Michael Schofield is in a hopeless predicament - his older brother, Lincoln Barrows, has been found guilty of murder and thrown on death row at Fox River Prison. Although all the evidence points to Lincoln as the killer, Michael is convinced of his brother's innocence. As Lincoln's execution day drew nearer and nearer, with no other option, Michael broke into a bank with a gun and came to Lincoln's side after being arrested and imprisoned. Michael, a construction engineer who knows the prison inside out from his involvement in its renovation, devises a plan to break out of the prison for the sole purpose of saving Lincoln's life and clearing his name.
Lincoln's former girlfriend, Veronica Donovan, is the defense attorney in the murder case, and she believes Lincoln was framed. As she continues her investigation, Veronica realizes that this is far from a simple murder case, and that the victim's death involves many big names - the Vice President is gradually emerging from behind the scenes. And as the investigation deepens, danger looms for Veronica, as witnesses are mysteriously killed one after another, Lincoln's family suffers an unfortunate accident, and the mysterious figure chasing Veronica turns out to be a secret FBI agent.
Meanwhile, Michael struggles to prepare his escape plan in prison, as unexpected people and events appear one after another on the road to freedom.
Prison Break Season 1 Episode 1:
Episode 1
Michael Schofield robs a bank at gunpoint the day after he finishes his last tattoo. Upon his arrest he admits to the crime very cooperatively, and as a result the judge grants his request and sentences Michael to five years in Fox River Prison, a suburb of Chicago.
Michael is placed in cell 40 on the A wing, and his roommate, Fernando Sucre, volunteers to introduce him to the prison's colorful cast of characters, but there's only one person Michael wants to meet: his brother, Lincoln Barrows, who's been sentenced to death. But getting close to Lincoln requires getting a job at the prison factory, which is in the hands of John Abbotts, former gangster and today's prison man of the hour.
Michael tells his visiting attorney Veronica not to spend time on his case, that Lincoln is being framed, that he did not murder the vice president's brother, and that if she is still thinking about her former romance with Lincoln, she should try to get to the bottom of it. Far away in Washington, D.C., Special Agents Hale and Klayman are concerned about Lincoln's death sentence, as Bishop Mike Morrow intends to get a reprieve for Lincoln.
Abbotts receives word from one of his men that someone knows the whereabouts of the witnesses who put him in prison, and in the prison's medical room, Dr. Sara discovers that Michael is reacting strangely to insulin injections, and Michael immediately asks the inmate "Sticky Notes" to get him the medication he needs to disguise himself as a Type I diabetic.
Michael gets into the prison factory and meets his brother, Lincoln, who thinks an escape is impossible, and Michael shows him the secret hidden in the tattoos: the blueprints for the design of Fox River Prison.
Episode 2
Michael hints at a plan to escape to his cellmates, Westmoreland mocks him for trying to break out after three days in jail, and another crisis looms, with racial strife at Fox River Prison on the horizon.
Michael copies the words "Schweitzer Allen 11121147" from his arm tattoo, and finds the screw with the serial number 11121147, but the screw is snatched by the Backpack and given to his henchman, Maytag. Maytag. Michael tells Lincoln that they will escape through the hospital, which is why he is disguised as a diabetic.
Tim Giles shows Veronica the videotape of the murder scene, and Veronica despairs as she sees that Lincoln did indeed raise his gun at the dead man in the car, but Lincoln explains that Stedman was already dead, and that he didn't even pull the trigger. And Special Agents Hale and Klayman learn from Tim that Veronica is reopening the case.
During the prison rampage Michael took the opportunity to approach Maytag to retrieve the screws, but Maytag was stabbed to death in the chaos, which the Backpack blamed on Michael. Michael then used the tattoo to sharpen the screw into a screwdriver, which he used to unscrew the nut on the lavatory equipment.
Michael passes his diabetes test with the medication, but Dr. Sara is puzzled by the look of relief on his face when he learns he has diabetes. On the way back to his cell, prison guard Berwick reckons he's left him with Abbotts and his gang. Abbotts ordered Michael's toes to be cut off in order to torture the witness about the whereabouts of Fibonacci.
