Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Can You Dig It
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 5 | Aired on 01.19.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.With Matobo and his wife sealed inside their safe room, Kiefer decides to try to Mr. Wizard them out using gas made from stuff under the kitchen sink, which actually works. Walker shows up, just in time to get herself pinched by Emerson's crew just as they're heading out of there with the Matobos. Kiefer and Tony manage to stop Emerson from killing her on the spot without blowing their cover, but not for long -- more on that in a minute. When President Taylor learns that Matobo's been nabbed, her advisers argue more strongly to back off the invasion.
At the Bureau, Moss is going nuts over losing Walker, we learn that Sean is cheating with blonde coworker Erica on the wife he just impersonated his boss to save, and the Attorney General is climbing all over everyone's ass regarding Walker's torture of Tanner in the hospital. Also, Henry Taylor gets closer to the conspiracy that killed his son; unfortunately, his Secret Service agent is in on it, and paralyzes Henry in Sam's apartment preparatory to bringing Sam in to fake a murder-suicide. In the end, Kiefer has to pretend to kill Walker in front of Emerson. Since he has practice at that kind of thing from early in Season One with Nina, he pulls it off. Let's hope things work out better in the long run this time around. But since he also has to bury Walker alive, let's not hope for too much.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!At the FBI's Washington Field Office, Boss Moss is briefing the leader of the FBI SWAT team that's going to be heading over to Matobo's place forthwith to foil the ex-PM's kidnapping. That leader is played by Peter Onorati, looking every day of his age and none too happy about Moss's order that Tony be brought in alive. Apparently his protests have something to do with the fact that refraining from the use of deadly force is likely to get him and his men killed. Whiner.
Over at Matobo's place, Emerson is busy kicking the crap out of Matobo's security chief outside the panic room, even though the guy already told Emerson it can only be opened from the inside. But that was last week/four minutes ago, so we can't expect Emerson to actually remember that. In the storage space adjoining the panic room, Kiefer's up on a ladder. No, this isn't another manifestation of his Napoleon complex; he's just shining a flashlight into the narrow space between the panic room's roof and the actual ceiling. Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a secret entrance. What kind of panic room is this, anyway? Aside from one that everyone keeps insisting on calling a "safe room" for some reason. Emerson gets on his cell phone with the fourth member of his crew, Litvak, who is still hanging out by the fuse box he sabotaged, only now he's working on hooking the safe room's intercom back up so Emerson can talk to Matobo. Make up your minds, Emerson's crew.
At FBI-DC, blonde underling Erica comes up to Moss with some papers. He tries to blow her off, but she says it's from the Attorney General. It seems Tanner's lawyers have worked fast; they've not only put together a complaint about Walker's actions in the scant minutes since she threatened to suffocate Tanner, they've also gotten the ear of the Attorney General, who is reacting to the news of a rogue FBI agent as though it's the only crisis currently in progress. After scanning the printout -- several pages of close text, mind you, so somebody somewhere is obviously a very fast typer -- Moss looks irritated and dials his cell phone.
At 12:04:05, he gets through to Walker, who is in her silver SUV with the flashers on but no sirens, driving through the city. Except somebody screwed up the shot so that somehow the Washington Monument isn't visible at all. Walker tells Moss she'll do recon when she arrives at Matobo's residence, but he wants to know how she got the information about the kidnapping in the first place. Of course, she's so sure she did the right thing that she simply answers, "I questioned Tanner." Nobody could possibly object to that, right? Moss reads to her from the complaint, which includes the ventilator-hose thing and the pressure-to-the-gunshot-wound thing, and Walker excuses herself by saying she needed Tanner to give up Tony. "So you tortured him?" Moss demands. Walker doesn't bother answering. Because, again, she did the right thing. Right? Moss points out, "You know as well as I do, coercive interrogation is unreliable." Except on this show. "We'll find out when I get to Matobo's house," Walker says glibly. Well, at least she understands the seriousness of the situation. Moss says she's doing no such thing; she needs to get back to the office. Walker pleads with Moss to let her see this through and correct her mistake, but when he refuses, she hangs up on him and turns off her phone. She just keeps compounding her bad moves, doesn't she? If I still gave characters nicknames, I'd consider calling her Snowball.