48 Fun Facts About Hard Prison Break

Lincoln Burrows is convicted of murdering Terrence Steadman, who is the brother of whom?

Terrence Steadman was the brother of Vice President Caroline Reynolds; his staged 'murder' gave the conspirators the crime to pin on Lincoln, and Reynolds later rises to the presidency.

Why did the conspirators frame Lincoln?

Lincoln was chosen as the fall guy because of his father Aldo's former connections with the Company: Aldo had worked for the organisation and broken away with damaging secrets, making his son the ideal scapegoat.

What crime does Michael commit to get himself sent to Fox River?

Michael stages an armed robbery, firing a gun inside a Chicago bank so that he is sentenced to five years in Fox River, the prison holding Lincoln.

What condition does Michael pretend to have to get daily access to the infirmary?

Michael fakes Type 1 diabetes by taking the drug PUGNAc, so his daily insulin shots give him regular time in the infirmary with Dr. Sara Tancredi.

Which of these was NOT one of the six inmates who escaped with the brothers?

Bellick was the guard captain; he was fired and chased the fugitives for reward money.

Which inmate's buried cash do several escapees hunt for in season two?

Charles Westmoreland, the inmate rumoured to be hijacker D.B. Cooper, claimed $5 million was buried in Utah, and the hunt for that money drives much of season two.

How did series creator Paul Scheuring describe season two?

Scheuring called season two 'The Fugitive times eight', a manhunt for the escapees, and also likened it to the second half of The Great Escape.

FBI agent Alexander Mahone, sent to catch the fugitives, is secretly working for whom?

Mahone is blackmailed into serving the Company, the cabal that framed Lincoln, which orders him to kill all eight escapees rather than capture them; William Fichtner played him.

Whose testimony exonerates Lincoln and Sara at the end of season two?

Paul Kellerman, the disgraced Secret Service agent who had done the conspiracy's dirty work, testifies at Sara's trial in the season two finale, clearing both her and Lincoln.

Which four characters end up imprisoned together at Sona in Panama?

Michael, T-Bag, Mahone and Bellick all end up in Sona after the Panama finale of season two: Michael takes the blame for Bill Kim's shooting, and the other three are rounded up in the chase.

Who does Gretchen's organisation want Michael to break out of Sona?

Gretchen Morgan holds LJ and Sara hostage to force him, and Chris Vance played Whistler.

What does Gretchen send Lincoln to make him believe Sara is dead?

Gretchen has a severed head delivered to Lincoln in a box, passed off as Sara's; the fake-out was undone in season four when Sarah Wayne Callies returned and Sara reappeared alive.

Who is Lechero?

Lechero, real name Norman St. John, is the inmate who rules Sona as a dictator, running the prison from inside after the guards withdrew; Robert Wisdom played him.

Which character gets thrown into Sona just after the season three escape?

Sucre, who had been helping the escape from outside the walls, is unmasked by a guard at the end of season three and thrown into Sona himself.

Season four's team is recruited by Homeland Security agent Don Self to obtain what?

Self recruits the team to steal Scylla, the Company's so-called little black book held on a set of data cards; he turns out to be a double-crosser planning to sell it.

Michael's supposedly dead mother Christina turns out to be what?

Christina, long believed dead, is revealed as a Company agent, a senior operative who has spent years inside the organisation and turns on it in season four.

In which city does the season four storyline finally end?

The season four endgame plays out in Miami, where the team's final confrontation with the Company takes place and the General is finally brought down.

In The Final Break, why is Sara sent to prison?

Sara is jailed for Christina's murder, the shooting that closed season four; inside, the General, held in the neighbouring men's facility, puts a bounty on her life.

What is Michael dying of when he sacrifices himself in The Final Break?

Michael's brain tumor has come back, and, knowing he has little time left, he gives his life to open the prison's doors so that Sara can escape.

Under what alias is Michael held in Yemen's Ogygia Prison in season five?

Michael is held as Kaniel Outis, a name tied to terrorism; 'Outis' is Greek for 'nobody', the alias Odysseus used to fool the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Who is revealed to be Poseidon in season five?

Poseidon is Jacob Ness, Sara's new husband: an economics professor who is secretly a rogue CIA operative and the man who engineered Michael's disappearance; Mark Feuerstein played him.

Which reformed fugitive helps Lincoln in Yemen, now a devout Muslim with local connections?

C-Note, Benjamin Miles Franklin, returns in season five as a practising Muslim whose Yemeni contacts, including Sheba, get Lincoln into the country and toward Ogygia.

How many episodes did the 2017 revival season have?

The revival ran for nine episodes on Fox, from April 4 to May 30, 2017, with Michael's reappearance in Yemen's Ogygia Prison as its spine.

Fox first rejected Prison Break in which year?

Fox turned Prison Break down in 2003 as too serialised for the network; the success of 24 and Lost led it to reconsider the following year.

