Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | 330 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Thrilling Bureaucratic Intrigue!
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 2006.04.03
10:41:42. In one of the splitscreen windows, Evelyn is still riding shotgun in her own car, teary-eyed. Which is weird, because when the splitscreen is over one second later, her car is parked outside a barn and she and Wayne are loitering inside the building. They've thoughtfully lit a few oil lamps so the cameras can see what's going on. The sound of a car engine is heard, and headlights shine through the crooked wall slats all X-Files. The head lights go out, and they hear the vehicle's door open and close. But Kiefer doesn't come in. "Something's wrong," Wayne realizes, and drags Evelyn into a hiding spot. But it's a crappy hiding spot, because while we're watching Wayne watch the front door, we see an out-of-focus figure enter the back door behind him. "Wayne," Kiefer says, turning out to be a bullshit scare. Wayne's relieved to see Kiefer, and the latter holsters his gun so they can shake hands. Kiefer then crosses over to Evelyn, introducing himself. "I promise you I'm going to get your daughter back." Although he doesn't say in what condition or in how many pieces. And then he asks Evelyn again what she knows, and again she has to say that she isn't telling anyone anything until her daughter is safe. Because no matter the urgency of the situation, there's always time for people to be saying the same thing over and over all the time. "Fine," Kiefer grumps, and excuses himself to dial his cell phone at 10:43:12.
He gets through to Audrey, who puts him on speakerphone so Chloe can be in on the conversation as well. Chloe's been brought up to speed during the commercials: "I can't believe the Vice President's involved in this," she remarks. Well, don't, then. It'll probably work out better that way in the long run. Kiefer asks how she's doing on the satellite coverage, and she says it's already up and she's sending real-time images to his PDA. This despite the fact that last season, it took her most of an hour to get access to a spy satellite, and she was busted almost immediately anyway. Great job taking over the place, Hayes. Looking at the infrared blips, Chloe tells Kiefer that she counts ten hostiles at the location. Kiefer takes this with some equanimity, asks her to keep sending real-time refreshes to his GameBoy, and hangs up. Then he turns to find Wayne lurking behind him, and tells him to "find somewhere safe" while Kiefer goes with Evelyn to make the "exchange." Funny how he says "exchange" when he means "massacre." Wayne says he's coming along. Kiefer tries to shoot that down, saying it's too dangerous. "I was a Marine, Jack," Wayne retcons (okay, I'm not actually sure about that, but I'm not about to go back and watch all of Season Three to be sure), but Kiefer already knew that and points out that Wayne never saw combat. "There's a big difference between training to kill someone and actually having to do it," Kiefer says, as if he himself wouldn't be dead now otherwise. And more to the point, he doesn't want to endanger Wayne when his family needs him. Why, can't his family have someone else break into people's houses for them? Kiefer starts to walk away, but Wayne stops him with a little speech: "These are the people who killed my brother, Jack. They shot a bullet right through his neck and he died in my arms." He asks if Kiefer could walk away in his position, and Kiefer has to admit that he couldn't. Upshot: Wayne's coming along. Kiefer looks worried, like, His only hope is his lack of agent status, because he is too black and too, too handsome.