Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT How To Disarm A Terrorist
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.01.2007
9:24:34. As Milo finishes a call regarding Gredenko's pending fake immunity agreement, Nadia comes up to his desk and asks him some kind of technobabble question. He technobabbles right back that he'll go reboot something in the machine room, and is about to go do that when he notices her gawping at him with these big sad anime eyes. He asks if she's all right, and she lies that she is. Except she's smiling for the first time ever, so you'd know she's lying even if she wasn't. Once Milo's gone, Nadia heads back to his computer and futzes around with it for a minute, and then returns it to its previous state. Doyle just happens to be standing on the floor nearby, fiddling with his flak jacket to try to make it more slimming. Nadia stomps over to him and pissily congratulates Doyle on being right. Now Milo can be fired and maybe arrested. "Which is why I'm going to alter the logs so they'll never know," Doyle says, taking the memory stick she's been holding out for him. He plugs it into Milo's computer and changes some stuff around while Nadia watches in confusion. It's only a second's work to cover Milo's tracks, and if Doyle can do that, I don't know why he bothered involving Nadia at all in the first place. Unless it's because he wants to sleep with her. See, Doyle? How do you like it? Nadia asks him why he's covering for Milo. Doyle explains that he only cares about finding the nukes, and that they have a better chance of doing that with Milo around: "Whether he likes me or not." And then he non sequiturs, "And mankind was naught but a single nation." Well, I guess he must not be such a racist after all. Nadia recognizes the quote from the Qu'ran, and asks if he's read it. "And the Bible, and the Upanishads," Doyle brags. "Anything I can get my hands on. You're lucky, you found your answers. I'm looking for mine." What? Hey, here's an answer: stop being such an asshole. It's not that hard. Doyle walks off, satisfied that his showoffy little episode has had its desired effect.
From Nadia's computer, Milo has been watching their interaction for an indeterminate length of time. Nadia goes back over there, and Milo suspiciously asks what Doyle wanted. Nadia lies, for some reason, and makes up an innocuous excuse which Milo totally doesn't believe. He goes back to his desk, his expression troubled. Hey, Milo, why the long face?
Up in the boss's office, Buchanan gets a call from his wife. Karen tells him how the vote went, and explains the nature of the Veep's challenge to her vote in particular. Buchanan tries to assure her that the Veep is being ridiculous, but Karen confesses to having doubts of her own: "If he wins, this will all be my fault." Buchanan tries to talk her out of her tree: "He doesn't have a case. And the Supreme Court will agree." Even though Karen didn't mention anything to him about the Supremes getting involved. Mole! Karen says that they have all of fifteen minutes to prepare their arguments, and Buchanan tells her to call when they have a decision. Somewhere in Washington, Dahlia Lithwick laughs her fucking ass off. Karen thanks Buchanan for being there as opposed to in D.C., with her? "You don't have to thank me. It's my job," he says. Karen for some reason thinks that's funny. And I guess it is, if you take a moment to consider that this is, like, Buchanan's fiftieth episode of being in charge of CTU, which beats any previous boss-tenure records by a factor of about twenty-five. They say they miss each other, and hang up.