“He’s my brother... he’s my brother!”
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Let’s hear it for forward momentum! After four episodes, Michael and his new team are finally out of Ogygia, and now the real fun can begin. Once the guards abandoned the prison, it was pretty clear that Michael and company couldn’t stay locked up, and it was extremely satisfying to see Michael and Lincoln come back together. That was done so well that it doesn’t even matter that FOX gave away that scene months ago in a trailer.
Even though Michael’s fellow escapees seem like paper thin characters, they’re starting to grow on me. And it was pretty amusing that Ja took every opportunity to eat once he got out of the prison, even when it wasn’t part of Michael’s plan. What’s interesting here is that Michael has clearly held out on Whip, who didn’t even know that he had a brother. It seems like Whip saw himself as Michael’s surrogate brother and now he feels displaced by Lincoln’s sudden introduction. That could be a fun dynamic as they try to stay alive. Would Michael abandon his new crew if it meant saving his real brother? Quite possibly.
It’s a good thing that there was so much happening in the closing minutes, as the actual escape from the prison just wasn’t very exciting. Abu Ramal was like John Abruzzi mashed up with a stock terrorist character, except without a real sense of menace. Even forcing Ramal to work with Michael undercut his effectiveness as an adversary, so his demise was probably the best option here. As a villain, Ramal was a cartoonish failure. As a martyr for violent fanatics, he’s suddenly much more dangerous.
Speaking of villains, it’s time to talk about T-Bag. This miniseries has bizarrely positioned T-Bag in a more antiheroic role, even though he really doesn’t deserve it. And he certainly hasn’t earned his redemption. Paul Kellerman never fully earned it either, but at least we saw him struggle for it. When the original series ended, Kellerman was still haunted by the sins of his past. And as we saw here, his personal life was a disaster, even if he wasn’t the bad guy. It’s a little wasteful to bring Kellerman back for what amounts to an extended cameo across three episodes, but he did have an important moment before he checked out. Kellerman placed doubt in the mind of Van Gogh about when he and A&W will inevitably turn on each other. If anyone knows anything about killing their partner, it’s Kellerman!
If Kellerman wasn’t the big bad, then Poseidon had to be someone that the audience already knew. I have to admit that the potential reveal of Jacob as Poseidon was a surprise, because on the surface, it made even less sense than using Kellerman as the villain. That said, this could work if everything we know about Jacob is simply a constructed identity. Who could want Michael under his thumb badly enough that he actually went and married Sara just to have her and Michael Jr. as leverage against him? Although, if we’re supposed to buy Jacob as a next level thinker on par with Michael himself, then why was he dumb enough to allow himself to be photographed standing next to his agents in broad daylight? And why would he arrange for T-Bag to get a robot hand and not plant a tracker on it? Sometimes it just feels like the writers aren’t even trying to deal with these questionable leaps of logic. The twist could work, but the jury is still out on this one.
The Verdict
This episode really turned the corner in the last few minutes, as Michael and Lincoln once again found themselves on the run together. While the villains have been disappointing so far, trapping the brothers and their allies in a foreign country with terrorists out to kill them is an effective escalation of their dangerous journey home. The real test of this revival is going to be whether “Poseidon” really is who he seems to be, and if he can actually be a convincing threat to Michael and his family.
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