Episode Report Card Gustave: B | 4 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Midnight at Casa Kiefer
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 11.05.2001
Kiefer pulls into the parking lot of CTU at 12:09:46. As he walks toward the building, he whips out his call phone a la Edina on Ab Fab and calls his wife. She hasn't heard anything from Spawn of Kiefer. Kiefer suggests they "try to remember what it was like when [they] were kids." Bride of Kiefer half-heartedly suggests getting a therapist. How 'bout just getting someone to give the women in Kiefer's family decent haircuts? When he enters the building and sees Nina, he hangs up with his wife. Now this place that Kiefer works for, it's an agency, right? More like an ad agency. I have never seen a government bureau housed in a loft-like space complete with exposed wooden beams, aluminum wall dividers, Hold Everything desk accessories, and, yes, glass walls veiled with cream-colored diaphanous floor-length curtains. Since when do Philippe Starck or Andre Putman apply for government contracts? I guess it's important, when fighting the war on terrorism, to let Osama bin Laden know that the U.S.A.'s top intelligence agents read Italian interior design magazines. 'Cause if we just furnish our offices with stuff from Office Depot, they've won, okay? Kiefer tells Soul Patch, whose real name is Tony, to get detailed backgrounds of every person on David Palmer's staff. Soul Patch gets snippy about the implied racism in checking out David Palmer because he's black. Kiefer points out that David Palmer's blackness makes him a likely target for assassination. "That might not be how they'll interpret it on the outside," says Soul Patch. "I just gave you an order and I want you to follow it," says Kiefer. Soul Patch shuffles back to his desk, ostensibly to carry out the almighty word of Kiefer.
Meanwhile, the American Beauty-mobile pulls into a parking lot where a purple van -- that's right, a van -- awaits them. Gee, could these boys be bad news? And as it so happens in every proverbial high school girl/college boy double date that may or may not involve a van, the slutty initiator of the PHSG/CBDD gets out of the car first and starts making out with her college boy with whom she's already intimate, leaving the shyer high school girl and the other college boy to make introductions themselves. "Janet says you guys like to party," says Spawn of Kiefer to her college boy, whose name apparently is Rick. "As a matter of fact, we do," says Rick. "As a matter of fact, so do I," says Spawn of Kiefer gamely. Rick grabs a six-pack of beer from the van and escorts her into the furniture store. In the furniture store, the lights are out, and a figure in the shadows jumps Spawn of Kiefer. Oh my God, she's getting kidnapped! No, not yet. It's just some teenage fun as the gang flips the lights on and proceeds to "party" and otherwise disrespect the furniture store by standing on tables, drinking beer, laughing at the tacky gavon' furniture, and dancing to yet more nonexistent music. Oh, and just to give it that extra touch of badness, the kids are all smoking cigarettes that they're holding funny just so they can get some pot smoking past the censors.