Michael Scofield

Template:Infobox PB Michael Scofield is the fictional main protagonist 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 premise of Prison Break revolves around the two brothers and Michael's plan to help Lincoln escape his death sentence. As the principal character, Michael has been featured in every episode of the series. Although both Lincoln and Michael are the protagonists of the series, Michael has been featured more extensively than Lincoln, especially in the first season and the third so far.

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. In the episode flashbacks, the younger Michael is played by Dylan Minette.

Background

After his father deserted the family, Michael Scofield (born September 8, 1978) took up his mother's maiden name in order to start a new life because his mother told that he was a druggie. 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.

Michael was a gifted student, and finished his secondary education at Morton East High School in Cicero, Illinois 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.

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.

Appearances

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 April 11th, exactly a month before Lincoln is set to be executed. Once there, he scrutinizes every detail regarding the prison and its inhabitants.

Given Scofield's educational background, inmates and correctional officers alike would often wonder why a man of Michael's credentials would have thrown such a privileged life away to end up in a state penitentiary. What's even more intriguing is weird "habits", as he is often seen conversing discreetly with his brother, Lincoln Burrows, both during Prison Industry time and Chapel time; and the fact that he tends to execute a highly defined stare around Fox River's boundaries immediately from the point he got incarcerated as well as being called personally on command by the prison's warden himself, Henry Pope.

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. After agreeing to help Warden Henry Pope (Stacy Keach) finish his Taj Mahal replica in his office, Michael also forms a friendship with Pope. He also later stages "brief insanity" to gain access to the penitentiary's J-Cat premises to gain contact with one of its insane inhabitants gifted with photographic memory, in order to re-acquire the portion of the tattooed blueprint that he lost after coming into contact with a steaming hot piece of metal

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, through the window of the infirmary in the nick of time, 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 (Rockmond Dunbar), T-Bag (Robert Knepper) and Tweener (Lane Garrison).

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. Michael fails to retrieve the money after being fooled by T-Bag. Nevertheless, Michael continues to execute his plan in order to meet the coyote at the 'Bolshoi Booze' location. Prior to leaving for 'Bolshoi Booze', Michael meets Sara at the location which he encoded in his messages to her inside the origami cranes. Thinking that she had declined his invitation to Panama, Michael goes to meet the coyote, who has the location of an escape plane to Mexico. There, Michael is reunited with Lincoln, Sucre and his father, Aldo Burrows (Anthony Denison).

When Aldo is killed by Agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner), Michael and Lincoln decide to confront "The Company" and the conspiracy, and bid farewell to Sucre, who alights the getaway plane to Mexico. After a brief capture by Mahone, Michael and Lincoln are aided in their escape by Paul Kellerman (Paul Adelstein), who turns against "The Company" in an act of self-preservation. Kellerman takes them to Terrence Steadman, the man Lincoln is accused of murdering. Steadman's suicide forces Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman to find Sara since she holds the key to unlocking information that can expose the conspiracy. After Sara joins them, Michael, Lincoln and Kellerman head to Chicago, where Sara's father has hidden the information. On the way, Sara tells Michael that she has fallen in love with him and later in the same episode Michael reveals that he feels the same.

With the help of the former Fox River warden Henry Pope, Michael and Sara succeed in getting the USB drive in Frank Tancredi's private locker. After leaving Kellerman behind, Lincoln, Michael and Sara soon found that the recorded conversation on the USB could not be used as evidence due to its modified time-stamp. They decide to blackmail Reynolds instead. When this also fails, Michael and Lincoln are forced to escape to Panama but are forced to leave Sara behind after she is arrested. Upon discovering that T-Bag is in Panama City, Michael decides to go and capture him, which he successfully does. However, when Michael returns his boat with Westmoreland's money to find Lincoln missing, he receives a call from Mahone, who demands the boat and the money in exchange for Lincoln's life. Michael outsmarts Mahone and escapes with Lincoln. At his new boat, Michael and Lincoln are reunited with Sara, who tells them that Lincoln has been exonerated after Kellerman's testimony.

Their happiness is short-lived when Agent Kim (Reggie Lee) arrives and threatens to kill Lincoln and take Michael to Sona, which causes Sara to shoot him. As the three flee from the scene with the police pursuing them, Michael and Sara separate from Lincoln and end up surrounded in a small isolated shack. After expressing their love for each other, they leave the shack. Unbeknownst to Sara, Michael confesses to Kim's killing and is arrested in her place. Michael is then imprisoned at the Penitenciaría Federal de Sona (Sona Federal Penitentiary).

