Carly Mallenbaum

USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES.— If you thought Prison Break protagonist Michael Scofield was killed off in the show's 2009 finale, you’re not alone.

“In my mind, Michael was dead,” says star Wentworth Miller, who’s revisiting his jail-breaking genius character in the Prison Break reboot, eight years after the Fox series ended its four-year run. “That’s what was on the page, that’s what I played and that was my understanding: My character was six feet under.” In fact, Michael had earlier flat-lined on an operating table well before that ending. “We killed him twice, technically."

No matter. After breaking his brother, his wife and himself out of prison, and presumably dying, the inked engineer (who has a new tattoo) is back for a special nine-episode return (Tuesday, 9 ET/PT). Also returning: his former death-row inmate brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell); his wife, Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), who's since remarried; and other law-breaking favorites "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper), "C-Note" Franklin (Rockmond Dunbar) and Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco).

Though there was a funeral and evidence that Michael had a terminal illness, “the last image of Michael (wasn’t) having his head blown off, (so that) sort of leaves the possibility that it was a frame,” says Purcell, who agreed to the reboot after he and Miller reconnected on CW's The Flash, where Purcell plays supervillain Heat Wave alongside Miller’s Captain Cold. “Dramatic license, it’s called.”

The Fox show is obviously unafraid of artistic liberties, clearly pulling inspiration from Homer's The Odyssey. The new Prison Break, like the Greek epic, has its star assuming the name Outis and coming back to life after leaving behind a wife and son. Where do we find him? A Yemeni prison called Ogygia, the name of an island in The Odyssey. And it's from there that our hero must break out, in yet another escape.

But a lot has happened in the years since Michael disappeared, and the actors have gone through their own professional changes.

Miller began the original Prison Break fresh from working as a Fox temp for six years, and auditioning in front of "executives I answered the phone for." Since the show ended, he took a "semi-retirement" from acting, became an advocate for mental health and LGBTQ issues, and returned to TV on Legends.

Since Prison Break's 2009 exit, "it's been up and down" for Purcell. "I was a bit bulletproof back in the day, and with that comes a relaxed air," he says. Now, "I'm a lot more cautious, and I don't believe what Hollywood says."

But the stars say their offscreen relationship hasn't wavered. "Somewhere in the course of playing Dominic’s pretend brother for 81 episodes, he became my brother," Miller says.

Purcell agrees. "Wentworth and I don’t hang out socially, we’re not in each other’s faces, (but) our relationship has transcended a friendship. We love each other."

Like brothers, Miller pokes fun at how Purcell "spritzes" himself with water before an emotional scene, and Purcell knows that Miller spends much of his trailer time eating peanut M&M's and reading TheNew Yorker. Says Miller: "We’re as opposite as opposite gets, but somehow that works. It feels like that’s why it works."