Episode Report Card Gustave: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Spawn, I'm going on a trip...
By Gustave | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 03.03.2003
Kiefer makes his way over to the plane. Moby informs him that he's connected a timer to the B-O-M-B, so Kiefer will know exactly how much time he has left. Kiefer klimbs aboard. Indeed, that clock is ticking. Only thirty-five minutes left until Kiefer almost dies. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, "dies." Meanwhile, the Hot Asian Dude from Angel is babysitting Cate, who wants to know all about the "autopilot" she presumes will be aboard the desert-bound plane. HAFA basically tells her that a human will be aboard the plane to get it to the precise location, after which he will go down with the plane. Cate asks him who is manning the plane. HAFA informs her that Kiefer is the pilot of Flight 86. Over HAFA's head, she can see Kiefer getting aboard the KieferKraft and strapping himself in. Cate runs up to one of those baker's racks you see in the Hold Everything catalog and shouts Kiefer's name through the cyclone fencing standing between her and the runway. Kiefer's attention is kaptured by Cate's kall. They make eye kontact. But there are no words. Nothing to say. He kloses the kockpit door and starts down the runway. Flight 86 takes off. Flight 86 is in the sky. Sad Cate gets a klose-up. The time is 10:24:31 PM.
The time is 10:28:45 PM. Klockwise from the top left, Flight 86 ascends into the night sky, Kiefer is shown in a moody little close-up, Palmer reads some memo at the big table, and Spawn is on the phone. At NSA, PMHC gets off the phone and announces to Palmer and Rolaide that the plane is three thousand feet in the air and just about the clear city limits. "They'll clear the main population centers in ten minutes, " says PMHC. Which main population centers? L.A. or the Mojave Desert? And how the hell are they going to evacuate either of those locations in ten minutes? I give up. Palmer orders them to prepare Air Force One for a trip to Los Angeles. PMHC and Rolaide are all, "What what WHAT?" PMHC tries to talk him out of a trip to L.A., calling such a move "a little too hands-on." Rolaide agrees with PMHC, and warns him of the civil unrest that will greet him in L.A. once word gets out that the B-O-M-B went off. "The whole country will be traumatized at the news of this B-O-M-B," says Palmer. "I'm going to do everything in my power to assure them that everything is under control." Rolaide is all, "Yes, sir," and makes the call to prepare Air Force One. Oh, by the way, Palmer wants to know who's flying the plane. PMHC tells him that Kiefer is flying the plane. "I'd have told you sooner but I figured you had enough on your mind already," says PMHC. Palmer has nothing to say. He stomps out of his office, presumably to go cry unmanly tears in private.
Flight 86. Kiefer is in radio kontact with the air traffic controller, who tells him to begin his ascent to ten thousand feet. Kiefer komplies. A call is patched through over the radio from Soul Patch, who tells him that he's finally found Spawn. I don't think Soul Patch found Spawn so much as Spawn finally got in touch, but let's just let Soul Patch allow Kiefer to believe that he found Spawn through sheer doggedness on his part. Soul Patch patches Spawn through, and Kiefer is finally able to talk to his daughter. Kiefer is relieved to hear that Spawn is okay. And Good Samaritan Lady gets a warm fuzzy expression on her face at the sound of Spawn reuniting with her father. But it becomes obvious to her that the reunion is anything but happy. Kiefer tells Spawn that he's in a plane. They weren't able to stop the B-O-M-B in time, so someone has to fly it into the desert, and that someone is Kiefer. "How are you getting off the plane?" says Spawn, still not getting it. "I'm not, sweetheart," says Kiefer, explaining about how the bomb has to be dropped in a precise spot. Spawn's bosoms heave as she becomes upset and starts to cry. Good Samaritan looks over all concerned. "You can't do this to me! There has to be somebody else!" bleats Spawn, and for once I have to agree. He can't do this to her. He got her other parent killed last season; he owes it to her to stick around and ask someone else to fly the plane. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," says Spawn, apologizing for being so mean these past few months. Kiefer assures her that nothing was her fault. "I love you just the way you are," he says. "I don't ever want you to change." He tells her to live her life and be happy and all this other self-actualizing shit about making her mom proud. Spawn tells Kiefer that she's proud of him and that she loves him. Tears all around. They get off the phone. Wow, it really looks like Kiefer is just going to die midseason. What will they do with the rest of the "day"? Plan his funeral? Not. The time is 10:35:07 PM.