Prison Break: The truth behind Sara’s death

A lot of fans are upset over the way Sara Tancredi bit it on Prison Break.

They get you pulled into a story and then end it without any kind of resolution. While the show has mainly been focused around escaping from prison and running from the law, there was a love story as a subplot, one that should have been resolved.

According to the Ausiello report, it all came down to contract crap and hurt feelings. Of course.

The writers had actually planned for Sara to die sometime during the season, probably early on, maybe by episode 13 or 14. There was a needed “emotional loss” for Michael Scofield in order to provide motivation for his actions the rest of the season.

Only they had planned to make the death much more involved. Michael was supposed to have a chance to save her, but fails, which would have been something that almost killed him, but likely would turn him towards vengeance. That will still obviously happen, but not in the way that would have been better for the fans.

So why did Sara not appear in any of these episodes? It just seems to have come down to contract stuff and disappointment.

The actor who plays Sara, Sarah Wayne Callies, was up in Canada being pregnant and unable to participate until likely episode 10. But when she found out that she wasn’t going to be part of the entire season, perhaps her disappointment and looming motherhood made her just decide to quit.

They offered to fly up there to film the final scenes, but she declined. According to the writers and spokesman interviews by Ausiello, they tried hard to accommodate her situation, but it just never worked out.

It seems obvious to me that she wanted to continue to be part of this show, and when she found herself dying midway through the season, it ticked her off. And the thing was, it was going to take a NEW contract to just sign her for 13-14 episodes, instead of the entire season, and it wasn’t worth the hassle to her.

Who can really blame her? A baby coming soon, which is probably the most important thing in her life now, and then word reaches her that she needs to put in a lot of work for just a few more episodes and then she’s done forever?

So while none of us knew she had already been written off the show, we all lost the kind of conclusion that would have been more satisfying. After all, Sara was the key component in their initial escape and also helped him in season two, where they actually seemed to fall in love and long to be together.

You can read the entire interview with the Prison Break guys by visiting the Ausiello report, which has more of the story.