Hey, there's a graphic violence warning tonight! Got that, kids? Don't watch! Hey, it's Kiefer's longest day. Terrorists are plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate. Kiefer's wife and daughter are involved…and so's Nina. Damn. All along, we'd thought that the shot of Nina paired with the monologue about the people being involved was a red herring. Not so. Her mole-ness was right under our noses all along. Like those articles about how she used a PC instead of a Mac. I feel so used and cheap. How could I, like David Thomson, get taken in? I'm not even straight.
Previouslys. Senator Palmer, I know you're being assassinated, but could I go down on you? It would mean so much to me. Oh wait, I think your phone contains deadly explosives. Kaboom! Hmmmm. I'm hugging my father as portrayed by Dennis Hopper. Aren't we sexy? Okay, but at least admit that we've got the whole Eastern European we're not hung up on our sexuality because we're from a nasty poor Communist country chemistry going, and so what if we look gay, we're Yugoslavian…or whatever it is we are. I'm Lady MacPalmer. I'm gonna fuck everything up Machiavellian-style because that's what I do all day, ai-i-i-i-i-ght? ? I'm Dennis Hopper again. I wanna kiss my Eastern European son some more! 'Cause I'm Dennis Hopper! Hey, we got cell phones and we use them to give orders to other terrorists. Jealous!?! Hey, I'm Kiefer and I'm way sexier than my daughter, so could I trade my velvety-voiced self in for her? Okay, I'll be right there at those docks. Oh, yeah! Hey, I'm Spawn and I'm too stupid to live, but do you want some coffee? Psych! My name is Yelena. I'm the mole and I have an accent. Oh, and I'm Nina.
The night sky is a rusty, murky color as the SeasonOneFinaleKiefmobile on loan from the Drazens blazes down the highway. Wooden flutes play on the soundtrack like he's approaching an Indian reservation or something. But he's not. Kiefer smolders at the wheel as the opening credits roll. Jalapeño's back? Dude! All is quiet and serene at the Scooby Docks. A fine mist is in the air. More wooden flute. What are these "the docks" of, anyway? Walden Pond? At this point, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Drazens have set themselves up by a lake so they can escape brilliantly via paddleboat. And by the way, what was it exactly that gave ForeignAccentedTerrorBoss the basis for removing Gaines from the project so that he and his alcoholic manwhore brother could run it into the ground? Yeah, I'm totally missing the Gaines days…I mean, "hours." He had a big farm with lots of cute TerrorMinions and all this surveillance technology. The Drazens just have plastic explosives, lasers, cell phones, and turtlenecks. Such dorks. And all along I was thinking, oh, just wait until the batch of terrorists comes along. That'll be really disturbing. Well, so far nothing has topped Bride's rape. I mean, Dennis Hopper shooting the female hostage guest star? Come on! And they served Spawn coffee, for krying out loud. In fact, I bet that was better coffee than the swill that Bride has been drinking at CTU while no one gives her any information. Yeah, goodbye, Drazen brothers. Don't let the door smack your ass on the way out.
Wait, there are voices. Male Serbian voices from far away. The search is on for Spawn. Spawn emerges from Lake Terrorpisakee, her hair glistening with light-catching sewer water, gazes openmouthed at all the big complicated machinery around, and hides from a flashlight-wielding TerrorMinion. Flashlight-WieldingTerrorMinion gets a call on his cell. It's FATB. Of course. He asks FWTM how the search for Spawn is going. FWTM says he hasn't found her yet. FATB stresses the importance of "finding zee girl," and goes back to discussing strategy with WasteOfProductionBudget…I mean, "Dennis Hopper." More Flashlight-WieldingTerrorMinions comb the area with flashlights. They barely miss finding Spawn, who is panting quite deliciously in her skintight and wet jeans and jean shirt. The shirt, incidentally, is buttoned up all the way to her collarbone. I can't believe they missed an opportunity for Spawn cleavage. She makes a run for it. Is this a reference to her earlier opportunity to run away from the TerrorKompound with Rick that she passed on? She scales a barbed wire fence, jumps into a road full of big rigs -- that, incidentally, we never heard in the background until now -- and stands down an eighteen-wheeler until it stops.
