Episode Report Card Gustave: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT If These Perforated Aluminum Wall Dividers Could Talk...
By Gustave | Season 2 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.24.2003
CTU. Soul Patch and Bitchelle are looking at an online bio of a special ops soldier named Jonathan Wallace, who they believe is the seventh Coral Snake. Man, that guy is ugly, and no, I don't recognize the actor in the photograph, so I doubt it's anyone that famous. Apparently he led a sniper unit in the Gulf War and an assassination detail in Malaysia. Soul Patch tells Bitchelle to forward the info to Kiefer and NSA. He exits just as Carrie enters and approaches Bitchelle's desk. "Carrie, what are you doing here?" asks Bitchelle, giving me the impression that she says this kind of thing to Carrie quite often. As in, "Carrie, what are you doing going through my underwear drawer?" or "Carrie, why are you hiding in my gynecologist's examining room with a Polaroid camera?" or "Carrie, why are you holding my pet rabbit over a pan of boiling water?" Carrie explains that she's Darlene's replacement. They make Whatever Technology small talk for a while. "You look great, by the way," says Carrie. Bitchelle tells her to stop it. "You're not my boss today," she says. "Fine," says Carrie. "Give me an order then." Meanwhile, Soul Patch is over at his desk watching the whole thing and playing pocket pool. Hell, I'm playing pocket pool. "There's a nuclear bomb in L.A.," says Bitchelle, giving her a stack of Whatever Portfolios. "Analyze these." Carrie is all, "Fine." She gives her a wink and exits. I repeat, she winks at her and exits!
The time is 9:34:54 PM. Mason approaches Soul Patch's desk and tells him that he's stepping down. "I don't feel so hot," he explains. He asks Soul Patch to say goodbye to the staff for him and tell them what an honor it was to work with them and what a great job they all did. He then hands Soul Patch all of the important access codes for CTU on a disk. "I can't take this," protests Soul Patch. "Only directors have this kind of access." But Soul Patch is the new director, according to Mason. He's cleared it with Chappelle and everything. Soul Patch begins to say something sensitive about how sorry he is about Mason's imminent death, but Mason cuts him off and wishes him luck. He heads toward the door past Bitchelle, who looks like she's about to cry. Mason's eyes get red as he heads into the proverbial sunset. The time is 09:35:57 PM, but when they show the digital display, there's no "plink…plink…plink" sound. And the only other time they did that is when Bride died, so I strongly suspect that we've just seen the last of Mason.
The time is 09:40:24 PM. Klockwise from the top left, Spawn deals with the fact that the B-O-M-B never went off, Soul Patch gets comfortable in the old Kiefer Kube, and Kiefer pauses during his interrogation of Marie. Soul Patch starts to make arrangements to have all of his calls forwarded to his new office. He rolls up his sleeves and descends the staircase, where several staff members are gathered for some reason. With his jacket off, Soul Patch's billowy purple rayon shirt and tightly belted pants remind me of Roy Scheider as Bob Fosse in All That Jazz, or, for that matter, Carmine "The Big Ragoo" Ragusa, Shirley's dancer boyfriend on Laverne and Shirley. Soul Patch tells the gathered staff members about Mason's exposure to plutonium earlier that "day" and his subsequent resignation. He also announces that he'll be in charge until further notice. "On a normal day, we'd be mourning George," says Soul Patch, as well as the rest of the CTU staff members killed in the blast. "Unfortunately we're going to have to hold our thoughts of them until we can get through this present crisis." 'Cause the dance must go on, right?