Episode Report Card Gustave: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Survivor: The Family Edition
By Gustave | Season 2 | Episode 12 | Aired on 02.10.2003
Back at CTU, Papa Crew is now emotionally ready to deal with the fact that his youngest daughter -- previously thought to be merely a spoiled little anemic bitch -- is in fact a terrorist and a cold-blooded killer. Mason asks him to help CTU understand her connection to Syed Ali, the man behind the B-O-M-B, or at least give them any information about her that might be useful. Papa Crew tells Mason about how Marie ran away from home after her mother died for three to four weeks. The Crew family was living in London, where Marie was going to college. The Crew family called the police, but they eventually got a letter from her saying that she was fine. She was traveling and just needed some space. "When she came back," says Papa Crew, "I was just so grateful to see her that I stopped asking questions." When Mason asks if she was different in any way after the "trip," Papa Crew responds that she was "less politically inclined" after she got back. Before, she was one of those students who "flirted with causes…respectable causes." Mason explains that such a change is typical of someone who's been "radicalized." "Handlers train you to stop talking about anything," explains Mason. "Marie had handlers?" muses Papa Crew. What a fucked-up family: Dad's a secret CIA agent, sis is a terrorist. What happened to fathers with secret families on the side or eating disorders?
The meeting is interrupted by Bitchelle, who has a scan of the paper fragment found in Shish-Ke-Bob's coat on that jazzy laptop of hers that's all monitor. She zooms in on the "lower left-hand quadrant" with the tip of a ballpoint pen and points out that there appears to be a number written on the slip of paper that's barely visible amidst the soot. Fortunately, the San Diego office has lent them a fiber expert named Murdoch. Murdoch is wearing a porkpie hat. Okay, remember how in high school there was that guy who wasn't a stoner, wasn't a jock, and wasn't a geek? He was that guy who always wore the fedora or the porkpie hat? Sometimes he'd even wear a tie or a Mr. Rogers cardigan. You had a little crush on him because he kind of reminded you of one of the members of The Specials, and he always seemed so mysterious. He never spoke up in class, and you wondered who he hung out with because you never saw him at lunch or at parties -- probably older people who went to college.
One day you talked to him, and he wasn't that intimidating. In fact, he invited you over to his house after school to listen to some albums. But when you got there it turned out that he was obsessed -- not with Chet Baker as you'd fantasized -- but with Steely Dan. That's right. Steely Dan. He rhapsodized about how he always wanted to have a huge party where all he played was Steely Dan and how it would be the perfect party where no one got hurt emotionally or had to use drugs or anything. Then he made you listen to every single album that Steely Dan ever recorded on his headphones while he studied your reactions and played with his pet ferret. You snuck a peek at his medicine cabinet and it became clear to you that this guy was a loner, not because he was too brilliant and sensitive for the other high school kids, but because he was just crazy and his mother brought him old man's clothing from TJ Maxx. It was tough breaking off your friendship with him, but it just had to be done. Yet every time you'd hear the "Aja" album, you'd get this twinge of guilt. Anyway, Murdoch is Fedora Guy from high school. He's still visually ironic, but he's been working out, and he and his doctor found a meds combination that works for him. Mason and Bitchelle walk over to his work station. Panama Hack (tm Bataille) removes his hat with a flourish and explains that his computer is super-powerful and that if there's any writing on that scrap of paper, he'll find it.