1 character fromPrison Breakproves that continuing the show past season 1 was the right decision, despite arguments that it should have wrapped up. The intense show never quite captured the heights of its debut season, and that led many fans to theorize that it would have been better as a miniseries, instead of dragging the story out for way too long. This would have allowed Prison Break to preserve a pristine legacy, that only includes quality storytelling. However, some ofPrison Break’s best episodeswere actually from its second season, which is frequently overlooked.
AlthoughPrison Break’s legacy may have soured following the poor reception of its final few seasons, there’s still some great storytelling in season 2 that doesn’t deserve to be forgotten about. It may be easy (and fair) to claim that it peaked too early, but those first episodes are not the only ones worth watching.Prison Break’s cancelationwas inevitable given the downhill quality of writing and the gradually shrinking cast, and yet there was some real storytelling magic hidden in season 2, and much of it comes down to one character.
Prison Break Continuing After Season 1 Gave Us Alex Mahone
Alex Mahone Became One Of The Show’s Strongest Assets
Alex Mahone is one ofPrison Break’s best characters, and it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t debuted until the show’s second season. Portrayed by William Fichtner,the character was the perfect antagonist for the show’s later episodes. He was an FBI Agent with many years of experience in high-profile manhunts, and while that in itself didn’t make him that unique, it’s also worth noting thatMahone was one of the only people whose intelligence rivaled that of Michael Schofield’s. He was introduced in season 2, only after Michael and his friends had escaped from the prison.
Prison Break Reboot Can Finally Make Up For Season 5’s Biggest Mistake Even If It’s Not About Michael And Lincoln
Prison Break began as one of the most compelling TV shows of all time, but it started to fail when it ignored its key characters, like Mahone.
Mahone quickly became one of the standout members of the cast, not just because of Fichtner’s fierce performance, but also because of how much care and detail was paid to the writing of his character. Despite the show’s high stakes,Mahone was always a figure that audiences could relate to inPrison Break, and whose motivations were easy to understand. It made him a perfect anti-hero, because despite all the work that season 1 had done to get audiences on Michael’s side, his dynamic with Mahone swiftly reminded viewers that he was acting against the law and deserved to be caught.
Prison Break’s Scofield Vs. Mahone Cat-And-Mouse Game Made Season 2 Worth It
Their Intense Dynamic Made The Show More Exciting
It was difficult to imagine wherePrison Breakwould go after Michael and his friends escaped from Fox River State Penitentiary. It’s fair to say that the show probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer without the electric conflict between Schofield and Mahone to breathe a new life into it. While the pair didn’t share many scenes in the early episodes of the show, their stories were constantly interwoven, creating a persisting sense that he was looming over Schofield’s shoulder.
Mahone was the perfect foil to Schofield’s protagonist; somebody who values the law above all else, but comes to learn that his previous beliefs were dangerously black-and-white.
WhenAlex Mahone didn’t return forPrison Breakseason 5, it became immediately clear that his involvement had been the show’s magic ingredient. Mahone was the perfect foil to Schofield’s protagonist; somebody who values the law above all else, but comes to learn that his previous beliefs were dangerously black-and-white. Without him, it soon became clear thatPrison Breakdidn’t have the momentum to continue for much longer.
Prison Break Did Run For Too Long (But Season 2 Wasn’t The Problem)
It Wasn’t Until Season 3 That The Storytelling Fell Apart
The argument thatPrison Breakran for too long is a common one (and admittedly, a fair one), but season 2 shouldn’t take the blame for ruining this once-great series. Its sophomore year features some ofPrison Break’s best moments, completely flipping the script by providing a new formula and concretely proving that the characters are the heart of this story, not the location. Leaving the prison wasn’t the reason thatPrison Breakdeclined in quality: the lack of originality of the later seasons was.
Season 3’s story was dangerously close to the first season’s, which left much of the narrative feeling repetitive and familiar.
Season 3’s story was dangerously close to the first season’s, which left much of the narrative feeling repetitive and familiar. Much of this can beblamed on the 2007 writers’ strikes, which placed the network under immense pressure to get these episodes finished long before they were ready. But it’s harder to find an excuse forPrison Break’sfourth season, which lost sight of this show’s true spirit and transformed it into a generic police procedural instead of the creative thriller it once was.
Prison Break
Cast
Prison Break tells the story of two brothers who must unravel a political conspiracy while escaping from one of the most secure places on Earth. When petty criminal Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) is falsely convicted of murdering the Vice President’s brother, his own brother, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), has himself incarcerated in order to stage a daring prison break using the blueprints of the facility he has tattooed on his body.
