Episode Report Card Gustave: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Marie's Crisis
By Gustave | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 01.13.2003
Back at the Maison Du Pain, PonchoDude hasn't, despite Syed Ali's orders, killed Cate yet. And, I mean, who is really surprised? We all know that Sarah Wynter has a full season contract. Furthermore, she hasn't even met and had non-sex with Kiefer yet. So you know that thing they do in Bond films where they try to kill Bond, but they do it in this really long, baroque, drawn-out way so that he has time to escape or be rescued? Well, they're not lowering Cate slowly into a shark tank or anything, but they might as well be. First, PonchoDude decides to clean up the mess from Palmice's corpse before he kills Cate. Not that I have much experience with these things, but it seems like it would make more sense to kill both of them first and then clean up. I mean, why run the dishwasher if you only have one dirty plate? Right? Then Syed Ali walks in and asks why Cate isn't dead yet, so PonchoDude announces that he's decided that he wants to torture her some more so that they can be absolutely sure she didn't tell anyone about what was in those files before they kill her. Oh, that is so lame. Last week, they were just about to kill Cate and we were supposed to be totally scared. Now it looks like they're not going to kill her, and for no good reason other than that they just changed their minds. I hate it when they do this. So Syed Ali is all, "Akalakalak alak I want to pray one last time properly." PonchoDude is all, "Akalak alakalakalak you go do that, dude!" They embrace and say goodbye. Syed even strokes PonchoDude's hair a little. Wow, they really are America's worst nightmare: Islamic fundamentalists and sexually deviant. Ali exits, and PonchoDude and Cate are now alone. PD points to Mikey Palmice's bloody body and asks her if she wants to suffer like he did. Cate insists that she's told them everything she knows. PonchoDude walks over to his table full of instruments of torture, and because Kiefer hasn't arrived yet to save Cate, PD spends a little quality time selecting just the right surgical knife. The time is 05:09:39 PM.
The time is 05:14:03 PM. Klockwise from the top left, the Kiefer Kopter takes off, Handsome Black Agent is still alive and sitting in front of a computer with Reza, PMHC enters Palmer's office, and a police SUV containing Spawn and Enricky heads for L.A. with OfficerWithSpeakingPart at the wheel. PoorMan'sHumeCronyn hands Palmer the phone. I guess they didn't want to shell out the bucks this weekend for the uniformed extras, because PMHC is Palmer's receptionist tonight. God forbid they should have to pay Equity rates for a secretary to walk in and tell Palmer he has a phone call. Anyway, it's Kiefer kalling from the KieferKopter. He tells Palmer -- his velvety voice straining above the noise from the KieferKopter -- that the men who attacked them at the crash site were American. Well, duh! I mean, seriously -- does anyone think that, say, a bunch of heavily-armed Afghani soldiers in uniform could be deployed to California without anyone noticing? Like, you're just chilling at home, drinking some Diet Coke and seeing what's on eBay when out your window you see some Iraqi soldiers cutting through your backyard. No biggie. Or you're driving to the mall to return a DVD player to Circuit City and you're totally stuck behind this huge convoy of North Korean army jeeps making their way down Rte. 9 and it makes you late for your parents' anniversary dinner. Whatever. Nevertheless, Palmer is shocked to hear this. Kiefer tells Palmer about the coral snake tattoo he noticed on one of the dead soldiers. "That's the signature of a group out of Fort Benning," says Kiefer. "What sort of group?" asks Palmer. Why, a support group for breast cancer survivors, Palmer. What else? It's a renegade militia group, dumbass! Anyway, these solders are an undercover special ops unit under the command of some guy named Colonel Samuels. Only I'm going to refer to him from now on as Colonel Sanders, just because. Kiefer knows about these guys because they tried to recruit him early in his career. Furthermore, this unit is funded by NSA. Palmer suggests that maybe the tattooed soldier that Kiefer saw was just a lone mercenary working outside of the government. Kiefer admits that that's possible, but he doesn't think so because whoever commands those troops had access to Flight 69's flight plan.