Back at the Palmer Suite, the press gathers outside, having just learned of Palmer's death. Lady Mac enters the office in her bad-ass fuchsia Pucci leisure suit and Toni Braxton 'do and starts to lecture Poor Man's Hume Cronyn and Palmer. "Since no one has seen a body, the media is circulating all kinds of rumors," she says, gesturing along with her manicured hands. I love it when she talks with her hands. You just know shit is going to fly. Palmer assures her that he'll come clean as soon as Kiefer's Spawn is safe. Lady Mac bitches about having to play the "grieving widow." "Just how long do we have to keep this charade up?" she bellows. Well, actually, Lady Mac, no more than an hour. Lady Mac tries to get Poor Man's Hume Cronyn on her side, but he just wants to keep out of it. "You came clean earlier today," she tells Palmer. "You got lucky. But it could just as easily gone the other way." Oh, whatever. She just needs another reason to defy Palmer in order to keep the storyline moving. Palmer lays down the law and tells her that Kiefer saved his life twice today, and he will not sacrifice Kiefer's daughter for his political career. Lady Mac tries to catch Poor Man's Hume Cronyn's eye for back-up, but he stares at his shoes. She exits.
Back at CTU, Mole Two: Electric Boogaloo is sitting at her Dell computer -- because villains always use PCs and good guys always use Macs -- preparing something treacherous, no doubt. Xander comes up behind her and asks if she's heard anything from Kiefer. Nina lies and says no. Or maybe she is telling the truth. I forget. Soul Patch calls out from across the room the news that highway patrol has picked up Spawn. Xander crosses over to Soul Patch's desk to take the call from the state trooper. He asks to speak to Spawn himself. Spawn is handed a phone in the patrol car backseat, where she is shivering in a blanket. Spawn warns Xander that Kiefer needs to know she's no longer captive, because he's headed for the Scooby Docks, where the Drazens have laid a trap for him. Xander asks her where the Drazens were hiding out. Of course Spawn doesn't know, so she puts him back on with State Trooper and Xander gets the info from him. Xander tells Soul Patch and Nina to get a couple of tactical units down to the Scooby Docks pronto. He also tells State Trooper to bring Spawn into CTU ASAP.
Meanwhile, the SeasonFinaleKiefmobile has reached the Scooby Docks with the smoldering one at the wheel. He gets a gun out of an aluminum case that also has a first aid kit inside it. That's not Nina's care package, is it? He lost that hours ago. Did the Drazens just give him a van with guns inside it? They are so stupid! Kiefer approaches the warehouse in a really sneaky way -- well, with the exception of those four or five minutes when he stands on a pier right under the streetlight and stares at the warehouse until his cell phone rings. He hides behind a pole and takes the call. It's FATB. Of course. He vants to know vot's taking so long. Kiefer tells him that he just got there. FATB asks Kiefer where he is. Kiefer refuses to divulge his location until FATB lets him speak to his daughter. FATB tries to stall him. Damn, I can't believe that we weren't just treated to a hilarious scene where FATB tries to imitate Spawn's voice in order to konvince Kiefer that they still had Spawn. FATB tries to threaten Kiefer some more and informs him that they know Palmer's not really dead. Kiefer says he won't meet them until he speaks to his daughter. They hang up. FATB tells TerrorHopper that Kiefer is not koming. But TerrorHopper assures FATB that Kiefer will, in fact, kome. Okay, what's with all this Drusilla-esque clairvoyance coming from Dennis Hopper? I mean, is he supposed to have powers, or is this just a detail placed there to freak us out a little? Because it's not working.
Back at CTU, Nina tells Xander that the tactical units are on their way. Her phone rings. It's Kiefer. He warns her anviliciously that there must be a mole at CTU, because the Drazens know about Palmer not being dead. He tells her to find out who it is. Nina asks him where he is and tries to find out what his move will be. Kiefer is vague. He konkludes the kall by warning Nina to trust no one. "Ouch!" says the dead horse of irony. Nina stares down Xander, gets up, and walks down the hall to one of those spooky back offices where everything bad happens.
