Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mole Patch II: Electric Whatever
By M. Giant | Season 3 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.03.2004
Soul Patch, looking busted and guilty, makes a beeline for the nearest phone and buzzes Potato Face on the Nebuchadnezzar to tell her to stop what she's doing. He's running low on explanations, so he doesn't have one for her. She doesn't want to drop it, but Kiefer's closing in on him, so he just tells her he'll explain later and hangs up. Kiefer comes up and asks Soul Patch what he's doing, in a not at all friendly way. Soul Patch falls back on the liar's last resort: the babble. Kiefer just glares at him flatly. "Why are you lying to me?" he quietly demands. Busted! Kiefer just got off the phone with Hammond, confirming that Soul Patch lied about the status call. So he was just shooting the shit with Hammond for the last ten minutes while there was a mole on the loose? Soul Patch pretends to come clean, thinking fast and talking faster about how someone forged the satellite transmission that caused him to leave Saunders's building open, and the same person deleted the missing frames. He takes responsibility for his "mistake" and promises to resign after the day is over, but claims there's too much going on for him to step down. Kiefer doesn't let him off the hook: "Making a mistake is one thing. Covering it up is another." Kiefer is taking over command of CTU. I'm always amazed that people can just do that. I should try it sometime. Preferably on a quieter day than this. Soul Patch says, "I made a mistake, Kiefer." Kiefer: "No, Soul Patch. You made two." Actually, Kiefer, that count's a little low. Soul Patch submits to Kiefer's decision and storms off. It's 9:46:36.
Soul Patch goes off to be alone with his cell phone, but Adam sticks his big old face in front of the camera. He's narrowed down a list of possible mole suspects, and he's got them on a disk which he's holding out to Soul Patch. I don't know why he wasted a whole disk to store a file that by rights should consist entirely of two words: "SOUL PATCH." Think about it, Adam. You offered to pull up the satellite frames, then Soul Patch said he'd do it, then he disappeared, and the next you heard about them was when Potato Face told you the frames were missing. Rather than pointing any of this out, Soul Patch tells him he's not in charge any more, and to send the list to Hammond. Adam watches him leave, his eyebrows attempting to tie themselves into a square knot.
Soul Patch finds a quieter stretch of hallway to report to Saunders that he's not the boss any more. Soul Patch, you quit being the boss ninety seconds before the end of the last episode. Saunders is completely sympathetic to Soul Patch's dilemma, and offers to put Bitchelle in a cab right away. Except he doesn't. He warns Soul Patch that nothing's changed as far as he's concerned, and that he'd better get Spawnders out of there before Kiefer finishes figuring everything out, because if he doesn't, for whatever reason, Bitchelle dies. He hangs up. Soul Patch looks like he's coming apart, and not just at the neck. It's 9:48:24.