Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Can Take the Man Out of CTU…
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.08.2005
Up in the old Kiefer/Xander/Alberta/Kiefer/Chappelle/Soul Patch/Hammer Kube, Driscoll is on the phone with someone about the train derailing. Apparently the actress playing Driscoll is someone I would recognize if I'd ever watched La Femme Nikita, but I never did. She's got a slight accent, which could mean she's evil, but my cats' veterinarian has the same accent and I'd prefer not to go there. She gestures Potato Face into the office and they exchange information about the train bombing, as well as what we just heard Potato Face discussing with Special Agent Breck. Driscoll puts Potato Face to work on the bombing, the chatter, and TerrorTurk. Potato Face reminds Driscoll of a meeting she has with someone from the Defense Department. Who might that someone be? Why, it's Kiefer. Apparently he's working for the DoD now. Does that make him an undersecretary? Potato Face reminds Driscoll that Kiefer hasn't been back, "well, since you fired him." Potato Face is such a great device for providing awkward exposition, because everything she says is awkward anyway. Handy, that. Driscoll looks ambiguous.
And Kiefer looks sharp, getting dressed up in a suit and tie in a nice hotel room somewhere where it's fully light outside. Although he's got a five-o'clock shadow at 7:06 AM. A half-dressed woman asks if "it's going to be uncomfortable." I think the time to ask that is before the sex, young lady. Oh, she's asking if it's going to be uncomfortable to go back to CTU and see the person who fired him. If she's not uncomfortable putting that white top on over that black bra, she really shouldn't say anything. Kiefer is cool with CTU; he doesn't blame Driscoll for not wanting an ex-heroin junkie on his staff. I don't see Driscoll's objection; he seemed pretty clean the whole second half of last season. Which raises a whole set of other objections on this side of the screen, but let's move on. Kiefer's lady friend asks if he misses his old job, and he says he could have joined other agencies if he still wanted to do fieldwork. You know, the agencies that do hire ex-heroin junkies. Like the Defense Department. But he wanted something different in his life. What, time to eat, sleep, and take a nice long dump once in a while? Nope -- he must mean all the making out they're doing now. They both say how glad they are that he can connect with someone in a way that he never could before. Bride looks down from Heaven and says, "You dick!" They break the clinch as she reminds him that "Secretary Heller" will be in the lobby in five minutes. This raises Kiefer's eyebrows, and she confesses that she called the Secretary "Dad" once at a press conference and resolved to always use his title from then on. As if that never would have come up. So her father is in charge of the DoD? I guess that would make him DaD, and Kiefer's girlfriend is his DoDder.