Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Wayne In Pain
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 11 | Aired on 02.25.2007
Chad Lowe is accompanying Carson, his co-conspirator from a few episodes ago, through the security checkpoint down in the White House Bunker. Let us count the levels at which this is bullshit: (1) This is not a 311 concert. This is the fucking White House Bunker. By definition, it is one of the most secure locations in the world. Another really secure location, I would think, is the building immediately above it, which is probably fairly tough to get weapons or bombs into in the first place unless the President wants you to. (2) You want to check people again when they go from the White House down into the Bunker? Fine. Put the security checkpoint at the top of the elevator. Or, at the very least, on the other side of the giant steel door. (3) In all of this season so far, and all of Season 4, this is the first time we've ever seen a security checkpoint in the Bunker, so it was obviously added for this scene. (4) It's not so much a security checkpoint as a security alcove. This poor lone guard is sitting behind a desk with his back to a dead end in the hallway while foot traffic flows from side to side in front of him, treating the security desk like it's pretty much optional. If he wants to check someone who doesn't want to be checked, he'll have to go around his desk and chase him or her down. But the point of this scene is to demonstrate how Carson gets into the Bunker with the means to kill Wayne, so we have no choice but to proceed. The Secret Service agent at the desk checks the contents of Carson's briefcase very thoroughly, making sure that the highlighters highlight and the tape recorder records, and a moment later Carson and Chad Lowe are continuing down the hallway that they could have continued down anyway. Chad Lowe pedeconferences that Tom tried to warn Secret Service, but was able to stop him in time. He adds, "Either he's changed his mind, or you were right and he's been playing us all along. Either way, we're going to have to deal with it." Well, since this entire conspiracy apparently consists of only two people, that might turn out to be a bit tricky.
Back in the steam pipe trunk distribution venue, Tom is struggling with the duct tape that's binding his hands behind his back and around a pipe. Not that it's getting him anywhere. Chad Lowe and Carson enter, and the latter adds insult to injury by saying Tom's in the space where Carson needs to work. Tom's day just keeps getting worse. He gets thwarted by the president, gets approached to take part in an assassination conspiracy, is Maglited into unconsciousness and duct-taped to a pipe, and now they tell him he's in the way. Tom is quickly cut loose and dragged him over to a different pipe, where they retape him sitting on the floor. Carson just wants to go ahead and kill Tom now, but Chad Lowe says that while killing Palmer is for the good of the country, killing Tom would only be murder. He thinks that Tom will keep quiet once the Veep is in power and Tom's ideas are put in motion, but Carson doesn't want to take the risk. "We're not cold-blooded murderers. We're just trying to save out country," Chad Lowe Brutuses. And look how well that worked out for him. For now, though, Chad Lowe says that they have to get moving, since Assad is going on the air this hour and it's going to take twenty-five to thirty minutes to assemble the bomb: "If we're going to frame Assad for the assassination, then this bomb has to explode when they're both together." But what fun is it to frame a dead guy? It's 4:12:32.