Episode Report Card Gustave: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Velveteen Habit
By Gustave | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.27.2003
L.A. A Ford Van -- I'm assuming -- makes its way through downtown traffic. A passenger in the van who looks like Billy Bob Thornton opens a case, revealing a set of colorful wires and sinister-looking levers. I'm thinking it's a bomb. Or maybe even a B-O-M-B. Gloves go on. Codes are typed in. A blue light starts flashing and making a "whoop whoop" sound. The van makes it down an alley. The passenger takes out a penknife and slits open a large plastic body bag. The van reaches its destination, which, according to the caption, is the National Health Services building. The men get out of the van, one of them adheres the bomb (or B-O-M-B) to the door while the other one takes the giant plastic bag out and dumps the contents -- a body -- on the doorstep. They take off. Trick or treat! Just as the bomb goes off -- it's not a B-O-M-B, the impact wasn't that strong -- the van peels out of the parking lot. A security guard comes forward to check out the explosion. He sees the body and calls for backup.
Elsewhere. Enter Kiefer. He is revealed to us slowly and coyly, like a virgin about to be deflowered on prom night. First we see a hand on a scanner. Then we see a digital image of said hand. Then the image of the handprint is replaced by a photograph of Kiefer. And at last…Kiefer. He is in a maximum-security prison as a visitor. We waits for his new partner to be scanned in -- a younger man with a huge round head who looks like Jude Law as drawn by Charles Schultz -- and they both enter the inner sanctum of the prison. Kiefer is wearing a suit. Has he cleaned up his act? Or is he wearing a suit to camouflage something shady? Stay tuned. Special Agent Charlie Brown is also wearing a suit but he's skipped the tie. A split screen reveals the man they're visiting, who looks -- according to Sars -- like an Hispanic version of Phil Hartman. ["It's something in his line delivery, too. I first noticed the resemblance in Clear and Present Danger." -- Sars] He is being led down a jailhouse corridor by two armed guards. As Kiefer and Special Agent Charlie Brown near their destination, Kiefer lets out a dainty cough. "Doing okay, Kiefer?" asks Special Agent Charlie Brown. Kiefer replies that he won't "be okay until we get this thing signed." "That's not what I meant," says Special Agent Charlie Brown pointedly.
Meanwhile, Felipe Hartmano is escorted to a chair in the jailhouse meeting room. And, like, it's actually a real non-fabulous chair that you'd actually find in a real live jailhouse and not, say, an Emeco Naval Chair. Kiefer and Special Agent Charlie Brown approach the outside of the room and meet up with a Latin guy named Luiz who has a lot of Vaseline on his face. He's the federal D.A. There's also this nerdy-looking guy there who turns out to be Felipe Hartmano's lawyer. Their conversation exposits that Felipe Hartmano is a South American drug lord Kiefer brought down by going undercover for a year sometime between "day two" and the present. Apparently Felipe Hartmano works with terrorists all over the world, and is willing to give the U.S. information about them in exchange for a lighter sentence in a minimum-security prison. According to Hartmano's lawyer, Hartmano wants to stay in a Florida prison. Vaselino insists on transferring him to a Minnesota prison as previously agreed. Special Agent Charlie Brown is all, "Just give him Florida, it doesn't make a difference." Vaselino is getting hot under the collar, and tells the CTU agents to do their own jobs and let him do his. He explains that he's reluctant to give Felipe Hartmano everything he asks for, because he fears that Señor Hartmano will sense his own value and start asking for more. Kiefer pulls Vaselino aside so he can give him the full velvet in relative privacy. He reminds Vaselino that gaining information about the terrorist cells that Hartmano does business with is their number one priority, and that if Felipe doesn't talk, they haven't accomplished anything. "I didn't lose a year of my life to arrest some drug dealer," speaketh the velvety one. Vaselino almost buckles under the velvety pressure, but ultimately insists that the deal in his hand is the deal that is being offered, and that Hartmano is going to "take it." "You better be right," says Kiefer.