Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Won't Be Your Father Figure
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 10 | Aired on 02.26.2006
Kiefer arrives in the fancy, spacious lobby of Omicron International, where he presents himself at the front desk as John Barrie and says he has a 4:30 with R&D. Despite the ratty brown jacket Kiefer's wearing in a lobby full of suits, the guard can't argue with Kiefer's photo popping up on his system, or his professional manner, or the thumbprint reader that "confirms" Kiefer's identity. A moment later, Kiefer is past the security desk and wandering the bowels of the building at 4:20:03. If the word "bowels" can apply to this place, which is a feng shui dreamland of wide corridors and natural light that makes the headquarters of Wolfram & Hart look like a bomb shelter. Fucking California. Where I live, we're happy if the Skyway is attached to our building. Kiefer just happens to amble past a cavernous outer office where a familiar voice is giving scheduling instructions over a loud speakerphone. So Henderson is such a bigwig that he works on the ground floor? Kiefer approaches the secretary who's operating this end of the phone, and pretends to be looking for the men's room. Unimpressed, she gives him directions, but instead of hitting the john like we know he wants to, as soon as he's out of the secretary's sight he pulls out his cell phone and calls Audrey to create a distraction. Audrey's on it. A moment later, she's on the line with the secretary, introducing herself as Jane Espenson, of all people, and saying there's an invoice issue in accounting that requires the secretary's attention. The secretary intercoms "Mr. Henderson," saying she'll be right back. From around a corner in the hallway, Kiefer watches her go and draws his weapon. Good thing no one else is in the hall right now. It's only a moment before Kiefer's inside Henderson's inner office. And then someone tasers him from behind. And my shit cracks up.
The taserer turns out to be Christopher Henderson himself, wearing glasses and a wireless phone earpiece, and played by Peter Weller. I used to think there were two categories of Peter Weller fans in the world, but I may have underestimated. Maybe you could vote in the poll at the right of your screen and clear that up for me. Henderson may or may not be surprised to see Kiefer, but we can't accuse him of not having been prepared to taser someone, because he pulls an ampoule of smelling salts out of his pocket and quickly pops it under Kiefer's nose. And when Kiefer wakes up, Henderson has made his earpiece and glasses vanish, and Kiefer's gun is in Henderson's hand, even though we never saw Henderson bend over to get it. Wow, that guy's good. Henderson sits in his chair, the gun still trained on a panting and grunting Kiefer, and says in that sardonic monotone that both kinds of fans remember so well, "Just for the record, I never believed you were dead." Just for the record, looking at Henderson makes it hard to believe that Peter Weller isn't. Dude looks like hell. He asks Kiefer what he's doing there, and Kiefer outlines the trail of clues that led him there. Henderson says none of Kiefer's "clues" is a secret, from the company's manufacture of Sentox for the military to Henderson's employment there, but that all the gas is accounted for. "Well, that can't be true, now can it?" Kiefer snarks, like that's a really good burn or something. He says that terrorists have at least nineteen canisters right now. "What are you accusing me of now, Jack?" Henderson bitches, just so we know he's still not over their contentious history. Kiefer says he's following a lead, and that the Sentox killed eleven people at the mall two hours ago. Henderson scoffs that the news said it was chlorine gas, but Kiefer says that was only a cover story to prevent a panic. That makes sense to Henderson, who, as Kiefer reminds him, "knows how this works." Kiefer concludes that the terrorists are threatening to release the rest of the gas.