Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Day 5: 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on January 15, 2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Hour Three is all about the hostage crisis at L.A.'s Ontario Airport, as we learn that the bad guys are not only armed, but also wearing explosive vests. President Logan's furious that the terrorists are demanding a repudiation of his precious anti-terrorism treaty. And Kiefer's furious that Derek is one of the hostages. Kiefer stays hidden in the terminal to act as the eyes and ears for CTU (with whom he's called an uneasy truce) while Logan goes all pointy-haired on Buchanan. The terrorists start executing hostages, and Derek's next. Meanwhile, FLOTUS still hasn't given up on her conspiracy theory, and goes to rather amusing lengths to get her own access to the written transcript of her call with Palmer. Kiefer gets Chloe and Spencer to go off-protocol and help him detonate one of the terrorists' vests in order to stall Derek's execution. CTU's rescue plan is coming together nicely. But then Walt, who is of course privy to the President's discussions about all of this, tattles to The Man about Kiefer's position in the terminal. So then the CTU mission gets aborted, and Kiefer has to give himself up to the terrorists to save Derek's life. He's going to have to do something about his weakness for irritating teenagers, and soon. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The terrorists' panel truck burns merrily outside the terminal at L.A.'s Ontario Airport, where people are running around like a truck bomb just went off. The airport cops arrive in their cars, sirens screaming. One of them, who we'll soon learn is named McLaren, starts barking orders into his radio. Diane runs up to him, freaking out about Derek being inside. He tries to shoo her back away from the building, but she gets away from him and runs towards it instead. Another officer grabs her, and as he drags her away past McLaren, she wails, "I have information for C-T-UUUUU!" Damn, I used to like that actor. Now I'm starting to wish she'd swallow a balloon.
Inside, the terrorists are still securing the concourse -- chaining the doors, spray-painting the security camera lenses, moving vending machines, and the like. They're taking off their outer jackets, and we now see that all of them but Bald Guy 2.0 are wearing vests with explosive charges wired to them. Everybody in bombs! Bald Guy 2.0 is keeping an eye on the hostages, who are huddled around on the floor. He spots one guy who's sneaking a cell phone out of his pocket, and nods to one of his minions. The minion obediently pops the guy through the heart. Can you hear him now? I DON'T THINK SO, BITCH! The hostages begin screaming anew. Bald Guy 2.0 announces that any chance of survival the hostages have is dependent upon their cooperation, and he orders them to toss their cell phones and pagers on the floor. Everyone obeys. A mother is trying to comfort her little boy, who's probably about five. That's rough, dude. Bald Guy 2.0 has his men herd the hostages into a circular clump in the middle of the concourse, while two minions drag out the body of the dead cell phone guy. The guy's dead, I mean, not his cell phone. So at least that's something.
Kiefer's still lurking in the catacombs of the baggage area. Although his gun's out, he stays out of sight as two minions come in. They're looking for Chevensky, the baggage supervisor who killed himself before Kiefer could interrogate him at the end of the last hour. They don't really look that hard, because they could just step around another corner or two and spot his foamy-mouthed corpse lying there. Or at least follow the smell of almonds. Instead, as Kiefer watches from his hiding place, one of them answers a cell phone and reports to Bald Guy 2.0, "Chevensky's not here." Bald Guy 2.0 tells them to keep looking, and the minions decide in Russian to go search some other rooms. Kiefer stays hidden.
Outside, the airport fire trucks are pulling up as McLaren's cell phone rings.