Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ex-Ex-President
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.14.2006
An unconscious Tony is being wheeled through CTU, an oxygen mask over his face and a giant pad of bloody gauze covering the entire right side of his head. Curtis catches up to the gurney as it heads through the crash doors, which Buchanan is helpfully holding open for the busy trauma crews. That seems a little micromanage-y to me. Curtis wants to talk to Tony, but Buchanan says Tony isn't responsive. Apparently he's suffered a closed-head trauma which has not only affected Tony's speech, but which is also something that can be diagnosed incredibly quickly. It's still unknown whether Tony will be able to talk after his surgery. As the two men walk back towards the floor, Curtis shows Buchanan some of Tony's old phone records, drawing his attention at 7:39:44 to a conversation between Tony and Palmer on the day Palmer was killed. Curtis says he tried to pull the transcripts, but the files were corrupted. "What's he hiding?" Buchanan wonders. "Something about Jack's death," Curtis guesses. Can't get much past these two.
Kiefer and Derek are already airborne. The kid wants to know where Kiefer's taking him and why, and who Kiefer really is. The answers: Los Angeles, and "you'd have gone to the police and I couldn't let that happen," and "someone who's not supposed to still be alive." Derek thinks that means witness protection, and Kiefer readily agrees, although he doesn't want to say any more for Derek's own protection. Aw, Kiefer, tell him the whole story. Do it for me. The kid's bugging me. Kiefer pulls out his cell phone and calls Diane. He tells her that he's in a helicopter with Derek, and he needs her to come to Los Angeles and pick her son up. She gets all annoyingly panicky and whiny, and he insists that he'll explain when he sees her, but he needs her to start driving to L.A. now. "Remember this morning when you said you trusted me?" A half hour ago? "Right now I need you to trust me." He hangs up, and she's out the door. Derek's confused as to why Kiefer is going to be willing to hand him back over to his mom when he was worried about the police just a few minutes ago. Kiefer cryptics, "I have something to do in Los Angeles. Once it's done, it doesn't matter." Derek doesn't look like that's the most reassuring answer he could have gotten.
7:41:45. FLOTUS is standing in front of her window in her bathrobe, sipping a glass of what I hope is water at this hour. Logan comes in and walks to her side, and she apologizes for making a scene. He remarks that her shrink says FLOTUS is off her meds. She complains about how they make her feel, and he gently says they just need to get through today. Martha brings the conversation around to what she wanted to talk about before: "I think that David was killed because of something he was about to tell me." That she's loopy as a loon? Logan does his best to keep his expression neutral, which he does about as well as he does everything else. He leads her over to sit on a sofa, and asks her for more details, which she readily provides: all Palmer said was that it concerned national security, it involved Logan, and Palmer would explain when he saw her. Logan wonders why Palmer wouldn't have called the prez himself. FLOTUS: "Charles, you shut him out of this White House about eighteen months ago. He had no real access." "Except through you," Logan says, just a mite bitchily. That's all it takes for her to realize that he doesn't believe anything she's saying, and she starts getting pissed off. She insists that she isn't making it up, and he gets all conciliatory again and agrees to "have Walt look into it." FLOTUS is relieved, even more so when Logan tells her he needs her there with him when the Russian president and his wife get there in an hour. Even crazy people like to feel needed, you know. She hugs him, and lets him leave the room.