Why Sarah Wayne Callies Wasn’t In Season 3, Explained

Summary

• Sara Wayne Callies’ character, Sara Tancredi, was initially killed off in season 3 of Prison Break but was brought back after fan outcry.
• Contract negotiations led to Sara’s temporary death, with producers having to renegotiate with Callies for her return in the series.
• Callies’ return in season 4 of Prison Break was a key decision by producers, allowing for a more satisfying conclusion to the series with Sara and Michael’s reunion.

Sarah Wayne Callies seemed to be killed off-screen in Prison Break season 3, but Sara doesn’t actually die, and returned in a later season – Now that a Prison Break Reboot is on the way, fans may even wonder if she will return once again. Callies played Dr. Sara Tancredi, Michael Scofield’s love interest in season 1, and a more action-based character in season 2. Sara was one of the doctors working at Fox River State Penitentiary’s hospital, and she was one of the few with a strict moral compass — until she met Michael. Sara looked the other way when it came to Michael’s antics, even though she knew about the prison break.

Whether the show was so entertaining because Prison Break is a modern Homer’s Odyssey or simply because of the thrilling escapes, Michael and Sara’s will-they, won’t-they relationship had huge appeal. However, when season 3 of Prison Break began, Sara was nowhere to be seen. The character was killed off-screen with her head literally being found in a box. As Sara was a likable character, her off-screen death caused a monumental upset, and it didn’t help that it was reportedly due to tension between Callies and the producers. However, Sara being killed off on Prison Break didn’t last.

Why Sarah Wayne Callies Wasn’t In Season 3 Of Prison Break, Explained

Contract Negotiations Likely Led To Sara Being Temporarily Killed Off

Prison Break was leading to a happily-ever-after ending where Michael and Sara settle down together and put their criminal history behind them. However, that all ended when Sara was suddenly killed off-screen, which is revealed when Lincoln Burrows finds her head in a box in season 3, episode 4, “Good Fences.” According to producer Matt Olmstead, it wasn’t always the plan for Sara to die, but the network rejected the original pitch for season 3 (via TV Guide). In order to “really jolt the series,” the next idea was for Sara to be killed off.

Prison Break’s plans changed many times over its run, as it was originally planned to be a limited miniseries, so it’s hardly surprising that Sara’s death was a result of Fox not being happy with a previous pitch. However, just because the producers had settled on the decision to kill Sara doesn’t mean they didn’t want Callies to return.

Olmstead explained that they initially asked Callies to be in a handful of episodes instead of a full season. Callies was contracted to return, but only if it was for the entire 22 episodes, which meant that the producers and Callies would have to renegotiate. Being pregnant and living in a remote area of Canada may have kept Callies from wanting to return, but according to Olmstead, he suggested bringing a camera crew to her.

Contract negotiations ruined so many potentially great ideas and Fox spokesperson Chris Alexander thinks that’s exactly what kept Callies from reprising the role. Alexander explained that after she wouldn’t agree to 13 episodes:

”
We whittled it down to 11 episodes, then 10 episodes, then nine episodes, then four episodes. Then we suggested flying to her.
”

How Sara Tancredi Was Brought Back From The Dead In Season 4

The Head In The Box Was Not Sara’s After All

Following the negative reception of Sara’s absence in the third season of Prison Break, the producers realized that it’d be easy to bring her back. Though it was certainly implied that she was dead, Sara’s death did happen off-screen, allowing for some maneuvering. Callies never said much about being killed off the show or about the negotiations other than that she was “shocked,” but luckily enough, neither the producers nor the actors burned their bridges. Olmstead put it best himself, noting (via TV Guide):

”
She’s a very smart lady, and we’re all adults here. It was never personal. It was a business and creative decision, and we’re absolutely moving on.”

As a result, Callies returned for Prison Break season 4. Prison Break characters coming back from the dead became a common occurrence in the show, and in season 4, Sara returned with her head fully attached to her body. While the season 3 pitch saw the producers succumbing to pressure from the studio, season 4’s approach ended up being the opposite, as it was reactionary and based on the negative reception from the audience.

While some suspension of disbelief is required, it was fairly easy to bring back Sara, as Lincoln never inspected Sara’s “head” when he found it in the box in season 3. Lincoln simply assumed the head was Sara because both the head and Sara shared the same hair color. The death was retconned when Gretchen, who supposedly killed Sara, explained to Michael that Sara escaped. Gretchen lied about killing Sara so she could keep leverage over Michael.

