Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mayer, Mayer Not
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 14 | Aired on 03.16.2009
At FBI-DC, Janis presents herself at Moss's office door while he's on the phone with someone about the search for Kiefer. After he wraps up his call, she tells him that she can't decrypt what Walker sent to Kiefer. "She used her personal computer. This is very serious encryption. There are some high-level people who can do it." So a government employee has access to better encryption software than the actual government? Janis says that Chloe's one of the people who can crack it, but they both realize she isn't going to roll over on Kiefer. And how disappointing that we're not going to see another hack-off between Janis and Chloe, now that Janis has basically admitted Chloe's superiority in the field. Moss suddenly becomes interested in the fact that Morris is there. "According to her file, he's a level-six analyst, too." Handy! Turns out Moss has the remarkable ability to remember information he didn't give a crap about twenty minutes ago.
Morris is still in the conference room, apologetically on the phone to his kid's babysitter, which answers the question of where he ditched the kid while mom and dad were both in the bowels of FBI-DC. "Do me a favor and give Prescott his baboo before you put him down," he says. Only Carlo Rota can pronounce the word "baboo" with such seriousness. He hangs up as Moss and Janis enter the room at 9:33:47. Moss introduces himself and extends his hand, which Morris ignores. "Yeah, I'd like to see my wife," he snaps. Moss obliges by pawing the TV remote up off the conference table and putting up a live video feed of Chloe's holding room up on the screen. Moss tells Morris that Chloe's being held for obstruction and evidence tampering, and Morris can easily get her out. All he has to do is help them find Kiefer. Morris says he thought Kiefer was working with the Bureau. "That's you, if I'm not mistaken." Moss confirms as much, "until he snapped and murdered a federal witness." Morris doesn't buy that, but Moss points out that Chloe's going to be prosecuted unless Morris helps find him. Janis steps up and says that one of their agents sent Kiefer a file encrypted with Blowfish 148, which nobody knows how to crack. Morris tries to explain why he can't help them. "Jack Bauer and my wife have a very long history. I consider him to be a friend." Moss promises that Kiefer will get a chance to make his case, but Chloe's is open-and-shut, and she's looking at a minimum of fifteen years. "Your son will be nineteen by the time she gets out of prison." That hits Morris where he lives. I'm actually surprised it took him this long. Of course, they could have gotten him to fold a lot faster if they'd just busted out an electric drill. Morris scratches his beard and says he wants Chloe to get full immunity and expungement and the whole deal. Moss gives his word. "You are a witness to this agreement," Morris tells Janis, who readily agrees. He goes around the conference table to the computer setup Chloe was using earlier, technobabbling with Janis as the files flicker on the screen. He boasts that this kind of decryption is easy if you know the backdoor override codes, which he just happens to know (It's Hootie 149, of course). He gets to work, while Moss gets more and more impatient about exactly when the file will be decrypted. After a few more seconds, Morris says, "Now," and tells Moss that Kiefer's on his way to Senator Blaine Mayer's house. Moss and Janis split up, leaving Morris alone in the conference room, where I'm sure he couldn't possibly get up to any kind of mischief at all. Its 9:36:33.