Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT What is it with chicks, man?
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.26.2006
Kiefer finds the pipeline he needs and pulls out a strip of explosive. Elsewhere, Bierko is wandering around the plant, apparently lost. Totally wasted ten million bucks. Kiefer snaps his C-4 brick in half, because there's no need for overkill when you're about to blow up a natural gas plant. More unnatural gas escapes into the distribution tank, and Chloe reports that they have fifty seconds before it gets out. Bierko continues his exit. Kiefer clamps his explosive and its timer to the pipeline, then sets it for thirty seconds and takes off running. That's not a very long time to get out of a building you've never been in before. "Charge has been set," he perfunctorily announces as he goes. It's 9:57:42, and he's throwing on the man-purse as he runs. It's like he's in the Metrosexual Marines: Never leave a man-purse behind! We get a close-up on the timer, and the editors have decided to take back some of the seconds they've granted over the course of the season, because it's already down to 0:17 when it should still be at 0:19. Buchanan earpieces to Curtis an urgent query as to whether he's clear, and Curtis answers that he and the gas guys are, just about. Curtis sends everyone running ahead and hangs back to watch for Kiefer. The timer's at 0:11, which is actually about right. Audrey, her hair practically back to normal (apparently Dr. Besson has some hidden talents), comes back out on the floor just in time to hear Buchanan yelling down the comm link at Kiefer. There's no answer.
The timer ticks down to zero, right on schedule for once, and the C-4 pops. It doesn't send the whole plant sky-high instantly, probably because of the low gas pressure and also because that would be a lot less fun. Instead, a single geyser of yellow flame shoots out of the pipeline into the open. And then one of the valve handles set into the side of the pipe every few feet shoots off, propelled by another jet of flame as the gas in the line catches fire.
At CTU, Buchanan's watching a digital schematic of the plant on the big screen, saying, "Come on, Jack," as blurry, glowy spots start appearing and spreading. Nobody notices Audrey.
Kiefer runs through the plant as fast as his little legs can carry the man-purse, the corridor blowing up in sections right behind him. You're no kind of action hero if you can't outrun an explosion, I always say. He manages to get clear of the building before a shockwave can pick him up and send him at a support girder that would do to him what the little wire on a cheese slicer does to Gruyere. Curtis sees him come out, but Kiefer drops out of sight when a final explosion knocks him over. Curtis calls out to see if Kiefer's okay, but Kiefer's already moved on; he can see Bierko, and he announces he's giving chase. Curtis says there's no time before the main tank explodes, but Kiefer doesn't care: "Right now, he's our only connection to Henderson!" Yeah, and without Henderson, how will they ever find Bierko and the nerve gas? Seriously, Kiefer, let this one go. He doesn't, of course. "Bill, he's going in," Curtis reports.
Bierko reaches the spot where his men parked the stolen police car, right in the middle of rows of giant cylindrical gas tanks. He's got the door open and he's just about to hop in when Kiefer appears in the distance, gun drawn, and orders him to freeze. Bierko obeys, but not for long, because the tank behind him blows sky high, sending him flying at the car and in particular bashing his head against the roof. Ow. Kiefer runs to him and starts hauling him back to the car.