Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT One-Term Wonder
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 23 | Aired on 05.21.2006
Inside, Rooney is also making his move. Rushing silently toward the sentry, who fortunately has his attention focused on the hatch above him, he succeeds in getting his hand over the terrorist's mouth. But then he fucks it up, because the bad guy is able to get his hand up in time to grab Rooney's knife hand. Part of the problem is that given the height difference, Rooney isn't so much pulling his victim's head into his chest, but more on top of his own head. It's really not at all the smooth, efficient act Kiefer described, but an ugly and brutal one as Rooney is reduced to simply stabbing the dude in the throat repeatedly. And he barely accomplishes that. He does manage to prevent the guy from hollering an alarm, at least. They both go down, and Rooney tries to wiggle out from under the large body on top of his. Other people might drop in an Academy joke right here, but not me.
Up top, Kiefer and his guys are as close as they're going to get to the sub without breaking cover for good. "Officer Rooney, what's your status?" Kiefer asks. Rooney responds, "My status is, uh...he's dead." Hee. It's okay, he's new at this. Rooney assures Kiefer that nobody's coming, and Kiefer tells him to open the hatch. Rooney gets up and climbs the ladder to do so, but not before taking the dead guard's machine gun and slinging the strap over his shoulder. How quickly they learn.
Kiefer tells Henderson it's time to go. They break cover, and Kiefer takes out the topside guard with a couple of clean shots. The guy slides down the side of the hull and into the harbor, which nobody inside the sub appears to hear. Because if there's anything I've learned from submarine movies, it's that submarines are acoustic sinkholes. Kiefer, Henderson, and McCullough dash up the gangplank to the sub, weapons drawn. They're about to climb down the hatch that Rooney has just opened for them, when there's a whir of motors and a couple of large panels open up on the sub's hull further aft. I'm expecting automated machine guns to open up on them like this is Half-Life or something, but Chloe tells them that it's just the missile hatches opening. Not that that's good news, either. Chloe says this means they have less than seven minutes to launch (although the closed-captioning says less than four, and Chloe's mouth isn't visible in the shot).
Down in the sub, Kiefer makes sure Rooney's all right, then gets him to lead the way to the control room. It's 5:13:54. Before entering the control room, Kiefer tells Rooney to somehow get to the other side of the control room without being seen, then create a loud, noisy diversion to draw the bad guys out, after which he is to lay low. "I do not want you to engage them, do you understand me?" says Kiefer, who just schooled the kid on how to kill someone with a knife the size of my pinky. Rooney, who is now the most heavily armed good guy in miles, acknowledges his instructions, and heads below and aft. Henderson and Kiefer follow more slowly, on the upper level.