Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bizarre Love Triangle
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 7 | Aired on 01.30.2005
At 1:45:10, Kiefer and DoDder are in what passes for an editing suite at the security company. It's a cramped room with video screens everywhere. You know, in case you've never seen an editing suite. A tech there is explaining about the two cameras they had running at the event, while DoDder sits in a chair and Kiefer paces around and makes me nervous. The tech runs the tapes. Kiefer quickly eliminates one of them as useless due to a too-wide angle, and they concentrate on the one at the entrance. At DoDder's direction, the tech cues up the tape to the time of DoDder's arrival at 9:00 or 9:15. Poor romantic manners and late. This chick gets more charming all the time. She quickly spots someone on the tape who might be TerrorGringo. The tech zooms in on a blurry face. Kiefer's unimpressed, and asks if it can be made clearer. The tech gets to work on that. Because Kiefer can't sit still, he notices that one of the monitors in the room is showing a real-time view of the security desk where they came in. Nobody's there now. The tech figures the guard is out "having another smoke." Okay, I give up; this place isn't even in California. Kiefer isn't reassured by the views on the other monitors, which show the back gates open and nobody there either. He tries to raise his drivers on the walkie-talkie, but there's no answer. Good thing he brought those guys along, huh? He tells the tech to put up security views of the entrance into the part of the building where they are now. And sure enough, one of those views shows two bodies lying on the ground. Kiefer catches the snap and pushes DoDder to the floor.
Unfortunately, the tech doesn't get the memo in time, and he takes a slug in the chest as two gunmen burst into the room. Kiefer shoots them before they can do any more damage. Kiefer crawls over to the bleeding tech. "I'm going to call for help, okay? But first I need to know where the surveillance tape is. Where's the source?" Kiefer, you're such a bastard sometimes. Tech uses some of his precious last breaths to say it's on the main server and Kiefer can access it using Flash memory. Kiefer jumps onto the system while telling DoDder to keep her eye on the security monitors. "Do you have sticks?" Kiefer asks the tech. Dude, he's got a sucking chest wound. Oh, and also memory sticks in his pocket. Kiefer downloads the video frames of TerrorGringo onto the memory sticks, then returns to the bleeding tech. "Stay with me," he says, unconvincingly. Then he does about half a dozen chest compressions before saying, "He's gone." Think Kiefer will still call for help? Just once I'd like to see him get slowed down by having to drag around some wounded guy that he's responsible for. And Season Three Soul Patch doesn't count. DoDder looks at the monitors and sees more bad guys on the way. She wants to call CTU for help, but Kiefer's already figured out that "CTU's been compromised. It's the only way they'd know we were here." He and DoDder leave the editing suite and head down the hall. He directs DoDder into an empty office and loots a handy corpse for its weapon before joining her. He cocks the handgun and offers it to her, using the exact same words he used with DaD last hour: "There's one in the pipe. Safety's off." DoDder's reluctant to take it, but Kiefer talks her into it, because he wants to get shot in the ass or something. And this puts to rest any theories that Kiefer represents any kind of father figure to DoDder; unlike Kiefer, DaD tosses extra handguns aside rather than sharing and he surrenders when he's outnumbered. Kiefer pulls out his phone to call "the only person I can trust right now." Because people talk like that right before commercial breaks. Who could he be calling? Who would plausibly stick his neck out for Kiefer and risk getting it shot? It's 1:49:12.