Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT High Jack
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.30.2006
2:54:13. At the hotel bar, Chloe's unconscious admirer is starting to come around. Slowly, he lifts his head off the table and looks around in confusion. Before he says anything, Chloe zaps him again, and once again skull strikes wood. Now that's just gratuitous. And therefore hilarious. Of course, what the guy doesn't know is that right now he's having the best date with Chloe that anyone's ever going to have. She, meanwhile, is back on the line with the flight operations call center, asking why the copilot, Donald Faginson (somebody on the 24staff a Steely Dan fan?), never checked in before boarding. The operator explains that that's because Faginson didn't board. He was replaced at the last minute by a new copilot named Scott Evans. Chloe instantly pulls up a record on Evans, and there's a chilling factoid: Evans used to be a pilot for a charter air service that just happens to be the exclusive carrier for Omicron International. Well, the good news is that now Kiefer can stop searching the passengers.
He's just finished rifling someone's purse (returning it to her intact, of course) when Chloe calls to tell him just that, being sure to tell him about the copilot's connection to Henderson's employer. She adds that Evans flew Henderson around for more than a year. That's certainly a valid connection, but I assume they landed occasionally to refuel. Kiefer tells Chloe to patch him back in to the captain on the pilot-only channel so Evans can't hear him. While Kiefer has been thus distracted, one of the burlier passengers has decided that this is an opportune "let's roll" moment, and tries to rush Kiefer. He doesn't even get close before Kiefer pulls his gun on him, roars at him to sit down, and reminds everyone to stay in their seats. The hero complies, and no one else looks inclined to try anything either. Sometimes this show is so post-9/11, with its Department of Homeland Security and its locked cockpit doors and its disregard for due process. This was not one of those times.
Once he's on the discrete phone line to the pilot, Kiefer tells Cotter that the guy with the evidence he needs is in the cockpit. "He's your copilot, Scott Evans." "That's ridiculous," the pilot says. Kiefer says he knows that Evans was a last-minute replacement. "Can you explain to me why you're not flying with your regular copilot, Don Faginson?" I don't know, Kiefer, can you explain to me how you know the name of a copilot that Chloe never gave you? The captain says, "Long, uncertain pause." Kiefer pushes, "Scott Evans has been connected to a known terrorist. You need to open the door." "This conversation is over," Cotter finally pronounces, disconnecting the call. Oh, well, nice try, Kiefer. Better luck next time.