Matt Olmstead Chats Prison Break Series Finale

I sat in on a conference call with Matt Olmstead, executive producer with Prison Break, today! Here’s some of what he had to say (more to come later).

I was able to ask Matt two questions:

What happened to LJ!
Actually, it’s funny you should ask. There weren’t any regrets, but oddly enough the only actor we couldn’t get was Marshall. We wanted to bring him back for a couple of episodes, but it was later in the season and there was kind of a schedule conflict and we couldn’t get him. His character is addressed going forward.

In terms of the show his charactered lived on, but we weren’t able to get him in terms of showing him where he is now, kind of deal. He’s been a really important part of the show, and a good guy about it. Because, his character is kind of ping-ponged back and forth in terms of a couple episodes here, a couple episodes there – but unfortunately we couldn’t get our schedules to coincide.

Would you like to work with some of the Prison Break cast again in any new projects?
Yeah, very much so. Having been on a couple shows now, you can really appreciate there’s a special quality in someone who has a couple different things going for them – talent and professionalism.

Having worked with people like Bill Fichtner, Robert Knepper – it’s been a real joy and I think the same holds true for them. I think that their experience has been good on the show as well.

Matt also answered covered other topics from the press, including:

Returning/New Characters
Christina plays a big part of the last few episodes. A lot of secrets are revealed and Michael and Lincoln are certainly shook in terms of who they are, where they came from. At a certain point they wonder is this the truth or are they trying to be divided and conquered. We have a big surprise reveal, a returning character who comes in and plays the game when the wheels are coming off everybody.

On Prison Break: The Final Break
What happened was, when we were writing the episodes we had a storyline that didn’t really fit, it kind of kept getting bounced along. Then we had a conversation with the studio saying this is kind of a really cool story we wanted to tell, and it plays as a standalone. The studio went ahead and did episodes 23 and 24, not really sure where it would air.

It will be at some point viewed by the fans and hope it will be worthwhile to them. What it is basically, Episode 22 is the series finale. Everything is wrapped up. Then in the last act there’s a jump forward like four years from now. We show the characters where they are in one last bittersweet. In the next two episode kind of plays in that middle period, that wrinkle in time. So it plays really well, having viewed the entire finale. But not wanting to have to rip off the audience, we didn’t do Episode 22 like a cliff hanger. We didn’t want to infuriate the audience.

More to come…