Warning: This article contains US-pace spoilers for Prison Break season 5, episode 4, 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' – do not read until you've seen the episode!
It got off to a promising start - with an opening two episodes that landed on the right side of outlandish - but Prison Break's much-anticipated revival stalled last week.
There's always going to be some mileage in Wentworth Miller's stoic, steely-eyed lead performance, but still, 'The Liar' felt sluggish - like Michael Scofield's aborted escape attempt, the episode amounted to very little and landed us right back where we started.
But was this aimless episode a brief stumble, or a sign that - as the nostalgia value lessens - Prison Break is starting down a slippery slope into big fat disappointment?
The good news is that, while this week's 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' isn't perfect, it does a decent job of getting Fox's event series back on track.
From the off, this 9-part revival has been plain about its desire to forge a new path for Prison Break and not just lazily revisit past glories. It's an admirable intent, but the execution has been flawed – take the dubious morality of inserting Isil as the chief villains, in what feels like a misguided attempt at making an old show feel relevant in 2017.
We've also spent a large chunk of time with a new roster of characters, at the expense of exploiting the unique chemistry between the show's original cast. (Seriously, where is Sucre?)
But another thing we loved about the original series was its ability to genuinely surprise and mislead its fans. In particular, way before Game of Thrones came along, Prison Break always had the balls to write out beloved characters – remember how exciting it was, at the start of season two, as Mahone (William Fichtner) hunted down and systematically slaughtered the Fox River eight?
In having Kellerman felled by a sniper's bullet, this revival proves that it still has at least one thing in common with its illustrious predecessor.
The charismatic ex-assassin gets a fitting send-off in 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' – brutally gunned down after proving that, for all his past sins, he was genuinely rehabilitated. And while it's a shame to lose Paul Adelstein and the complex character he'd created, we gain a whole lot in his departure - a sense that anything could happen, and anyone could go at any second. Like Prison Break at its best.
A second big surprise comes in the (apparent) reveal of Poseidon's true identity. We might've thought that Sara's picture-perfect new hubby Jacob Ness (Mark Feuerstein) was a little too good to be true, but we didn't suspect that he was the "murderous CIA rogue" pulling all the strings.
Here's hoping Prison Break continues to serve up twists of this calibre in its remaining five episodes, and fingers crossed too that it continues to make solid use of Robert Knepper as T-Bag, also back to his best here - a sly reptile with a violent temper and dark sense of humour - after being sidelined in the season thus far.
While the Kellerman / T-Bag plot delivers much of the intrigue, scenes set in Yemen provide us with a hefty dollop of action - something that, again, 'The Liar' was sorely lacking in. There's a satisfying pace to the episode – from the tense prison face-off that leads to the collapse of Ogygia, to the wrathful inmates' pursuit of Michael, to the glorious moment when Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) saves his brother by unleashing the ferocious power of a mounted machine gun.
With our heroes on the run once more, an entire army on their heels, 'The Prisoner's Dilemma' ends on a thrilling note, capping off an hour that reignites our passion for new Prison Break after the previous episode had dampened it.
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