Michael Scofield
Template:Prison Break character Michael Scofield is a fictional character in the American television series, Prison Break. He is portrayed by Wentworth Miller. The character first appeared in the series pilot as a man who stages a bank robbery in order to get sent into the prison where his older brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell), is being held until his execution. The series revolves around Michael and his plan to help Lincoln escape his death sentence. Along with Lincoln, Michael has been featured in every episode of the series.
After his father deserted the family, Michael Scofield was given his mother's maiden name as his surname.[1] After their mother's death, Lincoln became his guardian and took care of him. Having lost both their parents, Lincoln descended into a life of crime while preventing Michael from suffering the same fate. Various flashbacks from subsequent episodes provide further insight into the relationship between Michael and his brother, and the reasons behind Michael's determination in helping Lincoln to escape his death sentence.
Michael was a gifted student, and finished his secondary education at Morton East High School in Toledo, Ohio with an impeccable record. He graduated magna cum laude with Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Loyola University in Chicago. He went on to become a successful structural engineer at the firm of Middleton, Maxwell and Schaum in downtown Chicago.[2]
Appearances
The premise of Prison Break revolves around the two brothers and mainly on Michael's plan to break out of Fox River State Penitentiary. As a principal character, Michael plays a prominent role in the series and has been featured in every episode so far. Although both Lincoln and Michael are the protagonists of the series, Michael has been featured more extensively than Lincoln, especially in the first season. The younger Michael, played by Dylan Minette, has appeared in four episodes so far via flashbacks, "English, Fitz or Percy", "Brother's Keeper", "Disconnect" and "The Killing Box".
Season 1
The opening scene of the series shows Michael's final preparation of his plan to infiltrate Fox River State Penitentiary; the tattooist is applying the finishing touches to Michael's tattoo, which is prominently featured in the first season. In order to get into Fox River, Michael stages a bank robbery, pleads no contest at his trial, and requests that he be sent to the prison nearest to his home. Michael begins his sentence on Tuesday, April 11, exactly a month before Lincoln is set to be executed.[3] Once there, he scrutinizes every detail regarding the prison and its inhabitants.
The season follows Michael as he puts his plan into action while overcoming various obstacles. In the first 13 episodes, Michael is seen to have a specific objective in each episode that he must accomplish in order to build an escape route out of the prison. On the way, he recruits a number of people to aid in the escape: his cellmate Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco) to help him dig, mob henchman John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare) to get him on PI (Prison Industries) and provide air transport once they escape, and Charles Westmoreland (Muse Watson), who he believes to be D. B. Cooper and can help finance their lives as fugitives. Michael feigns type 1 diabetes, giving him daily access to the infirmary (the escapees' exit point from the prison) and allowing him to build a relationship with Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), who happens to be the daughter of Frank Tancredi (John Heard), the Governor of Illinois.
Michael and Lincoln are rarely seen in a scene by themselves in the first season except for the fourteenth episode, "The Rat", which takes place on Lincoln's execution day. The sixteenth episode of the series, "Brother's Keeper", reveals Michael and Lincoln's relationship three years before Lincoln was imprisoned at Fox River and the reason why Michael would go to such extreme lengths to save his brother from his death sentence. Michael's discovery of his misperception of his brother and his brother's sacrifice for him prompts him to change and help Lincoln.
Michael's relationship with Sara is featured prominently in the nineteenth episode, "The Key", where he fails to steal the key to the infirmary from her. Although she finds out about his motive for being in the infirmary in the following episode, Sara decides to help Michael by leaving the infirmary door unlocked on the night of the escape. Towards the end of the season, Michael finally succeeds in helping his brother escape from Fox River State Penitentiary but also aids the escape of six other prisoners.
