Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT We still have Logan to kick around
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 21 | Aired on 05.07.2006
I will say that was a hell of a sequence. Completely implausible, of course, but I admit that my heart was beating faster than at any other time this season. Maybe that's just me, or maybe it plays into everyone's latent fear of dying in a plane crash, whether its by being instantly decapitated by a flying chunk of wall paneling, or being trapped in your seat after the plane comes to a stop and the spilled jet fuel catches so you sit there getting cooked alive by searing heat that fuses the upholstery to your bubbling flesh. Not that I ever think about it.
Kiefer reports that they're safe on the ground, and Buchanan responds that Curtis is on his way. In a move that's incongruous enough to be funny, Kiefer leans over in the pilot's seat so he can read the road sign on the bridge right in front of him. He tells Buchanan to have Curtis meet him near the Balboa overpass, and to send another team to pick up the copilot. Buchanan acknowledges, and tells Kiefer to get out of there. Kiefer does, leaving Evans alone in the cockpit. From the way Evans is sitting there, he'd better hope someone on the secondary team has an extra pair of pants.
It's chaos in the main cabin when Kiefer gets out there. Everyone's rushing to the rear exit, and he hollers at them to keep doing that. Not surprisingly, they do. Way to manage the situation, Kiefer. The cabin's empty all the way back to well past the first emergency exit row, and it's there that Kiefer makes his own escape. He pops the exit door, sets it aside, and climbs out onto the port wing, where he runs along until he slides smoothly to the ground like he does this every day. When we know there are at least four days in his life when he hasn't. With the faithful man-purse at his side, he sprints for the cover of the overpass. It's 3:23:34.
3:27:42, assuming that severe weather alert on my local Fox affiliate didn't shave off a second or two there. Graham is on the phone with Logan, giving him a dressing-down over his failure to shoot down the plane. "It's going to be much harder to contain now, if not impossible," Graham bitches. Tell it to the Marines, Graham. Wait, Logan already did that, and he assures Graham that Kiefer's surrounded. Graham hopes he's right, and Logan says he knows what's at stake before hanging up. And then he goes back to his regularly-scheduled standing around.
At 3:28:53, police cars and military Humvees are converging on the landing site, sirens wailing and their lights diffused by the thick smoke. It must smell like a tire fire there. What I'm curious about is how are they going to get the plane out of there? My understanding is that it takes more runway to take off than it does to land, and it's not like they can taxi back to Van Nuys. The only way to get it out of there is in pieces. Maybe the F-18 returned to base a little early. Still hidden under the overpass, Kiefer gets on his cell phone to ask Curtis where the hell he is. Curtis says they're nearly there, coming in from the north, and Kiefer gets a visual (since he won't say it, I have to). He says he'll meet Curtis on that side of the freeway, hangs up, and makes a break for it. And as if his hijacked passengers didn't have enough to contend with, now they're disembarking into the faces of armed Marines. Let's hope someone remembers Hans Meyer and Marshal Avila in the luggage compartment. Assuming all the rattling luggage hasn't beaten them into paste, of course.