Episode Report Card Sobell: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Brief Wondrous Life of Cole Pfeiffer
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 12.08.2008
Back at One World Conspiracy HQ, the boring, white-collar part of the manhunt is still going on. Lisa picks this moment to waltz in and hand her father her resignation letter. General Von Baldy says, "I tried to shield you from everything I didn't think you could handle." Lisa replies, "The only thing you shielded me from is knowing who you really are. Now I know." As she walks out, General Von Baldy calls, "I wanted a son!" Fortunately for him, seconds after that exchange, one of the computer drones finds Gretchen and Self at the Fauntleroy hotel. General Von Baldy dispatches his kill squad with orders to shoot on sight. Then he stands there and frowns as a phalanx of black SUVs peels out. I bet he's thinking about the ridiculously high gasoline tab the One World Conspiracy has. You'd think they'd have some super-secret hybrid technology that lets their fleet run on the blood of their victims or something.
Before we get back to T-Bag, I bet you all would like to know where Mahone is. Mahone, sadly, is relegated to this week's Plotline-within-a-paragraph: He got a haircut.
Well, that's not all, but it's certainly the most notable thing, as Mahone is no longer rocking that Andrew-Jackson-after-an-all-nighter coif he's had since Sona. ANYWAY, I guess Mahone got the haircut because he's trying to network. His new role: make Team Scylla's case with the few people left in the U.S. government who aren't One World Conspiracy stooges or grossly incompetent ideological zealots. So you can see where it's a small meeting -- him, Lang and Wheeler. You will all remember Wheeler and his fraught relationship with Mahone from season two, right? So anyway, Mahone and Lang reconnect, he gives her his pitch about how he needs the help of her and any other incorruptible feds she knows, and before you can say, "Mmm, pie!" an anxious-looking Lang is meeting Mahone in a diner, Walker on her heels. They sit down and Walker comments, "Good choice for a meeting spot, Alex. Crowded place, a few exits, a corner table with a full view of the room. Looks like you're getting acclimated to life on the run." Or to dating again. We find out that Wheeler's been promoted and is now running his own field office. Wheeler points out, "When you're neither a disgrace to the Bureau nor a drug addict, good things can happen." And evidently being a total dillweed isn't an obstacle for those good things. Lang leans over and says, "He's clean, Mark." "Thank you, Felicia," Wheeler says, in a tone suggesting that he'd really like to change the first four letters of his last comment to "F" "u" and "c." Mahone makes his pitch: "I know you, Mark. You're a good agent, and ambitious, so let me appeal to the side of you that likes to see your name in print. You want to be on a short list for deputy director?" Wheeler says he got the 411 from Lang but "I don't know if I'm more skeptical of a burn-out ex-Fed or the mythical cabal known as the [One World Conspiracy]." Mahone calls his bluff: "You came all the way here for a myth?" He continues: the One World Conspiracy's compromised both Homeland Security and the FBI, Wheeler happens to be both upstanding and pals with the attorney general, and he wants to know if he can trust Wheeler. Cut to Wheeler and Lang both sitting silently, all, Well ... this is ... awkward. Wheeler finally says, "You get incredible intelligence against the [One World Conspiracy], I'll walk you into the attorney general's office myself." Unfortunately for Mahone, Linc cuts him loose over the phone. We then see him seated in the diner booth, watching Lang and Wheeler argue animatedly outside, and then Lang comes back in. Although she is delivering ostensibly good news -- "The attorney general is willing to hear you out" -- Lang can't look at him, and she seems deeply unhappy. Mahone is no dummy, and tries to get her to spill what's really going on, but Lang says hastily, "Your flight to Dulles leaves in 45 minutes." Mahone looks at her all Rrrrrrreally?, and Lang's on-the-verge-of-tears expression, combined with Wheeler's nervous pacing outside, does not sell him on the whole trip. "Can I trust this guy?" he asks Lang. "We better go," she replies. I like to think that the two of them were smart enough to ask and answer the question in a specific way so Lang won't get burned later. ANYWAY, Mahone agrees to go along, and does not seem too surprised when it turns out he's riding in the back of the FBI equivalent of a police cruiser. As everyone gets in the car, Mahone checks out the in-tears Lang in the passenger-side mirror and asks, "There is no meeting with the attorney general, is there?" There's a long, long silence in the car, and then Mahone says, brokenly and sincerely, "Thank you, Felicia, for everything you've done." Well, I hope for everyone's sake that it's a short car ride, because it's going to be an awkward one, that's for sure.