Geneva Convention: What I Learned from Prison Break

It's time for another edition of "What I Learned," the not-even-close to regular post where I breakdown what a particular television watching experience yielded me in the way of knowledge. And by "particular television watching experience," I mean Prison Break, because let's face it, any time I've dusted this bit off, it has been as a reaction to the ridiculous Fox television show.

When we last left our heroes, Michael was being taken out of Sona Prison, the Company planned escape of James Whistler had failed and Lincoln and Sucre were traipsing through a Panamanian jungle buying up real estate and blasting a boombox. Would tonight's Winter Premiere fill us in on any of these secrets, specifically what Sucre and Lincoln were doing with said boombox?

Let's find out.

It's time for "What I Learned:" Yet Another Prison Break Edition! (SFX: slightly bored fanfare!)

First Thing: Sara is most likely, probably, could be, maybe, maybe not, definitely not dead.

The biggest surprise of the first portion of this year's Prison Break was the Gwyenth Paltrow'ing of Dr. Sara Tancredi, Michael's kinda-sorta girlfriend. Since the show is on Fox (during the "family hour" I might add), we didn't actually see her head in the box when Lincoln opened it up in the back of a hotel parking garage, but we saw enough of it to figure out what happened. And since according to every article written about the show, Sarah Wayne Callies had such steep contract demands that the producers killed her off in the most vicious way possible to prove a point (and the WGA thought they were playing hardball by canceling the Golden Globes), it seemed pretty certain that Sara Tancredi wasn't going to get the controversial head replacement surgery that she would desperately need to get back on the show.

That is, until tonight.

Over the course of the hour, we were told no less than four times, that Sara was dead. At first, I found this to be completely hilarious. Do the writers have it in their now defunct contracts that they have to mention Sara once every fifteen minutes? But then, like a switch being turned on, I realized that every mention was a not-so-clever set-up to the potential return of Sara Tancredi. Methinks Prison Break doth protest too much.

For starters, Lincoln's son L.J. told his father that he didn't actually see Sara get her head chopped off. Rather, he closed his eyes and just "heard it." Hmm. Interesting. If watching television and movies has taught me anything, it's that lead characters don't get killed off-screen (SPOILER ALERT: unless it's in a Coen Brothers movie). And since Prison Break doesn't seem to be as dense as Cormac McCarthy, I'm going to say that it's certainly possible that Sara is still living.

Need more doubt cast? Later in the episode, when Michael confronted Gretchen about the decapitation, she flatly denied it. Now, you could think that she just didn't admit to killing Sara for the hell of it, but, this is a woman who has continually done everything she could to needle both Lincoln and Michael. And now, she's going to turn down the opportunity to taunt Michael about killing his beloved and putting her head in a New Balance shoe box? Somehow I doubt it.

So what's my new theory? The producers aren't sure yet if they are going to bring Sara back to life, but they've laid enough groundwork, so that if they do, they can cut together a nice "previously on" Prison Break showing that they "had this in mind all along." We'll all be looking forward to that.

Second thing: I literally have no idea what's going on with this show.

All my theories about Sara aside, the undeniable fact about this current season of Prison Break is that I haven't the first clue about what's happening. Seriously. At this point, it barely makes any sense. During a lot of this episode, I felt like Gena Rowlands in The Notebook: confused, sad, happy and nostalgic for the better times when I could follow the plot to this show.

Why does the Company still need Michael to break Whistler out?

Why does the Company need Whistler out?

Why is everyone mad at Lechero?

Why didn't Mahone go to jail in America?

Why isn't T-Bag in more than one scene per week?

Did they really waterboard Jodi Lyn O'Keefe?

Speaking of T-Bag, did he manage to make a "cock" joke (as in rooster) this week?

Isn't this show on during the family hour?

Seriously, the only questions I can even remotely find an answer for are the last three (yes, yes, and yes, if you're keeping score at home). And the worst part is that it's not because Prison Break is this labyrinthine television show that demands close viewing and critical thinking. It's a comic strip come to life. If I, a loyal fan who's seen every episode, can't follow this show, what are other people thinking? Normally I don't mind when this show doesn't make any sense, but since tonight's episode was so incredibly bland (I think the technical term for this is "meh"), the plot inconsistencies bothered me even more.

Third thing: Sucre is still on this show.

Yep. He is. And he's still sweating. And he's still running packages into the prison and, presumably, he's still digging graves and melting away the metal fence with his plastic jug filled with acid. I would say I don't know what Sucre is still doing on this show, but I enjoy his ridiculous character so much, that Prison Break wouldn't be the same without him. Whether Sucre is explaining to Linc that the reason he's still working at the prison and still running drug packages inside is because his beloved (MARICRUZZZZZZZZZZ!) doesn't have health care or thanking Michael for everything that he's done for him, Sucre has a laugh per screen time percentage that's topped only by T-Bag. Doesn't Sucre remember that he only had a few months left on his prison sentence when Michael helped him escape? And doesn't he remember that Maricruz (MARICRUZZZZZZZZZZZZ!) ended up dumping her other boyfriend anyway to be with him? If I was Sucre, I'd be straight up pissed off at Michael for ruining my life. But Sucre just smiles, sweats and rubs his shaved head. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Fourth thing: The writers forgot about the boombox.

You would think that at some point tonight, the trip that Sucre and Lincoln took into the woods during the Fall Finale would have been mentioned, at the very least, by Sucre and Lincoln in one of their scenes together. But if you thought that, you'd be wrong. Not only wasn't this even referenced, but it was so completely and utterly ignored that if I didn't go back and read my last post about Prison Break I don't think I'd believe that it even happened. It's not just that woods scene didn't get talked about, it's that Lincoln and Sucre were already planning another scheme together. It's as if they completely forgot about the woods, the boom box, the house they rented and the beach where Lincoln buried a bunch of secret supplies to help facilitate the escape from Sona. Part of me is angry about this, but honestly, it's so quintessentially Prison Break that I absolutely love it. This show is so full of MacGuffin's that Alfred Hitchcock himself would probably cry foul.

BONUS: Someone is going to die next week!

At least according to the promo. My guess? Sammy. Duh.