Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | 170 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Day 8: 4:00 PM -- 5:00 PM
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2010.01.17
Dude, this title sequence is starting to look like a period piece, y'all. But here's a switch: "The following takes place between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM." Man, these character are going to be tired by this time tomorrow. And then Kiefer adds, with just a trace of a smile in that extra-warm velvet, "Events occur in real time." Yes, we missed you, too, sweetie.
The very next thing we see is an aerial shot of Manhattan, looking downtown from somewhere over Central Park. The foreground is dominated by the Chrysler Building, the MetLife Building, the Empire State Building, and the name that kicks off the opening credits, "Kiefer Sutherland." In other words, whatever you think you know about New York City, this is Kiefer's town now. Fugheddaboudit.
Just to really drive home the New York-ness of all of this, a yellow cab pulls up to the curb and a Latino guy in a red hooded sweatshirt steps out. He pauses to raise his hood before looking around furtively, but that doesn't prevent a goateed man in a vacant lot across the street from observing, "It's him." He's apparently on earpiece to a rooftop sniper, who has the new arrival in his scope. But a passing delivery van cuts off the shot while the target ducks inside the building. "Stand by. We'll get him on the way out," the lookout assures the sniper. If they do, this is going to be a very short season.
Inside, the man in the red hoodie climbs the stairs, past strung-out hookers and a freebaser with long blond hair, before letting himself into a dark, grungy apartment and calling for someone named Manny. The only sound is the shower running in the bathroom, and the guy is shocked when he draws the curtain aside to find his roommate dead in the tub with a bloody hole in his forehead. It's either from a bullet or the water pressure in there is a lot more powerful than the surroundings would seem to indicate. He pulls out a gun of his own, then his cell phone. The woman he calls says the guy he wants to talk to is dead -- freshly shot in the head as well, although this one seems to have just gone down in a bodega somewhere. "What the hell is happening?" she asks, and he hangs up before he can wonder why she's spotting a pattern as well. He vacates the apartment, gun at the ready.
The lookout across the street spots a figure in a familiar red-hooded sweatshirt exiting, and calls it up to the sniper. As if that sweatshirt isn't already a matador's flag in the dingy, blue-gray light that is TV-ese for New York. The shooter is about to squeeze the trigger when the alert lookout calls it off -- it's the freebaser, and he has a new sweatshirt. But where's its original owner?