Episode Report Card Gustave: B+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The final hour
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.20.2002
Back at CTU, Nina tells Xander that the tactical units are on their way. Her phone rings. It's Kiefer. He warns her anviliciously that there must be a mole at CTU, because the Drazens know about Palmer not being dead. He tells her to find out who it is. Nina asks him where he is and tries to find out what his next move will be. Kiefer is vague. He konkludes the kall by warning Nina to trust no one. "Ouch!" says the dead horse of irony. Nina stares down Xander, gets up, and walks down the hall to one of those spooky back offices where everything bad happens.
Palmer and PMHC sit in Palmer's office alone and have a self-congratulatory conversation about how they "told the truth" all day, even though it tore Palmer's family apart. "I think this last day has been about finding out who you really are," muses PMHC. "And not just as a candidate." The phone rings. PMHC is told to turn on the news. They turn the TV on as a network breaks the story that the Palmer death was a hoax, "according to a high-placed source." Palmer gets all OJ'd up with rage and vows to get Lady Mac. He comes up behind her in the bathroom -- where she is either applying lipstick or flossing her teeth, I can't tell which -- and yells at her for leaking the story. Lady Mac doesn't deny it. "They already knew," she says. They have another one of those defying-vs.-protecting arguments, except this time it's a lot louder. He's about to lunge at her when PMHC pulls him away and tells him that he's got to talk to the press immediately. Oh, yeah -- like PMHC could totally pull Palmer out of a fight with one arm like that. Shaking with rage, Palmer reluctantly turns his attention away from his wife and back to the issue at hand. But he smashes a vase first. Lady Mac pants deliciously with her back up against the bathroom mirror. The time is 11:12:12 PM.
Go see Windtalkers on June 14th, and don't you dare make "windtalking" jokes, because this is a serious movie, man -- it's about how Nicholas Cage learns that Native American languages can be used as military code, and therefore it's important to respect and feel lots of sympathy for Native Americans. It rilly rilly is. Bachelorettes in Alaska. Wow. Fox again proves that people can mate in observable captivity.
The time is 11:17:11. Klockwise from the top left, Kiefer keeps watching the Scooby Docks, Nina makes a phone call, and Bride waits in the Konfrontational Koffee room. It turns out that Nina -- or should I say Yelena -- is making a call to FATB. She informs him -- sans scary Eastern European accent -- that Spawn is alive and being brought into CTU, and that two tactical teams are on their way to the Scooby Docks. FATB puts Nina on hold and pleads with TerrorPoppa to let them all retreat from the Scooby Docks since Kiefer probably isn't coming. TerrorPoppa gets on the phone with Nina and tells her to tell Kiefer that Spawn's body "vas found floating in zee harboor." They expect Kiefer to come at the Drazens if he thinks his daughter is dead. "You have to kill him," says Nina. "No mistakes. If he finds out I've lied to him, my cover will be blown." TerrorPoppa assures her that everything will go smoothly. Nina hangs up, then kalls Kiefer to tell him that Spawn is dead and that the Coast Guard found her body. Kiefer slams down the phone, crouches to the ground, and kries. But it's not just a few manly tears. It's a full-body cry. They go to two commercial breaks in the meantime and he's still crying. He makes sweet agonizing love to the poured concrete wall behind him like he's Martha Graham with a Noguchi sculpture. Can we get a shot of his wedding ring? Thanks. How 'bout some of that freaky choral music from Episode 16? Excellent. The grief turns to rage. He gets up, goes to the SeasonFinaleKiefMobile, takes out another gun -- how much ammo did they give him? -- and breaks into a nearby parked van.