Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Class Reunion, Without the Class
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.11.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The shooter who took out Schechter at the end of the last hour is trapped inside the Columbia building, but Kiefer thinks the only way he could have gotten there so quickly in the first place is through an FBI mole. Of course, he turns out to be right, and when that mole helps the shooter escape, Kiefer and Walker go off on their own little pursuit, as Kiefer continues his campaign to bring her over to the dark side.
Meanwhile, Tony remotely freezes up the entire northeastern air traffic control network long enough to nearly crash one passenger flight into another on intersecting runways at JFK. Lucky for him it's foggy there. After that little demonstration, we get to meet Tony's boss, Emerson, who takes the module and its creator, Latham, while hinting at a new job coming up for Tony tout-suite. Emerson seems to be reporting to our old buddy Colonel Dubaku, who survived that landmine in "Redemption" and is in the U.S., apparently to put pressure on President Taylor to call off the invasion while avenging his brother's death. Henry Taylor confronts Roger's girlfriend Sam about the $400,000 that showed up in her account, and doesn't believe her claim that the money is just the result of a little innocent tax fraud. Ultimately, Kiefer and Walker track the sniper to Tony's lair, where they take out all of Tony's men and Kiefer beats down Tony himself before asking this question of urgent national import: "What happened to you?"
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ah, the previouslies freeze frames. How I've missed them, even when the "previouslies" cover stuff that was just broadcast over the last hour. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that they didn't interrupt "Redemption" with a set of them right in the middle. Anyway, this hour's freeze frames feature, in order, President Allison Taylor, Henry Taylor (along with a black-and-white family photo featuring the Taylors' now-dead son, Roger), FBI Agent Renee Walker, Jack Bauer, and, for the first time in years, Tony Almeida. The following takes place between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM. But do events still occur in real time?
As Global Air/Skies flight 117 cruises obliviously through the clouds, the Northeast Air Traffic Control bunker is quite the beehive of futile activity. The supervisor starts rattling off ideas. "Figure out if there's any way we can contact them visually from the ground." I'm sure that's possible, as long as they don't mind the message being a barn roof that reads "Eat At Joe's." He also orders someone to start pulling cell phone numbers off the passenger manifest, in case anyone forgot to shut off their phones in flight. I did that once, by the way, and by the time we landed it was really hot for some reason. Not recommended. Emergency contact channels are still inoperative, but despite not being able to reach the crew, another controller has somehow gotten a hold of a cockpit recording from just a few minutes ago. He plays back the conversation between the pilot and Tony that we just heard at the end of the last hour. "They think they're communicating with us," the supervisor realizes, and quickly dials his cell phone. But isn't the plane Tony's problem now? If he wants to steer it, let him steer it.
Seconds later, the supervisor's on the line directly to Moss at the Washington Field Office, telling him the situation. And just in case Moss never saw Die Hard 2 or Pushing Tin, the supervisor spells it out for him. "As long as the pilot thinks he's talking to one of us, he'll do whatever they tell him." My God -- that pilot could end up walking off the plane with no pants on!
Tony's control over Flight 117is currently being demonstrated by the fact that Masters is now on the line with the pilot, telling him to make a course change to land on a different runway at JFK than the one originally assigned by real air traffic control. He quickly makes up an excuse about possible wind shear. While we see the innocent, helpless passengers in a split screen, the pilot acknowledges the instruction and changes course. One of those "innocent" passengers is a young boy playing a handheld electronic game, which he would have been told to turn off by now, with the plane on final approach. So, he, at least deserves to die.