How To Watch ‘Prison Break’ In Order
Prison Break (2005) is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best shows of all time. It’s a daring, explosively brilliant series that leaves you glued to your screen from start to finish. It was fairly popular when it first aired on Fox, but its re-release on streaming platforms like Netflix brought the show back full circle, allowing a newfound audience and growing popularity to finally give us a resurrection movie that rectified the heartbreaking ending we were forced to sit with.
Hulu, via The Hollywood Reporter, has also announced a reboot that will take place in the same universe while following a new cast of characters. But now that countless shows—and especially procedurals—are on hiatus, it's a worthy time to revisit or watch Prison Break for the first time. To do so properly, here's the correct order.
Prison Break Seasons 1-4 (2005-2008)
To start, you have to go with the first four seasons in order from beginning to end. Now, before the Season 4 finale, you can pause and watch Prison Break: The Final Break (2009), but going backward in time to find out what exactly happens to Wentworth Miller's Michael Scofield makes everything better. The first four seasons are a triumph in narrative storytelling, even if the third season is the weakest in the bunch.
Interestingly, the events of the third season made viewers so angry that writers rectified a major plot point in Season 4 that helped make the show more compelling. If you want a series that delivers a nail-biting story, features well-rounded characters, riveting antagonists, a stunning romance, and an engrossing brotherhood, look no further. Everything about the show's initial run is incredible, and it's also one of the easiest shows to binge because once you start, you can't stop until everything's unfolded in front of you.
Prison Break: The Final Break (2009)
The companion movie to the last episode of Prison Break not only puts plenty into perspective, but it's exactly what leaves room for more stories in the future. In the movie special, we learn that Michael didn't actually die from his cancer returning, but rather he sacrificed himself to ensure that his pregnant partner, Sara (Sarah Wayne Callies), could escape from the false imprisonment she was in.
In addition, the events of the movie were another indication of the "no body, no death" trope. Meaning, despite the fact that we, as the audience, saw Michael's grave, we didn't actually see his body and were shown to presume the explosion killed him. Yet, this is fiction, and it's exactly what led many to believe that maybe he was out there somehow.
Still, it's a must-watch for more reasons than one, more importantly, to see the lengths he'd always go to for Sara. Prison Break might not have been a romance, but their love story is one of the best ever to be written, and this special is the proof.
Prison Break Season 5 (2017)
Prison Break's fifth and final season, which aired years after the movie's release, is where we finally learn that all those years of believing paid off and Michael is indeed alive. The brief season reunited our favorite characters, presented a new mystery that'd been brewing behind the scenes, and gave us insight into what everyone had been up to in the time between.
Often, revivals like this leave fans disappointed, and we're almost always better off without them, but the writers for Prison Break understood how to craft a story that'd be worth the time and effort. It might not be perfect, but the story not only feels true to the original characters, but it's worth every minute to ensure that it's all wrapped up with a worthy conclusion. This one's the end as we know it so far, but remember not to press play after the Season 4 finale automatically and to go backward with the movie first.
