Episode Report Card M. Giant: D+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Got the Digits
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.17.2005
Prado lets NotEricMurphy into the cabin of his boat, still reassuring him about the harbor security guy. The CTU agents move in closer around the boat. Inside, Prado happens to glance out the window and spot agents sneaking into place, despite the fact that it's light inside the boat and dark outside and he should only be able to see his own reflection in the glass. "Who the hell is that?" he demands, while NotEricMurphy looks out another window, sees the fuzz, whips out his cell phone, and starts dialing. Curtis starts his "you're completely surrounded" speech. NotEricMurphy has gotten through to ImhoTerror, saying they're pinched. "You can't let that happen," ImhoTerror says. "I understand," says NotEricMurphy, pulling a gun from his waistband. See, this is the episode's first warning about an inevitable outcome of what will happen if we make torture standard operating procedure: you get terror suspects offing themselves before they can be brought in, and they take their vital information to the grave. We saw the same thing earlier this season with the Velveteen-Voiced Hostile and TerrorProf, the latter of whom took out at least one CTU agent in the course of blowing himself up. Unintended consequences are a bitch. ImhoTerror adds that Prado must die as well: "He knows too much." See? It's spreading. "I'll do what's necessary," NotEricMurphy promises, then turns around just in time to take two bullets from Prado's gun. He goes down. Aw, how's he going to kill Prado now?
As Curtis is still yelling from outside, Prado walks calmly past NotEricMurphy's corpse, with the dead man's gun and cell phone lying next to it. He steps out onto the aft deck, still holding his own weapon, but with his hands up. Curtis orders him to drop it, and he immediately obeys. There's a boat coasting into position behind him as well. "There's a man inside," Prado yells at the converging army. "I shot him. He was gonna kill me. He was trying to steal my boat. It was self-defense." Quick thinking, that. Too bad a dozen agents saw him leading NotEricMurphy aboard the boat after a conversation on the docks. ImhoTerror is listening to all of this over NotEricMurphy's cell phone, which is still on. Prado is cuffed, still proclaiming his innocence to an unimpressed Curtis.
The agent who secured the boat comes back and hands Curtis NotEricMurphy's phone. ImhoTerror has presumably hung up by now, because we don't hear him saying, "Hello? Who's this?" Curtis reports to CTU that although NotEricMurphy is dead, they do have Prado and NotEricMurphy's cell phone. "We'll try to pull something off it," he says. This is great! They can look at the last number dialed and triangulate themselves right on top of ImhoTerror, like they should have done with TerrorDad's phone. Better late than never, I suppose, although Keeler might not agree. In any case, that'll be a whole lot easier than trying to get anything out of Prado, right? Bitchelle congratulates Curtis and hangs up.