Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 1 USERS: C- YOU GRADE IT Dead Boss Walking
By M. Giant | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.17.2004
CTU. At 6:42:22, Adam the Woman Hater tells Soul Patch that the partial print from Kathy's belt buckle is a possible match for almost three hundred people. We can probably eliminate most of the women. Soul Patch orders pictures of the potential matches uploaded to Bitchelle at Inn Fection so Kathy can identify her gentleman caller. Hey, I thought that Bitchelle uploaded data to them! Data can't go uphill both ways, can it? Whatever. Spawn lets Soul Patch know that Chappelle is calling from the helicopter. Soul Patch picks up the call, but he quickly regrets it as Chappelle, talking through one of the helicopter's headsets, tries to micromanage Special Agent Charlie Brown's raid from the air. Jeez, some people get so tense when they have seventeen minutes to live. Through his own headset, Kiefer assures Chappelle that Special Agent Charlie Brown knows what's at stake. Um, no, he doesn't, Kiefer. You didn't see fit to tell him. Soul Patch manages to shut Chappelle up by patching him through to Charlie Brown's real-time audio so he can hear what's going on. I wish I had real-time audio. Kiefer announces that he's spotted the train yard, and we get several angles of the chopper coming down in split screen because that shit is expensive and the producers want to make the most of it.
Back at the apartment building, Special Agent Charlie Brown's strike team is moving. One of Saunders's guards gets shot by an agent doing a drive-by in a street sweeper (a street sweeper! Man, CTU has everything!), while Special Agent Charlie Brown and Baker take out two more by coming around opposite corners of the building. That was kind of impressive; three guys went from zero to dead in five seconds flat. Charlie Brown and Baker head in through the front door, while two more agents scale the fire escape ladder to the roof. Special Agent Charlie Brown is seen creeping across one of Saunders's flat-screen security monitors, but Saunders has a lot of monitors and a manila folder to occupy his attention, and he appears oblivious. Suspenseful "music" that sounds like somebody playing a high-tension power line with a pair of hammers plays as the four agents work their way deeper into the building, silenced handguns at the ready. Charlie Brown reports on their progress as Kiefer, Chappelle, and the people at CTU listen in. They take out two more bad guys in the hallway, and the next thing we know, Baker is taping an explosive charge to a locked door. Wow, this is really going remarkably well. Suspiciously well, in fact. A contingent of five slow-moving guards seems a little light for a details guy like Saunders, now that I think about it. A scant two and half minutes after the raid began, Baker blows the door, and Special Agent Charlie Brown charges into -- an empty room. There's nothing there but an electronic box, which tells Special Agent Charlie Brown that Saunders has been relaying his calls through the building without actually being there. He totally pulled a Silence of the Lambs. Wait, Saunders outsmarted Potato Face? That's unpossible!
Chappelle, of course, hears this all on the chopper's headset. He doesn't say a word. Paul Schulze barely moves, and yet he does a great job of conveying just how profoundly it sucks to be Chappelle at this particular moment. Kiefer slowly takes off his headset, and Chappelle follows suit. They just sit there for a minute, staring straight ahead, knowing their one shot is over and they blew it. Time's up. The clock appears at the bottom of the screen, showing 6:47:02, just in case anyone gets the idea that they're going to try and find Saunders all over again in thirteen minutes. Kiefer's cell phone goes off. It's Saunders: "You underestimate me, Kiefer." Wow, so did I. I didn't think Saunders knew Kiefer was going to be the one to kill Chappelle. In fact the only people who did know are Kiefer, Chappelle, Soul Patch, Palmer, and Brother Palmer. Either this is sloppy plotting, or Saunders is hacked into CTU's communications, or one of those five people is a mole. And I think we can rule out Chappelle. Instead of asking Saunders how he got his information, Kiefer asks why Chappelle has to die, now that it's clear that Chappelle's line of investigation was a dead end all along. Chappelle's ears prick up when he realizes whom Kiefer is talking to; he's obviously clinging to some hope for a reprieve. Saunders doesn't explain his motives. He simply instructs Kiefer to leave Chappelle's body with the driver of a van that will be arriving shortly. Kiefer mustn't try to follow that van, or Saunders will release the V-I-R-U-S. Learn a new tune, will you, Saunders? He hangs up on Kiefer, and Chappelle can tell that nothing's changed. It's 6:48:27.