Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | 251 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Two Can Play at That Game
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2009.01.11
After hanging up, Janis gets up and crosses the office, which is like the Anti-CTU. Instead of a concrete cave, it's a standard office space with normal cubicles, acoustic tile ceilings, and not a single exotic phone chirp to be heard. Plus very few people seem to have learned the first rule of dressing for 24, which is to wear something comfortable, because unless you're Kiefer you'll probably be wearing it for several months. Janis approaches Exhibit A, stiff-shirted Poor Man's Tobey Maguire to request security clearance for Kiefer to get into the building. "Won't need him cleared for a couple of minutes," he drones at her without looking up from his monitor. Impatiently, Janis begins, "Sean, as a friend -- " He interrupts that she's no such thing, so she starts over "As someone as close to a friend as you are ever going to get, let me give you some advice. Most people don't like sarcasm. I myself have no problem with it because I'm cheerful. I'm a cheerful person." That gets Sean's attention, and she finally snaps at him to do Kiefer's clearance already. Oh, good. I was afraid that with CTU gone, we'd have to somehow muddle through the season without the aid of a bunch of maladjusted nerds immaturely sniping at each other back at the home office. Thanks, Janis and Sean, for putting my fears to rest.
Inside a long, central conference room -- which unlike CTU's has glass windows only every other panel instead of all of them, but features a familiar oblong conference table -- a suited blond agent named Larry Moss (Walker's boss, we'll soon learn) is giving some extras an exposition briefing about a series of "technology thefts" that have been going on. On a big-screen monitor, he pulls up the dossier for Michael Latham, tells them who he is, and that he was just abducted ten minutes ago. And that they think he, along with the stolen tech goods, is being used to build a device to break through the CIP firewall. Janis pokes her head in to say that Kiefer's on his way. Okay, briefing over. Well, one thing the FBI has in common with CTU: they certainly put the "brief" in "briefing."