Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Thrilling Bureaucratic Intrigue!
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.02.2006
He gets through to Audrey, who puts him on speakerphone so Chloe can be in on the conversation as well. Chloe's been brought up to speed during the commercials: "I can't believe the Vice President's involved in this," she remarks. Well, don't, then. It'll probably work out better that way in the long run. Kiefer asks how she's doing on the satellite coverage, and she says it's already up and she's sending real-time images to his PDA. This despite the fact that last season, it took her most of an hour to get access to a spy satellite, and she was busted almost immediately anyway. Great job taking over the place, Hayes. Looking at the infrared blips, Chloe tells Kiefer that she counts ten hostiles at the location. Kiefer takes this with some equanimity, asks her to keep sending real-time refreshes to his GameBoy, and hangs up. Then he turns to find Wayne lurking behind him, and tells him to "find somewhere safe" while Kiefer goes with Evelyn to make the "exchange." Funny how he says "exchange" when he means "massacre." Wayne says he's coming along. Kiefer tries to shoot that down, saying it's too dangerous. "I was a Marine, Jack," Wayne retcons (okay, I'm not actually sure about that, but I'm not about to go back and watch all of Season Three to be sure), but Kiefer already knew that and points out that Wayne never saw combat. "There's a big difference between training to kill someone and actually having to do it," Kiefer says, as if he himself wouldn't be dead now otherwise. And more to the point, he doesn't want to endanger Wayne when his family needs him. Why, can't his family have someone else break into people's houses for them? Kiefer starts to walk away, but Wayne stops him with a little speech: "These are the people who killed my brother, Jack. They shot a bullet right through his neck and he died in my arms." He asks if Kiefer could walk away in his position, and Kiefer has to admit that he couldn't. Upshot: Wayne's coming along. Kiefer looks worried, like, His only hope is his lack of agent status, because he is too black and too, too handsome.
Logan's in his office, busy doing his very favorite thing, which is taking phone calls from people congratulating him on his "handling" of a crisis. The Veep lurks into view just as Logan's wrapping up his latest call. "It's going to take me the better part of the day to return all these phone calls," Logan gloats to Gardner. The Veep changes the subject, pleasantly asking if Logan knew that Wayne Palmer had dropped by. Well, again, Hal, you were the one who cleared his approach, so this shouldn't be news to you either. It's clear from Logan's reaction -- not a happy one -- that he wasn't in that particular loop. "What was he doing here?" he asks, faux-innocently. Gardner passes along the story of Wayne wanting to give Aaron something. "That explains it," Logan says, clearly not wanting to discuss Wayne Palmer with Gardner right now. "David and Aaron were very close." Why, it's almost as if Logan is the one with something to hide. Curious. Gardner is still surprised that Wayne didn't want to see Logan, who reminds him that Logan and the late Palmer didn't always get along. "It's possible Wayne harbors ill feelings toward me," Logan guesses. "That must be the reason," Gardner nods, completely forgetting to suck up given the overriding need for this scene to show these two fencing creepily for no purpose.