5.4/10

One of the sloppiest, most rushed, and overwhelming season openers I’ve ever watched. I’m honestly disappointed and pissed off right now.

The entire episode feels like one massive coincidence after another. Season 3, which spent 13 episodes focusing on Michael’s escape from Sona, is now completely meaningless because the prison conveniently burns down just days later—allowing Sucre and Bellick to escape with no effort. Not only that, but Lincoln conveniently gets arrested again and is sent back to the U.S. to face manslaughter charges. It feels like the writers are scrambling to reset the board, but instead of a natural progression, it’s just forced and lazy.

The thing that frustrated me the most was how fast they revealed that Sara was alive. Michael discovers and solves it in 30 minutes. Seriously? It took 44 episodes to clear Lincoln’s name for Terrence Steadman’s murder, but this massive twist gets wrapped up in half an episode? It completely cheapens everything that happened before, and it feels like they crammed what should’ve been an entire season’s worth of plot into a 10-minute recap.

One redeeming aspect of the episode is the introduction of the new antagonist. He’s ruthless and clearly a serious threat, but it’s ridiculous that he can get away with four murders and three attempted murders in the span of a few hours with no repercussions. And the pacing is all over the place—Michael, Sara, and Lincoln are being hunted, they call Bruce, and then suddenly they’re fine? No explanation, just a lazy jump cut.

To make things worse, the new villain feels like a cheap excuse to wipe out the old ones. Whistler and Gretchen—who were built up for an entire season—get unceremoniously killed off in the most anticlimactic way possible. It’s just bad writing.

Sorry, but I absolutely hated this episode.

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