Wentworth Miller

Ok, so now we are into Episode Three of Prison Break and I’m going to be less and less detailed about the people in the show outside of Wentworth.  Ok?  I mean, you can read the recaps yourself online.  I want to focus on the intelligence of the character Wentworth is playing.  Michael Scofield is one smart cookie.

After his toes are cut off, he is sent to the infirmary where he is questioned by Tancredi about the incident.  He simply tells her “please don’t make me lie to you”.  Once she has him bandaged up, he is in his cell with his foot elevated and the first signs of doubt start to show.

He still rakes the next day so he can speak to Linc who is infuriated about the toe incident.  Michael tells him to drop it because Abruzzi is necessary for the escape because he owns a charter flight business that operates an airstrip ten miles from Fox River.  They need Abruzzi.  Scofield questions Linc if they can trust Sucre because he needs to break out through the cell and if they can’t trust Sucre, it’s all a bust.

Michael and Sucre are in their cell, Michael is shown in a flashback in his old apartment examining the plans on his walls.  There is a single post-it that reads “Cell Test”.  Back in the present, Michael produces a cell phone from under his covers.

During P.I in the laundry room, Michael opens a small electrical box and Scure watches as Michael hides the phone in a towel and puts it in the box.  Sucre warns Michael of the extra 2 years to his sentence if he is caught with it.

Linc overhears Sucre discussing the cell phone with other inmates and uses it to hint to Bellick that he knows something and in order to give up his information, he wants some extra time outside.  Linc tells him of Sucre and the phone.

Bellick confronts Sucre who won’t talk and loses his conjugal visits over it.  Michael and Linc are in the laundry room and Sucre tells Scofield that he better get to make all the calls he wants with the phone.  Michael tells him it is impossible and breaks it in half, it was a sculpted and painted bar of soap.  Scure is livid.  Scofield explains that they did it to see if they could trust him.  Scure says that Michael continues to dig in their cell, he is tattling.

Tancredi exams Michaels foot and shows concern for his well-being.  Michael talks the doc into keeping the secret of prisoner misconduct and tells her of a story about how his brother helped him face his fear of monsters when he was a child.  The doc offers to send him to protective custody but he refuses.

Sucre packs for a transfer because he only has 16 months left and if he gets caught with a hole in his wall, he gets 5 years added.

Abruzzi prevents T-bag (the inmate from the bolt incident) from stabbing Scofield with a jagged-edged gutter.  Abruzzi tells T-bag that everything runs through him.  One of Abruzzi goons sends Michael into an empty kitchen where Abruzzi is waiting.  T-bag shows up with his gutter.  T-ag is preparing to gut Scofield and Abruzzi puts a stop to it again.  He tells Michael that he did that because he knows he has gone about getting the information the wrong way and he wants the information Michael has.

Michael reveals to Abruzzi that he needs a trade.  A plane for Fibonacci.  Abruzzi pressures Michael for information about the escape but Michael won’t talk.

Michael is in his cell now with a hollowed out book that stores his homemade allen wrench.  Before he can unscrew the toilet, Bellick brings in his new roomie who came from the pych ward and his name is “Haywire”.  Michael gets a chance to tell Linc about Haywire and tell him that he will have to work at night.  Michael tells Linc that he is 3 days behind schedule and that the margin of error for the project is zero days.

That night when he is sure Haywire is sleeping, Michael starts to unscrew the bolts on the toilet.  He feels Haywire’s eyes on him and asks what is wrong with him.  Haywire answers,

“I have a neuroanatomic lesion affecting my reticular activating system,” Haywire replies. Michael asks, “What’s that mean?”

Haywire replies, “It means I don’t sleep. At all.”