Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Got Your Gas Right Here
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 7 | Aired on 02.05.2006
At the motorcycle garage, Erwich's once again on the phone to Rossler, who's looking at that popular schematic of the canisters and telling him to cut "precisely ten centimeters from the bottom of the casing." The casings are five millimeters thick, he says, and Erwich should call him with the ID numbers when he's done. Erwich ends the call. The canisters sit on the garage floor looking malevolent. That biohazard symbol's intimidating and all, but the containers would be even scarier if they were somehow spring-loaded so that one would just randomly hop straight up and go "Boo!" every once in a while.
At 1:24:13, Kiefer and Curtis go past the armored (and normal-sized) CTU agent hidden in the back entrance of Rossler's building and take up positions right outside the inner door to the front lobby of Rossler's building. And yes, I do get paid by the preposition. Over his earpiece, Kiefer signals Spencer that they're ready. Spencer does his thing, the relevant security camera screens go all snowy. While the lone guard at ground level is still reacting to that, Kiefer and Curtis burst into the lobby, guns leveled. Kiefer identifies himself as a federal agent and orders the guard to raise his hands, while Curtis crosses to the penthouse elevator and demands the entry code. The guard gives it right up, and Curtis punches it in. Meanwhile, the incredibly alert guards on the penthouse level call down to ask what's up with the cameras. Kiefer hears the call on the intercom and tells the guard to say he doesn't know, but everything's fine. The guard's all everybody's fine, we're all fine, how are you? Kiefer leads the guard over to the elevator, which is taking its sweet time to arrive. It's got two floors to go, and Chloe lies that they've only got ten seconds before the cameras reboot, although it's twenty-two seconds by my VCR counter. The elevator arrives and all three men pile on, the door closing behind them with what should be eleven seconds to spare, but is actually only one. Sloppy work, Spencer. Didn't anyone tell you that the concept of "real time" can have remarkable plasticity at tense moments like this?
When the cameras come back up on the penthouse level, the guards up there quickly notice that there's no one in the lobby and call the lobby guard on his walkie-talkie to see where he is. Kiefer slams the poor guy against the wall of the elevator and orders him to say he's on his way to the men's room. What an inspired solution from a guy who probably hasn't seen porcelain for six and a half hours. The guard complies, and then Kiefer knocks him out and drags him into the far corner of the elevator car. Kids, I hope you've all learned an important lesson about complying with federal agents.