Palmer and PMHC sit in Palmer's office alone and have a self-congratulatory conversation about how they "told the truth" all day, even though it tore Palmer's family apart. "I think this last day has been about finding out who you really are," muses PMHC. "And not just as a candidate." The phone rings. PMHC is told to turn on the news. They turn the TV on as a network breaks the story that the Palmer death was a hoax, "according to a high-placed source." Palmer gets all OJ'd up with rage and vows to get Lady Mac. He comes up behind her in the bathroom -- where she is either applying lipstick or flossing her teeth, I can't tell which -- and yells at her for leaking the story. Lady Mac doesn't deny it. "They already knew," she says. They have another one of those defying-vs.-protecting arguments, except this time it's a lot louder. He's about to lunge at her when PMHC pulls him away and tells him that he's got to talk to the press immediately. Oh, yeah -- like PMHC could totally pull Palmer out of a fight with one arm like that. Shaking with rage, Palmer reluctantly turns his attention away from his wife and back to the issue at hand. But he smashes a vase first. Lady Mac pants deliciously with her back up against the bathroom mirror. The time is 11:12:12 PM.
Go see Windtalkers on June 14th, and don't you dare make "windtalking" jokes, because this is a serious movie, man -- it's about how Nicholas Cage learns that Native American languages can be used as military code, and therefore it's important to respect and feel lots of sympathy for Native Americans. It rilly rilly is. Bachelorettes in Alaska. Wow. Fox again proves that people can mate in observable captivity.
The time is 11:17:11. Klockwise from the top left, Kiefer keeps watching the Scooby Docks, Nina makes a phone call, and Bride waits in the Konfrontational Koffee room. It turns out that Nina -- or should I say Yelena -- is making a call to FATB. She informs him -- sans scary Eastern European accent -- that Spawn is alive and being brought into CTU, and that two tactical teams are on their way to the Scooby Docks. FATB puts Nina on hold and pleads with TerrorPoppa to let them all retreat from the Scooby Docks since Kiefer probably isn't coming. TerrorPoppa gets on the phone with Nina and tells her to tell Kiefer that Spawn's body "vas found floating in zee harboor." They expect Kiefer to come at the Drazens if he thinks his daughter is dead. "You have to kill him," says Nina. "No mistakes. If he finds out I've lied to him, my cover will be blown." TerrorPoppa assures her that everything will go smoothly. Nina hangs up, then kalls Kiefer to tell him that Spawn is dead and that the Coast Guard found her body. Kiefer slams down the phone, crouches to the ground, and kries. But it's not just a few manly tears. It's a full-body cry. They go to two commercial breaks in the meantime and he's still crying. He makes sweet agonizing love to the poured concrete wall behind him like he's Martha Graham with a Noguchi sculpture. Can we get a shot of his wedding ring? Thanks. How 'bout some of that freaky choral music from Episode 16? Excellent. The grief turns to rage. He gets up, goes to the SeasonFinaleKiefMobile, takes out another gun -- how much ammo did they give him? -- and breaks into a nearby parked van.
Inside, FATB and TerrorHopper wait for Kiefer. FATB theorizes that Kiefer will be krushed at the thought of his daughter's death. "Zat is vy he vill come," TerrorPoppa assures him. Speaking of krush, that big yellow van that Kiefer broke into hurtles across the floor and flattens everything in sight. FATB and the TerrorMinions take out their guns and shoot at Kiefer. Kiefer steps out of the van and runs outside. No one shoots at him as he does this, for some reason. Outside, some TerrorMinions shoot at him. Kiefer kills them. A motorboat approaches the dock to take the Drazens away. Kiefer and the Drazens trade gunfire. FATB goes down -- aw! I'll miss Zejilko, or whatever his name is. TerrorPoppa runs out of bullets. Kiefer approaches him, pauses before shooting him for a long time so you almost don't think he's going to do it, and then unloads the rest of his ammo into TerrorPoppa's body. Bye, Dennis. No, we don't know yet when the wrap party is. There might not be one. Yeah. But listen, we'll call you later when we know what we're all doing…but we might just stay in or something. We're all exhausted. Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Dennis. No, I promise, I'll email you if we have a wrap party. No, I don't need a lift home. The time is 11:23:49 PM.
