Headscratchers / Prison Break

• At the end of Season 2 Michael stabs T-Bag in his forearm to get him arrested and incarcerated again after both fight in Panama. The reason is that the latter won't be able to take the weapon out of his body due to his other forearm and hand being not fully functional. Can't Bagwell just use his teeth, though? Hell, we've seen the guy making a bigger sacrifice earlier, after Bellick and Geary tie his artificial hand to a radiator in order to turn him in. Now the task seems to be easier, since he doesn't have to bite through the stitches and stuff... Yet he ends up in Sona.
  • It's likely because T-Bag was smart enough to know that you don't remove an object impaling you without some kind of medical assistance you can get to immediately. Once you've been impaled by something, especially through the forearm where there's lots of veins and arteries and the like, that object is basically the only thing preventing you from bleeding out very quickly. T-Bag doesn't want to be re-arrested, sure, but above everything else he's a survivor. Plus there's the pain to consider and really, the cops weren't too far behind he and Michael at that point. His reattached hand was clearly already a lost cause - he'd spent pretty much the entire season making plans to get a new one anyway - so it ultimately wasn't that much of a sacrifice (physically speaking, anyway).
• Didn't the plane leaving early in Season 1's finale Flight actually save the escapees' lives? I mean, cops certainly saw it flying away, and if they didn't find the fugitives in the surrounding area, they'd conclude that they must have gotten in, after which the police, FBI or whatever would most likely decide to either shoot the aircraft down or at least intercept it. I somewhat see the initial point of this, as they could potentially disappear and get off the radar in the airspace (which is also doubtful, especially after 9/11), but since Scofield & Co. were late, the guards were on their tales, and therefore it made little sense to still carry out the original escape plan.
  • And a side question: why wasn't the pilot interrogated after it was seen that the former prisoners waved at his plane? Of course he might have already been and it might have been irrelevant to the story, still, though, looking for even the smallest hints, it would be reasonable to do that by the FBI, ideally by an agent like Mahone, who I'm sure would make the most of it, which in turn would be quite entertaining to watch.
• Why did the judge put Michael in the same jail as his brother? Isn't that awfully nice of her? Maybe a little too nice?
  • Handwaved in an early season 1 episode: since Michael and Lincoln have different surnames and didn't bring it up, people just didn't realise they were brothers. When Michael does bring it up later, it causes all kinds of problems.
  • It was also mentioned in the pilot that it was part of his plea bargain to be able to go to Fox River which he claimed he wanted because it was close to Chicago.
    • Specifically, Michael fired his gun(at no one) in his fake bank robbery, to qualify for felony charges and high security imprisonment. Then had his lawyer argue that for health reasons(something to do with his sinuses) he had to be in Chicago. He literally planned for EVERYTHING and This Troper firmly believes he'd have had a contigency if the court room gamble didn't work. The actual Fridge Logic applies when you wonder why a man accused of killing the Vice Presidents Brother would be in what appears to be a regular, even if Federal prison. Wouldn't he be placed...I dont know, but elsewhere?
    • This troper recalls Veronica saying (at Michael's sentencing) that Fox River was a top security facility, and placing him there was uncalled for. So your point would make sense for Michael, not Lincoln.
  • Also, technically brothers can go to the same prison. (Okay, you would think one would take more care for one who killed the VP's brother, but still.) What is handwaved is that he'd first be put into a prison for an evaluation on where he'd be sent, probably for ninety days. (California is ninety days, not sure about Illinois.) And that prisoner requests of location aren't always (or usually) honored.
  • The person who least makes sense at that prison would be Tweener. If he really only stole a baseball card (no matter how much it was worth) with no violence, he probably would have served in county. If he had a few petty theft priors in his background, he may have gone to prison, but very doubtful a high security prison. Then again, considering the large amounts of Willing Suspension of Disbelief you need to ignore all the Fridge Logic moments on this show, this is hardly the worst.
    • The actors lampshaded this more than a few times in interviews.
  Wentworth Miller: The show is completely preposterous. But that aside, it's a great ride.
