Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Thrilling Bureaucratic Intrigue!
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.02.2006
And now, at 10:17:42, it is I who looks disgusted as Slime unctuously presents himself before Audrey and invites her to join him in the Situation Room. I'd like to join him to a downed power line. Audrey's not happy about it, but she goes. Chloe notices, realizing this can mean nothing good.
Kiefer's driving along in his CTUmobile, now looking as fresh as a daisy that hasn't been blown up in the last twenty minutes. His cell phone rings with a call from Wayne, asking if he's okay. Kiefer grumps that he's fine, the way he always does, and apologizes to Wayne for not having everyone behind his brother's death in custody yet. Like he's just been fucking around for the last fifteen hours or something. That just happens to be the reason Wayne's calling: he explains that he's with Evelyn, who, in case you forgot, is sitting on her evidence due to her daughter having been kidnapped. "This has to be Henderson," Kiefer says, as if Wayne knows who Christopher Henderson even is. Wayne says they're expecting a call any minute from the kidnappers to set up a meeting, and Kiefer says he wants to be in on the call. Nosy bastard. He adds that CTU will provide operational support and says they need a place for him to meet up with Wayne and Evelyn. Wayne suggests a barn he passed on the way in, because somehow he got the memo that the woods around Not Camp David aren't crawling with hit men anymore. Kiefer promises to be there in twenty minutes, and they hang up.
Wayne tells Evelyn it's time to go, and suggests that he and Evelyn should leave separately in case she's being watched. So they should meet up in the parking lot and take Evelyn's car together. Well, as long as they're being careful. Aaron opens the door, and Evelyn leaves discreetly. Wayne straightens his tie, just so nobody gets the wrong idea if they are spotted.
Audrey's reading from the statement that Slime has already prepared and printed out, and it's pretty much a hatchet job on Buchanan. There's not a word about McGill's part in the security breach that led to the gas attack, either in the part of the statement we hear or in Audrey's response to it. "You can't possibly expect me to sign this," she sighs, removing her glasses. "Thanks to CTU, hundreds of thousands of people are alive who would otherwise be dead." Slime slimes that it's CTU's fault that those lives were in danger in the first place. And normally I would agree that a day at CTU is generally one screw-up after another, but to the extent that's true this season, the people who are to blame are pretty much dead now. Audrey pushes the statement back across the table at Slime, unsigned. Slime puts on a big show of being disappointed, "but I appreciate your loyalty." Audrey gets up to leave, but Slime's not finished -- he fake-friendlies that although Audrey was there all day, participating in some of CTU's allegedly bad decisions, "it would be a shame to see the taint of CTU's mismanagement spread to your agency. And your career." He promises that by signing it, she can protect herself. And her taint, presumably. Audrey takes a long moment, her face troubled. She returns to the table and looks seriously at the statement, and I actually think she's about to fold. But then she looks up at Slime and says, "I'm proud of what we did here today. The people of CTU are heroes. Especially Bill Buchanan. This takeover is completely unwarranted. And I won't help you justify it." I don't say this often, but go, Audrey. He sits there blinking, embarrassed at having miscalculated in thinking that everyone is as much of a self-serving asshole as he is.