Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Down with EMP?
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 12 | Aired on 03.06.2005
While Grayadder and Kiefer are still staring at their monitor, they're startled by an IM message that pops up over their work: "Kiefer are you there? Soul Patch." Nice work, Special Agent Breck, figuring out exactly which computer Kiefer was using. Kiefer tries to call CTU, but soon learns that none of the phones are working, including his cell. "Something's wrong," he obviouses, and asks Grayadder to send the IM window over to another computer. He gives Grayadder an ethernet address so fake it might as well start with 555. Kiefer responds, "I'm here. Radio frequency is out." I can't believe this is the second IM conversation I'm recapping in a five-month period. I have to say that this one is far more interesting. And similarly free of typos. Soul Patch answers, "Outside your building, too." Grayadder reports that he's almost got the files rebuilt. Kiefer messages Soul Patch with this query: "Fixed Radius?" Soul Patch relays the question to Special Agent Breck, who's just learned from "the phone company" that they're getting complaints from as far away as eight blocks from MF HQ. Soul Patch reports, "No. It's growing." Kiefer asks Grayadder if he's still got a connection. Grayadder points out the fruit of his labor: a whole screen of gibberish. "Son of a bitch, it's encrypted," Kiefer says, and orders Grayadder to "print it out, now!" Just then the overhead lights start flickering.
Old MFer curses, "Dammit, they've got something." He wants to know how much longer they've got. "Any second now, we should be fine," Young MFer says. "We're not fine," Old MFer snaps. "He's printing it." So he can stay ahead of Grayadder and delete files he's not even looked at yet, but can't remotely uninstall a printer? I guess that's what happens when you have the head of Internal Security running the keyboard instead of the Chief Technology Officer. He gets up and runs out. "What are you going to do now?" Mr. MacGuffin says, as if anyone cares what he thinks. "Take care of it," says Old MFer. Uh-oh, there's that phrase again. The lights are still flickering.
Back at the engineers' bullpen, Kiefer somehow uses another computer to pull up an icon that says "EMP armed." I don't know. Kiefer tells Grayadder, "We're dealing with an EMP." He exposits that MF was "leading the way in developing a non-lethal weapon for the military." And now he explains to Grayadder, the computer guy, what an EMP is and how it fries every electrical device in its radius and wipes out all electronic data forever. So I have to take back the credit I gave the show for assuming we know what an EMP is, as well as additional points for making Grayadder -- the software magnate -- the only character who's never heard of it. Are there consumers of pop culture, let alone this show, who still don't know what an EMP is and does, at least in theory? Grayadder asks how long they've got, but Kiefer doesn't know. He gets back on IM with Soul Patch and types, "It's an EMP. We found something and they must be on to us." So much for assuming that ImhoTerror is behind it. Soul Patch responds, "We know. Trying to identify source." Then he asks Special Agent Breck whether they have any helicopters in the area. "Yeah, one," Special Agent Breck says. Soul Patch yells at her to get the chopper out of the area, because it's going to crash if it's in the air when the EMP goes off. He then asks Lispy Skip where the electromagnetic emissions are coming from. Lispy Skip knows it's coming from MF HQ, and he's going to try and get a more precise fix on the location. Meanwhile, Special Agent Breck is trying to reach the doomed helicopter pilot, but of course she can't because of the radio interference.