“PRISON Break” villain T-Bag is set to be dealing with an inner struggle when the new season hits screens next month, it has been revealed.

    As Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell, among the most ruthless and calculated killers featured on Fox’s “Prison Break,” Robert Knepper contended with a mountain of challenges over the course of his run with the series — breaking in and out of multiple high-security facilities and murdering his way across America while still somehow engendering some sympathy from the audience (even after cannibalizing an old buddy in the middle of the desert at one point).

    But few obstacles were greater than the loss of T-Bag’s left hand in the climax of the first-season finale, a bloody twist that paved the way for some of the character’s most memorable moments in the ensuing seasons — including a rudimentary reattachment operation at a veterinarian’s office, followed swiftly by a second removal of the same limb just a few episodes later.

    When “Prison Break” returns April 4, however, Knepper’s T-Bag will have five brand-new digits to call his own: In trailers for the revived Fox series, the character is seen with a fully functional cybernetic hand, a reflection of just how much things have changed since the improbable series first debuted in 2005. Then again, it’s also a reflection of how some things have stayed exactly the same — namely, the show’s tendency to swing for the fences, no matter how wild the pitch.

    In the past, Knepper has talked about T-Bag as an animal. “It’s probably still there. For all of us, but particularly for me, because this guy was such a killer. If somebody said something wrong to him, he would probably kill you. But things are a bit deeper now. He thinks about things now. I don’t want to give anything away; people talk a lot about plot with this show, and I think it’s better to be surprised. A lot of my plot points haven’t been brought out yet, and it’ll be nice for you all to be surprised by them. But I think you’re going to find him fighting his demons a little bit more than he would have before. Before, he would have said, ‘You’re looking at me wrong? You’re dead.’ Now, he’ll say, ‘I have to think about it. If I kill somebody, there are ramifications.’”

    The star promised there would be some “cute little spontaneous moments” when the prisoner realizes that he had the use of his hand back.

    Season 5 of “Prison Break” will explain how Michael Scofield (played by Wentworth Miller) managed to survive after his character seemingly died at the end of the show when it originally finished.

    While writers are keeping tight-lipped about how Scofield cheated death, actor Dominic Purcell (as Lincoln Burrows) has promised that there will be “a logical and believable explanation to why the characters are alive and still moving around the world.”

    Amaury Nolasco (as Sucre), Paul Adelstein (as Kellerman), Rockmond Dunbar (as C-Note) and Sarah Wayne Callies (as Sara) also return from the original series.(SD-Agencies)