Episode Report Card Gustave: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Tater Not
By Gustave | Season 3 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.16.2004
The time is 02:27:06 AM. Special Agent Charlie Brown enters the CTU floor and finds Spawn in a conference room arranging reports. "We haven't talked since I got back," he says. "No, we haven't," she says. He begs her for a chance to explain. "You have a baby," says Spawn. "We've been going out for three months and you kept this from me." According to Special Agent Charlie Brown, he didn't know he had a daughter until a month ago, when an ex-girlfriend of his got into some unspecified bit of "trouble" and dumped the baby on his lap. "I was afraid to let people find out," says Charlie. "I was afraid it was going to mess us up." "But you told Potato Face," says Spawn. Charlie explains that Potato Face was a good friend of his, and she and his sister were helping him take care of the baby. They are interrupted by another girlfriend of Joel Surnow's -- the aforementioned Marcy? -- who tells Chase that Tater Tot woke up. "All I know is that I love you," says Charlie. "And I'm falling in love with Tater Tot too. I need to make this work." Spawn sullenly accepts his apology and then watches with mixed emotions as Charlie walks over to Tater Tot and holds her.
Elsewhere on the floor, Kiefer and Chappelle are talking about the ongoing interrogation. Chappelle thinks they might be getting somewhere, but Kiefer suspects that Super-Villain Nina might be manipulating everyone as usual. Kiefer wants to talk to Potato Face and get more information on Amador, but Chappelle wants Kiefer to speak to an investigator about his drug use. "We both know that my blood work is going to come back with trace amounts of opiates," says Kiefer. "But enough is enough." Chappelle tells Kiefer that he can go back to work once Rae Plachecki from the Inspector General's office has made an evaluation. Kiefer is then lead into a conference room where Plachecki is waiting for him. Plachecki, incidentally, is played by the same mannish actress who played Vasquez in Aliens. Hey, didn't I once compare Jalapeño to that actress? "You know the drill," she says. "We just want to establish that this heroin use was a necessary part of your cover." "It was necessary to maintain my cover," says Kiefer. "Are we done now?" No, they're not done. And boy, do I wish they were. I am so tired of these boring internal investigations that the writers keep insisting on depicting, despite the fact that no one gets punished for anything at CTU. As Plachecki interrogates Kiefer, we notice that there's a video camera trained on him. Just like how a video is trained on…
…Nina who, ironically, is also being interrogated by CTU. See what those writers just did? When I was in college, my professors called that "mirroring." Soul Patch asks Nina some more questions about Amador and Alvers, but Nina isn't cooperating. "What kind of a deal do you think you're going to get?" asks Soul Patch. He lists her misdeeds over the last two and a half seasons -- the selling of top-secret information, the murder of Bride, the smuggling of nuclear weapons into the country, et cetera -- and asks her what it is she wants out of life. "What is it that you get out of being a mass murderer?" he asks. Nina is silent for several moments. Finally she speaks. "Your neck is bleeding," she says. Soul Patch leaves the room and goes back into the observation room, where Michael Bolton is jerking off and Bitchelle is clutching her pearls. Michael Bolton tells Soul Patch that they're only getting subliminal responses, and that they need more sophisticated equipment. Soul Patch points out that the interrogation room that has said equipment is not secure enough for a super-villain like Nina. "Where's Richards?" asks Soul Patch. "He's waiting," replies Bitchelle. "Let's bring him in." Richards turns out to be the night shift version of Johnson. And we know what Johnson does. The time is 02:33:53 AM.