Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Low Noon
By M. Giant | Season 3 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.17.2004
Outside Inn Fection, Special Agent Charlie Brown continues to watch his new favorite show, CTU's Wildest Virus Courier Takedowns. The New York, Seattle, and Las Vegas vials have been secured, but Saunders's guy in Denver was killed making a phone call. Special Agent Charlie Brown relays all this to Kiefer, who very much wants to know whether Denver managed to warn the remaining couriers. Not that we'll ever find out. Back at CTU, Adam has managed to lock in on the signal from the eleventh, missing vial, which, you'll recall, is still in L.A. Potato Face has Adam hand off the transmission to her system, and she gets Kiefer on the phone to let him know she's located Wild Card. Kiefer and Special Agent Charlie Brown are already on the way to the Kiefmobile as Potato Face extrapolates Wild Card's route and predicts that he's heading for a made-up shopping mall. Kiefer gives orders to evacuate and secure the mall as the Kiefmobile tears off with Special Agent Charlie Brown at the wheel. It's 11:38:24.
Commercials. Stay at the hotel of choice for giants whose heads are the size of national landmarks.
11:42:37. Saunders, looking a lot less scary now that he's in a CTU holding room and divested of his turtleneck (he's wearing a T-shirt, so keep your pants on), gives a description of Wild Card, whose face is taking shape on a computer monitor. Kiefer rides shotgun -- and since we're talking about Kiefer, I should mention that I'm using that as a figure of speech. Bitchelle strides purposefully through the halls of CTU and charges into Soul Patch's office, which is of course currently being inhabited by Hammer. She demands to know why she can't see Soul Patch, and Hammer brings up that pesky treason thing again. He must be fun at parties. Bitchelle starts babbling about how Soul Patch did what he did for the reasons he did them, and because of it they were able to catch Saunders. She doesn't quite have the whole story, here. Hammer rectifies that, cutting in and explaining none too kindly that they had Saunders two hours ago but Soul Patch let him get away. She looks like her knight in shining armor just rode his horse into a wall. She says without conviction that Soul Patch faced an impossible choice. Hammer disagrees. And as if she doesn't have enough to deal with right now, he piles more on: "I want you to put yourself in his place, Bitchelle. If you would have made the same call, you should resign right now." He smirks at her. Bastard.
Guided by Potato Face, the Kiefmobile closes in on the Wild Card. She sticks her tongue out in concentration. Sorry, Potato Face, we already have a character with a Peanuts-based nickname, and I'm not going to start calling you "Marcie" at this late date. Potato Face reports that two couriers in Washington and one in Flagstaff have been taken down. I assume Flagstaff was a backup city when the airports closed. Because, you know. Flagstaff. Special Agent Charlie Brown turns onto the street down which Potato Face says the vial is traveling. Neither he nor Kiefer sees any vehicles ahead of them, even as the Kiefmobile's blip closes in on the vial's blip on Potato Face's screen. There's confusion over whether the signal is wrong, until Kiefer figures it out: Wild Card is underneath them, in the subway. Los Angeles has a subway? Stop looking at me that way; judging by what I read in the forums, some Los Angelenos were just as surprised as I was. Palmer must have forgotten about it too, since that's the only reason he would let it continue to run after closing the airports and telling people to stay home. Kiefer wants Potato Face to access the subway's computer system and stop the train before it gets to the next station. Doesn't ask much, does he? While he's waiting, he asks whether they have an image of Wild Card yet. That's a negative. And we get yet another demonstration of the inefficiency of interagency bureaucracies, as it's taken Potato Face nearly ten seconds to get that subway train stopped. She offers to have the station closed as well, but Kiefer emphatically nixes that, saying that Wild Card might release the virus if he notices anything out of the ordinary. Uh, Kiefer, the train just stopped in the tunnel. I think that particular ship has sailed, my friend. Kiefer orders twenty undercover guys and hazmat backup at the station, stat. Potato Face runs off to ask Hammer to make it so.