Episode 3
Dr. Sara Tancredi dresses Michael's wounds, but so as not to interfere with his escape plans, Michael asks Sara not to report the incident as an intentional injury.
Lincoln and Michael take the opportunity to discuss the progress of the dig at work, and Michael decides to test his roommate Sucre's ability to keep a secret. Sucre, who misses his girlfriend Maricruz day and night, sees that Michael has hidden a cell phone, but under threat from prison guard Berwick, he reveals Michael's secret. But when he is threatened by guard Berrick, he reveals Michael's secret. The cell phone is only a soap-carved model, and the angry Sucre is switched to a different cell, where the mentally ill Wire becomes Michael's new roommate.
Busy with the investigation, Veronica repeatedly refused her fiancé Sebastian's request to marry her, and the two ended up breaking up. When Randika, the only lead in the murder case, is kidnapped and shot, Veronica realizes that she faces terrible resistance.
In a change of tactics, Abbotts takes care of Michael's "backpack", who is bent on revenge. When Abbotts asks when he'll get the whereabouts of the witnesses, Michael replies, "When we break out of prison, you give me a plane and I'll give you Fibonacci."
Michael starts digging in the dead of night, but is horrified to find The Wire watching him. "The Wire calmly says that he never sleeps due to permanent nerve damage.
Episode 4
The Wire, a mentally ill man who continues to refuse to take his medication, becomes obsessed with Michael's tattoos, following him around and even ripping his clothes off to copy them. Meanwhile, Sucre realizes that his girlfriend, Maricruz, is falling for the lies of her suitor, Hector, and fears that by the time his 16-month sentence is up, Maricruz may have already been taken from him.
Michael gets two chemicals from the prison's storeroom and from Abbotts, and takes the opportunity of an insulin injection to pour them into the hospital's sewers, where the two chemicals immediately undergo a violent chemical reaction and begin to corrode the plumbing. Michael returns to his cell and breaks his forehead on purpose, successfully removing the "wire" and welcoming back Sucre, who is also eager to escape.
Veronica turns to Project Justice, an office that specializes in death penalty investigations, and Nick helps her discover what's at stake behind the murders. When secret agents Hale and Kleinman search Veronica's home, they are alerted by a photo of her with Lincoln and Michael. Realizing Michael's bizarre criminal incarceration, the secret agents decide to transfer Michael to another prison immediately.
Episode 5
Warden Henry Pope refuses Michael's relocation order, and Hale and Clurman "convince" him with a classified document. Michael, Lincoln, Suckley and Abbotts gather in the shed to go over the details of the escape, unaware that Michael's relocation order has been approved.
The relocation order momentarily disrupts the escape plan, but with Westmoreland's guidance, Michael files a formal complaint, a move that buys them at least 30 days.
Veronica and Nick asked expert Fink to study a copy of the surveillance tape from the murder scene, and Fink realized that while the footage on the tape showed no signs of editing, the sounds of the gunshots in it were clearly faked in post. Encouraged, the two Veronica's immediately go to request a master copy of the videotape, only to be told that the master is no longer available due to a water pipe burst that has left the evidence room in shambles.
The passageway behind the cell's toilet seat has been partially dug through, and Hale and Clurman coerce Pope into destroying Michael's complaint with the secret of his illegitimate child. Meanwhile, Michael has successfully previewed a prison break under the cover of Sucre and Abbotts, gauging the time it will take to break out and the speed of the police response.
At the last moment of being taken out of Fox River Prison, Pope appears to leave behind Michael, who is determined to confess his past to his wife. And in Chicago, Veronica discovers that a copy of the videotape has been stolen and she turns her skepticism on Nick.
Hale and Kleinman report the failure to the bosses behind the scenes, and the mysterious woman orders them to turn their attention to Lincoln: "There are many ways to take out a death row inmate besides the electric chair."
Episode 6
Michael's digging hits a snag: a solid concrete wall. Though he's sure he can dig through it, multiple check-ins a day leave him with no way to meet his pre-planned escape schedule. Sucre proposes to provoke a riot, and the ensuing period of lockdown will give him plenty of time, so Michael manages to cause the prison's air-conditioning system to malfunction.