Season 2
In the second season of the series, the story continues to follow Michael, his brother and other escapees as they try to evade the authorities pursuing them. Away from the prison setting, Michael and Lincoln are frequently featured in scenes together in the first seven episodes. Michael and Lincoln travel together, after the fugitives separate to accomplish each of their individual goals. When they fail to retrieve L. J. Burrows before his trial, they decide to head to Utah to find Westmoreland's hidden money. There, they reunite with the four of the other escapees: Sucre, C-Note, T-Bag and Tweener.
The seventh episode of the season, "Buried" marks the first time Lincoln and Michael separate, when Lincoln decides to go after his son, L. J., who has been released from prison. The fugitives also separate in the following episode, "Dead Fall", after Westmoreland's money is found. Michael's friendship with Sucre is featured in "Dead Fall" when Michael stays with Sucre in the water after he got stuck by a log in the river. Michael eventually saves Sucre's life, which Sucre repays in kind when he rescues Michael from the coyote in a subsequent episode, "Bolshoi Booze".
Frustrated by the information Agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner) has managed to find out about his plan, Michael makes an ultimatum with his nemesis in episode "Unearthed" and the two characters meet for the first time in the following episode, "Rendezvous". This episode also marks the first time in the season Michael and Sara appear in a scene together. However, they soon separate when Agent Kellerman (Paul Adelstein) captures her. The eleventh and twelve episodes of the season reunite Michael with his brother, father and Sucre. However, Michael's reunion with his father, Aldo Burrows (Anthony Denison), is shortlived when Mahone mortally wounds his father. Michael and Lincoln decide to confront "The Company" and the conspiracy, and bid farewell to Sucre, who alights the getaway plane to Mexico. After being temporarily captured by Mahone, Michael and Lincoln escape with Kellerman in "The Killing Box".
In the following episode, "John Doe", Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman go to find Terrence Steadman in Blackfoot, Montana. However, Steadman commits suicide with one of Kellerman's pistols after Michael attempts to turn him in. After his failed attempt to have Steadman turn himself in, Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman attempt to find Sara since she holds the key to unlocking information that can expose the conspiracy. In "The Message", Kellerman, Michael and Lincoln release a video to the media, which was suppose to lead the authorities into thinking that they were going after President Caroline Reynolds, when in fact they were looking for Sara. Sara deciphers Michael's message and the two meet in Evansville, Indiana in the episode, "Chicago". Along with Lincoln, Kellerman and Sara, Michael boards the train to Chicago, where Sara's key can be used at a private cigar club. Michael and Sara express their feelings for each other while hiding out in the train bathroom.
Michael and Sara are recognized almost immediately in the club in "Bad Blood". They flee, however, Michael had noticed that the former Fox River warden Henry Pope was a member of the club. Michael and Sara go to Pope's house and attempt to get him to get the evidence in Frank Tancredi's private locker which can exonerate Lincoln. The Pope reluctantly agrees, but in return he makes Michael promise to turn himself in. However, after rescuing him from Agent Kim and dropping Pope off at his house, the former warden is finally convinced that Lincoln is innocent and tells Michael he doesn't have to turn himself in. Michael, Lincoln and Sara go to a hotel to look at the evidence.
After listening to the audio file of President Reynolds talking to Steadman in the next episode Michael, Lincoln and Sara attempt to use a man named Cooper Green to turn in the evidence. However, Michael finds out that the man is not Green, and knocks him unconscious. The real Green then meets up with Michael, Sara and Lincoln in a hotel room. Green says the evidence is invalid due to an apparently modified time stamp on the audio file, but says they can use it to blackmail Reynolds instead.
Michael then intentionally gets arrested by the Secret Service, but not before giving the President a note saying "We have the tape". Reynolds intervenes on Agent Kim's torture of Michael to talk to him personally. Michael demands a full presidential pardon, and has Lincoln play the tape over his cell phone. Reynolds then agrees to announce the pardon, but instead announces she has a malignant form of cancer which will force her to resign, giving Lincoln and Michael no choice but to disappear forever.
