Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Crushed Velvet
By M. Giant | Season 6 | Episode 1 | Aired on January 13, 2007
At 6:19:24, Karen Hayes is outside the Oval Office, in an area which looks completely different than it did on The West Wing. She gets a cell phone call from Buchanan, who's moaning that Kiefer's in even worse shape than he expected. Karen quietly sympathizes, and then admires the shiny new rings on her left ring finger and says, "I wish I were there with you." Yeah, it looks like their relationship has progressed since the end of Season 5. BuchAren shippers loudly agree -- all seven of them. Karen and Buchanan briefly miss each other, and then hang up so that Buchanan can take Kiefer to his death.
The Los Angeles bus explosion is already being reported on Fox News as Chloe watches the report on a CTU flat-screen. We also learn that Homeland Security has raised the threat level to Red for the first time. Stupid Wayne, you do that before an election! At 6:20:36, Chloe goes into the CTU Situation Room and buttonholes Nadia, saying that she can't reach Curtis or Buchanan and wants to know what's going on with Kiefer right now. She gives this whole speech about how she intends to find out one way or another. Nadia balks, pleading lack of authorization, but Chloe finally blackmails her by threatening to tell Division about some technobabble that Nadia screwed up on in the recent past and Chloe helped cover up: "If it weren't for me, you would have been fired over that." Nadia caves, telling Chloe what Buchanan told Kiefer -- that a guy named Fayed will give up Assad's location in return for Kiefer. Nadia further backstories that Kiefer was sent to Beirut to investigate a bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon in 1999. He nabbed Fayed's brother, and as Nadia delicately puts it, Fayed's brother "died while Jack was interrogating him." Think it was cancer? Chloe gets it, but she still wants to help set up a rescue mission. Nadia says that's impossible, because they gave Fayed access to all of their surveillance protocols as part of the deal, and Fayed won't provide Assad's location until he's away. Chloe asks how they even know Fayed will deliver. "We don't," Nadia admits. Chloe picks up the phone to call Karen and get her to talk to Wayne. Nadia informs her that Karen already knows, and so does Wayne. They made the deal after all. Chloe hangs up the phone, defeated. Nadia tells her, "I'm sorry about your friend...If we want these attacks to stop, Jack Bauer has to be sacrificed." Nadia leaves Chloe to her stewing.