Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Things Fall Apart
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.22.2005
Inside the apartment, Mandy walks away from the window that now seems to have sunlight streaming through it, and tells a once-again-conscious and kneeling (and, furthermore, now-pantsless-and-not-merely-shirtless) Soul Patch, "Well, they're heading back in. Looks like my neighbors died for nothing." Yeah, stupid neighbors. Die right next time. She removes his gag so he can say, "They know you're still in here." Thanks for keeping up, Soul Patch. She drops the handcuff key into his palm, which is still cuffed behind his back. Good thing she thought to take Castle's handcuff key off of his body. Oh, wait, she didn't. But Soul Patch has it now anyway, so she tells him to uncuff himself while she watches from across the room, gun at the ready. She tosses him a pair of track pants and an ugly plaid shirt, telling him to get dressed while she watches and Tivos across the country pause in unison. Once he's decent, she tells him to re-cuff himself. He does. She's looking pretty sad right now. I don't know why; at least all the trouble she went to to rig her Jaguar to explode "just in case" didn't go to waste. Maybe she just liked Soul Patch better with no pants. "Let's go," she says, and forces him at gunpoint to the door. While she's occupied with opening it, he steps on a fragment of a broken light bulb and grinds his bare foot down on it, grimacing somewhat. They head out to the open-air hallway, Soul Patch leaving bloody footprints behind him without her knowledge. Good thing they're sheltered from the rain. It's 5:47:07.
5:51:32. Kiefer bides his time, Buchanan waits for his fractious underling to obey orders for once, and Palmer sits thinking about his failure. FAILURE! Curtis joins Kiefer to tell him the search is underway again. But that quickly becomes moot when another agent calls in to report that they found fresh blood outside Apartment 208. "Stand down until we get there," Kiefer says, and he and Curtis take off running. They burst into 208, which is empty except for ladders, rolls of carpet, and a bloody light bulb chunk. Kiefer spots the first red smear outside in the hallway, and quickly leads Curtis off in that direction.
Soul Patch must have slashed his foot up something fierce, because he's still leaving sticky footprints on the stairs to the underground parking garage. Mandy forces him between two parked cars, and that's when he makes his move. He twists and ducks under the gun, then head-butts her into a pillar and kicks the gun out of her hand. But his hands are still cuffed behind his back, and despite outweighing her, there's only so much damage he can do by swinging his shoulders at her. She kicks him away and recovers her gun. Which, when he turns back around, is in his face again. Nice try, Soul Patch. She makes him turn around, and they're moving again. But now with a lot more sweating and panting, to the disappointment of no one.