Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Closers
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 5 | Aired on 01.16.2005
It's 11:33:20, and Poor Man's Robert Davi supervises the Terror AV Club as they set up cameras in the TerrorDome. His phone beeps. It's VVH, with the news about what just happened to him. He's figured out that he's "getting help from people who want to make sure I get where I'm going." PMRD is in denial at first, but VVH insists that they can't take chances. Kiefer, listening in, decides it's time to grab VVH: "Our only chance is to bring him in and try to break him," he says. Plus it's been over three hours since he last maimed someone. Because I'm stupid, I figure that VVH has just decided to drive around randomly to confuse whoever's following him, but in the time it's taken for Kiefer to order a roadblock set up and get close enough to spot the Screaming Yellow Pickup, VVH's conversation has taken on a distinctly final aspect. The terrorists exchange "Allahu akbar"s and hang up. The Vaguely Arabic Music of Terrorist Martyrs rises as VVH locks his eyes on an oncoming cement mixer. Just before the vehicles pass each other, he whips into the oncoming lane. If by "just before" you mean "a full seven seconds, plenty of time for the driver of the truck to do more than blare his horn." But VVH manages to collide with him anyway. Oddly enough, there's no explosion upon impact. There's just this sad, metallic crump and the sound of breaking glass as the Screaming Yellow Pickup bounces off the truck's grille and comes to a crunchy halt. You grow up watching cars blow up on TV every time they hit something bigger than a shopping cart, and it's kind of anticlimactic when it doesn't happen. The Screaming Yellow Pickup's front end is pretty well destroyed, though. Skip tells Driscoll and Curtis what just happened, as if they weren't watching it over his shoulder. "That was our only lead," Curtis says, as if we haven't been watching too. Kiefer stops, jumps out, and starts running toward the Screaming Yellow Wreck to see if VVH is still alive. And then it blows up. Well, better late than never. It's 11:35:33.
11:39:58. AIIIEEEE!sha wonders why the hell she doesn't have Driscoll's job yet, Lispy Skip shakes his head at his computer monitor, and Team DoD is having a gas. Curtis announces that they're going to "switch gears" now that VVH has done blowed himself up. Neutral is a gear, I suppose. Special Agent Breck says they've got ten to fifteen minutes before the TerrorCast begins. The CTU gang gets a call from Kiefer at the crash scene. Peering into the Smoldering Black Pickup, he reminds everyone that VVH said he was thirty minutes from his destination twenty minutes before he stopped, so they're looking at a ten-minute radius from here. Which, given how quickly people normally drive on this show, could put the target anyplace between Tijuana and Elko, Nevada. Curtis offers to have the area surveyed by aircraft, but Kiefer says that'll take too long and he wants them to use satellites for a thermal scan. Lispy Skip says that won't work because all the electrical power transmitters in the area will camouflage the heat from the TerrorServers. Kiefer says that since the transmitters have been there for years, all they have to do is compare new images to old ones and find new activity. Good thing Kiefer's back to tell everyone how to do their jobs. Curtis promises to get right on it. That's when a stumpy little guy comes up to tell Driscoll that the DrisKid has arrived at the CTU clinic. They couldn't have Special Agent Breck do that? What's she so busy with, anyway? Driscoll excuses herself. Curtis tells everyone to "reset your systems." As Driscoll leaves amid the clatter of hundreds of "CTRL-ALT-DEL"s, Curtis asks if everything's okay with the DrisKid, but Driscoll doesn't really want to talk about it. That's a good instinct. Go with it, writers. Driscoll asks Curtis to check in with Division.
But Curtis has other things to take care of first: namely, the fact that AIIIEEEE!sha is sitting with her back to her computer and staring at Lispy Skip for no apparent reason. Curtis approaches her and asks why she's always talking to Skip. "Just trying to learn the ropes, Curtis," she says, her expression adding, you big, dumb doofus. Curtis walks around and turns her chair to face him, leaning over her dangerously. "Today is not the day to make career moves on people," he growls. "The only think you should be thinking about is how to help us stop DaD from being publicly executed." AIIIEEEE!sha starts to protest, but Curtis knows how she thinks. "Just leave everybody alone and help us get through today." Go, Curtis! You'll notice that Curtis is doing a lot less dying than usual in this recap. That's because I've figured out that he's not actually a Handsome Black Agent; he's this season's Palmer. He's the morally upright black man in power who finds himself saddled with a nutty ex. But Curtis is superior to Palmer in that he realized the woman in his life was a grasping psycho before he married and raised two equally fucked-up kids with her. Props to Curtis. Sadly, as he leaves, AIIIEEEE!sha whirls around and buries an axe in his back.