Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 367 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT The Final Countdown
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 24 | Aired on 2009.05.18
She finds Kiefer sitting up on a gurney, declining a shot of hydromorphone for the pain. Probably because he was once a heroin addict, and the last thing he needs right now is for a painkiller to send him back on a long, opiate-fueled downward spiral that ends with him dead in an alley three years from now. Of course, for that to happen, his three-year-old remains will need to be exhumed and placed in an alley, but still, you can't be too careful when it comes to recovery. Kiefer asks the EMT for a moment, saying that Dr. Macer can wait. Once Walker's alone with him, she says that Wilson's denying everything and claiming there's no case against him. "Is he right?" Kiefer asks. Walker thinks maybe, which, if true, gives him no reason to roll over on anyone else. "But I can make him talk," she offers. "If we don't find these people, one day they will launch another attack, and I don't see how I can live with myself knowing that there was something I could have done to stop it." Uh, why don't you try giving it more than ten minutes, Agent Impatient? Jeez. You are signed on for Season Eight, you know. She's basically asking Kiefer for advice, but he doesn't have any for her. "I've been wrestling with this my whole life," he says. And losing, I might add. "I see fifteen people held hostage on a bus, everything else goes out the window. I will do whatever it takes to save them, and I mean whatever it takes." Yes, we've noticed that about you. He admits that he was really trying to save himself. Walker asks if he has any regrets from today, and he can't think of any. Which may just be a sign of more severe short-term memory loss, a symptom that up until now seems to have been afflicting the writers more then Kiefer, because they keep forgetting to put that in there. Oh, but Kiefer's talking about something else. He says, "Then again, I don't work for the FBI." Unlike Walker, who "made a promise to uphold the law." CTU agents don't have to do that? No wonder they always had so many guys. He warns her about crossing the line: "before you know it, you're running as fast as you can in the wrong direction, just to justify what you started in the first place. These laws were written by much mater men than me. And in the end I know that these laws have to be more important than the fifteen people on the bus. I know that's right. In my mind, I know that's right." Well, duh! Have I not been saying that this whole time? "I just don't think my heart could ever have lived with that," he says. Walker's eyes are filling with tears as Kiefer concludes, "Try to make choices that you can live with." Well, thanks for nothing. Walker doesn't know what to say. He gently touches her face and whispers, "Don't say anything at all." The EMT returns, and Kiefer is wheeled away. It's 7:32:55, and how touching and sweet that Kiefer's last words to Walker were basically "shut up."