"Prison Break" Shut Down (TV Episode 2008) Poster

(TV Series)

(2008)

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9/10
Shutdown and the Five Card Holders
claudio_carvalho19 November 2008
Warning: Spoilers
In Los Angeles, Michael argues with Agent Self since there are six cards and not only one. The agent gives the rest of the day to find a second card holder; otherwise the project would be shutdown by The Powers That Be and the group would be sent to prison. Mahone calls Agent Lang in Gainesville, Florida, and asks her information about the death of his son. Lincoln overhears the conversation. Wyatt tortures Bruce with drugs; when he gets the information that Sara is in LA, he kills his victim. Agent Self meets Director Herb and ask him to call Senator Dalo to give more time to Michael and his crew, but Herb refuses. Roland discovers that his device has copied the PDA of Tuxhorn, and he notes that he received one e-mail from London and two others from a server in Anaheim. They use Sara to help Michael and Roland to break in the building where the server is located. Sara steals a security card, and when she is arrested by the security guard, Michael activates the fire alarm, but he is trapped with Roland in the server room without oxygen. Lincoln rescues them with an ax, and while checking the e-mails from the data copied by Roland, the computer freezes and they discover that the project has terminated. They try to escape but the GPS in their ankles give their position to Agent Self and his agents. They hijack a cab and Michael discovers the fives card holders in a meeting in a power plant in Newport Beach. Agent Self calls himself Senator Dalo and the project restarts, but with him isolated like an island and without the support of Herb. Meanwhile T-Bag deciphers part of Whistler's codes and contacts the Gate's executive White using the identity of Cole Pfeiffer. Lincoln promises Mahone to help him to capture the responsible for the death of his son.

This third episode is engaging and I liked the bond of Lincoln with Mahone. The sympathy he feels for the former FBI Agent, projecting LJ's recent situation in Panama with Cameron, is for me the highest part of the show. On the contrary, the coincidences of the termination of the Scylla's Project and Michael finding the other five card holders is a forced situation, but who cares? Unfortunately the initial chemistry between Michael and Sara is gone and they do not form a romantic pair, actually they look like good partners. The cleverness of Mahone and T-Bag are also great parts of the show. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Not Available"
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5/10
It just keeps getting worse with each next episode, doesn't it?
guest_to_movieland19 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I rate this episode higher than the first two ones (they've got 4 from me) only for Alex and, to some extent, his interaction with Linc. He's probably the only reason I'm still here wasting my time watching the show. He has a strong motivation, and I really sympathize with him and can't wait for him to make that agent pay for what he's done. William Fichtner definitely killed that last scene.

But other than that, episode has almost nothing to offer. They try to play like stakes are extremely high, but in fact they're not. The Company wants brothers (and now Alex) dead and is after them - that's not new, we've been down that road, or at least thought so. Sucre doing what he can for the baby and his loved one is also the exact same motivation as all the seasons before. And I'm okay with that, but it all is just getting too repetitive. Also, the story itself has an assumptions that I find too hard to ignore. And, I guess, my main complain here, when it comes to Shut Down, is the meeting with all the Card Holders. Just why? It doesn't make any sense. It would've been so much more rational for The Company to give all the cards to different people who had never met each other in order to keep it all in secret. But without that the story can't happen, huh? Though the show has had these 'lucky coincidences' before, it had been much more clever. Now, the events just adjust the characters, not vise versa, as it's supposed to be. I've also noticed that characters became too nervous and irritable this season, someone just has to scream and pick a word fight in every single episode. I'm getting tired of it and is kinda dissaspointed, since most of the time Michael is the one who does that. Speaking of him. I feel like he's slowly becoming less interesting, his plans still work, but I don't really have the feeling, that he's always one step ahead, anymore. It's not like he's always been before, but, for instance, I really find it hard to believe that he hasn't at least tried already to find a way to get rid of those GPS trackers. There's always a way. And I expected Michael to be ready if something went wrong.

Overall, I still have a hope that it'll get better, but so far it's only getting worse. Too bad for the show with an excellent 1st season, where it's extremely hard to find any filler or useless or boring episode.
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