Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Who Rescues the Rescuer?
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.15.2006
It's 9:53:42 as Curtis gets his men ready to go. He checks in with Diane, telling her Derek is still alive, and then he leads his guys toward the terminal building at a run before she can start screeching again.
Aaron finds FLOTUS still on the floor of the Archives Room. If she really wanted her little expedition kept secret, maybe she should have gone back as soon as she found what she was looking for, rather than hanging around to mess things up even further than she already has. Aaron tells her it's time to go. I notice that she's going to have to get her hair fixed yet again. She gets up, puts her shoes back on, and goes out to the hallway, where the two people she's gotten in trouble in the last twenty minutes are outside waiting for her. She sticks Peeing Guy's card key in his shirt pocket, and takes Evelyn's arm to walk with her behind Aaron. Evelyn apologizes profusely for giving her up, until FLOTUS tells her, "Stop apologizing. It's annoying. Besides, I got what I came for."
At 9:55:12, Walt comes out to the back garden with its fancy concrete moats and tropical plants to make a cell phone call to The Man. He reports, "Jack Bauer is inside [the airport terminal] providing recon for CTU's rescue operation, which will launch shortly." He adds that Kiefer blew up one of the terrorists. Walt doesn't have Kiefer's precise location, but he's concluded that he "has a connection to one of the hostages -- a fifteen-year-old boy named Derek Huxley." Uh, I don't remember hearing Buchanan telling Logan that. He must have been talking very fast indeed during that last commercial break. Walt sees Aaron coming and fakely wraps up his call. Aaron reports that FLOTUS is back in her room getting ready, explaining that the delay is due to FLOTUS's little expedition to the Archive Room. Walt hides his alarm at this development as he asks Aaron what she was doing there. "The First Lady is safe and accounted for," Aaron says. "You'll have to ask her anything beyond that." I do enjoy Aaron's formal-yet-salty manner. Walt looks like he does indeed want to ask FLOTUS a few things, and ask them with his boot.
At the airport, Derek's still not dead. Kiefer watches from above as Beresch redeploys his men. He calls Curtis -- who is now making his way with his men through the darkened catacombs inside the terminal -- to give final positions on the terrorists, and to promise to give real-time updates on their movements as Curtis attacks. Curtis's team gets set up to go.
"This is it," Buchanan tells Audrey. They take one more look at Derek, still kneeling on the live feed.