Season 3

In the season premiere, Michael witnesses a brutal duel between inmates, the usual manner of settling disputes at Sona. He unintentionally makes an enemy of one of the most influential and powerful inmates at Sona, a drug lord named Lechero. He is soon informed by Lincoln that The Company needs him to break somebody out of Sona (James Whistler), and that they have taken Sara and LJ hostage to ensure his cooperation.

In the second episode, he began to look for Whistler, only to find that he has a bounty on his head: whoever kills him can receive exoneration from the mayor of Panama City. As a result, Whistler had gone into hiding in the sewers. Mahone locates Whistler and attempts to kill him for the bounty; however Michael is able to convince Lechero to remove the bounty after he assists him by restoring water to the prison.

With seven days to bust Whistler out of prison, in "Call Waiting" Michael turns his attention to obtaining the use of Lechero's cell phone, which he is able to accomplish by blackmailing T-Bag about his past pedophilic activities. After T-Bag gets Michael the phone, Michael uses it to contact Sara and receive a coded message about her location. He relays this information to Linc, who unsuccessfully attempts to rescue Sara and LJ. Sara was then brutally killed, but her death was still unknown to Michael. Michael then uses a piece of jewelery to short out the power, causing Lechero to call on Michael's engineering skills to fix it. Michael restores power to the prison and also manages to restore power to a previously broken electric fence. It is revealed that Michael fixed the fence so that the electricity will superheat a chemical that Sucre (who was hired as the new grave digger) sprays on it, as the heated chemical is able to melt steel.

In "Interference", Michael spies the Sona's guards. One is blinded by the sun at 3:13 PM; the other sometimes watches sports on a television in the guard tower. Michael is seen by the second one, due to the lens glare. After a small raid takes place, the prisoners are rounded up in the yard. Captain Hurtado questions Michael to the point that he unholsters his pistol and puts it to Michael's head. Hurtado is about to shoot Michael but Whistler takes the responsibility of the incident, claiming that he was watching the birds pictured in his book. Michael is desperate about the viligance of the guards when Mahone talks about a coffee cup he managed to have in the prison. As the guards are drinking walking from their respective guard posts, both are drinking from the same style coffee cups. Michael surmises that if the trio can get to the cup, they can have a guard.

In "Photo Finish" as the escape plan continues Michael finally learns of Sara's death. In a moment of weakness he seems to challenge Whistler to a duel death. "Vamonos" reveals this to be only a diversion for the escape but the escape ultimately fails. In "Bang & Burn" Michael foils the Company's attempt to rescue Whistler, by storming SONA. At the end of the episode is being escorted out of Sona as he is held responsible for both escape attempts.

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". 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. 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.

Michael has been clinically diagnosed with low latent inhibition, a condition in which his brain is more open to incoming stimuli in the surrounding environment. As a result he is unable to block out peripheral 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. This particular attribute is apparently the product of his detrimental experience during childhood, where as a child, his abusive foster father would often have him locked up inside a closet; and by doing so, Michael's eyes begin to adjust to the darkened environment, allowing him to scan objects around him which he can use for his own convenience. Due to a feeling of abandonment and abuse 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 people's emotions; he is more concerned with other people's welfare than his own. However, Michael often is outwardly taciturn and stoic, rarely allowing the dangerous element he's frequently surrounded by to penetrate his thoughts.

Michael's enhanced creative ability allows him to design a tattoo with a hidden blueprint of Fox River Penitentiary that normal people cannot discern. 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.

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 demonstrate 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".

Concept and creation

Character creation

The character was conceived after Paul Scheuring, Prison Break's creator, developed an idea by another producer, 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.

Portrayal

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 that 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..." Entertainment Weekly recognised the numerous scenes the actor 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 Buck best". 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...". 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."

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."

Production

Tattoo

Further information: Tattoo (Prison Break)

The tattoo, which covers the entire upper body of Michael Scofield, is featured extensively in the first season of the show and to a lesser extent in the second season. It contributes a major part to the plot of the series, containing various details of the protagonist's plan to escape from prison and from the country. Incorporated within the tattoo are the blueprints of the prison in which the protagonists are incarcerated during the first season. Wentworth Miller, who plays Michael Scofield, has commented that questions about the tattoo are amongst the most frequently asked questions when he is interviewed about the show.

Other

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, the birthdate shown on the prop cannot be considered as canon. Thus Michael is 27 years old since last episode in Season 3, Vamonos took place on June 24th 2005. This is according to the expired one week ultimatum given by "The Company" to Michael for breaking out James Whistler.

External links

• Michael Scofield's biography at Fox.com

• [1] Wentworth Miller Fansite