Veronica and Nick come to visit Lincoln with good news; the 911 caller who claimed to have witnessed Lincoln's murder in the first place, although anonymous, Nick discovers that it came from as far away as Washington, D.C., which is not enough to postpone the death sentence but at least appears to be a direction in which the investigation is headed.
The sweltering heat of the cell finally triggers a riot among the inmates, and the Backpack leads a group of men who meet Lincoln and Bob, the new guard, and in an attempt to protect Bob, who has always been very kind to him, Lincoln is knocked unconscious by the Backpack, and Bob is taken hostage by the inmates.
In order to speed things up, Sucre and Michael go into a hole in the wall to dig, and the Pack throws the wounded Bob into their empty cell, where he crashes into a toilet seat and the Pack discovers Michael's secret.
Michael and Sucre are alerted to the noise and return to the cell. Abbotts and Backpack suggest taking Bob out to silence him, but Michael stops them. Michael stops them. The monitor shows that Sara is being held captive by a group of inmates at the hospital, and Michael rushes to her rescue.
An awakened Lincoln is worried about his brother's safety, and an inmate named Turk takes the opportunity to lure him to an unoccupied dark room.
Episode 7
The prison riot continues to escalate as Michael scrambles through the ventilation system and crawls towards the hospital. Prisoner Gus offers Pope to restore the air conditioning system as soon as possible or they'll go after the hostages in their hands, Bob and Sarah. Sucre repeatedly warns the Pack not to hurt Bob, and then digs into a hole in the wall alone. Abbotts sees the escape route for the first time and joins in the digging of the concrete wall.
The Governor of Illinois, Sara's father, arrives at the Fox River prison with the army, and tells Pope that he doesn't care how many inmates die in the riot, and that Sara's safety is the only thing he cares about. Michael finally climbs up to the vent in Sara's office, and with the smoke from the inmates burning paper, he pulls Sara into the ventilation system.
Nick and Veronica arrive in Washington, D.C., where they discover that the victim Stedman's energy plan jeopardizes all sides of the oil industry, just as they receive a threatening phone call.
Lincoln struggles with Turk in a darkened steam room, and eventually Turk loses his footing and falls 20 feet off a high platform, but on his deathbed he refuses to reveal his motive for plotting to kill Lincoln. Sucre and Abbotts combine their efforts to punch through the concrete wall, and the prison break gets closer.
Sara escapes through the ventilation system with Michael's help, and the riot calms down, but the Pack takes advantage of the chaos to stab Bob to death, despite Michael and Abbotts' efforts to stop him.
Inside the ambulance, a stunned Sara begins to wonder why Michael is so familiar with prison construction.
Episode 8
Prison guard Beric is desperate to catch Bob's killer, and "Backpack" threatens Michael and Abz that the first thing he'll do is reveal the escape plan if anyone gives him up. Abbotts expresses misgivings about Michael's plan: they can sneak into the hospital through a hole in the wall, but what about Lincoln, who is on death row in solitary confinement? Michael manages to talk Westmoreland into fireproofing a guardroom, and when they are sent to clean up the fire, takes the opportunity to dig through a drainage ditch located underneath the guardroom.
Back in Los Angeles, Nick and Veronica haven't even begun their investigation when there's a violent explosion in Veronica's apartment, and the pair, who survived, give up on calling the police and take refuge in a remote cabin to continue to work on the puzzling case. Lincoln's son, Ridger, is living with his stepfather, Adrian, when covert agent Clurman suddenly shows up at their place, and during the fight both his mother, Lisa, and Adrian are shot, and Ridger runs out of the house barefoot, clutching the camera phone that took Clurman's picture in his hand.
The Backpack instructs his henchman, Cherry, to falsely accuse another inmate, Trocchi, of being Bob's murderer, and young Cherry is steeped in guilt.
Clurman and Hale report back to the Vice President on the results of the operation, and it turns out that she's behind all the conspiracies.
Episode 9
Learning from the news that his son, Reggie, is on the run on a double murder charge, Lincoln remembers the threat he was told that "only one of us can survive", and recklessly pleads with Pope for permission to leave prison under surveillance and search for his son, but there's nothing he can do about it.
