Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Day 6: 4:00 AM - 5:00 AM
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 23 | Aired on May 20, 2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.With Josh in Doyle's custody and Kiefer under arrest, it falls to Karen Hayes of all people to find a way derail the exchange with Kiefer's Dad for the Russians' circuit board. Behind the Veep's back, she's bold enough to call for help to the husband she fired a few hours ago. Doyle and Josh wait alone at a drop point on the beach with no satellite coverage while the whole operation threatens to go completely pear-shaped; Marilyn's going batshit at CTU, Chloe is complaining about the ethics of a trade that hardly anyone thinks is going to be honored by Dad anyway, Buchanan has helped Kiefer escape, and even Doyle is having his doubts. Karen gets busted, arrested, and chewed out by the Veep, and Milo's much better-looking brother shows up to pick up his brother's stuff and tell Nadia that Milo was in love with her, in case anyone still cares. And just in case you still haven't picked up on the important lesson that Not Listening To Kiefer Will Blow Up In Your Face, Dad's men show up at the drop point with a fake component that literally blows up in Doyle's face. While he writhes blinded on the sand, Dad's men whisk Josh away in an inflatable boat before Kiefer can stop them. As everyone belatedly realizes once again that Kiefer Was Right All Along (even the Veep, who has finally figured out that maybe he isn't so smart after all), Kiefer figures out that Josh is being taken to one of his father's offshore oil rigs. But before Chloe can figure out which one it is, she abruptly collapses on the CTU floor. And yes, it is what you think. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
So here we are at the first hour of another two-hour season finale. I know the fans and critics have really been down on this season, but I just haven't been able to work up as much disdain for it as I had for the creaking, squalling, wobbling Rube Goldberg contraption that was Season 4. Besides, when was the last time there was a good sixth season of anything?
Tonight's previouslies include freeze-frames of Karen Hayes and Josh Bauer, the latter of whom the closed-captioning quotes as saying, "Dad!" to Kiefer. That's going to be the only reference in the next two hours to what I still maintain is Josh's biological paternity, but I'm taking it.
The CTU helicopter carrying Josh and Doyle flies about ten feet above the Pacific Ocean, right along the waterline. Josh taps Doyle on the shoulder and asks where they're going, since this doesn't seem to be the way to CTU. Doyle hesitates to answer Josh's questions, but says that Josh's grandfather has something that will help to stop a war. Doyle promises that they'll "recover" Josh as soon as they have what they need. Josh is already shaking his head in despair as Doyle is going on about two TAC teams and LAPD who stand ready to do rescue him. See? Even the teenagers on this show know how useless any non-Kiefer law enforcement personnel are, and the teenagers on this show are idiots. Doyle pulls out a case from somewhere under his seat; it contains an injectable tracking device. Handy to have that on a helicopter. "This may sting a little," Doyle warns as he embeds the chip into the sixteen-year-old's ulna. Josh, do you have a moment? I'd like to tell you a story about the last guy who let CTU shoot a tracking device into his arm. A man named Gredenko.
Back at the crime scene, Kiefer is unsuccessfully trying to plead with Agents Ryan and Turner (remember them?) that this is wrong, even as they're leading him to a CTUmobile. He's getting nowhere, of course, because he just met these guys today. Kiefer asks if he's being arrested, all bluff-callingly, like he wasn't just under arrest less than an hour ago. Turner says that they're just putting him under temporary custody to keep him from screwing things up for them. And for just having met him today, they've certainly got his number. Kiefer gets in the car, but they forgot to take away his cell phone.
The CTU big screen is tuned to Fox News, which is just now getting around to covering the "radiation spill" in San Francisco. The crawl reads, "British PM: City safe for Olympic Games," which makes me think of the LONDON 2012 sweatshirt Clive Owen wears in the second half of Children Of Men, which in turn makes me wish I were watching that instead.