Prison Break Recap: Michael's 'Death' Is Explained — Plus: Sara Confronts Jacob

This week on Fox’s Prison Break, the “how” of the improbable TV revival was explained. Did Michael’s wild story pass the sniff test for you?

RELATEDRenewal Scorecard: What’s Coming Back? What’s Getting Cancelled?

As Michael, Lincoln, Whip, Sid and Ja struggled to agree on how to cross the border, let alone actually do it — and all with a 10 million rial (~$40,000) bounty on their heads — Lincoln at one point, while holed up out of sight, pressed his brother for an answer to the question: How and why did was his years-ago death faked, leading to him again held prisoner in a Yemen prison?

Michael tried to put off the difficult conversation, but eventually could deny Linc any longer. Simply-ish said: After they thwarted The Company and turned Scylla over to the United Nations, Michael went about living the idyllic married life with Sara — only to quickly be alerted, by a powerful operative nicknamed Poseidon, that everyone’s exonerations were contingent on Michael doing the CIA’s bidding, under deep cover. Michael of course first balked at the suggestion, and that is what set in motion Sara’s incarceration for murder at the Miami-Dade State Penitentiary, proving that Poseidon meant business.

Michael’s death was then faked, after (or during) his springing Sara from the clink, ever since which he has been breaking assorted people of interest from prison, at the government’s whim.

Though not addressed at all, one could presume that the return of Michael’s fatal brain tumor, after Sara got sprung, was also part of the ruse…? [Shrug]

RELATEDPrison Break’s Paul Adelstein Talks Kellerman Death: ‘I’m in Denial’

With that chunk of exposition tended to, headstrong Michael insisted that they make tracks for a train station, defying Lincoln’s druthers every step of the way. There, they run into a band of ISIL fighters, and just barely slip away — but are spotted by Sheba’s would-be rapist, Cyclops. He reports on the Westerners’ whereabouts, which sets the stage for an intense face-off at an abandoned hospital, where Michael, having led them to a dead-end, has a breakdown. Lincoln, though, pulls his beleaguered bro out of despair, while Ja of all people orchestrates their safe egress, by leading the fighters into one fiery booby trap.

Once outside, though, Cyclops shows up and gains the upper hand on Ja. Sid, having previously and unsuccessfully begged Whip to end his life (lest he be captured and subject to unspeakable punishments as a gay man), charges at Cyclops, saving Ja’s life while sacrificing his own. For good measure, Sid uses a pair of handcuffs he pinched earlier to anchor his dead body to wounded Cyclops’ own.

Michael, Lincoln, Whip and Ja then went with Plan B, racing to the airport, where C-Note and Sheba had eluded their own ISIL pursuers and convinced a fearing-for-his-own-life pilot to whisk them and the girls away via an old military plane. Alas, with troops closing in, Michael and Lincoln gave them the go-ahead to get airborne ASAP, leaving them behind, with no apparent alternate route to safety. (Am I the only one who thought it obvious from Episode 1 that Sucre will eventually pull up on a tramp steamer and offer his pals escape via the Arabian Sea?)

Elsewhere in the eventful hour, T-Bag tipped off Sara to the fact that her husband Jacob was spotted with Poseidon’s hitmen, Van Gogh and A&W. Just as Sara prepared to whisk herself and son Michael away, Jacob showed up and, once confronted, claimed that he merely had enlisted a university buddy to locate the people who had hacked her phone. Jacob then met with them to find out their “price” to cease stalking his wife. And yet crazier than that tale itself is the fact that it thus far appears to be true! Seeing as Jacob convinced Sara to meet him at the local cop shop, where she ID’d her home’s infiltrators from a line-up. (Or was Jacob(/Poseidon?) merely sacrificing two pawns to maintain his cover?)

What did you think of the episode “Contingency”?

Related stories

Ratings: NCIS and Bull Rise, The Mick Ends Season on Low Note

Ratings: Lucifer Returns Down After 3-Month Break, Taken Flat With Finale

Fox's Pitch Cancelled After One Season

Get more from TVLine: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter