Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Current Events
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 11 | Aired on 02.27.2005
ImhoTerror has just shown up on the 29th floor -- where Curtis is loose -- to yell at Ali about the fact that Curtis is at large on the 29th floor and might catch ImhoTerror, which will wreck everything. Way to go where Curtis can reach you then, dude. That's like jumping into the tiger cage to tell the zookeeper how nervous the tigers are making you. Ali's cell phone rings; it's Poor Man's John Malkovich, saying that it looks like Curtis may have gotten away. How big is this floor, anyway? ImhoTerror says into Ali's phone that they need to catch Curtis and he needs another thirty minutes. "Can you make that happen?" Poor Man's John Malkovich says he can. At 5:34:40, ImhoTerror hangs up and tosses the phone back to Ali, along with the words "thirty minutes." And he's out.
Now that Poor Man's John Malkovich is off the phone, he suddenly finds himself staring down the barrel of Curtis's gun. Having overheard the entire conversation (see?), including ImhoTerror's name, Curtis takes the henchgeezer's weapon and cell phone and asks, "Who's ImhoTerror?" Poor Man's John Malkovich isn't talking, so Curtis grabs his tie and bounces him off a support pillar a couple of times. That puts Poor Man's John Malkovich into a slightly more voluble mood, and Curtis learns that ImhoTerror has the MacGuffin on the 30th floor, to which Poor Man's John Malkovich claims not to have access. What he does have is a concussion as Curtis beats him down with his gun butt and loots him of his key card. He uses Poor Man's John Malkovich's phone to call CTU, where he gives Special Agent Breck a quick update. "Kiefer's on his way to you now," says Special Agent Breck. There's a big dent in the pillar where Poor Man's John Malkovich got hurled against it. I also read on SkyscraperPage.com that 1100 Wilshire was being converted to condos as of late last year, which explains why parts of this floor look like they're in the middle of some construction project. Assuming they're shooting the interior as well as the exterior, of course. You suppose the show got a break on the fee they paid to film in the building in exchange for Curtis coming in to do a little light pre-demolition work, using human beings as wrecking balls? And then the director was like, "That was a decent take, but that pillar still looks pretty solid. Let's do it again. Come on, Poor Man's John Malkovich, get up already."
The sun's getting lower in the sky as the camera swings from it, to 1100 Wilshire (excuse me, "the Rocklyn Building"), to a CTU van disgorging troops a block away, to the roof of a nearby parking ramp. The Kiefmobile screams up and everyone jumps out so Kiefer can tell the waiting Agent Castle to set up a security detail for DoDder and Grayadder. Kiefer tells DoDder he's going in, as if there were any question, and then his cell phone rings. It's Curtis. They exchange information that I won't bother recapping because you already know all of it, and Kiefer's on his way. He tells Castle to tighten the perimeter and have men on the first floor "in case this thing goes hot." Of course, the first fifteen floors of 1100 Wilshire are nothing but parking garages, so that's just asking for trouble on this show. Kiefer loads up his weapons from the back of a truck while DoDder watches, trying to think of something to say. Or deciding what to say. Or thinking, Why couldn't the writers just give me a damn line here, for God's sake? "I'll be right back," Kiefer promises her, and leaps into the back of a waiting CTUmobile. "Go, go!" he tells the driver. The driver goes. It's 5:37:14.