Michael and Lincoln escape to Panama, but are forced to leave Sara behind after she is arrested. Michael and Lincoln go to Michael's pre-bought moored ship, the Christina Rose, but after Michael learns that T-Bag is in Panama City, he decides to go after him to attempt to turn him in, which Michael then successfully does. He also takes T-Bag's money. However, upon returning to his boat, he receives a call from Mahone, who demands the boat and the money in exchange for Lincoln's life.
While Michael and Lincoln are about to board the ship, they find Sara is there, who informs them that Lincoln has been exonerated. When they are about to leave, Mr. Kim comes and threatens to kill them, causing Sara to shoot him. The police soon come, and the three run. While hiding out from the police, Michael tells Sara that he will inform the police what happened. However, he instead confesses to them that he is the one that is responsible for the murder; Sara is freed and Michael is put into the Penitenciaría Federal de Sona (Sona Federal Penitentiary). In the final moments before the end of this season finale, he shares a moment's glance with Mahone, and sees the brutally beaten Bellick lying on the ground.
As this is happening, events are shown on Long Island, New York at the fictional Basil Island Research Facility, the enigmatic Pad Man stands in a white, sterile area wearing a lab coat. An underling who is also wearing a lab coat appears, calls him "General" and informs him that Scofield has been taken, but later says "he'll break out, it's in his blood". The General replies "that's exactly what we want him to do", insinuating that such an escape is part of his plan.
Characteristics
In the flashback episode of the first season, "Brother's Keeper", Michael is shown to be proud and successful. He looks down on his brother and thinks of him as a "ne'er-do-well".[4] After finding out about Lincoln's $90,000 debt to pay for his education, however, Michael starts to see his brother differently. According to creator Paul Scheuring, this was emphasized through the actors' performance in their different heights and the use of camera angles.[4] His feeling of guilt and familial obligation causes him to devote all his time to his brother's case. After he cannot help his brother via any legal means and Lincoln's last appeals are denied, Michael decides to take matters into his own hands.
Clinically diagnosed with low latent inhibition, a condition where Michael's brain is more open to incoming stimuli in the surrounding environment; which means he is unable to block out periphery information and instead processes every aspect and detail of any given stimulus. This, combined with a high IQ, as a psychiatrist explains in the episode "Tweener", theoretically makes him a creative genius. Due to a feeling of abandonment during childhood, Michael has absolutely no sense of self-worth. With the low latent inhibition, this has made him become very attuned to all the suffering around him. As a result of being unable to block out other people's suffering, he is extremely empathetic and altruistic towards other peoples emotions; he is more concerned with other people's welfare than his own.
Michael's low latent inhibition and high IQ allows him to create a tattoo with a hidden blueprint of the prison that normal people cannot discern from the images. Over the course of four months, Michael had specific sections of the prison tattooed onto his upper body, hidden within gothic imagery. Each part of his tattoo had to be precise, which provoked the tattooist's comment to Mahone about Michael being a "detail Nazi" and that the tattoo was "some sort of inside joke" that only he got.[5]
As shown in each episode of the first season, Michael is meticulous and well-prepared as he uses his knowledge and intellect to achieve each step of his escape plan. The first three episodes of the second season demonstrates again the level of intricacy of Michael's plan. Prior to his incarceration at Fox River, Michael prepared an alternate escape route outside the prison in the event that he and his brother fail to board Abruzzi's getaway plane. His hidden cache in Oswego proves to be useful in "Manhunt".
Michael expresses his guilt and regrets throughout the second season. In the season premiere, when Sucre tries to reassure Michael by saying "You had to do it", Michael replies, "Not like I did." His attempt to fix his mistakes is shown when he sends Sara coded messages hidden inside origami cranes, offering her a chance at another life. His first message to her was that "there is a plan to make all of this right". After T-Bag forced Michael and the other fugitives to take hostages inside a house in the episode, "Buried", Michael confides in Lincoln that he used to think that he could "wipe the slate clean... make up for everything [they]'ve done" but "that's over the wall". As Michael's past actions begins to take a toll on him in the episode, "Bolshoi Booze", a flashback of all the people Michael had had to manipulate in order to save his brother is shown. He then goes to a church where he makes a confession about his wrongdoings.
