Jonathan Krantz

Jonathan Krantz is a fictional character in the American televison series Prison Break, and is portrayed ''Leon Russom. ''Also known as and referred to as the General, he serves as the head of the company, a corrupt organization that attempts to rule the free world by seizing control of and manipulating the government. Although he did not appear in the first season, Krantz made his onscreen debut in the season 2 episode The Killing Box, and appeared in every subsequent season of the show, and slowly evolved into the series antagonist and the archenemy of protagonists Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows.

Background

General Jonathan Krantz served as the head operative of the company, an organization of corrupt and roque government officials that use their politcal power to rise through the ranks of the business and criminal underworlds for the purpose of world domination. Krantz has servants and operatives withinin every major agency, business, and corporation in the world, including the CIA, the FBI, LAPD, and the Military. Many prominent worldwide scientists, politicians, and law enforcement agents are secretly company operatives and work for Krantz. Krantz proves to be an incredibly ruthless leader, ordering his operatives and henchmen to murder anyone seen as a risk to keeping the company's existense secret from the public.

Earlier in his life, Krantz became close friends with a fellow company operative named Aldo Burrows. However, Burrows began to lose faith in the comapny upon realizing the effects his work had on innocent civillians and the people murdered in the company's quest for power. Burrows went roque, swearing that he would expose Krantz and his fellow operatives for their crimes and eventually bring down the company. The company faked the death of Terrence Steadmen, the brother of Vice President and company operative Caroline Renyolds, and framed Burrows' son, Lincoln Burrows, in an attempt to lure Burrows out of hiding. This operation occured during the first season, and although Krantz was not seen on-screen at the time, it was later revelaed that he was behind the company framing Linclon in the first season and murdering Aldo in the second season.

Krantz also had numerous sexual encounters with women, fathering one daughter named Lisa Tabak with an unnamed woman, and a little girl named Emily with Gretchen Morgan

Season 2

After Lincoln Burrows and 7 other convicts escape from prison, (one of them being his brother Michael, who knew Lincoln was innocent and planned to break him out and bring down the company to avenge Aldo's death) Krantz immediately uses his authority to order company operatives who work in law enforcement to kill any one of the escaped convicts in fear of their knowledge of the company. He does so by blackmailing a reluctant Alexander Mahone into killing all 8 of the escapees, using the company's knowledge that Mahone had secretly killed a serial killer he had been pursuing, as leverage to force the FBI agent and former company operative to agree to his terms. Krantz never realized how unnecessary this was, due to the fact that Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield were the only ones who were actually aware of the company's existence due to information that had been provided and confirmed by their father. Under Krantz's orders, several of the escaped convicts are captured and killed, including John Abruzzi, but Scofield and Burrows successfully manage to successfully elude recapture. In the middle of the second season, Mahone, who has teamed up with Paul Kellerman and formed an uneasy alliance with the company, is finally able to recapture Lincoln and Michael. Malone plans to kill them, but Kellerman betrays both Krantz and Mahone, and escapes with Lincoln and Michael out of anger of being fired from the company. Towards the end of the season, when the brothersresurface in Panama, Krantz and his operatives send Mahone to Panama City to finish both of them off. But this time, Mahone betrays the company and is captured by Panamanian police and sent into Panamanian prison when he is caught sailing with a boat that he had stolen from Michael for illegal possesion of cocaine. (This turns out to be a set-up by Michael.) Later, Michael Scofield himself is thrown in the same prison when he takes the blame for shooting and killing one of Krantz's henchmen when in reality Michael's girlfriend Sara Tancredi had done it. At the end of the season, Krantz is seen working in a restricted facility on Long Island, where a man in a white lab coat approaches him and informs him of Michael's imprisonment.

Season 3

After Michael Scofield is thrown in Sona, a prison in Panama notorious for it's violent riots which occur frequently, Krantz arranges the kidnapping of Sara Tancredi and Michael's nephew, Lincoln Burrows Jr. (a.k.a LJ) Under order from Krantz, Gretchen Morgan confronts Lincoln Burrows in a restaurant and instructs him to tell Michael that he must break out an inmate from Sona named James Whistler and rendezvous with Gretchen in a specified location, where Michael and Lincoln will exchange Whistler for LJ and Sara. The brothers have to agree to participate in the company's plot or else Sara and LJ will be killed if they fail to break Whistler out. When Krantz becomes dissatisfied with the progress of the operation, he revises the plot and executes an attempt to evacuate Whistler from Sona by helicopter, but Michael puts the pieces of the puzzle together and foils the escape attempt. At the end of the season, the original escape attempt is revised and Michael is successfully able to escape with Whistler and Mahone, who much to Krantz's dissatisfaction, has teamed up with the brothers. The exchange goes as planned and Michael and Lincoln are reunited with LJ. However, Krantz and his cronies are still at large, carefully and elaborately planning the next stage of their plan.

Season 4

Krantz's role as the series antagonist is most prominent during the 4th and final season of the show.

Unbeknownst to Krantz, Gretchen and Whistler had been planning the escape attempt so that the pair could steal Scylla, a hard drive owned by the company that contained lists of operatives, operations, and information and plans about the company's demands, so they could sell it a high bidder for profit. When Krantz learns of this, he hires an assassin named Wyatt to kill Whistler and kidnap Gretchen.

