Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT We still have Logan to kick around
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.07.2006
Hayes and Buchanan are hanging in the Situation Room when Valerie (the blonde Homeland Security agent, who tried to track Audrey a few episodes ago, the only one besides Slime who ever gets any lines) comes in and hands Hayes a news flash. Hayes reads it, hands it unhappily to Buchanan and says, "We have to alert Jack."
It's 3:10:06 as Kiefer's cell phone goes off. Hayes urgently tells him about the VCI distress signal his plane is supposedly transmitting, and what it means vis-à-vis Logan's authority to shoot them down. "Shoot us down?" Kiefer repeats in shock, which causes the copilot's head to turn sharply. Can't blame him. There are certain phrases you never want to hear on a passenger plane, among them "shoot us down," "evasive action," and "do you have any Pepto-Bismol? Buchanan tells Kiefer that he has no more than eight to ten minutes before an F-18 shows up on their six to say howdy. Kiefer quickly realizes that there's not anyone they can call to talk out of this, and tells Evans, "We need to land this plane now." At first, I think that they'll just be an easier target sitting on the ground, but he's just thinking there's only one way to prove they're not a threat, gambling that that will be sufficient to force Logan to back off. The copilot protests that they're 100 miles from the nearest airport. This will be Evans' job for the rest of the time, by the way: telling Kiefer why he can't do stuff. Fun gig. But since even Kiefer can't make an airport appear underneath them, he asks Buchanan to find them a nice, straight stretch of freeway about a mile long. Buchanan obligingly gets on Yahoo!Maps and promises to call Kiefer back in a minute or two. "We can't land on the freeway," Evans duhs, but Kiefer says there won't be any cars, what with the lateness of the hour and the curfew in effect. He forces Evans to cuff his right hand to the control yoke (let's hope he doesn't need that hand to reach anything else, like the throttle or the landing gear or what have you), and tells him to start descending. He and the man-purse move up to the pilot's chair, where he puts his gun to Evans's temple and orders, "Do it now." It's 3:12:02.
And during the commercial, I'd like to remark that of course Kiefer wants to save himself and the rest of the passengers. I would too. But as for the country and his self -appointed mission, maybe he could hedge his bets a little by whipping out the recording and playing it back right now. That way, even if they crash, I guarantee that Logan will be in a damned awkward position when the NTSB finds the cockpit voice recorder.