Originally published May 17, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
Shaun Munro reviews the seventh episode of Prison Break season 5…
“Wine Dark Sea” may have felt relatively low-energy at times compared to Prison Break‘s last few action-packed episodes, but as we enter the season’s third act, it also got things well and truly moving with Mike and co. finally leaving Yemen, presumably for good.
It initially seemed like Michael might spend most if not all of the episode on the boat headed to Greece, but thankfully we fast-forwarded to them arriving in Crete, with Mike awaiting Sara’s arrival to perform a blood transfusion. Unfortunately, despite that dubious opening claim from Mike Jr. that heroes can die – complete with a wildly on-the-nose comparison to Greek heroes – it wasn’t remotely convincing that Michael was in any real danger. Such is the problem you create when bringing someone back from the dead; it makes any future dabbling with mortality a lot less believable.
If Mike’s blood poisoning subplot ultimately felt quite rushed, at least it quickly got to his reunion with Sara, and Sarah Wayne Callies finally got a chance to actually show off her acting chops after largely being relegated to moldy stateside diversions so far this season.
This led to the utterly unsurprising double-twist that, indeed, Jacob really is Poseidon. They tried to pull a 24 and hide the twist in plain sight, but it probably would’ve been better if they just didn’t even hint at Jacob’s possible villainy at all until this episode. Still, there are some interesting implications here, especially Jacob’s reveal that Sara actually did privately renounce Michael to him following his death, an unexpectedly realistic character beat for a show this patently absurd. Expect it to be promptly forgotten about, though.
Elsewhere, Ja was written out all of a sudden, and it’s honestly pretty tough to believe he’d truly be happy out in the middle of nowhere with little chance of phone reception or reliable Internet. Again, it’s a shame they never did much with the character; Rick Yune deserved better. Meanwhile, A&W and Van Gogh were back to boring usual this week, touching base with Poseidon and witnessing Kishida’s murder, but doing almost nothing of interest.
But at least, at long last, Sucre made his long-telegraphed return to the fold, providing a getaway boat for Michael, Linc and Whip. It was fun to see Fernando and Michael reunited, and it seems like he’s surely going to be around for the rest of the season. Touch wood that he doesn’t die at the eleventh hour to save his pals, though this is more likely a fate that’s going to be afforded to Whip.
Episode seven was a decidedly uneven instalment on the whole, touting some of the season’s most impressive production with the tanker set-piece, but unforgivably skimping out on actually showing the ship explode, instead cheaply fading to white in deeply unsatisfying fashion. Tonally, things were all over the place too, with some misplaced comedy both intentional (Sucre’s sex dolls) and not (Michael over-swiping on Sara’s phone to find a picture of her husband).
Though the boat setting threatened to promise a glacial pace and restricted scope, this episode largely kept up a decent clip with a consistent doling out of revelations and events. The through-line is now extremely clear for the final two episodes, with Mike et al returning home to confront Poseidon, and it’ll be interesting to see how Michael’s fugitive status is dealt with once the day is won.
Also, could we see the return of T-Bag to help improbably save the day? It would be nothing if not entertaining as Hell, that’s for sure.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more TV rambling.