Which director was once attached to Prison Break as a 14-part miniseries?

Steven Spielberg was attached to a 14-part miniseries version but left to make War of the Worlds; the miniseries collapsed and Fox later ordered a full series.

Season one was originally planned for how many episodes before ratings extended it?

Fox ordered 13 episodes for season one; strong early ratings led the network to extend the run to a full 22.

How many viewers watched the series premiere on August 29, 2005?

The premiere drew 10.5 million viewers on Fox on August 29, 2005, a strong enough start that the network extended the first season.

Which real correctional facility became the Fox River set in 2005?

Joliet Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois stood in for Fox River; its limestone gates are the ones Jake Blues walks out of at the start of The Blues Brothers.

Joliet Correctional Center operated between which years?

Joliet Correctional Center operated from 1858 to 2002, built largely by convict labour from limestone quarried on the site, and closed after almost 150 years in use.

Where did filming move for season two, starting June 15, 2006?

Production moved to Dallas, Texas on June 15, 2006; the producers wanted rural and urban settings within a short drive of each other for the fugitives' cross-country run.

How long did it take to apply Michael Scofield's tattoo to Wentworth Miller?

Applying the tattoo to Miller's torso and arms took around five hours; Tom Berg designed it and Tinsley Transfers produced the temporary-tattoo pieces.

Who composed the show's Emmy-nominated theme music?

Ramin Djawadi wrote the theme, earning a 2006 Emmy nomination for main title music; he went on to score Game of Thrones and Westworld.

What did Prison Break actually win in 2006?

Prison Break won the 2006 People's Choice Award for Favorite New Television Drama; the same season it was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Drama Series but lost.

Prison Break: Proof of Innocence was a spin-off made exclusively for what?

Proof of Innocence was a set of short mobisodes produced exclusively for mobile phones, offered first to Sprint subscribers in 2006.

Robert Knepper reprised T-Bag in which 2011 A&E series created by Prison Break writers?

Knepper played T-Bag again in a 2011 episode of Breakout Kings, the A&E manhunt drama created by former Prison Break writers Matt Olmstead and Nick Santora.

Fox's Kevin Reilly announced in 2009 that Prison Break would end after which season?

Reilly said in January 2009 that the fourth season would be the last, calling it a creative decision: the show had played out its story.

Wentworth Miller was born in which country?

Miller was born in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England in 1972 to American parents, and moved to Brooklyn as a small child before studying English at Princeton.

Wentworth Miller made his screenwriting debut with which 2013 thriller?

Miller wrote Stoker, Park Chan-wook's 2013 English-language thriller, under the pen name Ted Foulke; the script had made the 2010 Black List.

Dominic Purcell's family moved from Merseyside to which Australian city in 1972?

Purcell's family settled in Sydney in 1972, living in Bondi and later the western suburb of Penrith; he went on to play Heat Wave opposite Miller's Captain Cold.

Robert Knepper was cast as T-Bag in 2005 after a recurring role on which HBO series?

Knepper had a recurring role as radio journalist Tommy Dolan on HBO's Carnivàle before Prison Break; later he played Samuel Sullivan in the final season of Heroes.

Sarah Wayne Callies earned her bachelor's degree at which college?

Callies graduated from Dartmouth College in 1999 before earning an MFA at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver; she later played Lori Grimes in The Walking Dead.

Series creator Paul Scheuring was born in which Illinois city?

Scheuring was born in Aurora, Illinois in 1970 and studied film at UCLA; before Prison Break he co-wrote the Vin Diesel thriller A Man Apart.

Which actor played the Chicago mafia boss John Abruzzi?

Swedish actor Peter Stormare played the mob boss Abruzzi, one of the Fox River Eight; Stormare was already known for Fargo and The Big Lebowski.

Which actor played Homeland Security agent Don Self?

Michael Rapaport played Don Self, the Homeland Security agent who assembles the season four team; Rapaport was previously known for Beautiful Girls and Boston Public.

Sara Tancredi's father, whom the conspirators have killed, held what office?

Frank Tancredi was Governor of Illinois; in season two the Company had him killed and staged it as a suicide after he began questioning Lincoln's conviction.

The 2010 video game Prison Break: The Conspiracy follows which Company employee sent inside Fox River?

The Conspiracy, released in 2010 by Deep Silver after original publisher Brash Entertainment folded, casts the player as Tom Paxton, a Company operative sent undercover into Fox River.

Under what title did Channel One's Russian adaptation of Prison Break premiere in 2010?

Pobeg, Russian for 'escape', premiered on Channel One in 2010 and followed the original closely, even copying some scenes, while adding storylines reflecting Russian life.

Which writer created the Prison Break reboot pilot that Hulu ordered in December 2024?

Elgin James, co-creator of Mayans M.C., wrote the reboot pilot Hulu ordered in December 2024, set in the Prison Break world with new characters; Emily Browning and Lukas Gage were cast in 2025.