Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Duress Code: Casual
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.15.2006
The situation is clearly starting to get to Logan. He's wavering in his resolve to sign the treaty, and starts talking to Novick like he's his therapist. Walt cuts in and says that in signing the treaty, Logan is doing the only thing he can do under the circumstances. I really can't figure out what Walt's agenda is here; if he's really working with the terrorists, one would think he would encourage Logan to back down. Maybe he's trying to prolong the standoff for reasons we don't yet know, but which will almost certainly turn out to be stupid. Novick stares intently at Logan, but remains silent. I assume that means he agrees with what Walt's saying. I'm also assuming that he would disagree with Walt's decision to feed vital information to the terrorists, but this show has surprised me before.
At 10:06:42, the First Lady sits with Evelyn, watching TV and holding the transcript of her call with Palmer. We can't read anything on it, but I think it's safe to conclude that it doesn't match the tape Logan played for FLOTUS earlier. Evelyn, who is clearly coming around to FLOTUS's point of view on this, advises her to tell Logan right away that someone has tampered with the phone recordings. FLOTUS says this isn't the right time, what with everything else going on. "Besides," she adds dryly, "he thinks I'm unstable." And then she barks like a dog and tries to wear Evelyn as a hat. Not really. But she does tuck the folded-up transcript into her blouse. That garment's certainly seeing a lot of traffic this morning. Although she does manage to keep her boob put away this time.
As Curtis does his walk of shame back to the CTU command post outside the terminal building, Diane waylays him and starts peppering him with annoying, whiny questions. Curtis refrains from peppering her in return with small-arms fire. Instead he cuts off the conversation and climbs back into the CTU van to work on his new attack plan. I hope it involves using Diane as a shield.
Inside the terminal, Beresch and a minion are watching the news report of their latest execution on a handheld video monitor. Derek and Kiefer are still on their knees, next to each other but a distance away from the rest of the hostages. This must have been an uncomfortable shoot for them, seeing as how they're in this position for most of the hour. Derek tries to talk to Kiefer, but Kiefer tells the kid to keep quiet for now. Meanwhile, a minion has returned to Beresch carrying a laminated sheet with a floor plan of the terminal. Seems like that's something they would have had, or at least been familiar with, already. I know that if I'm going to take over a public building at gunpoint, I prefer to have some grasp of the layout before I go in. To be fair, Beresch only has to give the diagram a cursory glance before he walks back to Kiefer and tells him to tell CTU to storm the emergency door south of Gate 12. Kiefer says CTU won't do that without an explanation. "That's your concern, Mr. Bauer," Beresch says, raising his gun to point it at Derek's head. Kiefer looks defeated.