Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Cry, Wolf
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 5 | Aired on 01.22.2006
11:34:37. Evelyn comes out of the FLOTUSuite, carrying an empty teacup and saucer. Walt is outside the room waiting for her, and he tells Evelyn to start packing up all of the FLOTUStuff, although he doesn't tell her what it's about or where FLOTUS is going. Great. I'm sure the First Lady will just assume that Evelyn is being proactive. Smooth, Walt. The president gives you one job...
Spencer's skulking around in the CTU server room, watching real-time surveillance coverage of Kiefer as he walks through the CTU corridors alone. I'm sure Kiefer hit the little agents' room somewhere along the way. Chloe comes in and finds Spencer there, but he shuts down the window before she sees what he's up to. So she asks what he's up to. He technobabbles an excuse, and returns the question, so she says she was looking for him. She technobabbles an excuse right back at him, but her covert agent skills haven't improved over the hiatus, so she blurts out an admission that she didn't mean anything by her harshness earlier. "Apology accepted," Spencer says, and that's all Chloe needs to get completely bunchy again. "It wasn't really an apology, it was more of an observation," she begins. But Spencer's heard enough, and he's outie. "Dammit, why do I do that?" Chloe berates herself. There's a whole thread about that very question, Chloe. Alone in the room, she decides to go over to the monitor Spencer was looking at, and logs in to see what he was up to. The only thing on the screen that means anything to me is a flashing flag saying that Spencer was logged in at security Level Five. Chloe marches right over to the nearest phone and bitchily demands that Edgar look up Spencer's security level. Wounded at Chloe's tone (although you'd think he'd have developed a callus by now), Edgar tells her it's Three. "Call Buchanan," Chloe snaps. "Tell him I need to talk to him now. It's important." Too bad Chloe doesn't have access to a phone, then.
11:37:12. At the CTU security entrance, a "computer maintenance guy" presents himself to the Redshirt manning the metal detector and X-ray machine. I say he's a "computer maintenance guy" because he looks like the only electronic equipment he knows how to operate, let alone fix, is the control panel on the elliptical trainer at the gym. The guard doesn't see the "computer maintenance guy" on the visitor manifest, and the "computer maintenance guy" looks a little nervous when the Redshirt picks up the phone to clear it with CTU's SysAdmin. Luckily for the "computer maintenance guy," he's rescued when Spencer shows up, calls him "Hank," and assures the Redshirt that the visitor's there at Spencer's request. The Redshirt hangs up the phone, and asks Hank to put his case on the conveyor belt and walk through the metal detector. Hank obeys, and for a moment we see what the guard sees in the X-ray display of the case: nothing but tools and parts, including more screwdrivers than FLOTUS at a Sunday brunch. As Spencer leads Hank through the security door into the building, he explains to Hank, "[Walt] told me it would be best to keep you off the manifest." I bet. And you know it's true, because it rhymes. Spencer leads Hank directly into the server room, and acts all Nervous-Nelly about the technobabble Hank's going to have to look out for in order to keep his sneaky activities from being flagged. "I got it," Hank says, and Spencer leaves him alone. Hank's already got his tool kit open, and is assembling some oddly shaped parts into -- a gun! With a silencer! Oh, no! He's going to kill the servers! It's 11:39:02.