Episode Report Card Sobell: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bad Boys Eventually Get Quiet Time
By Sobell | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 11.17.2008
Back at Team Scylla, Linc is standing in a doorway, staring out at the docks. Dr. Sara comes out and says, "He's going to be okay. I'm scared too, but the hospital is the best place for him right now." Linc says wearily that Michael's not going to go until he's figured out a plan to get the job done. He does not voice his unspoken worry that coming up with this plan may well cause Michael's brain to explode and dribble out his nose. Dr. Sara's like, "Well, there's not a whole lot else we can do right now ..." so she and Linc move on to discussing how Gretchen's supposed to be getting the sixth card from General Von Baldy. Dr. Sara asks if we can actually trust Gretchen, and Linc astutely answers, "With the card? Absolutely. Anything else? Nope." He saunters off, leaving Dr. Sara to her thoughts.
We then zip over to the One World Conspiracy HQ. Lisa Tabak's going over the security detail Scylla merits -- "Eight guards will accompany Scylla from the basement bunker to a garage where an armored truck will be waiting ... I will have a full Secret Service escort to March Air Force Base. There, [Scylla] will be brought aboard a C-130 ... Colonel Rafithi is lending us three of his F-18s [for air security]. It may be hard for you to believe, but I do have this under control." General Von Baldy declines to get into it with Lisa, because his mobile phone's just rung with a photo from Gretchen. The minute he sees the picture, he's all, "Yeah, whatevs, I'm sure you totally have this" to Lisa, and is practically sprinting out the door. Lisa chuffs in annoyance and asks if the general's planning on going somewhere. He looks positively giddy as he says, "I have an appointment." For someone who has devoted his life to cloak-and-dagger-style subterfuge, General Von Baldy is remarkably transparent when it comes to his booty calls. Lisa snaps, "Today?" and the general is all wounded innocence as he says, "You told me there was nothing to worry about." Lisa protests, "Just tell me it's not Gretchen." General Von Baldy only gives her a level look. She scoffs, "This is ridiculous," and that puts Von Baldy on the defensive. He goes skipping out the door.
Back at Team Scylla HQ, Dr. Sara's giving Michael the 411 on his pending surgery -- he'll be awake the whole time, with only some local to take the sting out of having a big fat brace screwed to his skull. "They're going to have to secure four pins to your skull, and they're going to need a small drill to do it." Then we find out that, once braced, Michael gets a big 3-D picture of his brain taken, and that is used to determine where to use the gamma knife to slice the hamartoma out. You know, unless the powers that be are planning on showing us the surgery in the back half of this episode (and they are not), I can only assume that we're getting all this expository information because there will likely be an upcoming episode devoted entirely to the operation and the many ways in which it could be botched. Until then, all this scene does is to provide some amusement to those of us who now have a mental picture of Michael lurching around with bolts coming out of his head like Frankenstein, and explaining slowly to Sucre that the reason he can still talk well is because he's got four bolts in the brain, not two.