Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Manning Down
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.14.2007
Kiefer's still at the blown-up storage facility with Curtis and Assad, while CTU agents sift through the rubble. Assad thinks they're wasting their time there, and Curtis objects to his use of the term "we." "There is no 'us,'" he tells Assad, like Curtis is in the "us" Assad's referring to. Always the consensus-builder, Kiefer wants to hang for another minute, hoping some fingerprints or DNA will show up. Of course, the old Kiefer would be torturing the Handler's corpse for information right now. His cell phone rings, and he answers it to hear the White House operator on the other end.
As Kiefer walks off to have this conversation somewhere private, I notice he's been issued a service weapon with a clip-on holster. He probably also has a fresh ID badge; I would imagine that there's a stash of them inside every active CTUmobile, just in case. Wayne opens with the news that he's having people verify Assad's claims that he wants peace. Kiefer offers that Assad has proven trustworthy so far. Now that Kiefer has a chance to slow down a bit, his injuries look to be catching up with him; he winces in pain as he enters a corridor. But never mind that. His stylish t-shirt is still unbesmirched with fresh blood, and that's what really matters. Wayne's main purpose in calling is that he wants Kiefer to officially take the lead in the hunt for Fayed. Kiefer starts to decline politely: "The truth is I don't think I'm up to it." But Wayne butters him up and prevails upon Kiefer to agree to head up the operation. Cue up the hero music! And drink!
Curtis comes and finds Kiefer. Before Curtis can say anything, Kiefer says that he's been put in charge, and that he needs Curtis to get over whatever crawled up his ass and died regarding Assad, because they need Assad's help. Curtis is incredulous: "Time was, you would have seen through this guy in a minute. What'd the Chinese do to you?" Kiefer turns and gets right up in Curtis's sternum, demanding, "Is there something you need to tell me?...Is there some kind of history between you and Assad?" Before Curtis can answer -- if he even cares to -- Assad himself appears, addressing Kiefer by his first name and holding up a valuable find from the wreckage. It's a PDA that got half-blown up, but fortunately, the impact froze the liquid-crystal display somehow, and the message on the screen is still readable. "Visitor arrived on Thursday," it says. Assad explains that "visitor" is a code name that means "weapon." The two of them conclude that the message means Fayed got his suitcase nuke on Thursday, but that he still needs Numair to make it work. As Assad is led back to the CTUmobiles, Kiefer tells Curtis that nothing's more important than finding Fayed and Numair. Curtis grudgingly agrees, and goes to rejoin the other agents. But Kiefer hangs back so that he can call Chloe at CTU and have her run some kind of cross-reference search on Curtis and Assad. Basically, he wants to know when exactly Assad pissed in Curtis's Wheaties, and in what volume. Because she's got other shit going on, Chloe wonders how important this really is, but of course Kiefer wouldn't be asking if it weren't. We'll be finding out exactly how important later.