Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Class Reunion, Without the Class
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.11.2009
In the meeting that's currently happening in the Oval Office -- a completely different meeting than the one before -- Tim from Homeland Security reports that flights have been landing safely so far, but the threat of sabotage remains and it could take NSA weeks or months to rewrite the code to lock out the hackers. Taylor asks a Dr. Cornell about their vulnerability, and gets a little PowerPoint presentation in response. In addition to air traffic control, there's the national power grid, whose loss would result in widespread rioting; and the national water treatment and distribution systems, the invasion of which would make the nation's water supply vulnerable to contamination, leading to mass poisoning and dehydration. And the only way to protect the systems would be to shut them down, which would lead to supply shortages and civil unrest. Considering how paranoid the 24-verse is about terrorism, they sure do make their vital systems vulnerable. As Cornell's assistant hands out projections, Ethan gets a cell phone call and steps out to the hallway to take it. Because it's probably something more important than the various terror threats currently facing the country, right?
Nope -- it's only Henry's Secret Service agent, calling from the shotgun seat of the limo that's carrying them to Samantha's workplace. "I'm with the First Gentleman," he reports. With Henry clearly visible in the back seat behind him, Agent Getsch reports, "Mr. Taylor is on his way to confront Roger's former girlfriend." He tells Ethan all about Henry's theory that his son was murdered, and the PI he hired secretly. Ethan is a bit irritated that he's just now finding out about this. "Mr. Taylor enlisted me in keeping his activities off the official manifest, but it's gotten out of hand," Getsch explains. "And at this point I'm worried about Mr. Taylor's... state of mind." I think we can safely translate that ellipsis as meaning "fucked up." Ethan thanks him for the heads-up and rings off. With the call over, Henry finally lowers the divider separating him from the front seat and asks if everything's all right. "Just checking in," the agent lies.
Back at the White House, Ethan rejoins the meeting, where the President is making a decisive move: ordering the National Guard to be put on a pre-deployment basis and suggesting they discuss raising the alert level. Whoa, look out! Allison Taylor is a woman of action!
At the Bureau, Moss gets off the phone with some superior and frets nervously to Janis about how they need to find the shooter, fast. Janis is even more nervous, because she just got off the phone with more bad news from Agent Dornan: "It's his gut feeling that the sniper is not in there." Moss doesn't care about that, and tells her he has to be in there, because Walker told him so. He's about to storm off, but she nervously calls him back and adds, "Dornan also wants to know if we know where Agent Walker is... She left ten minutes ago without logging her destination." Moss really doesn't want to ask the next question, but has to: "What about Bauer?" Janis says he left with her. And Moss leaves Janis sitting there looking worried about having both pissed off the boss she has a crush on and gotten her friend in trouble with him.