The time is 11:28:48 PM. Klockwise from the top left, Lady Mac watches the latest news update, Spawn rides home -- and you know how those "rides" always turn out for Spawn, so she doesn't look too happy -- and Nina does something evil at her desk. Palmer is speaking to the press outside the hotel. Ouch. It's the presidential equivalent of having to come out of your house in your bathrobe to tell the police and everyone on your block that you're not beating your wife. He apologizes for the misunderstanding and expresses his regrets that false information had been given to the media. Lady Mac watches the impromptu press conference from a couch in the Palmer suite. Poor Man's Hume Cronyn enters and sits down with her. Lady Mac is expecting a lecture, but PMHC admits that he's actually on her side "this time." He actually approves of her leaking the truth to the press. Lady Mac is rejuvenated by this vote of confidence and starts ordering up a report of all the damage that this day has done to Palmer. She even starts to use her hands, so you just know it's going to be a brilliant Lady Mac scene. PMHC informs Lady Mac that the staff is already working on said report, and vetoes a suggestion by Lady Mac that they should cancel their trip to Dallas. "I think you should let David make that call," says PMHC. Lady Mac won't hear of it. She tells PMHC that the two of them should be making all the calls from now on "until [Palmer] gets his head screwed back on." PMHC tells Lady Mac that Palmer wants to meet with her privately. He warns her that she'd better patch things up at the meeting, because if she gets Palmer mad, there could be serious consequences. Lady Mac is all, "He doesn't need to make an appointment to speak to me. I'm right here." PMHC tells her to meet Palmer in the ballroom in five minutes. Ouch!
Xander enters CTU and tells Soul Patch the great news -- by the time the tactical units arrived, Kiefer had already killed all the Drazens. The best news of all is that he's safe. Bride, who is still wandering aimlessly through the CTU building, overhears this, and so does Nina. Bride wants more details, but Xander assures her that Kiefer and Spawn are okay and that's all she needs to know. Nina starts to book out of there because her goose is cooked. Bride goes off in search of Nina -- you know, because Nina is always honest with her. Nina is practically running. She puts on a jacket and enters a special room we've never seen before; she uses some Whatever Technology to pry open a secret panel, where yet another mysterious aluminum suitcase is revealed. Nina opens the briefcase.
Meanwhile, Bride is looking for Nina in the ladies room. She even calls out Nina's name under the stall walls. She wanders down another hall. Nina taps into some fiber-optic cable in the wall so she can do treasonous things on her laptop. An Asian female lab technician enters and asks Nina if she can help her. Nina whips out a gun and shoots her. Cold! She places a call on her cell phone to someone and has a conversation with them in German. German is, after all, the second most effective scary language of villains besides Serbian. The subtitles reveal that Nina is telling a mysterious woman that her cover is blown and she's got to get out of CTU. The mysterious woman tells Nina that there is transportation being arranged for her, and that she is to erase anything that will implicate her. Bride enters. Nina starts speaking English again. The mysterious woman on the other end of the line asks Nina if she is in the presence of someone else. Nina confirms this. "You speak German?" says Bride as soon as Nina gets off the phone. Nina lies and says that she was talking to someone in the Frankfurt office. Bride wants to know what's up with Kiefer and Spawn. She heard that there was a shoot-out, but no one will tell her anything. Nina assures her that Spawn and Kiefer are all right. Her cell rings again. It's Mysterious German Lady telling Nina to collect all of her information and go to the "usual pick-up point." But now she's speaking in heavily accented English and not German. Bride notices the blood from the lab technician's body trickling out from behind some equipment, and starts to leave the room. Nina notices that Bride noticed the blood, and she whips out a gun and holds Bride in the room. "I can't let you go," says Nina, locking the door. "Not yet." She commands Bride to get on her knees against the back wall. Nina, you've just made it to Round Two of Elimidate.
