Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Nuclear Winner
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.08.2007
Tom looks at Wayne with new respect as he realizes that the Mideastians were lying to them all along, and that Wayne knew it. "I suspected," Wayne says modestly. Tom gets up to have someone give the order to recover the warhead (like it's his job, with fifteen high-ranking military officers in the room with him), but Wayne tells him not to bother. The Admiral explains that Wayne had the Vickery launch an unarmed missile. In other words, Wayne was bluffing. Oddly, the Admiral doesn't seem too disappointed about not getting to rain fire and destruction down on thousands of benighted Third-Worlders. Wayne grins that the Veep was right about the Mideastians needing a lot more convincing, but he points out that since he himself is so much more awesome than the Veep, he wasn't about to sacrifice innocent lives to prove it. Wouldn't it have been awesome if the Mideastians had held out and that dud missile had just hit the ground with a dull thud? Then Wayne would have been like, "Okay, next time I'm going to be totally serious." He tells his people to relay the new info to CTU and hope it will help them to break Fayed.
As of now, Kiefer's pretty much just breaking Fayed's cheekbones. In a restaurant kitchen, he's once again engaging in his favorite form of fisticuffs, which is the type in which his opponent is tied to a chair. Doyle watches from the sidelines. This method of coercion would probably be more effective if Kiefer were better at hiding how much hand pain this is causing him. You almost expect him to say, "This hurts me more than it does you." He tries talking, telling Fayed that the U.S. is planning to nuke Fayed's people unless Fayed tells him where the bombs are. His face slack, Fayed asks if Kiefer's enjoying himself now as much as he enjoyed killing Fayed's brother. Kiefer says that the two Fayeds have killed thousands of innocent people between them. "Trust me," says Kiefer, "I haven't begun to enjoy myself." Fayed does some more big talking, so Kiefer just punches him in the crotch. Enjoy those seventy-two virgins now, tough guy.
Kiefer goes over to Doyle and quietly admits that this isn't getting him anywhere. Doyle is, of course, itching for a turn of his own, but Kiefer says that would just play into Fayed's hands. Besides, Kiefer's really not about sharing his toys. Buchanan calls to check in, and Kiefer has no good news for him at 10:09:03. Buchanan relays the news of General Habib, but says that it's too soon to tell how far they're going to get on that front, too. "We're going to have to try something more drastic," says Buchanan, and asks how soon Fayed can be ready to move. Kiefer says right now.