“Prison Break,” pill-popping Agent Mahone and a terrific assortment of other likely addicts add to great television.
Review: “Prison Break”Seasons 1 and 2: Great Television
Many say we must be willing to suspend belief to appreciate “Prison Break.”I’m not sure that the numerous plot twists, coincidences, contrived sub-plots and absurd cliffhangers are any more incredible than the imprisonment of his daughter and their children by the Austrian, Josef Fritzl, for over two decades. It’s only when so much is combined into one riveting and mind-numbingly suspenseful series that we need to be willing to say, “To hell with reality.”Unless you prefer biographies, this is what great cinema is all about.
And “Prison”is great. The cinematography, writing, character development, plot progression and acting are superb. The suspense is on par with that of “24,”which is to say it’s something few should watch just before bedtime. More important for the addiction aware, when we begin to think one of the leads is acting out of character, a flashback explains why he acted that way.
Save one, none of the reviews I found, which average 5 and 4.5 stars for Season One and Two respectively at Amazon.com, mentioned addiction or its progeny, suffering at the hands of an alcoholic parent, as an explanation for the behaviors of any of the characters. As so often occurs in real life, this is true even when it stares us in the face. The one exception mentions “troubled”FBI agent Alex Mahone’s (played by William Fichtner) “pill-popping habit that makes him just unstable enough to be interesting.”But there are several other addiction-driven characters worthy of mention and study. (The rest of this review may not interest those who haven’t yet seen the series, but might when you buy the DVD. Warning: I include what some may view as spoilers. By the way, please let me know if you see a screw up or omitted character whose behaviors are portrayed as rooted in alcoholism. I wasn’t even considering writing a review until a bit over half-way through viewing Season Two, so I didn’t take notes.)
FBI agent Mahone is, indeed, a pill-popping, over-achieving addict. Although he is not given any choice in the matter and must win at any cost (track down those who broke out) to keep his family safe, his brilliance is equal to that of the main protagonist, the non-addicted Michael Scofield (a stoic Wentworth Miller) and the addicted Hugh Laurie character Dr. Gregory House in the TV series “House.”His uneven behavior, sudden mood swings, hidden stash of pills and short term withdrawals are classic addict. He isn’t quite the Sociopath of Gary Oldman’s fabulous portrayal of the pill-popping addict DEA agent Stanfield in the classic movie “The Professional,”but there are times he comes close.
Theodore “T-Bag”Bagwell (Robert Knepper) is the psycho everyone who sees the show loves to hate. He’s an almost laughable caricature of a sociopath, who makes little sense until we learn that his alcoholic father not only verbally and emotionally abused him, but also committed sexual abuse.
Charles “Haywire”Patoshik (Silas Weir Mitchell) is a paranoid who suffered at the hands of an alcoholic father.
Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) is a recovering addict who relapses as a consequence of enduring the stress of doing the unthinkable”surreptitiously helping Scofield and his brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), escape from prison. She is portrayed as an intuitive feeler (Myers-Briggs), an Idealist (Keirseyan Temperament), which is consistent with her behaviors as both a recovering addict and a temporarily practicing one. I’m not convinced the brief relapse is realistic, but in the interest of keeping the plot going, the literary license is something I can live with. And she and Scofield create one of the great so far unrequited love stories ever.
Paul Kellerman (Paul Adelstein) plays another sociopath, who again makes no sense for those of us who know that addiction is usually at the root of horrific behaviors, until we learn that his mother was likely an extremely abusive alcoholic. When he attempts to assassinate the Vice-President, we are given the impression he is in his mind murdering his mother.
There are several other characters in whom overt addiction would be satisfying to the addiction-aware. These include Vice-President Caroline Reynolds (Patricia Wettig) and the sociopathic Bill Kim (Reggie Lee). Burrows, a petty criminal even if falsely accused (and set up to take the rap) for the Vice-President’s brother’s murder, should be portrayed as an alcoholic but is not. And the writers are on the verge of showing prison guard, turned bounty hunter, turned convict, turned bounty hunter Brad Bellick’s (Wade Williams) alcoholic drinking, but don’t quite get there. They may yet show the role of alcoholism in the evolution of some of these characters. However, considering I had no expectations, the writers should be excused for a failure to accurately portray everyone whose behaviors in real life would have been fueled by addiction. The series deserves a five star ranking regardless.