When Gretchen escapes company custody, Michael, Lincoln, and their friends also learn of Scylla from Homeland Security agent Don Self, who offers them full exoneration under the law if they are able to retrieve Scylla. The group agrees to Self's terms and they form an A-Team to expose and destroy the company once and for all. They are successful in making digital copies of cards that serve as keys to the facility in which Scylla is stored. When Krantz sends Wyatt to kill the group, they capture the assassin and Mahone kills him in revenge for the murder of his son, Cameron, which had been ordered by Krantz. When he receives a fake automated message that Self had made that falsely informs him of that the Scylla team had been killed, Krantz assumes that Michael and his crew are all dead. So when they break into the company headquarters in Los Angeles, Krantz is taken aback as the group holds him hostage in his office. Krantz tries to reason and negotiate with members of the group by offering them excessive bribes that the company can provide. (Such as prepaid vacations, college tuition for children of members of the group, etc.) But the group members all refuse, and Michael writes a list of all the people that have been murdered by the company, telling Krantz that what they all want is see the company burnt to the ground and Krantz in prison. Just when Krantz is about to call his security guards into the office to kill the group, he receives a call from his daughter Lisa Tabak, who is being held hostage by Sara Tancredi and will be killed if he does not the group go. Angry but not in position to make more demands or extraneous offers, Krantz is forced to comply and reluctantly allows his security guards to release Michael and the group from the building.

Unfortunately, when the Scylla team turns Scylla in to agent Self, he betrays them and teams up with Gretchen, who has turned against Krantz, to sell Scylla. Krantz's operatives and Michael and Lincoln cross paths once again when both forces try to recover Scylla in the same place. Self and Gretchen are able to escape, but Scofield is kidnapped and brought back to company headquarters, where Krantz learns that Michael is dying of a brain tumor. Hatching a plan, Krantz gives Lincoln a deal: If Lincoln agrees to team up with the company to recover Scylla, Michael will receive advanced medical treatment for his condition. When Lincoln brings Scylla back to Krantz, he will allow the brothers to walk free. Lincoln agrees to the deal, and Krantz sends him to Miami, where he teams up with Self, Gretchen, Mahone, and T-Bag.

The group learns that Scylla has ended up in the hands of Christina Scofield, the late Aldo Burrows' ex-wife and mother of Lincoln and Michael. T-Bag calls the Krantz and provides him with this information, and Krantz immediately flies to Miami in his private jet. T-Bag is promised a high position in the company, while Krantz sends the rest of the group to recover Scylla from Christina.

Unfortunately, Christina has a secret plan of her own, which involves making deal to sell Scylla to a diplomat from India, and then assassinating the diplomat and framing the Chinese, therefore make a huge profit and re-igniting border tensions between China and India. Lincoln is framed for the diplomat's murder and Christina escapes with Scylla. Krantz realizes that Christina is aiming for success by bringing countries on the verge of war and watching the world destroy each other with advanced weapon technology that she has secretly and anonymously provided, making a profit in the process and watching it all happen from a safe distance. Krantz comments that he and Christina never really got along, revealing that she held a grudge against him for not allowing her to be a Scylla cardholder.

Michael, who has escaped from company custody and traveled to Miami with Sara to find Lincoln, comes once again face to face with the Krantz, who kidnaps Sara and forces him to get Scylla back. Michael, along with Lincoln and Mahone, is able to find Christina and steal Scylla back. But unbeknownst to Krantz, Christina captures Lincoln when he tries to escape. Both Christina and Krantz want the same thing: Scylla. Unable to chose between Lincoln and Sara, Michael choses to save both of them. Along with Mahone, rescues Lincoln from Christina without giving up Scylla. With Krantz holding Sara prisoner in an apartment with T-Bag guarding her, Michael is able to overpower T-Bag and rescue Sara. The group handcuffs Krantz to the couch in the apartment and leaves to debate what to do with Scylla. They are contacted by Kellerman, who has left the company and become a U.N representative. Kellerman instructs Michael and the group to give him Scylla, and they will all be exonerated. The group agrees to do so, and plenty later, police arrive the apartment and catch Krantz just as he is trying to escape. Krantz immediately surrenders to the police, who take him into custody. The company is destroyed at last.

The Final Break

General Jonathan Krantz makes his final appearance as the series antagonist in the TV movie The Final Break, in which he tries to hatch a plot of revenge against Michael and Lincoln from prison.

Set a few weeks after the series finale, the film reveals that Krantz has been found guilty of his crimes and is in prison on death row. Ironically enough, he has been sentenced to meet the same fate which he incriminated an innocent man for. When Sara is sent to prison for shooting and killing Christina, Krantz decides to have one of his henchmen in the women's prison kill Sara by slipping rat poison into her food in the prison cafeteria. When the attempt fails, Krantz uses his lawyer to hire an assassin to carry out the plot, but Lincoln, who is aware of the plot, breaks into the lawyer's house along with Fernando Sucre, a close friend and ally of the group. Even T-Bag, who initially attempts to form an alliance with Krantz inside prison, Ultimately, ultimately betrays him for a higher pay, resulting in Krantz angrily telling T-bag to go to hell.

In the end, Krantz's last operation fails once Michael Scofield and his team engineer another daring plot to break Sara out of prison. Four years later, Lincoln, Sara, Sucre and Mahone all visit the grave of Michael, who has since passed away. Meanwhile, Krantz is preparing for his execution via the electric chair. As Krantz is strapped up in the chair, a priest leans over to him and whispers, "Are you ready, my son?" To which Krantz utters his last words, replying "Semper Paratus" (always ready, in Latin) moments before the switch is thrown and Krantz is executed.