Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ex-Ex-President
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.14.2006
And then the weirdest thing happens. The screen goes black and it's filled with the ticking clock, starting at 07:15:56. And then the screen goes black again, and when the picture comes back, there are people trying to sell me things! This never happened when I was recapping HBO shows. Wait, I seem to remember this kind of thing from the last season of 24. I don't have to recap these, right? Welcome back, commercials! I missed you! All is forgiven!
7:21:42. FBI agents mill around Palmer's body, a Marine in dress uniform raises the American flag, and Kiefer eats his breakfast. What a patriotic tableau. At CTU, Spencer walks in, passing behind Edgar's chair. He's already heard about the "two former CTU agents," and Edgar tells him their names, revealing that he know them both. He's working on connections between the two unfortunate car-bombees and Palmer, and has sent the parameters to Spencer's screen. Spencer says he'll get right on it, and sits at his desk nearby. Edgar calls up Chloe's cell phone to ask if she's coming in. She's walking briskly to her car as she says she got paged and is on her way. She tells Edgar she already knows about Palmer, but she hasn't heard the latest until Edgar tells her, "Someone planted a bomb in Michelle Dessler's car." Chloe has by now reached her blue Prius (which is the same one she was driving in "Chicago," like, buy a plane ticket, lady), and the hand with the key in it freezes inches from the lock. We can clearly see the numbers of the keyless entry system, but the look of horror on Chloe's face is quite satisfying, so whatever. Edgar breaks the news that Michelle is dead (sad!) and Tony's "not doing too good." Edgar's still babbling away about whether there's some connection between Palmer and the Patches while Chloe looks nervously around her. And some distance off, a bald guy is getting out of the passenger side of a white van and looking at her intently. About the only other thing he could do to give himself away is yell at her, "Get in your car! It won't blow up!" Chloe catches the snap and starts running in the other direction. In the van's driver's seat, Jeff Kober tells Bald Guy, "Go," and the chase is on. While running, Chloe tells Edgar she'll call him back, and he says her name in a way that gets Spencer's attention, although Spencer looks away to pretend he didn't hear anything. Way to play it cool there, Romeo.
Chloe leads her pursuer through back alleys and straight into a multi-level, outdoor mall. She dashes up an escalator, and Bald Guy isn't far behind. He's stuck behind a couple of suits for a few seconds, but when he pushes past them and runs the rest of the way up, Chloe pops up from the narrow gap between the railing and the wall below him, then scrambles down to double back without being seen. Bald Guy gets to the top and looks around, confounded. Aw, don't give up, Bald Guy! I believe in you!
Breakfast at Diane's. Kiefer is offering to fix a fence out back, since he doesn't have any actual work today, and Diane gratefully accepts. Kiefer's cell phone rings. I'd say breakfast is over. Indeed, it's a desperate Chloe on the other end, calling from a pay phone and begging him not to hang up. Kiefer, highly conscious of his landlady sitting about three inches away, acts like he's got a bad signal so he can excuse himself outside and speak freely. Chloe blurts the news about Tony and Michelle, and actually has to spell things out for him, for once: "There's four people [sic] that know you're alive. Three of them are down. Jack, I'm the only one left! This has to be about you!" "Oh, my God," Kiefer breathes. He goes back into his own room as Chloe gives him more details and says she doesn't know what to do. He tells her to "go dark," meaning no contact with anyone, especially CTU. As he's talking, he pushes a dresser aside to reveal an air vent and takes a screwdriver out of one of the drawers, which he then uses to remove the grate from the vent. He tells her to head north from L.A. and get to an abandoned oil refinery at Variel and Topanga. He'll get there in about a half hour. They hang up at 7:25:33, just as he gets the grate off and pulls out his faithful man-purse to the heroic musical theme of Hey, Look, It's the Man-Purse! He also dons his wide-banded wristwatch and his aviator shades and heads out the door, leaving the vent grate and his screwdriver sitting on the floor. Something tells me that fence isn't going to get fixed today after all.