Concept and creation
Character creation
The character was conceived after Paul Scheuring, Prison Break's creator, developed an idea by another producer, Francette Kelley, about a man who deliberately imprisons himself to break somebody out. From the initial proposal, Scheuring then justified the character and story by making him a structural engineer who worked at the architecture firm that had access to the prison's blueprints.[6]
Wentworth Miller
Michael Scofield is portrayed by Wentworth Miller. For most of the first season of the show, Miller utilized a limited range of facial expressions which generated both positive and negative criticisms. It was for this performance in the first season Miller was nominated for a Golden Globe. The Washington Post criticized Miller's performance as being "the most oppressive" and how "the actor apparently thinks it looks cool for him always to be scanning the surroundings..."[7] Entertainment Weekly recognised the numerous scenes Miller was present in by saying that "it's Miller's show" and on his performance, they stated that his "Michael Scofield has the silky voice of a sociopath, the resigned stance of a long-distance runner, and the deadpan delivery of Macaulay Culkin at his Uncle Buckbest".[8] On the other hand, The New York Times commented that although Miller does not show a wide range of emotion, "he projects an unflappable determination that confounds his fellow prisoners...".[9] Regarding his character, Miller says, "First season, I think part of my challenge was to create, hopefully, a compelling character. But at the same time, there were so many things I could never show, because standing next to Abruzzi or T-Bag or Bellick, I couldn't afford to be vulnerable. I couldn't afford to crack a smile."[10]
In the show's second season, the character of Michael Scofield shows a wider range of emotions as Miller explains, "He's going to have some lighter, more colorful shades... now that he's off with his brother, around whom I think Michael is willing to show a side of himself that he's not with others, there's a lot more that I can explore."[11] For example, in Scan, Lincoln and Michael joke about going back to Fox River, which prompts them to burst out laughing.
Production details
In the series pilot, Michael's jail entrance form held by Bellick shows that the character was born on September 8, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio. However, the birthdate is inconsistent with the characters' dialogue in later episodes. In "By the Skin and the Teeth", Michael remarks to Lincoln that their father left them thirty years ago. Since the series is set in the year 2005,[12] the birthdate shown on the prop cannot be considered as a canon.
References
- ^ Dialogue spoken by Paul Adelstein as Paul Kellerman, "Cute Poison", Prison Break season 1 episode 4.
- ^ Michael Scofield's biography Fox Broadcasting Company.
- ^ As shown in the scene where Michael looks at the diary on Henry Pope's desk after the fight with Abruzzi in the series premiere.
- ^ a b Brother's Keeper, Prison Break Season 1 DVD commentary, Paul Scheuring and cast.
- ^ Dialogue spoken by Sid (Michael's tattooist), "Manhunt", Prison Break season 2 episode 1.
- ^ "Inside Prison Break: Chain male" Sydney Morning Herald. February 1, 2006. Retrieved on October 22, 2006.
- ^ "'Prison Break': Sharpen Up Those Spoons" The Washington Post. August 29, 2005. Retrieved on October 22, 2005.
- ^ Prison Break Entertainment Weekly. August 26, 2005. Retrieved on November 17, 2006.
- ^ "Jailhouse Heroes Are Hard to Find" The New York Times. August 29, 2005. Retrieved on October 22, 2006.
- ^ "Prison Break actors out of the box" Toronto Star. August 20, 2006. Retrieved on October 22, 2006.
- ^ "Wentworth Miller on Prison Break Season Two" CanMag. August 17, 2006. Retrieved on October 22, 2006.
- ^ "Wash", Prison Break season 2 episode 18.
External links
- Michael Scofield's biography at Fox.com