Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Can Take the Man Out of CTU…
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.08.2005
Aaand Kiefer's in the house. He enters CTU at 7:24:59, just two minutes after getting into his car at the hotel. The only way he could have arrived that quickly is if that car had an ejector seat. Which is something I would have liked to see. He wanders right onto the floor by himself, adjusting his visitor's badge and staring up at his old kube. He stands in the middle of the room, pivoting around and staring up, looking like some hick from Yokel Falls, Idaho rather than a guy who knows a dozen different ways to kill you with a towel. Special Agent Breck steps up to him, and Kiefer snaps out of it long enough to mention that he has an appointment with Driscoll. Potato Face joins the twosome and introduces them. Special Agent Breck smiles and backs off. Kiefer does a great job of pretending to be happy to see Potato Face. She asks after Spawn and Special Agent Charlie Brown. "They just got a house in Valencia," Kiefer says. "Spawn's taking care of Tater Tot and Special Agent Charlie Brown is working for a private security company." Yeah, if Special Agent Charlie Brown were working for me I'd keep it private too. Also: Spawn's best line ever turned out to be bullshit. Stupid Spawn. "That's interesting," Potato Face lies, and dashes off to "set up a protocol." Kiefer chuckles to himself, thinking back to the days when he had to deal with that socially retarded mutant every day, often for twenty-four hours at a time.
Curtis appears out of nowhere to greet Kiefer -- the two men seem to know each other -- and warn him that his meeting with Driscoll is probably going to get cut short. Kiefer assumes Curtis means the train bombing. "Among other things," Curtis says. Oh, that's discreet. Actually, I shouldn't be too hard on him. I'm sure he'll die before he ever compromises security. Curtis stops a guy leading a team out of the office and introduces him to Kiefer as the guy who does Kiefer's job now. Kiefer 2.0 is dark-haired, cop-eyed, and kind of disreputable-looking, in a way they probably wished they could have made Kiefer look a few times in past seasons. Kiefer asks how it's going, and Kiefer 2.0 sort of blows him off as he heads out. Kiefer turns back to Curtis and offers to reschedule the meeting, but Curtis assures him that Driscoll will be free in a few minutes. He even leads Kiefer an empty workstation to make whatever calls he needs. I'm sure that's not a security breach at all. Sadly, a disk flies out of the CD-ROM drive, decapitating Curtis instantly. Kiefer sits down and looks up at Driscoll through the glass wall of his old KieferKube.
DaD and DoDder are tooling along in the back of their very long limo. As they sit side by side, I take a moment to marvel at how remarkable their family resemblance isn't. Seriously, DoDder's got this high forehead, aquiline nose, and aristocratic chin (I haven't known her long enough to use the word "equine" yet), while Devane has a face like this: ><. Anyway, they're discussing DoDder's brother, the aforementioned Richard (DiCK for short), who is apparently planning to go to a protest at Lockheed that will embarrass DaD and the President. I guess they're on their way to try to talk DiCK out of it, although DoDder is supposed to stay in the car. DoDder thinks DiCK is just rebelling against DaD, or she's just using her brother's poor behavior as an opportunity to suck up. Not that I would ever do that to my sisters. I think it's interesting that they're making references to countries and corporations that actually exist this season. We'll see how long that lasts. Me being interested, I mean.