Episode Report Card Gustave: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Velveteen Habit
By Gustave | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.27.2003
CTU. Spawn enters a room that looks suspiciously like the very room that her mother was murdered in on Day One. She removes a Whatever Drive from a wall unit and types some Whatever Data into a wall console. A figure lurks behind her and enters the room while Spawn blissfully types away, absolutely clueless that her life is in danger. The soundtrack gets all ominous. The figure comes closer. Psych! It's Special Agent Charlie Brown, looking to get some. "You scared me!" giggles Spawn. They make out. It's official. Spawn is this year's office slut. Pass it on! Spawn explains that she's "refreshing a drive," and asks him about the Felipe Hartmano drama from earlier. Special Agent Charlie Brown admits that it was "crazy," but tells Spawn that Kiefer is taking it "okay." "Good," says Spawn. "I was thinking about talking to him today." Special Agent Charlie Brown doesn't think that today would be a good day to talk to Kiefer about their secret love affair. "It's never a good day," points out Spawn astutely. She reminds him that they agreed that they'd tell him if they were together more than two months. "It's been almost three," she whines, and withdraws her boobs from his proximity in an effort to control him. Finally Special Agent Charlie Brown gives in and agrees to tell Kiefer himself. Spawn happily moves her boobs back to touching range. They make out some more, but are interrupted by a CTU extra entering the room. Special Agent Charlie Brown pretends to be discussing Whatever Technology with her, and then leaves the room.
Back in the front offices of CTU, Dr. Hazel Mat has a videoconference with Kiefer and Mr. and Mrs. Soul Patch. Hazel explains that the virus is a "weaponized strain." In other words, it's been engineered to kill more rapidly. Apparently there's a non-contagious latency period of fourteen hours. After twenty hours, the host is incapacitated, and by -- say it with me, people -- twenty-hour hours, the host is dead. Kiefer and Mr. and Mrs. Soul Patch are horrified by this bit of news. She goes on to explain -- via a PowerPoint presentation -- that by day one, there will be a couple hundred cases. By day two, it could be in the thousands, and by the end of the first week, nine percent of Los Angeles could be infected. "Nine percent?" says Soul Patch. "That's a million people." "And those people will be dead in twenty-four hours," says Hazel. Again. "If someone were to release this virus into the general population, how would they do it?" asks Soul Patch. "That's the million-dollar question," says Hazel. "We don't even know what form it's in."