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Michael vs. Mahone - Prison Beak is bipolar?
So, I've been busy addicting a couple of my friends to Prison Break, and something has occurred to me. This are kid of half-formed thoughts, so bear with me.
In first season - let's not fool ourselves, it's the Michael Scofield show. It's the Michael Scofield CAN'T FUCKING WIN show. Every episode, something goes horribly wrong and Michael spends the entire 45 minutes (or 90 minutes, if it's a two-parter) scrambling to fix it in an incredibly brilliant and possibly pre-planned way. The conspiracy is totally second. When I tried to summarize things for my friend, to catch her up, the conspiracy didn't honestly occur to me until I'd already covered everything about what was happening within the prison.
It's good TV, no doubt about it. But Veronica is really fucking annoying sometimes, and Nick is one of the most unexceptional actors I've ever seen. LJ is great, and Kellerman is great, but there's no 'focus' of that plot. It's not "Veronica Can't Fucking Win", it's not "Kellerman Can't Fucking Win", it's "Check Out This Conspiracy Guyz".
However, with second season, that part of the formula changes. The show fractures, into a ton of different plotlines (Abruzzi, Sucre, Franklin, Haywire, Tweener, Michael & Lincoln, T-Bag, Kellerman & Kim, Kellerman & Sara, and Mahone, to name a few). But the biggest focus of the show is still Michael, and in this something changes. I think the show kind of becomes bi-polar, with two main characters, not just one. And I'm not talking about Michael and Lincoln, I'm talking about Michael and Mahone.
Mahone's focus is Michael, there's no doubt about it - so his plot can almost be included under Michael's, except Mahone holds his own as a character. He has action, within the plotline. He's involved in everyone's business - Sara, the Company, Abruzzi, Tweener, Haywire, everyone. He becomes such an active character, in his own right, that he's the anti-Michael. Michael's mirror evil braintwin. And that's a really sweet dynamic to have, but in doing so, the show becomes not just about Michael but about Mahone too. They need to get almost equal treatment to keep the mirror thing going.
What I'm saying is that ever since first season, Michael hasn't been the exclusive main focus. I mean, back then, he clearly was. Every time something happens, it's always his reaction we see. It's his POV we take, more often than not, and if it isn't his POV, it's the POV of someone rather important to him and the view of the events he will inevitably take (such as Abruzzi's POV against the mafia dudes). I think the inclusion of Mahone broke that exclusivity, as far as Prison Break's formula went.
In first season - let's not fool ourselves, it's the Michael Scofield show. It's the Michael Scofield CAN'T FUCKING WIN show. Every episode, something goes horribly wrong and Michael spends the entire 45 minutes (or 90 minutes, if it's a two-parter) scrambling to fix it in an incredibly brilliant and possibly pre-planned way. The conspiracy is totally second. When I tried to summarize things for my friend, to catch her up, the conspiracy didn't honestly occur to me until I'd already covered everything about what was happening within the prison.
It's good TV, no doubt about it. But Veronica is really fucking annoying sometimes, and Nick is one of the most unexceptional actors I've ever seen. LJ is great, and Kellerman is great, but there's no 'focus' of that plot. It's not "Veronica Can't Fucking Win", it's not "Kellerman Can't Fucking Win", it's "Check Out This Conspiracy Guyz".
However, with second season, that part of the formula changes. The show fractures, into a ton of different plotlines (Abruzzi, Sucre, Franklin, Haywire, Tweener, Michael & Lincoln, T-Bag, Kellerman & Kim, Kellerman & Sara, and Mahone, to name a few). But the biggest focus of the show is still Michael, and in this something changes. I think the show kind of becomes bi-polar, with two main characters, not just one. And I'm not talking about Michael and Lincoln, I'm talking about Michael and Mahone.
Mahone's focus is Michael, there's no doubt about it - so his plot can almost be included under Michael's, except Mahone holds his own as a character. He has action, within the plotline. He's involved in everyone's business - Sara, the Company, Abruzzi, Tweener, Haywire, everyone. He becomes such an active character, in his own right, that he's the anti-Michael. Michael's mirror evil braintwin. And that's a really sweet dynamic to have, but in doing so, the show becomes not just about Michael but about Mahone too. They need to get almost equal treatment to keep the mirror thing going.
What I'm saying is that ever since first season, Michael hasn't been the exclusive main focus. I mean, back then, he clearly was. Every time something happens, it's always his reaction we see. It's his POV we take, more often than not, and if it isn't his POV, it's the POV of someone rather important to him and the view of the events he will inevitably take (such as Abruzzi's POV against the mafia dudes). I think the inclusion of Mahone broke that exclusivity, as far as Prison Break's formula went.