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's cell phone rings, for real this time. It's Curtis, who's no longer in the meeting, telling Kiefer that Lee's waking up and Melissa Rabb, the Chinese interpreter, is already there. Kiefer says he'll be right there and heads off to the clinic at a jog. And now I need to apologize to the real Melissa Rabb, who is a 24 viewer and TWoP poster who won an auction to have a character named after her on the show. And then I went and misspelled her name in last week's recap. I should know better than to trust my closed-captioning by now.
In the clinic, Dr. Besson is fussing over Lee. Potato Face and another analyst are right outside the room, sitting at computers and wearing headphones so they can hear every word of Mandarin that Lee utters. Kiefer walks right in behind Rabb to where Besson is treating Lee and says, "Doctor, that's enough. He's mine now. Thank you." Which of those three sentences doesn't belong? Kiefer has Rabb tell Lee he's in critical condition, and that they'll withhold care until Lee answers Kiefer's questions. Rabb tells Lee she likes the way his sheet tents, for all I know, because I don't speak Mandarin. Lee understands. But his story's changed: he suddenly doesn't know where the warhead is. Kiefer gets all bunchy, until Lee says he might know where ImhoTerror is. He knows of three locations where ImhoTerror's working today: The Rocklyn Building ("We know about that one," Kiefer snaps), a "bar downtown" ("We know about that one too"), and a factory on Sixth. "Where on Sixth?" Kiefer asks, relieved that the third place isn't the ImHideout he stormed a few hours ago. Lee says it's on Sixth and Alameda. "That's the one we're looking for," Kiefer says, and on his way out he orders Potato Face to put together a team that includes Curtis. "They need to be ready to move now." Potato Face is on it. They needed two analysts listening in for that? I found that location myself using Yahoo! Maps, and can practically plot a route from the exact spot where I now think CTU is (not that I'm saying until I'm sure). It's 3:37:32.
3:41:53. Bitchelle has her earpiece back in, Buchanan is still catting and mousing with the Consulate Cop, the missile countdown continues, and the Veep paces the Undal Office. On the CTU floor, Curtis tells DoDder that the Consulate Cop wants to talk to her. Why? Because Buchanan had Kiefer's hourlies dummied up to show that Kiefer had been working with DoDder while the raid on the Consulate was going on. "Buchanan wants me to lie to the Chinese government to protect Kiefer?" Curtis says it's to protect the U.S. Government and that Lispy Skip is sending the hourlies to DoDder's system. She says she's not comfortable with it. "I understand," says Curtis, "but whatever you decide, you're still gonna have to talk to Consulate Cop." DoDder pulls up the fake file, which does indeed show her and Kiefer working together on some random data processing task. She looks up to see him coming out onto the floor at 3:43:23, and stomps over to ask what's happening. Kiefer says they're getting ready to move in on ImhoTerror's latest location. But she's referring to the fact that Consulate Cop wants to question her about her "working with" Kiefer. Kiefer says he's sorry, "but whatever Buchanan laid out, you've got to stick to it." DoDder doesn't see what the big deal is now that Lee's given himself up, so Kiefer has to tell her about the Consul's death. "The United States government cannot be held responsible for that." DoDder's had it up to here with this shit. "Kiefer, what are you doing? You have broken every major protocol set by CTU and the DoD and for what? Is any of this working?" Kiefer reminds her of what I've been saying since noon: "You're still alive. Your father's still alive. And we managed to stop all but one of the power plants from melting down. Yes, it's working. And we have to fight to keep it working." He tells her to do what she has to, and says he's gotta go. He means it, too, because you know what? He goes. DoDder considers what Kiefer just said for a moment, and joins the Consulate Cop in the conference room.
But Buchanan's not in there right now; he's out on the floor, being told by Lispy Skip that Kiefer's approach to the latest ImHideout is all set up. Buchanan tells him to make sure Soul Patch has a copy of the plan, since he'll be running point from CTU. Yeah, Buchanan's definitely not mad at Soul Patch any more.