Prison Break Episode 45: Orientación

Michael and Mahone arrive in **Sona**, a Panamanian prison run entirely by the inmates after the guards abandoned it, and are immediately confronted by the harsh reality of the place. Michael refuses Mahone’s attempt to form an alliance, because he cannot forgive him for shooting and killing his father.

As they are processed, Michael and Mahone are brought before **Lechero**, the prisoner who effectively controls Sona and enforces its rules. Outside the prison, Lincoln is trying to get Michael moved to a safer facility through the U.S. consulate, but he learns that Sona is an especially dangerous maximum-security prison where inmates are left to survive on their own.

Inside Sona, the other prisoners make it clear that Michael has already become a target. Lechero sets him up by having him accused of stealing another inmate’s drugs, which forces Michael into a fight or risk punishment from Lechero’s men. Before the fight, Bellick slips written messages into both fighters’ pockets, setting up a later payoff.

During the fight, Mahone tells Michael to fight dirty, and Michael does what he has to do to survive. Even when his opponent is nearly beaten, Michael refuses to kill him. The situation escalates when the other prisoner is given a shank and tries to stab Michael from behind, but Mahone steps in and kills the attacker by fighting him off. Because weapons are forbidden in the fight, Lechero has to let Michael and Mahone go.

Meanwhile, after Sapo is killed during an attempted escape, Bellick’s situation inside the prison continues to deteriorate, and a prisoner in the sewers contacts him and demands that he deliver a message in exchange for food. After the dead man from the fight is dumped outside, a woman searches his pockets and finds the hidden note.

On the outside, Lincoln searches Panama City for Sara and gets briefly alarmed when the police bring him to the morgue to identify a body, but it turns out not to be her. Later, LJ calls him and arranges a meeting at a restaurant in Panama City. Lincoln goes to the meeting, but the situation becomes increasingly suspicious as he tries to figure out what is happening to Sara and LJ.

By the end of the episode, Lincoln visits Michael at Sona and delivers the devastating message from the Company: Sara and LJ have been kidnapped, and Michael will only keep them alive if he breaks out of Sona with another prisoner, **Whistler**.