Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT No Russia to Judgment
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.19.2010
9:31:52. Walking through the corridors of the U.N. with Dalia Hassan, at the head of a phalanx of agents, Taylor tells her that the delegates have unanimously accepted her as the IRK's representative. "I'm pleased," Dalia says, not exactly effusively, but what do you want from a woman who's been a widow for ninety minutes? She thanks Taylor, who reminds her that the IRK needs to accept her as well. Dalia says that she and Jamot have been working that and says it should be covered within the next hour. "Dalia, we might just make it yet," Taylor says. "We might," Dalia agrees. It's nice to see these two female heads of state doing what needs to be done to put an end to war. Just imagine the bumper stickers that will come of this. Of course this is when Ethan comes up to tell Taylor that Logan urgently wants to talk to her alone and is waiting in her office.
It's 9:32:56 as we see Logan staring slack-jawed at the news monitor in Taylor's office, which is starting to break the news of Dalia's ascension. There's even footage of street demonstrations already going on in the IRK in her support. I don't care what time it is in Kamistan, that's some rapidly organized demonstrating, right there. Logan quickly mutes the TV as Taylor enters with her usual retinue. He thanks her for seeing him, and asks everyone to clear out, until there's no one left but himself, Taylor, and Ethan, the latter of whom asks, "What's this about, Charles?" Logan starts to spin some story about Kiefer being "out of control." This is when Taylor finds out that Walker's dead, and she takes it pretty hard. Logan's more immediate point is to stop Kiefer, and when she asks why, he says, "You're going to trust me. What we need to do right now is lock Bauer down." Because we should all trust Logan, especially when it comes to Kiefer. Taylor wisely refuses to budge until Logan comes clean, so he does, big time: "Elements inside the Russian government were behind both the assassination of President Hassan and the supply of nuclear material to his enemies." That was an impressively efficient précis of the situation. Taylor and Ethan are shocked, of course, but it doesn't seem to occur to them to question whether it's true, probably because Logan's story isn't self-serving for once. Logan argues that he was trying to protect Taylor, but Ethan rages, "You've compromised her, hopelessly!" Taylor asks why Logan didn't say anything about this. Logan defensives, "You must have understood it was significant." Taylor says she thought he was talking about "a sex scandal, some kind of financial malfeasance. Not this, for God's sake!" I love how she was only down with blackmail as long as it was about something merely sordid or shady. She starts threatening, "If I find that you were in a position to prevent anything..." A panicked Logan says he only found out about this "very recently," but he can't tell her from whom. "It would do no good. My sources would plausibly deny even knowing me." How? They seem to know everything else. Taylor lets that slide for the moment, so they can get back to the part where Kiefer's about to expose Russia's part in all this by talking to Dana. "If Bauer gets to her," Logan warns, "it'll all come out. Then this, this will all be finished," he says, pointing at the monitor that's still all about the peace process. Ethan says it already is. "You think the president wants anything more to do with the Russians after what they've done?" Like she can just take Russia's picture down from inside her locker or something. Logan says she does, for the sake of the greater good. He makes a passionate case for the peace she's about to achieve. Ethan demands, "Do you really think Dalia Hassan will sit down at the table with the people who murdered her husband?" "Who says she has to know?" Logan says, knowing full well it's a shitty suggestion but one he has to make. Taylor glares at him, and he says he knows how hard she's worked for this. Again, he argues eloquently, but he stops short of mentioning all the work he put into his own treaty with Russia -- possibly because he fucked that up himself by being an incredible cockslap. "Is the situation ideal?" he asks rhetorically. "No, far from it. But you have a real chance to make the world a better place." Ethan tells her not to listen, and says this isn't their last chance at this. "You can build a better peace, with honest partners." Logan quotes, "'There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'" Ethan doesn't know his Shakespeare as well as does Taylor, who translates from Julius Caesar: "It means now or never." Funny, I don't recall that episode.