Thursday, March 17, 2011

Prison Break's "T-Bag" Returns

Though Prison Break is long over, the old Prison Break production team has a new show on A&E called Brerakout Kings which airs on Sunday Night at 10:00 pm. And it seems as though Robert Knepper's old PB character, Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell, is still alive and well in the hearts of old Prison Break fans. Or so the new show's producers hope.

When last we saw Bagwell, at the end of the Prison Break series finale, he was returned to Fox River to serve out the entirety of his lifetime sentence, with no hope of parole. After all, this was a man who had committed multiple murders and sex crimes, including the rape and murder of six teenagers-"not necessarily in that order" as one of the "Breakout Kings" characters muses when the team learns their latest assignment-to recapture T-Bag, who broke out of a van transporting him to a medical appointment to get a new artificial hand.

The Breakout Kings is a special task force made up in part of convicted felongs working to reduce their prison sentiences by working to help law enforcement recapture escaped convicts. As we can see in the following clip, they definitely have their work cut out for them with T-Bag.

As hideous a criminal as he is, I have to say he is probably my all-time favorite television series villain. Robert Knepper has the ability all actors crave but which few can master-the ability to chew up the scenery, and more importantly, to make the most heinous, despicably horrible villains human, and even sympathetic.

Knepper once explained this by saying, "there's a kind of innocence in his eyes. There's still a bit of hope there."

I can't wait for this episode. Old memories, good times.