Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Chip And Dip
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.13.2007
Boyfriend is quickly pulled off of Lisa, who is by now unconscious but alive. Tom orders one of the agents to call for an ambulance, and to have Boyfriend cuffed and moved into the bedroom. As the agents comply and set Boyfriend down in front of a bedroom window through which morning light is now streaming -- even though it still looked pretty dark when the van was heading up the street just a few seconds ago -- Tom introduces himself to Boyfriend, remarking that Boyfriend probably already knows everyone there. As well as what they had for breakfast, if anyone in the 24-verse ever ate. Tom calmly lays it out for him: they've got Boyfriend dead to rights, with audio of him talking to his Russian contact, as well as the PDA-hacking device currently in Tom's hand. So now Boyfriend can either cooperate and send along the fake data Lisa was trying to plant all along, or he can pretty much count on the death penalty. Surprisingly, Boyfriend seems to need a moment to think about this. If he's currently considering an Option #3 where ex-KGB agents shoot their way in, rescue him, and whisk him off to spend the rest of his days in a luxurious penthouse suite overlooking the Kremlin, he's likely to be disappointed.
At 3:34:23, Cheng is calmly descending an outdoor staircase to street level as he calls Kiefer's dad to report that Josh has been taken away from him by CTU. Dad's pissed, and when Cheng protests that he lost "many men" (which is actually an understatement, since he lost all of them except for himself), Dad is unsympathetic to Cheng's "operational inadequacies." Hey, no need to get personal. He calls off the deal: since he's not getting Josh, the Chinese aren't getting the FB sub-circuit board back, repaired or otherwise. Cheng threatens Dad with "serious consequences," but Dad threatens right back that if Cheng threatens him again, he's going to be the one with the consequences. This could go back and forth all night, but they hang up instead. Here's where Cheng should be running into CTU's perimeter, but instead he hops into the shotgun seat of a waiting SUV -- complete with an Asian driver waiting inside -- and gets driven off into a commercial break at 3:35:17. Chalk up one more outstanding collar to those law enforcement superstars at CTU.
3:39:43. In order to get their systems back online, Chloe and Nadia are storming around the CTU floor spouting technobabble at each other. Nadia has fully embraced her new secret-agent-babe persona by changing out of her bloody suit and blouse and into a black turtleneck. Very Alias. While she and Chloe are trying to supervise the reconstruction, the latest contingent of suited Division guys comes in. I'm expecting this to be Nadia's replacement, finally arriving to take command three hours after Buchanan's departure, but I guess it would be silly to expect them to have such a person lined up so quickly in the middle of the night. No, instead, it's the guys Division has sent over to investigate the security breach that resulted in the commandos' invasion. Guys like that are on call 24/7, naturally. Their leader, a smarm-ball named Ben Graham, tells Nadia why he's here, and when Nadia protests that, um, it's the middle of the night and they're kind of busy trying to get things up and running, Graham tells her that he doesn't really care what she thinks. He's already trying to pin the breach on Nadia. He says that mistakes were made, including the decision to accept Buchanan's recommendation to put Nadia in charge. Hey, that one you can't blame Nadia for. She even disagreed with it at the time. But instead of arguing with Graham, Nadia is already entering a guilt spiral over the thought that she's responsible for Milo's death. She agrees to cooperate with the investigation. "Super," Graham smarms at 3:41:02, and starts listing off all the stuff he needs. Nadia invites him to take over a conference room, and he smiles and leads his people off in that direction. Nadia gets on her cell phone and calls "Operations" to tell them to give the Division people whatever they need. While she's standing there all sad, Morris ambles over to the rescue. "Don't let those buggers from Division get to you," he says. "You're not responsible for what happened." Nadia says she is, actually; it happened on her watch. Not to blindly defend Nadia, but I'd say that ultimate responsibility lies with the guys who blew a hole in the floor and came inside to shoot up the place. Morris agrees with me that Nadia couldn't have done anything to prevent it. "People are dead," she says. "Milo is dead because of me." Morris says that's not her fault either, but she reminds him that she hesitated and Milo jumped in. Morris can't argue with that, but he says he has some experience with being afraid and doing regrettable things as a result. He tells Nadia that Milo was a brave man, and "never would have sacrificed himself to that others could lay his death at your feet. Stay strong. Stay in charge," he says, and leaves her to it. Hey, you know, not for nothing, but both of these kids are on the market now.