Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | 221 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Class Reunion, Without the Class
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 2 | Aired on 2009.01.11
Walker gets a status report from the nearest agent, a tall Asian guy named Dornan, who reports that all of the Columbia building's exits are covered and they'll have a video feed when the SWAT team arrives to sweep every room of the building. "If the shooter's in there, we'll find him," he assures her. "He's in there," she insists.
He is indeed, and he's looking pretty nervous, peeking around doorways and seeing agents everywhere. Maybe he should dump the giant gun-duffel he's toting around, just in case. Being caught with that might make it difficult for him to claim that he's just a messenger or something. By the way, is it me, or does this shooter kind of look like John Black from Days of Our Lives? Of course John Black was practically still Roman Brady last time I watched it, and might well be again for all I know, so I could be totally off base here
At the FBI, Moss commandeers Janis from Sean and tells her about the shooting at Schechter's office and the three dead bodies. Three? I only counted Schechter and his bodyguard Ari, and Ari wasn't that big. Anyway, Moss assures Janis that Walker is fine, and he wants her to coordinate remotely with the SWAT teams who'll be searching the Columbia building. He then turns to Sean for an update on the CIP firewall situation, but there's no good news from that quarter. Moss calls up the ATC supervisor, who also isn't getting anywhere and blows Moss off after being on the phone with him just long enough to effect a scene transition. At least one of his controllers is somehow able to overhear what Tony's telling the pilot. "He's landing him on runway three-one left," the controller reports. That runway actually seems to exist, according to my three seconds of research on Google. The supervisor thinks there's more to it than that. "These people didn't take control of this plane just so they could land it on a different runway," he frets. However, all his controllers' screens are clear of any danger, and it looks like flight 117 is on its way to a safe landing. That is, until everyone's screens suddenly lock up at the same time. They all freak out for some reason. At my job, that just means it's time for a break.
This is of course the doing of Tony and Masters, who then send an instruction to a "Sunrise International" jet (the pilot is Asian, of course) that will send it along a course to a landing on an intersecting runway. Tony now dials his cell phone, and gets the ATC boss on the line at 9:08:48. "How do your screens look over there?" he asks. Of course the supervisor asks who it is, and Tony declines to answer. "What matters is that I took out your control units." The boss urgently whispers to his minions to trace the call, and asks Tony what he wants. "I want you to see what we can do," Tony says. Don't give him what he wants! Close your eyes! But Tony advises the supervisor to pull up the video surveillance feeds at JFK. On one of the screens, a plane can be seen about to land on a fogbound runway. The problem is that this runway intersects with the runway that Global 117 is about to land on. "They're on a collision course!" One of the controllers says. It's that kind of ability to quickly size up a situation that makes a great air traffic controller.