Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT There's No "I" in Kiefer -- Oh, Wait.
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.14.2006
8:14:03. Kiefer and krew drive through Los Angeles in the bad guys' white van, Buchanan meets with his underlings, Audrey stands in an office doing nothing (should I pick up the stapler? I'll pick up the stapler. I don't know what to do. Now I'm just standing here holding a stapler), and The Man smirks at the camera. In the back of the white van, Kiefer is rifling through the bad guys' gear. He's all Christmas morning about the military-issue equipment the guys were carrying, including a comm unit they can use. At the wheel, Chloe asks, "Who are these people?" Before Kiefer can venture an answer, his cell phone rings. It's Derek's mom Diane on the other end, calling from her car and being as whiny as ever. Kiefer begs her not to worry (probably because it hurts his ears when she worries), and says he doesn't yet know where she should meet him to pick up Derek. At her request, he lets Derek talk to her, and Derek assures his mom that he's fine. Chloe cuts in to say they're about a block away from Chez Palmer. Diane overhears her, and asks, "Who was that?" Because that's relevant at this point. "Say goodbye to your mother," Kiefer says. It sounds a lot less sinister than it reads. Derek complies, and he and Kiefer scramble to hide in the back of the van. Well, further back, I guess.
It's 8:15:06 as a reporter blathers to the news cameras from near the crime scene barricades. People are already standing up against the barrier, holding flowers and looking sad. Get jobs, people. Chloe drives the van up to a checkpoint and hands over her credentials to a waiting agent. After a cursory glance in the back, where Kiefer and Derek are presumably hiding in duffel bags, he waves Chloe through. Chloe drives right down into the nearly-empty underground parking garage and parks, giving the all-clear for the boys to come out of their non-existent hiding spots. Kiefer breaks out the comm unit and selects tiny earpieces for himself and for Chloe, because it isn't 24 if people aren't talking to each other remotely in real time without phones. Chloe uses her laptop to logs on to the wireless network and get a 3-D display of the building. She's also reading the transponder signals of all the agents in and around the building, which gives her their locations in real time within three feet. Remember how they used to do that with infrared? That's old-school now. Chloe's display shows 167 agents in and around the building, "25 of them in Wayne Palmer's apartment alone." Kiefer says that's why they have to hope this is the last place anyone will look for him. Well, as long as he's got a plan. He gives Chloe her earpiece, and spots an FBI agent getting out of his car the next row over. Kiefer's out of the van. As Derek and Chloe watch, he approaches the agent, aviator shades in place. We watch from their point of view as Kiefer pretends to be a building resident, then grabs the agent into a sleeper hold and drags him behind the agent's car. "What...?" Derek begins. Chloe tells him, "Relax. He's really good at this." ["Drink!" -- Sars] Derek asks if he's okay, and I think he's talking about the FBI agent, but then I remember he doesn't know Kiefer like we do. Indeed, Kiefer is taking his time, so that even Chloe begins to get worried. But then Kiefer reappears, now wearing a snazzy new FBI windbreaker and a badge around his neck. He takes the agent's duffel bag out of the trunk and shuts the lid. They see him put a hand to his ear, and Chloe hears his voice in her ear saying, "Chloe, do you copy?" Chloe copies. Kiefer goes to work.
He steps into the elevator on the garage's B level and hits the button for the penthouse. People should be careful around here when they're pressing buttons marked "PH," you know. At TWoP Towers, PH stands for something totally different. Chloe tells him that there are four agents waiting for the elevator in the lobby. Kiefer smacks the button to get off at the garage's A level, but it's too late. He tries to hide behind his aviator shades and his stolen windbreaker as the door opens and four distracted agents get on the elevator. Not an impostor! Kiefer thinks at them. Not impersonating a federal agent! Not at all the prime suspect in the assassination you're investigating! Just an FBI agent who likes to wear his sunglasses inside! It appears to work, and they all ride up to the penthouse without incident. Kiefer is the last off the elevator at 8:19:42. He makes his way down the hall and whispers to Chloe, "I'm entering the apartment." Chloe responds that most of the agents are in the living room, which must be where Palmer was shot. She adds that there are two rooms near Kiefer with no agents in them. Thorough. But Kiefer's too distracted by the spectacle before him to respond: Palmer is still on the floor, mostly covered by a sheet and surrounded by little crime-scene tags. That seems like kind of a long time to leave him there, even if he was killed instantly, but what do I know. On CSI the body's always in the morgue by the end of the first commercial break. Kiefer removes his shades, and he can just see the top of Palmer's head (or, more likely, that of an extra) in a little puddle of blood, and that copper bracelet on the arm that's splayed out to one side. Kiefer pulls himself together, and ducks into the nearest empty room, which he quickly ascertains is a study. "Let me know if anyone comes this way," he tells Chloe. He sits down at Wayne's computer, which surprisingly doesn't have ten browser windows open with Gina Torres fan sites.