Back at the Scooby Docks, Kiefer finds a Coast Guard officer and asks him to take him to his daughter's body. Coast Guard officer informs Kiefer that there have been no bodies found that night on the shores of Lake Terrorpisakee, and that he must have gotten some bad information. He even double-checks with his superior officer.
Back at The Secret Infotronic Room, which is totally reminding me right now of the lower level of the Rem Koolhaas-designed NYC Prada store, Nina puts some tape on Bride's mouth. Although you just know that they totally made out right before that. Nina gets out an iBook -- the hell? -- and starts to delete a bunch of sensitive files. Yeah, I'm just going to make sex jokes, because there is no way they're going to touch a hair on Bride's head. She's pregnant. They don't kill pregnant ladies on TV, do they? Do they? Nah. Nina's gonna let Bride live, because deep down inside, Nina does love Kiefer. But she loves him in a selfless way and wouldn't want him to lose his wife. And that's the theme of the season, folks: Kiefer's love can mend everything.
Kiefer is in yet another SUV, speeding toward CTU. He calls Mason and asks about his daughter. Mason tells him that Spawn is safe and that they've known that for most of the episode. Kiefer tells Mason that Nina is Mole Two and that Mason should prevent her from leaving the building. Mason doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, and wants some proof. "I'll get you your proof," says Kiefer. "Just don't let her out of your sight." The time is 11:37:29 PM.
The time is 11:42:29 PM. Klockwise from the top left, GaggedBride awaits her fate, Kiefer makes a kall on his kar phone, and Palmer paces. The phone rings at the desk of some computer nerd in the archives department, who would have been Milo if Eric Balfour hadn't gone off to do that pilot. Kiefer asks him to retrieve the videotape from the room where Jalapeño kommitted suicide. NotMilo locates the footage, but discovers that the tape was erased. Kiefer gives him another access code so that he can locate the digital back-up. NotMilo promises to get back to Kiefer in a few minutes when he locates the tape. Kiefer runs a red light.
Back at the Palmer Hotel, Lady Mac is walking through the hotel kitchen on her way to meet with Palmer. She pauses briefly and checks out how good she looks in a full-length mirror, then enters the ballroom, where Palmer is waiting. What a lame party! It started less than two hours ago, and already the room is empty. Palmer steps on a red, white, and blue steamer -- that's a little symbolism there for you, folks! -- and walks over to Lady Mac. Lady Mac begs Palmer to table the discussion until after they've both had some sleep. Palmer doesn't want to. Lady Mac delivers her forty-seventh speech about how she only has Palmer's best interests at heart. Palmer tells her that she's lost touch with what it is to be a mother, friend, and wife. "After tonight, I don't want to see you again," says Palmer. "I just don't think you're fit to be First Lady." Lady Mac doesn't believe him. She tells him he isn't capable of leaving her. Palmer tells her that the Secret Service is waiting to take her back to Washington. He walks away. "You just don't walk away from me!" she shrieks after him. Oh, but he does. The Secret Service even hold her back as she tries to chase him. She loses her mind and walks around in a circle with her hands palms-down in front of her like she's sitting at a sewing machine. Oh, like a presidential candidate would ever get divorced. If this were real life, he'd just take away her power and put up a public front. But then again, it's television. And any plotline that gives an excuse for Lady Mac to say "you don't just walk away from me" and do that crazy rain dance is okay by me.
NotMilo has found the crucial digital back-up. He plays it for Kiefer over -- get this -- the Kiefmobile's Pop-Up Video Monitor. The tape shows Nina coming into the ITS room, hitting Jalapeño with a taser -- hi, Jalapeño! -- and then killing her with her own coffee cup. Bye, Jalapeño. Again. It is, as David Thomson noted on Salon, very reminiscent of a German Expressionist film with the bluish tones. After Jalapeño is dead, Nina looks straight into the camera like the kat that swallowed the kanary. Kiefer kalls Mason and shows the tape to him. The time is 11:48:31 PM.