A new group of inmates arrives at Fox River Prison, and just as Suckley observes the newcomers with interest, Michael watches Cherry commit suicide but can't do anything about it. ...... In another corner of the prison, there are keen eyes watching Michael and the others' every move.
Nick tells Veronica that although the investigation is fraught with danger, they can't hide and waste time any longer, and he decides to go to the victim's widow first, and that Stedman's greatest enemy during his lifetime must be the mastermind behind all this.
When Tuna, a newly incarcerated mulatto, is ostracized by both blacks and whites in prison, the Backpack takes the opportunity to approach him with ill intent. Abbott's credibility is shaken for the first time in years, and when he is unable to locate a witness, Gus, a fellow cellmate, is appointed by the mob to take his place, his monthly payments to guard Berwick are cut off, and the prison factory is no longer under his control.
Lincoln finally gets word from his son that Lije is free of the secret agent and has gotten together with Veronica.
Episode 10
Abbotts urges Michael to reveal the whereabouts of the witness Fibonacci as soon as possible or they won't be able to use the prison factory work to cover their escape. Michael's moral heart endures a torment: can the life of another innocent man be jeopardized over this in order to save his brother?
Covert agents Hale and Clurman receive a call from Vice President Caroline, who is quite unhappy with the pair's work, and a man named Quinn is coming to direct their operation. Clurman angrily confronts the Vice President and accuses him of not letting Quinn get involved in Stedman's murder because he represents "The Company", which is far more powerful than the Vice President or even the White House.
Michael is coerced into revealing the whereabouts of Fibonacci, and Abbotts regains control of the prison plant. Philip Falzone leads a group of men to Canada to murder Fibonacci, not realizing that hordes of police have been waiting for him.
Michael, Sucre, and Abbotts have basically dug through the drainage ditch underneath the ruins of the guardhouse, when Sticky Notes, who has been secretly observing them, shows up, and Michael is forced to add one more person to his escape team.
Veronica replies to her ex-fiancé's greeting via chat, but on the other side of the Internet, Sebastian has already been shot and killed, and Quinn has tracked him down using the network.
Episode 11
The digging continues for Michael and the others, with the Backpack needlessly stirring up racial animosity with the Sticky Notes, when a lookout, Sucre, warns the group that the guards are coming. The guards are looking for Michael, and to the astonishment of the crowd, they inform him that "Mrs. Schofield" is visiting. Michael meets Nika in the separate conjugal visiting room and she hands him a credit card. Westermorland is told that his daughter has esophageal cancer and has only a few weeks to live, but the court won't allow him to visit her unless it's for a funeral. Desperate, Westmoreland finds Michael, who wants to join them in their prison break program.
Nick tells Veronica that things have been going wrong for a long time, and that the truth about Stedman's murder is not only a matter of Lincoln's life and death, but also that there is evidence that the Vice President embezzled millions of dollars from Stedman's energy research program for the election. While this is going on, Quinn breaks into their hideout, Nick is wounded, Veronie can't move, and they have to abandon the car while Michael drives away Tuna.
Meanwhile, Beric discovers the parking place and Tuna's handprints. Pressed by Popper, Katie finally reveals that Sara has a crush on Michael. Michael and the others evade a helicopter search and arrive at a farmhouse, where they find a car but no engine. Wire "borrows" a bicycle to continue their escape. Beric finds the abandoned car and is confident that they didn't get far. The plane waiting for Abbotts arouses the suspicion of the administrator, who calls for an inquiry into its details. Sucre and the others pinned down the "backpack" and tried to cut the handcuffs, but failed, Abbotts took the axe and cut off the "backpack's" hand, the others were dumbfounded, and the escape team got rid of one more person.
The company decides to use a poison to get rid of the vice president, who has become an obstacle, but the president dies in an accident, and the vice president survives, taking his place in the throne. Chicago police break into Sara's house and find her overdosed with morphine and unconscious on the couch. Veronica enters the house and appears in front of Terrence, who was "killed" by Lincoln. The remaining five break through the police lines and head for the plane, but when they reach it, the plane finally takes off and whizzes over their heads. The police car that spotted the trail is speeding towards them, and the five can only continue to run into the nighttime wilderness.