Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ex-Ex-President
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.14.2006
Logan's still going on to the press about Palmer when FLOTUS comes race-walking out of the nearest building, which luckily is a good hundred yards away. She's quickly intercepted by an unfortunate Secret Service agent, but she's clearly not in the mood to be intercepted and snaps at the poor guy to get away from her. In mid-speech, Logan notices the commotion in the distance and glances off in that direction. Novick does the same, and does a full-body cringe when he sees what's going on. For some mysterious reason, all of this completely escapes the White House press corps. Nice touch of realism there, to make those folks the opposite of alert. Novick heads off to deal with the situation. I'm thinking he should maybe be making a "wrap it up" gesture towards Logan, but then, the cameras will still be rolling so that wouldn't help. When Novick gets to FLOTUS, she's telling the world's least lucky Secret Service agent that "I will have your family eating dog food out of a can." Better than out of a bag; that canned stuff is expensive. Novick tries to calm her down. "Tell your storm trooper to stay away from me!" she yells. So that didn't work. Fortunately, Walt catches up and manages to talk her out of her tree. She collects the remains of her dignity and a few soaked locks of hair and whispers, "Tell Charles I want to see him when he's done." Walt agrees. It's 7:31:52, and I think we've pretty well established that the President's wife is a nutbar.
7:37:34. Buchanan looks stressed, Audrey's getting reacquainted with her old friends the CTU file folders, and Kiefer's driving a brand-new silver Toyota pickup, which tells me that living underground pays a lot better than I thought. He's headed down a dirt road to a sprawling desert fire station. When he gets out of the truck, it's too bad he's so occupied throwing the strap of his man-purse over his shoulder that he doesn't notice the silver SUV right behind him, pulling up next to his truck. There's a guy at the station in a cap and uniform, and Kiefer walks right up to him and socks him in the mush, knocking him unconscious with one blow. While he's dragging the body out of view, he hears a noise. Instantly, Kiefer's gun's out, pointed at someone moving behind a wooden pallet. Kiefer kicks the pallet aside, revealing a very frightened Derek, who's holding his hands up and begging Kiefer not to shoot. He apologizes for following Kiefer, saying he was worried about his mom. Frustrated, Kiefer says the kid's coming with him. The kid wants nothing to do with this, but Kiefer insists. "Get in the helicopter," he orders. Helicopter? Who said anything about a helicopter? Oh, there it is. Kiefer drags the begging kid over to the rescue chopper and bundles him in, then climbs in himself.