Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Held Up
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 01.09.2005
10:39:50. Kiefer's hostages take their sweet time developing Stockholm Syndrome, Kiefer paces, and TerrorTeen's packing. He slowly moves into the living room with his hands hiding the gun behind his back. Of course, that's only going to work until she decides to follow him somewhere again. For the moment, she's still oblivious. TerrorTeen has come to what screenwriters call "the pinch." He stuffs the pistol in his back pocket and tells Debbie, "We have to get out of here." He starts to lead Debbie out of the house, but now that he wants her to follow him, she can't manage it. Instead she collapses in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, choking and coughing. TerrorMom appears at the top of the stairs and starts drifting down them like a malevolent helium balloon. "What did you do to her?" TerrorTeen demands. "I didn't expect you to be able to do it," TerrorMom explains calmly, continuing down the stairs. Debbie finally quits choking -- in fact, she quits breathing entirely. Must have been the TerrorTea. Note to self: don't drink anything that takes TerrorMom more than five minutes to make. TerrorTeen weeps briefly over Debbie's corpse, and then he has the gun in his hands again. "Give me the gun," TerrorMom says gently. Yes, so she can put it safely back into its unlocked desk drawer. TerrorTeen looks like he'd rather just give her a bullet from it. She holds out her hand and asks for it again. And then she does the weirdest thing: my closed captioning quotes her as saying, "Hey!" but it sounds a lot more like a feline hiss, or perhaps a hairball. Or a choked bark. It's both bizarre and scary, and also effective, because finally TerrorTeen gives her the gun. "I am so disappointed in you," she says, now that he's safely disarmed. And back upstairs she goes. It's 10:42:16.
I have to say, Shohreh Aghdashloo is a class act. She gets nominated for an Oscar, and rather than being bitter about losing, she does us all this incredibly generous favor by killing off one of the most annoying characters of the season a mere four episodes in. And what did the winner give us? Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. No wonder so many people in Iran don't like us.
At the Nosh and Nozzle, a cop car rolls up with flashers but no sirens. Kiefer watches as the officers jump out with shotguns and take up positions. As a second cop car arrives, one of the officers dials the store's number. Kiefer grabs the phone. "You know you're surrounded," the police sergeant tells him. Doesn't "surrounded" imply somebody behind him? Maybe if you count the cuffed and disarmed officer in the back room. Kiefer warns that he'll kill the hostages if the cops try to come in or use tear gas. The cop suggests the Kiefer let everyone go except the cop. "I need to think about that," Kiefer says before hanging up. Kiefer puts his ski mask back on in the jaunty rolled-up position and contemplates his next move.