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From TV Guide Online:
After the Break!
by Mike Flaherty
Clad in the blue-on-blue prison garb of his character, Michael Scofield, Wentworth Miller walks to a soundstage at Chicago’s Studio City when he’s buttonholed by a truck driver. Mistaken for a fellow laborer — the trucker needs help unloading a delivery — Miller calmly steers the wheelman in the right direction, then has a good laugh.
You might wonder what rock the teamster’s been living under, but Miller’s good humor seems entirely appropriate. As it nears its mid-season cliff-hanger on Nov. 28, Prison Break has solidified into the kind of hit that can ask fans to stay loyal for a possible six-month stretch. (Its Monday-at-9 slot reverts to Fox’s 24 in January, and Prison Break might not return with new episodes until May.)
What appeared at first as a bizarre but relatively straightforward premise — Miller’s Scofield stages a bank robbery so he’ll be put in prison, where he can bust out his wrongly convicted brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) — has been revealed as a mere point of entry into a deliriously labyrinthine plot. In addition to its Oz-style Big House action (toe severing, eye gouging, gut stabbing), Prison Break incorporates a shadowy government conspiracy, a detective story and multiple family dramas. "The more you open up this thing, the more intricate it becomes," says costar Peter Stormare (Fargo), who plays incarcerated and embattled mob boss John Abruzzi. "It’s magnificent."
As Break makes its way through November sweeps, the conspiracy net tightens and tempers rise among the would-be escapees. "This show is only as good as the tension between its characters," Miller says. "You have x number of guys all trying to break out, none of whom trust each other, except for perhaps Lincoln and Michael. Seeds of doubt and suspicion are sown, and animosities spring up that threaten to unravel the plan." Michael will even catch flak from his previously trusting cell mate, Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco), who’ll suspect he’s being used by his blueprint-tattooed buddy.
Michael entered Fox River Penitentiary as a soft-spoken structural engineer, but his cool facade will start to collapse as the pressures of prison life take their toll. A recent episode saw him take a crowbar to a fellow escape-plotter and revealed that he’s been under psychiatric care on the outside. "It’s more of an uncovering than an evolving," Miller says. Still, he adds that "people have died as a direct result of his plan, and that has to weigh heavily on his soul. His hands are dirty, and I think he’s coming to realize that they will remain so." Does Michael have it in him to kill? "That’s a good question," Miller purrs enigmatically. "One we may see answered."
Find the rest of this Prison Break article in this week's issue of TV Guide, on newsstands Thursday.