Episode Report Card Gustave: A- | 226 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT The final hour
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 24 | Aired on 2002.05.21
The time is 11:42:29 PM. Klockwise from the top left, GaggedBride awaits her fate, Kiefer makes a kall on his kar phone, and Palmer paces. The phone rings at the desk of some computer nerd in the archives department, who would have been Milo if Eric Balfour hadn't gone off to do that pilot. Kiefer asks him to retrieve the videotape from the room where Jalapeño kommitted suicide. NotMilo locates the footage, but discovers that the tape was erased. Kiefer gives him another access code so that he can locate the digital back-up. NotMilo promises to get back to Kiefer in a few minutes when he locates the tape. Kiefer runs a red light.
Back at the Palmer Hotel, Lady Mac is walking through the hotel kitchen on her way to meet with Palmer. She pauses briefly and checks out how good she looks in a full-length mirror, then enters the ballroom, where Palmer is waiting. What a lame party! It started less than two hours ago, and already the room is empty. Palmer steps on a red, white, and blue steamer -- that's a little symbolism there for you, folks! -- and walks over to Lady Mac. Lady Mac begs Palmer to table the discussion until after they've both had some sleep. Palmer doesn't want to. Lady Mac delivers her forty-seventh speech about how she only has Palmer's best interests at heart. Palmer tells her that she's lost touch with what it is to be a mother, friend, and wife. "After tonight, I don't want to see you again," says Palmer. "I just don't think you're fit to be First Lady." Lady Mac doesn't believe him. She tells him he isn't capable of leaving her. Palmer tells her that the Secret Service is waiting to take her back to Washington. He walks away. "You just don't walk away from me!" she shrieks after him. Oh, but he does. The Secret Service even hold her back as she tries to chase him. She loses her mind and walks around in a circle with her hands palms-down in front of her like she's sitting at a sewing machine. Oh, like a presidential candidate would ever get divorced. If this were real life, he'd just take away her power and put up a public front. But then again, it's television. And any plotline that gives an excuse for Lady Mac to say "you don't just walk away from me" and do that crazy rain dance is okay by me.
NotMilo has found the crucial digital back-up. He plays it for Kiefer over -- get this -- the Kiefmobile's Pop-Up Video Monitor. The tape shows Nina coming into the ITS room, hitting Jalapeño with a taser -- hi, Jalapeño! -- and then killing her with her own coffee cup. Bye, Jalapeño. Again. It is, as David Thomson noted on Salon, very reminiscent of a German Expressionist film with the bluish tones. After Jalapeño is dead, Nina looks straight into the camera like the kat that swallowed the kanary. Kiefer kalls Mason and shows the tape to him. The time is 11:48:31 PM.