Episode Report Card M. Giant: C- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Day 6: 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 13 | Aired on March 11, 2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.A wounded Kiefer gets loose inside the locked-down Russian Consulate, but after Consul Markov orders the phones shut down, he's got no way to communicate Gredenko's location, except to take a couple of hostages and wait around for one of them to bring him a magic phone. Which will arrive too late, in any case. CTU and the Veep respond with a three-pronged strategy. Prong One: Buchanan has his new head of tactical ops (Ricky Schroder) get ready to launch a strike on the Russian Consulate in order to get Markov and Kiefer out. The problems with Prong One are that this is basically an act of war, and that Ricky Schroder's playing a raging asshole. Prong Two: Logan offers to help again, this time by trying to win the Russian president over to his side through their respective wives. The problem with Prong Two is that the ex-FLOTUS wants nothing to do with Logan, no matter what her current boyfriend Aaron says. And it hits yet another hitch when Martha sticks a paring knife in Logan's shoulder (a prong within a prong, as it were). Prong Three: The Veep enlists Tom's assistance in blaming Assad for every bad thing that's happened today, giving him cover to threaten the Mideastian ambassador with a nuclear strike on his country if they don't help to find the terrorists. The problems with Prong Three are that it bothers Tom's conscience, and also the fact that it's fucking insane. Prong Two ends up working first, but only sort of. Suvarov orders his Consul to surrender, but when Markov refuses, Suvarov gives CTU the green light to go in shooting. They do, killing Markov, rescuing Kiefer, and learning that Gredenko's in the Shadow Valley. And unlike the good guys, he hasn't been wasting the whole hour; Fayed has arrived with the bombs, and the nuclear drones are just about ready to launch. And then Logan flatlines in his ambulance. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Now that Logan's bit at the Consulate is finished, they've brought him back to CTU instead of Not Camp David, for some reason. As he's paraded across the floor with an escort of uniformed CTU guards and plainclothes agents, everyone at CTU gawps at him, as they do. It must be so hard for these people to concentrate on fighting terrorism with people coming in and out all the time and forcing them to drop everything they're doing so that they can rubberneck. Logan's led into an interrogation room and locked inside, alone. At the same time, Chloe folds up her laptop and carries it back there. She tells the guards posted outside that she has to "set the transcript codes for the debrief," which is a pretty weak bit of technobabble just to get her in a room with Logan for the first time. He asks who she is, and he says she's "just Chloe O'Brian." They go back and forth in order to provide a little exposition about how Kiefer's still being held in the Russian Consulate. Logan demands to talk to Buchanan right away, and that old Logan sense of entitlement (Logantitlement, I like to call it) reappears once more: "Does he know that I'm all alone here in a holding cell?" Chloe points out that it's not a cell, and the cameras in the ceiling mean he's hardly alone. In any case, it's standard procedure for someone under house arrest to get stuck back here. Logan looks like he's about to take offense, but Chloe says, "Sorry, I'm feeling ambivalent. I'm gonna go." Heh. She does, and Logan totally checks out her ambivalence as she walks out, thinking he wouldn't mind feeling that himself. Wow, I just grossed myself out. I need a moment.
Buchanan enters a meeting in the Situation Room, where Ricky Schroder is standing at the head of the table, looking pale and craggy and still rocking that haircut of his that he first made famous in The Champ. Buchanan introduces him as Mike Doyle, their new head of Field Ops from Fort Bragg. Buchanan exposits that Kiefer's being held inside the Consulate, and that Doyle's going to put together a plan for an assault. From the side of the room, a suddenly-reappearing Milo wonders why they're talking about committing an act of war just to free Kiefer (who saved Milo's life about three hours ago. I'm just saying). Doyle points out that their main objective is not to rescue Kiefer, but to get Markov, and Buchanan says that the final decision is up to the Veep anyway. Chloe comes in to say that Logan's waiting for Buchanan, and the boss heads out. Doyle starts giving out orders, and Milo steps up to say something about how they normally do things differently.