Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Day 5: 9:00 PM - 10:00 PM
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 15 | Aired on March 26, 2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Now that Audrey's been fingered as a suspect in the conspiracy, emotions are running rather high at CTU. Although Kiefer believes Audrey was set up, he intimidates her into confessing a brief yet icky affair with the late Walt Cummings and nothing more. Hayes sees that when it comes to interrogating people he cares about, Kiefer chokes. So she sends in Burke the Incompetent New Torture Guy. Kiefer and Chloe find evidence that Collette Stenger lied about her connection to Audrey. That invalidates Collette's immunity agreement, and Kiefer forces her to give up what she knows about where Bierko plans to deliver the nerve gas: it's a natural gas distribution center somewhere in L.A., although she doesn't know which one. It may be time to consider cooking with electric. Through Edgar's replacement, a dewy ingénue, we're supposed to think that Slime is even more hateful than we already did, but after she figures out which gas plant is Bierko's target, it becomes clear that it's the writers who are hateful.
No Logans this week. Aaron becomes worried that Wayne Palmer is late for their secret appointment, so he ventures into the hitman-riddled woods surrounding Not Camp David to rescue his late ex-boss's brother. Kiefer also rescues Audrey from Burke, but not before her day and her hair are both ruined, and they have an inexcusably schmoopy reunion under the circumstances. At the gas company, Kiefer, Curtis, and their CTU sidekicks take out most of the bad guys, leaving only Bierko to release the nerve gas into the homes of thousands of paying utility customers. But before the Sentox can get that far, Kiefer blows a hole in the main pipeline, thwarting the evil plan while effectively turning the entire facility into a giant grenade with the pin out. So then of course he runs back in to chase down Bierko, and the two grapple while the place blows the fuck up around them all Star Trek III at the stroke of 9:59:56. And then Kiefer's not even in the previews for next week, which totally means he's probably dead. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
We open on the CTU floor as the camera tracks Chloe, galumphing along in medium range, leaving the shot to focus on Buchanan and Hayes conferring in the distance, to Audrey's profile, rightinourfaces, wearing her glasses and looking totally innocent as she works. As you do. Film school exercise over, Buchanan circles around and catches up with Chloe, asking her to check into Audrey's background over the past eighteen months, particularly any connections to Henderson or to Walt Cummings. Chloe of course wants to ask a lot of questions, but Buchanan tells her to do it quickly. One might expect Chloe to go straight to Audrey after that, but Buchanan does instead, telling Audrey she's being taken into custody. Not wasting any time, I see. Two white-shirted security guards (must be Homeland Security guys, which explains why they look like the people who run the metal detectors at the airport) appear on cue, but before they can drag her back to Holding, Audrey drags a partial explanation out of Buchanan: Collette Stenger named Audrey as her source for information that she then passed to Bierko. As she's frog-marched to an interrogation room, Audrey has one more question for Buchanan: "Does Jack know I'm being detained?" Buchanan says that Kiefer not only knows, he sanctioned it. Oh, so Kiefer's not only working for CTU again, he's sanctioning shit now?
And if you think the news of Audrey's disgrace traveled fast, it didn't travel any more quickly than Kiefer himself did. He's already back at CTU -- in the building, no less -- with Curtis and the rest of his field team, Collette in tow. Apparently CTU and Van Nuys Airport share a parking lot. You'd think Collette would have been more careful than that. She's still sticking to her story that Audrey was her contact, even claiming that they met face-to-face. Kiefer whirls Collette against the wall again and threatens, "If you are lying to me, I'm gonna make this the worst day of your life, you understand me?" Way to give her even more motivation to stick to her story, there, Master Interrogator.
Presumably Collette and Audrey are going to two different holding rooms, because we're joining the latter in her cell right now. No sooner has she been buzzed in than a technician rolls in a torture cart, making sure she can see it as it goes past her. She looks very worried indeed. See, this is why living in a country that tortures people is a bad thing. Sooner or later, the people who argue most strongly against the practice are going to have it turned on them. Of course, so will the people who are powerfully in favor of it, as well as those who don't really seem to have an opinion.