Episode Report Card Gustave: A- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Can you dig it?
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2001.12.18
Poor Man's Hume Cronyn is breaking it down for Palmer, telling him what he can expect if his family scandal goes public. His popularity would take a nosedive, the media would discuss it twenty-four hours a day, and then the Democratic party would dump him. But on the other hand, PMHC reasons, if they handle this right, he could come back from it. Palmer expounds upon how awful it must look to the American public for him to have a killer as a son and a family who helped to cover it up. PMHC argues that the murder was in self-defense, and that the election is six months away, leaving them time to ride out the scandal. "The voters know how to forgive," says PMHC. "You just have to know how to ask for it." Cue the frantic mandolins. And the first thing Palmer needs to do, according to PMHC, is to come clean with the public before the Maureen Kingsley story breaks. PMHC goes on to explain that Palmer will need his family's support to do this.
Back at St. Mahk's, PMMS's chief surgeon, a tiny but wiry Japanese woman, is telling AllegedYork, Kiefer, and Bride of Kiefer about how PMMS has no spinal injuries but plenty of other skeletal fractures -- neglecting to mention the fact that she was on smack and roofies too. She walks them down the hall and gives them an improbable excuse for PMMS's heart failure during surgery. "The next six hours will be critical," says Chief Surgeon. "But I'm optimistic." Kiefer asks her if they can ask her "a couple questions." Chief Surgeon leaves it up to AllegedYork, who, after much sputtering, decides that he'll go in first to see if PMMS is "up to it." AllegedYork exits, and Kiefer and BoK walk back to the waiting room with their arms around each other, feeling newly optimistic. Kiefer promises Bride a trip to Kanada when this is all over -- a shout-out to our forum thread on the connection between 24 and all things Kanadian. Kiefer's cell rings. He answers, assuming it's Nina. But it's not. It's Ira Gaines. Cue the eerie ambient techno music. He tells Kiefer to smile and act like there's nothing wrong and "move away from the doors." Kiefer looks up at the hospital surveillance camera. "That's right," says Ira Gaines, standing over a video screen with Konfused Kiefer on it. "We're watching you." He tells Kiefer to move away from his wife or Spawn gets a bullet in her head. Kiefer backs up, tells Bride he's having interference problems -– oh, like you're even allowed to use a cell phone in a hospital to begin with, but that's a whole other tangent. Gaines tells him to exit the hospital via the north entrance, and follows his every move on his video screen.