Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched the latest episode of Prison Break.
Prison Break's well-received revival has done a great job of keeping audiences completely out of the loop when it comes to a lot of whatever's happening with Michael, while also hiding a lot of other information from fans. Tonight's episode, "The Prisoner's Dilemma," seemed to pull back the curtain on at least one one the mysteries with the huge reveal that Sara's now-husband Jacob is connected to the mercenaries following her. While speaking with CinemaBlend about the new season, actress Sarah Wayne Callies explained why the twist is so smart.
I thought it was really great. I thought it was brilliantly cast. I'm sure you've read this, but Paul based much of this, the kind of paradigm for the story, on The Odyssey -- hence the name 'Poseidon,' and there's a character called 'Cyclops.' And I think Paul's done a really interesting job of adapting or allowing that influence to resonate through the story. And I think it's really smart, because it creates a world in which all the things that have happened happened for a reason. They didn't just happen because we were off the air for seven years. They happened because there was somebody at the other side of the board who was just as good a chess player.
Sarah Wayne Callies basically echoed what I (and presumably lots of other viewers) thought as soon as Jacob was seen in those final minutes, being a little too friendly and chatty with the two potentially deadly threats. Immediately, everything we thought we knew about Sara's life went right out the window, since there are no guarantees that anything that has occurred in her life happened because of her best intentions. Jacob could very easily have been manipulating her for all the years that they have been together, and possibly before. Sure, there's a slight chance that Jacob could have been an honest person who only got looped into the big conspiracy at a more recent period, it's highly unlikely, since Jacob has only come off as a smarmy and too-understanding schmuck, and not a nervous nelly. But is he Poseidon?
As part of her reasoning, Sarah Wayne Callies brought up how creator Paul Scheuring based Season 5 on Homer's Odyssey, with Michael serving as the long-gone Odysseus, and Sara standing in as an altered version of Penelope, Odysseus' wife and equal in many ways. But whereas Penelope spent years remaining faithful to what she thought was a dead husband, turning aways suitor after suitor, Sara actually let another man win her hand, believing that she was largely providing her and Michael's son a good life by those means. And in making that move, Sara played right into the enemy's hands. For years. But Poseidon is Odysseus' enemy, and we haven't yet been shown how Michael and Jacob are connected, other than Sara.
Just look at that smug son of a bitch up there in Episode 2, right when he was in the middle of explaining game theory to Sara like she was one of Michael's new prison buddies. He was basically laying it out there for everyone that he was one of the people moving the pieces, right when T-Bag and Sara were thinking Kellerman was to blame for something. (And he still very well could be, of course, since nothing is impossible in this show's universe, regardless of one's fate.) Plus, we don't really know how Sara is going to react to the news when T-Bag tells her.
During our interview, Sarah Wayne Callies also teased how big this reveal gets, while also sharing a particularly amusing story about how she changed a piece of dialogue.
There's a line in the first or second episode that Paul had written where I turn to somebody and I say, 'You know I'm a good judge of character,' and I went to Paul, and I said, 'I can't say that.' Because Sarah got taken in by Lance, she fell for an inmate, there's this husband situation. I was like, 'Sarah, I think, is a lot of wonderful things. I don't know that a good judge of character is on that list.' [Laughs] Having to contend with the reality of the man she married becomes the thrust of the second half of the season.
But how will Jacob's reveal move this story forward for audiences? And if he doesn't end up being Poseidon, then who is this mysterious villain pulling all the strings? Is Van Gogh now suspicious of A&W and everyone else after Kellerman got inside his head? Also, now that Michael and Lincoln have finally reunited after all this time, can we get them back to Sara and the rest of the team?
Now that we know just about everyone is connected in some way shape or form, we can get ready for the rest of Prison Break's latest season when it airs Tuesday nights on Fox at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see everything else that's heading to the small screen in the near future, head over to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide.
