Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Re-Juma-nated
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 12 | Aired on 03.02.2009
Still soaked from her swim, Walker scrambles through a culvert at 7:05:32 and sprints along a steep embankment. From there, she scrambles up onto a roadway, where a Park Ranger pins her with his car's searchlight. She identifies herself, and it's kind of handy that he's already heard about her on the police radio. While standing there in the open, in the light, Walker tells him to call in to Larry Moss right away with word that there's going to be an attack on the White House. He hasn't said more than a few words into his radio before he gets shot; Dubaku, Jr. has caught up with Walker. She runs across the road and disappears into the bushes on the far side, with Dubaku, Jr. in pursuit. Kind of embarrassing how a trained soldier with a machine gun can't seem to catch a person who's running in wet jeans.
Buchanan comes to visit Kiefer in White House jail and tells him about Walker -- what she found, and how she's missing now. Kiefer is a lot more worried that she's disappeared than he is about General Juma being in the city. Other than that, they've got no way of knowing what's about to happen. "Burnett knows," Kiefer says. Buchanan says that Burnett turned down immunity, so Kiefer asks for five minutes in a room with him. Buchanan says it's too late; Burnett's on his way to the hospital. So Kiefer tells Buchanan to do it himself. "I'm not trained in coercive techniques," Buchanan protests. Kiefer insists that he needs to "do this," avoiding the T-word as always. Buchanan whines, "I'm not arguing about what needs to be done, but I can't do it. I don't do that, it's not me!" Kiefer tells Buchanan that's not good enough: "You were the one who told me, people who stand by, they might as well help them plant the bomb." But Buchanan is still refusing. "I can't," he says as he leaves. And he takes most of the respect I used to have for him -- which was not insubstantial -- along with him. Yes, Kiefer's often a sadist who uses his imagination mostly for thinking up ways to torture and coerce people, but at least he has the courage of his convictions. Buchanan's worse; he'll condone it, back it up, even facilitate it, but when it falls to him to actually do it himself, he's above getting his hands dirty. Shut up, Buchanan.
At 7:08:06, Juma and his men have made their way down a tunnel to where a metal grate separates them from a tiny alcove. One of them busts out a cutting torch. While he's working on getting through the rebar, Juma calls up an inside man: a maintenance guy in the bowels of the White House who confirms that he's in position. After he finishes up the brief conversation, another maintenance guy comes into the room with him, all unsuspecting. The two maintenance men make small talk about plans for Saturday, and the last thing Juma's mole says is, "I was looking forward to Sheila's cooking," before he plunges a screwdriver into his coworker's back. Now that's cold. I think he can forget about Sheila's cooking after that. With the first casualty down, the maintenance mole locks the door to the room, and slides a storage cabinet away from a patch in the wall where the plaster has been chipped away to reveal exposed brick. "All clear, General," he calls in over his walkie-talkie. By now, that tunnel grate has been dealt with, and Juma's cutting-torch guy pulls it away to reveal a small space crisscrossed with laser beams. He says they'll shut off in ten seconds, and then they'll have two minutes to get through. He doesn't bother to explain why. The lasers shut off right on cue, and the soldiers move in. Then they kick through those loose bricks that the maintenance mole revealed, and are inside the White House at 7:10:12. The maintenance mole is handed a set of fatigues of his own to change into so he can join the assault force. Yay, wet clothes to put on. You know, normally I can see the point of camouflage clothing, but if Juma's goal is to have his men move unnoticed through the corridors of the executive mansion, maybe they should be outfitted with business suits. And also, white. Meanwhile, the member of Juma's team who's flying the laptop is already logged into the Secret Service tracking grid, which shows the President as a red blip inside the Oval Office. Off they go.