself and on the way out crosses Brinker. Reynolds looks into Brinker’s eyes and says, “And you said I couldn’t get things done.” Brinker tries her best to stay on Reynold’s good side, but Reynolds won’t budge. She blows off Brinker and exits.
Chicago Police officers stand around Sara’s apartment door. One cop shouts that the have a warrant and unless she opens the door, they’re going to have to force their way in. When there’s no answer, they kick open door and file into the apartment. They round the corner and move to the living room where they find Sara. She lays face down, an empty bottle of morphine and a used syringe within arm’s reach. The officers holster their weapons, knowing that Sara has overdosed.
Tweener rides in the horse trailer, curled up and out of sight, fear covers his face. The truck and trailer pass a sign, “ST. LOUIS – 256.”
A playing card clicks on the spokes of Haywire’s stolen bike. His helmeted head twitches back and forth as he keeps a look out for police.
The five remaining cons dive into a ditch when they see a police SUV parks at the end of a bridge near them. “Just 500 yards and this whole thing is over.” Abruzzi warns, “Every second we stay here is another chance for them to find the plane!” A squad car races across the bridge and Michael signals them to move. As the others go, Lincoln grabs his brother, “If this doesn’t work out, I just want you to know…” Michael smiles, he knows. They run off after the others.
Just as the men clear the bridge, they’re spotted by the SUV. The officer at the wheel demands that they stop, but the men run on.
Veronica walks through the Steadman house and into the living room. She creeps up to a large leather chair next to a fireplace. Terrence sits asleep, but hears Veronica and slowly wakes up. “Hello Terrence,” Veronica says confidently. Terrence looks at Veronica with uncertainty.
The cons rush a small hill leading up to the airfield and they see the plane waiting.
The pilot fires up the engines and closes the door behind him, they can’t wait any longer.
The five men race down the run way, squad cars charge in from the surrounding area.
T-Bag stumbles through the woods, clutching his injured hand. Dogs bark behind him.
The plane rolls down the tarmac, full throttle. The cons stand at the foot of the runway and try to flag the plane down, but it’s too late.
The jet lifts off and flies over their heads. Celebration turns to panic. “What do we do now?” Sucre rasps, trying to catch his breath.
“We run!” Michael says.
The five remaining inmates run off into a field adjacent to the run way, the police chasing after them.
[Edit]
Top Stories