The time is 11:53:30 PM. Klockwise from the top left, Bride is still gagged, Nina is still deleting files, Spawn is still riding back to CTU with the state troopers, and Kiefer is heading back to CTU in the SeasonFinaleKiefmobile. Nina is delayed in her file-deleting frenzy when there's an informational lockdown. She takes a CD of valuable files out of the iBook and calls Mysterious German Lady again, who tells her to get herself to the usual destination in sixteen minutes so they can transport herself to Munich. "Why Germany?" asks Nina, in English so that Bride can totally hear her. "Why can't I come to you directly?" Mysterious German Lady can't reveal the overall plan, but cautions Nina to destroy any connection between Germany and herself. When she says "connection to Germany," they totally do a close-up of Bride's back. I guess Nina tied her to a chair at some point. So Nina hangs up and tells Bride nonchalantly that she's going to lock her inside the room, and eventually someone will find her. "And everything will be fine." But while she says this, she places a silencer over her gun.
Meanwhile there's a CTU extra -- who, I swear, is dressed like a Good Humor man or something -- looking for Nina in all of the rooms around The Secret Infotronic Room. Nina leaves The Infotronic Room with her gun drawn and doesn't lock the door. She runs into Good Humor Agent and shoots him coldly after he calls her "Miss Myers." She gets on the elevator and shoots some more people on her way to the parking garage. Did someone say parking garage? She finds her car -- a silver BMW -- and speeds off toward the exit. Just then, Kiefer is entering the garage. She pulls out a gun and starts shooting at him as she's driving right toward him. He sideswipes her car, and she crashes into a couple of parked cars. He gets out of the car and approaches her with his gun drawn. He has her keep her hands on the steering wheel. He reaches into her car, pulls her out by her neck, and chokes her against the exterior of the car with one hand while pointing a gun at her with another. "If you kill me," gasps Nina, "you won't know who I'm working for. I'm not working for Drazen." Kiefer is all, "I trusted you!" Nina replies that she was "just doing her job." She sounds like a sullen teen. Kiefer reminds her that his wife and daughter "almost" died because Nina was doing her job. He asks her how many more people lost their lives because of her job. "How many people died because of you, Kiefer?" asks Nina. Mason, Soul Patch, and an assortment of other agents run over and try to get Kiefer to spare Nina's life. "We need her alive, Kiefer!" says Mason. Soul Patch begs Kiefer not to kill Nina. "Come back and be with your family," urges Mason. Kiefer finally backs off and goes off with Mason. Nina has this look on her face like, "Yeah, as if you'd kill me." A couple of agents cuff her and take her back inside CTU. Soul Patch is all, "Whoa! I was dating that girl?"
Okay, so more or less, everything's fine now, right? He's just going to reunite with his family and everything's going to be okay. Well, that's kind of lame. Oh wait, we've got a couple more minutes to go. Kiefer enters CTU and reunites with Spawn, who could really use some deep conditioning after that swim. They embrace and cry and tell each other they love each other. Kiefer asks where Bride is, and goes off in search of her. Hey, what's with this creepy music? Hello? Kiefer passes by a video monitor, where a newscaster is announcing that a CTU agent named Kiefer is a hero for saving Palmer's life. Kiefer keeps walking, and discovers a lot of dead bodies in the hallway being attended to by other CTU agents. "Have you searched the floor yet?" asks Kiefer in a desperate velvety growl. They haven't. Kiefer runs straight for The Infotronic because he has SuperKieferPerceptionPower, and finds Bride tied to the chair. She's unconscious. He picks her up. Her head falls back. She's dead. There's an exit wound in her abdomen. Oh my God, they killed Bride! Damn you, Fox show! You fucked with me again! Kiefer tries to resuscitate her in vain as a split screen shows us flashbacks to earlier that "day" before Spawn snuck out of the house and they were just having garden-variety crappy-ass family problems. "I'm so sorry!" says Kiefer over and over again. The time is 11:59:58…11:59:59…12:00:00 PM.