Episode Report Card Gustave: B+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The final hour
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.20.2002
NotMilo has found the crucial digital back-up. He plays it for Kiefer over -- get this -- the Kiefmobile's Pop-Up Video Monitor. The tape shows Nina coming into the ITS room, hitting Jalapeño with a taser -- hi, Jalapeño! -- and then killing her with her own coffee cup. Bye, Jalapeño. Again. It is, as David Thomson noted on Salon, very reminiscent of a German Expressionist film with the bluish tones. After Jalapeño is dead, Nina looks straight into the camera like the kat that swallowed the kanary. Kiefer kalls Mason and shows the tape to him. The time is 11:48:31 PM.
The time is 11:53:30 PM. Klockwise from the top left, Bride is still gagged, Nina is still deleting files, Spawn is still riding back to CTU with the state troopers, and Kiefer is heading back to CTU in the SeasonFinaleKiefmobile. Nina is delayed in her file-deleting frenzy when there's an informational lockdown. She takes a CD of valuable files out of the iBook and calls Mysterious German Lady again, who tells her to get herself to the usual destination in sixteen minutes so they can transport herself to Munich. "Why Germany?" asks Nina, in English so that Bride can totally hear her. "Why can't I come to you directly?" Mysterious German Lady can't reveal the overall plan, but cautions Nina to destroy any connection between Germany and herself. When she says "connection to Germany," they totally do a close-up of Bride's back. I guess Nina tied her to a chair at some point. So Nina hangs up and tells Bride nonchalantly that she's going to lock her inside the room, and eventually someone will find her. "And everything will be fine." But while she says this, she places a silencer over her gun.
Meanwhile there's a CTU extra -- who, I swear, is dressed like a Good Humor man or something -- looking for Nina in all of the rooms around The Secret Infotronic Room. Nina leaves The Infotronic Room with her gun drawn and doesn't lock the door. She runs into Good Humor Agent and shoots him coldly after he calls her "Miss Myers." She gets on the elevator and shoots some more people on her way to the parking garage. Did someone say parking garage? She finds her car -- a silver BMW -- and speeds off toward the exit. Just then, Kiefer is entering the garage. She pulls out a gun and starts shooting at him as she's driving right toward him. He sideswipes her car, and she crashes into a couple of parked cars. He gets out of the car and approaches her with his gun drawn. He has her keep her hands on the steering wheel. He reaches into her car, pulls her out by her neck, and chokes her against the exterior of the car with one hand while pointing a gun at her with another. "If you kill me," gasps Nina, "you won't know who I'm working for. I'm not working for Drazen." Kiefer is all, "I trusted you!" Nina replies that she was "just doing her job." She sounds like a sullen teen. Kiefer reminds her that his wife and daughter "almost" died because Nina was doing her job. He asks her how many more people lost their lives because of her job. "How many people died because of you, Kiefer?" asks Nina. Mason, Soul Patch, and an assortment of other agents run over and try to get Kiefer to spare Nina's life. "We need her alive, Kiefer!" says Mason. Soul Patch begs Kiefer not to kill Nina. "Come back and be with your family," urges Mason. Kiefer finally backs off and goes off with Mason. Nina has this look on her face like, "Yeah, as if you'd kill me." A couple of agents cuff her and take her back inside CTU. Soul Patch is all, "Whoa! I was dating that girl?"
Okay, so more or less, everything's fine now, right? He's just going to reunite with his family and everything's going to be okay. Well, that's kind of lame. Oh wait, we've got a couple more minutes to go. Kiefer enters CTU and reunites with Spawn, who could really use some deep conditioning after that swim. They embrace and cry and tell each other they love each other. Kiefer asks where Bride is, and goes off in search of her. Hey, what's with this creepy music? Hello? Kiefer passes by a video monitor, where a newscaster is announcing that a CTU agent named Kiefer is a hero for saving Palmer's life. Kiefer keeps walking, and discovers a lot of dead bodies in the hallway being attended to by other CTU agents. "Have you searched the floor yet?" asks Kiefer in a desperate velvety growl. They haven't. Kiefer runs straight for The Infotronic because he has SuperKieferPerceptionPower, and finds Bride tied to the chair. She's unconscious. He picks her up. Her head falls back. She's dead. There's an exit wound in her abdomen. Oh my God, they killed Bride! Damn you, Fox show! You fucked with me again! Kiefer tries to resuscitate her in vain as a split screen shows us flashbacks to earlier that "day" before Spawn snuck out of the house and they were just having garden-variety crappy-ass family problems. "I'm so sorry!" says Kiefer over and over again. The time is 11:59:58…11:59:59…12:00:00 PM.