Since the actual escape in Prison Break season 1, the show had become increasingly confusing, but it was worth it, as bringing back Callies was the best decision the producers made. Ironically, it’s lucky that Callies didn’t return for season 3, because if the character had an on-screen death scene, it would have been impossible to bring her back.

The Impact Sarah Wayne Callies’ Sara Had On The Story

Sara Continued To Be A Major Character Following Her Return

The series has had two definitive endings, and the first would have been completely different if Callies never came back. Her return in Prison Break season 4 worked out great outside of a few timeline continuity errors. A major story arc in season 4 is all about the mystery of what actually happened to her and what she was doing during the season 3 timeline. She’s even the lead character in the TV movie, Prison Break: The Final Break, which sees Sara performing a prison break of her own, and it fills in the gaps of season 4.

Prison Break was even revived for season 5 and producers had to come up with another way to have all these characters once again break out of yet another secure compound. Callies returned for the season, only this time it was Michael who was brought back from the dead.

However, though season 4 didn’t see Sara and Michael have the happily-ever-after ending that was set up in the first season, as Michael sacrificed himself to help Sara escape, they get that ending in the season 5 finale. 12 years after the characters were first introduced, they finally get their happy ending and settle down with their son, Mike.

Sarah Wayne Callies Almost Didn’t Return To Prison Break

Callies Didn’t Expect To Play Sara Again

While many fans were excited by the prospect of Prison Break season 5, it had a mixed reception due to some strange creative decisions, such as Teabag getting a redemption arc. However, the season did right by Michael and Sara, and with their happy ending. Nevertheless, Prison Break season 5 could have been very different, as Callies almost didn’t return for the legacy season either (via Entertainment Weekly). Here’s what Callies said:

“
Prison Break
meant a tremendous amount to me personally, and I have a job, so I only want to come back if we’re doing something brave. Personally, there was also a thought that
Prison Break
was my first real job, I had only been in the business a couple of years, and it’s been seven years since I left that show. I ought to be a better actor by now, you know? Andy Lincoln and Jon Bernthal are two of the best teachers I’ve ever had, not that any of them ever tried to teach me anything, but I’ve learned so much on
Walking Dead
, on
Colony
, on weird little movies with Nic Cage and stuff. I guess I’m interested to see if I can do better than I did before. I realize I’m setting myself up to be completely panned.
‘Guess what? She didn’t learn s—,’
but I hope I’m a better actor and I hope I can bring more to it than I did before, so that, to me, seems like a legitimate reason to do it.”

Her hesitance to return is understandable given that she moved on and wanted more of a challenge, but she ultimately realized that returning to the character was the biggest challenge of all. Though her previous return to Prison Break led to some confusion about whether Sara died or not, for the revival, Callies had to wrap her head around the idea of Michael coming back from the dead:

“It was, ‘No f—ing way, holy f—ing s—,’ like expletive filled. Totally did not believe it, like not in a million years, because I asked the same questions that everybody’s asking. They’re like, ‘But Michael’s dead?!’ Yeah, okay. To be fair,
Walking Dead
was not the first show that I was on where people get resurrected constantly.”

Michael was also killed off in the TV movie Prison Break: The Final Break, making it hard for the network to bring him back. However, Prison Break has made a habit of killing off its characters only for them to return, with the most notable example being Sarah Wayne Callies’ own off-screen death in Prison Break season 3.

The character was literally decapitated but still showed up in Prison Break season 4. In the end, Callies ultimately agreed to return for the fifth season, but it wasn’t without more tough negotiations, as the actor revealed that she “played really hard to get.”

What Sarah Wayne Callies Did While Away From Prison Break

Callies’ The Walking Dead Role Gave Her Another Hit Series

As a testament to how brief her time away from Prison Break was, Sarah Wayne Callies didn’t have much time to appear in other projects in between her season 3 departure from the show and her return in season 4. One of the notable projects she did appear in was the 2007 movie Whisper about a group of kidnappers holding a child in a remote cabin only to find themselves subjected to sinister occurrences. The movie also starred Josh Holloway (Lost) and Callies’ future The Walking Dead co-star Michael Rooker.

However, between the show’s original season 4 ending in 2008 to the Prison Break revival in 2017, Callies found herself in a lot of varied projects. She starred alongside Mickey Rourke in the movie Black November, starred with Nicolas Cage in Pay the Ghost, and played the lead role in the disaster movie Into the Storm. However, Callies most notable role between her time on Prison Break was as part of the cast of The Walking Dead. Callies played Lori Grime, the wife of the show’s hero Rick Grimes, for three seasons until she was killed off again.