Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Diplomessy
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.08.2005
Kiefer makes his call to PMHC, who wants to know what they've learned from Lee, which, thus far, is nothing. PMHC reminds Kiefer of the risk they took getting Lee. "Trust me, I know," Kiefer growls. PMHC says there's more bad news, and tells Kiefer about the Chinese Consul's shooting. Kiefer insists that none of his men fired a shot, so PMHC says that means the Consul was shot by his own guys. Kiefer asks, "How bad is he hurt?" PMHC says the Consul died. "Oh, my God," Kiefer breathes, realizing this is big. PMHC instructs Kiefer to make sure everyone on his team has an alibi. "We're trying to avoid a confrontation with China," he finishes, in a blatant attempt to get into this week's promo. Kiefer says he'll handle it, and hangs up. Nothing like a new crisis to help Kiefer deal with fresh grief, no?
And now we get an early commercial, but I have to recap it because it's written into the script of the show and features some of its characters. At her computer, Potato Face gets a warning screen that prominently features the name of a certain internet router company whose name rhymes with Crisco. Looks like some kind of traffic spike. She heads over to report to Buchanan that "Somebody's trying to jam our satellite server." Buchanan wonders if it might not be an innocuous high network load, but Potato Face bitchily insists that it's a denial of service attack. "What do you want me to do?" Buchanan asks if any damage is done, but she says the Crisco system is "self-defending." Good golly, we gotta get us one of those at TWoP Towers. Buchanan tells her to have someone use the "security auditor tool" in the hope that it'll lead them to ImhoTerror's location. "That was my point from the start," she whines, and begins to stomp off. Liar. If that was your point, why did you ask Buchanan what to do? Fortunately, he calls her on it: "We're in the middle of an active code. We don't have time for your personality disorder." Ah, my favorite part of every season she's been in. So many viewers relate to Potato Face because she's socially inept. I say that lots of people are socially inept without also being assholes. She gives us socially inept people a bad name, and I for one am through enabling it. She swallows her shock and outrage at being called out and tells Buchanan, "Yes, sir." Go, Buchanan! And for that matter, go, Cisco Systems! Best commercial ever! Glark, please buy one of everything they sell.
It's 3:07:33 as ImhoTerror calls yet another new minion from the shotgun seat of a van. Guess he's not worried about traffic cams any more. What does worry him is that the minion – who's sitting in an empty factory somewhere running a laptop -- just told him that he can't jam CTU's satellites, thanks to the fabulous, shiny, life-changing new Cisco security feature that CTU just installed in the past week. ImhoTerror says this means they'll have to move up their schedule an hour. Laptop Minion (which sounds kind of dirty, I know, but this many minions into the season, I'm so beyond caring) protests that there "won't be as many casualties if people aren't at work." ImhoTerror says that if the Laptop Minion can't jam CTU's satellites, they'll be found. Which presumably means there won't be any casualties at all, except on ImhoTerror's side. Laptop Minion understands.