S01E14: 'The Rat'

Light summary | Full summary

Note: The light summary of this article provides only gentle teasers as to what happens in this episode, and is suitable for reading before viewing. The full summary serves as a more detailed recap of the episode.










Light Summary: With the escape attempt a failure, the inmates must make their way back to their cells without being detected. Dr. Sara asks the Governor for fatherly forgiveness; Veronica and Nick make a final plea to the judge overseeing Lincoln's case; and with only hours until Lincoln's execution, Michael devises an electrifying plan to keep him alive.













































Full Summary: With the escape thwarted at the last minute after their access to the infirmary is unexpectedly cut off, the prisoners realise that all their efforts have been for nothing. But lifer T-Bag is not prepared to take this lying down, and pulls out a knife to threaten Michael. “If I get busted for attempted escape, I'm going to throw in a homicide, no problem,” he drawls. “That's like a parking ticket to me.” The confrontation is interrupted when a guard enters the storeroom to investigate the source of the noise. Can the escapees get back to the guard’s breakroom – where they are supposed to be working – before anyone realises they’re missing?

It’s a race against time for the prisoners as they scramble back through the tunnel, knowing that they could be caught at any moment. And when Westmoreland falls behind, the would-be escapees are forced to cover for him to a suspicious Bellick. As they are escorted despondently back to their cells, Michael is especially distraught. There are only 16 hours until Lincoln is due to be put to death, and he is out of ideas. “There’s only one person who can really stop this execution,” he tells Sucre, as he prepares to go to the infirmary to ask Sara to talk to her Governor father. But she tells him that there is nothing she can do, as her father objects to her work and will refuse her on principle. “If I’m the one asking for clemency for your brother,” she says sadly, “your brother won’t get it.”

Michael returns to the prison yard, where the cons – apart from T-Bag, who still has an axe to grind – tell him they don’t blame him. Westmoreland tries to reassure him that the worst is over for Lincoln by telling him about a man whose execution was put back for three weeks after the electric chair malfunctioned. “He said it was the worst three weeks of his life,” he says. “It’s not the lightning that kills you. It’s the wait.” But Michael is not ready to give up yet. “So if something happens to the chair, he gets three more weeks?” he asks. “A lot can happen in three weeks.” Back in his cell, he sneaks into the walls again and catches a rat. As he prepares to put his latest plan into action, it seems that there may be hope for Lincoln yet...

Meanwhile, Bellick is entertaining a rat of his own – Tweener, who he has coerced into spying on Michael for him. Although initially reluctant to give up what he knows, Tweener caves under Bellick’s ruthless threats and repeats what he heard of Michael’s conversation with Westmoreland. Bellick immediately goes to check on the chair, and finds that it doesn’t work – a rat has chewed through a vital fuse. The electrician tells him that it can’t be fixed until the paperwork has been approved, but Bellick rides roughshod over him and demands that he repair it immediately. Have all Michael’s efforts been for nothing?

On the outside, as a tearful LJ watches the countdown to the execution on television, Veronica and Nick are still trying to stop the proceedings. They’ve managed to secure a court hearing to argue that the allegedly murdered Terrence Steadman is still alive – which would be proved if an exhumation order was issued – but it’s not going well. “Do either of you have any evidence at all?” asks the judge. “Your claims, if true, are terrifying, but anything or anyone that could verify your story is gone, missing, or dead.” With the last appeal exhausted and Sara’s desperate plea to her father rejected – thanks to the intervention of the Vice President – the guards take Lincoln out of solitary and prepare him for death. Michael and Veronica watch in tears as he is strapped to the electric chair. Have the Vice President and her co-conspirators finally won?