Monday Night TV

I always get wordy with Prison Break because there's always so much going on, even when it's not all that interesting. So sorry for the lengthy writeup. Highlight for spoilers:

• Prison Break: Kellerman testifies to framing Burrows and to being under orders to kill Sara. The whole "nobody will believe me, they erased any record that I ever existed" thing flew out the window, and the judge vaguely references corroborating documents (that as far as I know never previously existed) in the process of dismissing charges against Sara and Burrows and arresting Kellerman. Much later, Kellerman's in prisoner transport, and you know that's not going to go smoothly. The show continues to cop out though, because when two masked guys bust open the transport van and shoot inside, they zoom out and don't show us Kellerman get shot. So now we're pretty sure they just shot the anonymous guard and abducted Kellerman.
  
  
  
  Sucre takes off against doctor's orders. Bellick and T-Bag are stuck in the same prison, and Maricruz's location is stuck in there with them. And then that's it for all those characters in this episode.
  
  Michael uses himself as a bargaining chip to some marina mobster guy, on a boat full of rather attractive women in bikinis. Arriving at Mahone's designated location, Michael hides the money just as Kim shows up, and Mahone plans to frame Schofield and Burrows for the murder he's about to commit, then take the money and the boat and live happily ever after with that crazy lady from Rescue Me. But plans like that never work out, and Kim shows up with some muscle, giving our heroes enough time to escape. Schofield's slick plan with the mobster was to hide a bunch of drugs on the boat and call in a tip to screw over Mahone.
  
  Sara makes it down to Panama and lets them know about Kellerman and the charges. They enjoy an emotional moment of celebration, but their relief is all too brief, because Kim shows up to hold them at gun point. And by the rules of Prison Break, that means their escape is guaranteed. Which is assured when Sarah shoots him in the gut. So now they're fleeing Panamanian cops for that murder, and they left all the money in the river, which has got to suck. Michael and Sara share a brief "I love you" moment before he takes the blame for her. So Michael, Bellick, Mahone, and T-Bag all appear to be stuck in Panamanian jail... is next season going to be Panamanian Prison Break?
  
  But they take Michael and Mahone to a place with "sona" on the door, which the evil old guy mentioned earlier in this episode as important sounding, so we're looking at some crazy conspiracy stuff. The evil old guy is revealed to be some kind of general, and his assistant says "you know he's gonna break out, it's in his blood," and evil old general says "that's exactly what we want him to do." And the season ends with Michael walking through a creepy looking prison hallway and out into a rainy area that sounds like a gladiator arena. Huh? TV Squad had an article marked as spoilery for the third season about it being all weird, which I won't be reading probably ever because I'm spoiler-paranoid, but now the potential weirdness makes sense. I have no idea where they're going with this, and I'll keep watching next year, but I can't say I'm particularly excited to find out.


• The Riches: Wow, the "Previously on The Riches..." segment was like 20 minutes long. We pick up Cael and Tammy in the diner with Dale on their tail. Cael turns out to not be the world's biggest moron, and realizes she's setting him up. He's smooth though and avoids Dale, but it looks like the crazy pregnant lady from the pilot (whose name might be Ginny?) is following him.
  
  The stoner guitar guy from last week is conveniently in Di Di's English class. If you couldn't tell that he's a rebel last week from his guitar playing, because he wears a jacket over his school uniform. And Cael's ability to steal stuff looks like it'll make him instantly popular at rich buffer school.
  
  Nina the neighbor remains awesome, mentioning to Wayne in passing that her husband hasn't had sex with her in five years before fondling the extremely phallic handle of her mug. And explains how she doesn't have a drug problem because they're prescription pills, and how her neighbors like animal porn, eat broccoli, and run off with 17 year olds. Then lights up a joint. I think she's still billed as a guest star, but I really hope she's always on, cause she's hilarious.
  
  
  
  Wayne's picked up on Dahlia's drug problem, though, and that's leading to more than a little tension. Sounds like she started using because she hated Wayne for getting her sent to prison.
  
  This show really shines when Wayne has to make shit up. "I mean, we are completely against anyone blowing up. Even a little bit." "When I'm nervous, I refer to myself in the third person."
  
  So the Riches are Jewish? I have no idea why Dahlia tilted her cross necklace crooked and called it an "x" rather than just saying it was a "t," but the bumbling "x marks the Jew" speech was amusingly awkward. And Doug had an ex-wife who's hot for alimony? Complications galore.
  
  They tackle the ex-wife issue this week, running an alpaca-based con against the ex's crooked lawyer. It works out pretty smoothly, but of course, Wayne still manages to get impulsive and wanders into the ex-wife's house. It sounds like Doug was a huge asshole, holding out on his wife long enough for her to lose her house and their kids to end up in a homeless shelter. It's a really good scene though where Wayne acts as the lawyer and pretends to have Doug on the phone, but he's really talking to Dahlia as they're able to make up.
  
  Hey speaking of huge assholes, Panetta's at the same party as the Malloys, wanders into the bathroom, sees Dahlia sneaking some pills, and gropes her. That was a totally weird scene.

Still to watch: Nothing.

The Shield kicks off tomorrow, plus FX ran a cool looking promo for Rescue Me this summer.