Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Crushed Velvet
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.13.2007
In the predawn darkness of Los Angeles, a group of commuters stands at a bus stop watching TV monitors mounted on a pedestal. These TVs apparently avoid being vandalised by constantly broadcasting Fox News, meaning that anyone who attacks one of the screens wakes up at Gitmo. The announcer tells us that there has been a "wave of death;" terrorist bombs have gone off in ten U.S. cities in the past eleven weeks, killing over 900 Americans. Wow, that sounds bad. One of the people at the bus stop is a Middle-Eastern-looking guy with a satchel over his shoulder, and as the Fox News announcer exhorts citizens to report "suspicious persons" to Homeland Security, the guy finds himself the subject of some indiscreet looks and whispering from his fellow commuters of more infidel persuasions. His morning gets worse when he realizes that his bus is about to leave without him, but he runs up to the closed doors and asks in accented English to be let on so that he can get to work on time. The bus driver just looks at him through the doors, then turns away and drives off, much to the Arab-American's noisy indignation and to a complete lack of protest from any of the other passengers. Especially the Asian-looking kid on the bus who adjusts his own bag in the seat next to him. As the bus approaches a busy intersection near what looks like a Frank Gehry building, the kid presses a button on his non-iPod personal music player and the bus detonates. Like, twelve times. What the hell was he listening to, anyway? ["That's what happens when you go with an off-brand MP3 player." -- Wing Chun] Nearby cars explode, spin out, etc. The Gehry building may also be damaged; it's hard to tell because those always look pretty blown-up to begin with. On the other hand, if there's any justice in this country, the frustrated Arab commuter will never be mistaken for a terrorist again.
The sun's already up in Washington, D.C., and we're in a room that, despite all the Presidents 24 has burned through, we've never actually seen before on this show: the Oval Office. The OO is crowded with high-ranking presidential staff, and the floor is currently being held by the White House Chief of Staff, Tom Lennox. He's being played by Peter MacNicol, whose character on Numbthreers was recently shot into space, and I can already tell that I'm going to hope this show follows suit. He's in the midst of arguing for some kind of clearly draconian response (read: arrest all the brown people) to the recent spate of terror attacks, and he acts all surprised at the resistance of the National Security Advisor. Who happens to be none other than Karen Hayes. You might remember her as the Homeland Security boss who took over CTU after last season's nerve gas attacks, and then got asked out by Buchanan at the end of the day. Looks like at least one of those developments has worked out well for her. At the moment, Karen and Tom are arguing about "concentration camps" (her term) versus "detention facilities" (his), and she accuses him of wanting to lock up "every American who prays to Mecca." She says that the Muslim-American community has given hundreds of tips, "and not a single member of that community has been implicated in these attacks." "So far," Tom scoffs, turning to the man behind the big desk. And let me just say, right here, right now, that nothing I'm going to write in this recap, or perhaps the whole season, is going to be as funny as the three words that follow: President Wayne Palmer. This reveal is accompanied by the usual noise that the soundtrack on this show makes when a mid-level surprise arrives, which is that soft shhhingg! like somebody quietly unsheathing a sword. Probably not the most appropriate sound effect under the circumstances, but you try recording the sound of somebody unsheathing a rubber chicken.