• In the bonus episodes: Michael's death seemed unnecesarry, given that he'd had the forethought to bring a back pack into the prison with some equipment, doesn't it make sense that he was aware fo the possible electrocution (which has was because he discussed it with Mahone earlier) and so would have packed some kind of insulating handware as way of a non-lethal back-up plan?.
  • It was revealed in Season 5 that Michael had to fake his death and work for Poseidon so the others would be exonerated. So he brought a device to unlock the door, but set it to not work, so he would be forced to eletrocute himself. It was the excuse he needed.
• So, the FBI wants to recruit Michael and his pals to take down the the evil corporation that runs America from the shadows with some off-the-wall plan, right? Having Michael on the team makes perfect sense when you consider his ingenious prison break, but...are we really supposed to believe that the best team that the FBI could dredge up consists of a burned-out petty thug from Chicago, some dude who got arrested for holding up a convenience store one time, a white-trash former prison guard who couldn't pass a cop's exam and still lives with his mom, a mentally unstable FBI agent who's addicted to pills, and a prison doctor who happens to be a recovering morphine addict? For a crazy scheme to steal data-cards from Evil Inc., wouldn't it make more sense to recruit...I don't know...maybe a mercenary or two? Or a professional thief serving prison time? It's the FBI after all. They could use their imaginations...
  • First of all, it's not the FBI, it's Homeland Security. Second, they wanted a team that was off the books, not to mention expendable. And third, and more importantly, they needed Michael Scofield. He was the key. The others were only there for Scofield's benefit. No one else was as smart as him and no one else could have pulled off what he did.
  • There's also something to be said for the fact that three of them had previously been broken out of prison by Michael and had assisted him to various degrees in the escapes, one had been outsmarted by Michael and subsequently escaped a prison on his own (granted, it was implied to be mostly down to luck, but still), and the last was Michael's girlfriend and had quite a decent and demonstrable skillset of her own; and most of them had done quite a good job at eluding or outsmarting the authorities. Most likely, Homeland Security assumed at least most of them had picked up a thing or two during the time they'd spent with Michael and/or had skills of their own to offer: Lincoln and Mahone are clearly skilled fighters and Mahone even borders on being a mercenary at times; Sucre's a thief and carjacker (good if they need to make a quick getaway) and is a seasoned con along with Lincoln (perfect if you're trying to steal something); Bellick is an extra body in a fight; Sara is medically trained and clearly highly intelligent; and Michael is essentially the key to everything; and they all have obvious leverage which can be used against them to ensure compliance. They were already an almost fully-functioning team - the only thing they were missing was a computer geek which Self supplied with Roland and (big surprise) they didn't take too kindly to a newcomer.
• The timeline is ALL out of whack. Based on Lincoln's execution dates, it seems like a maximum of six weeks could have passed between Michael entering Fox River and the break-out. However, in this period, they pass through a period of 100 degree days, then it snows, and then they go all the way to Pope's wedding anniversary in June. It's the Chicago area, so anything's possible, but it strongly suggests that they've somehow gone through four seasons in less than two months. Not to mention that Michael dies in "The Final Break" on November 4, 2005 - suggesting that the entire series up to the four-year time skip happened over the course of three months.
  • It should be noted that Lincoln himself notes in season 2 to Caroline Reynolds that he spent 242 days on death row. Not saying the timeline isn't messed up (though it's probable and even intimated that the execution was deliberately pushed forward) but that would explain the changes in weather, if nothing else.
• Was it ever explained why The Company needed to fake the VP's brother's death and frame Linc for it?
  • Barely. It was touched on slightly in the first season: Linc's father, Aldo Burrows, was a Company operative who went into hiding after he tried to leak the details about a new energy source being developed by Steadman's company to the public. They wanted to use Aldo's son as leverage against him, so they faked Steadman's murder and got Linc put on death row for it. Also, Linc had a job at a warehouse used by Steadman's company—he had been fired from the job on the day of Steadman's murder, so they thought he would seem like a likely suspect if Steadman ever wound up dead. In theory, if Aldo had actually surrendered to the Company early on, the Company might have pulled strings to get Linc released.