Day Four: 12:00 AM -- 1:00 AM

Due to some graphic violence, viewer discretion is advised. But all the violence is against terrorists and collaborators and the U.S. Marshal duped into being their stooge, so who gives a fuck?

Okay, I'm kidding. In fact, I've calmed down quite a bit since I wrote the recaplet for this episode. You know what did it? I remembered a comment by a Dutch film auteur named Paul Verhoeven, who was pointing out that if you're watching something that seems to endorse fascism, you're really watching a parody of fascism. This was of course his defense of that bit of Swiftian cultural commentary we know as Starship Troopers. And is any of us really prepared to say that our beloved 24 is less subtle and layered than Starship freaking Troopers? I think not. So I'm now prepared to read this episode not as the incoherent, unhinged, right-wing screed I initially mistook it for, but as the wickedly pointed satire that it's no doubt intended to be. Join me, won't you?

Previously on 24: Air Force One crashed, but President Keeler survived, although he wasn't exactly a hundred percent. Or even five percent, probably. The nuclear Football got sucked out of the plane before it crashed, so Kiefer retrieved it from ImhoTerror. Except for the pages from the Playbook that held the actual warhead codes. Which, it turns out, is enough for him to take control of a warhead. So much for the components being useless if kept separate. The nervous Veep swore to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" (which is totally going to bite him in the ass) while getting sworn in as President. Yet even the freeze-frame with his name on it still refers to him as the Vice President. As if I needed another excuse to keep calling him the Veep. He got the news from Poor Man's Hume Cronyn that part of the Football was in the hands of terrorists, and had himself a quiet little freak-out. The following takes place between 12:00 AM and 1:00 AM.

Buchanan opens the episode -- and a CTU briefing -- with the news that the Veep is now President of the United States. Nice try. I notice that Roger Cross is back in the credits. Buchanan says that in the call they have scheduled with the Veep fifteen minutes from now, the Veep is going to want to know how Air Force One was shot down with a plane that was stolen from an American air base. Oh, that was Soul Patch and Lispy Skip's fault, not that anyone knows that yet. Hey, Evan Handler's in this episode. You may recall him as Harry from Sex and the City and as Doug from The West Wing. Yes, I'm still watching the credits. Soul Patch explains that Kiefer's working on "reconstructing" the part of the Football's Playbook that was stolen, collaborating with a guy from the DoD who teleported out there during the previouslies. Here's a thought: maybe a little less "reconstructing" and a little more "recovering." Speak of the devil -- Kiefer calls in and gets put on speaker. He breaks the news that his reconstruction of the missing chapter is finished. That's great, but a not-allowing-to-get-stolen-in-the-first-place of the missing chapter would have been even better. Never mind, I'm sure that reconstruction is going to be vital later on when it comes time to prevent the use of a stolen warhead. Kiefer explains that the missing chapter lays out the contents of the "entire domestic nucular [sic] arsenal," of which there are thousands of warheads. Some of those warheads are being moved around for some reason. "It would take over an hour to account for all of them. Listen, everybody: we've got to remember, ImhoTerror only needs one." Awfully bossy for a guy who let ImhoTerror get away in the first place. Buchanan orders Kiefer back to CTU so he can work with DoDder to start accounting for weapons in transit. Kiefer's on his way.

ImhoTerror, having already shaken off the helicopter that was supposed to be pursuing him, is now standing by the side of the road, using a game-show-host voice to read off coordinates from the stolen pages to a flunky: "Latitude 37 degrees, 14 minutes, longitude 115 degrees, 21 minutes." Which are actually the coordinates to the Nellis Bombing Range in southern Nevada, but somehow the flunky punches the coordinates into a map of the U.S. and comes up with Jefferson City, IA. Oh, and since I'm still looking at the credits, I see this one was written by Ann Coulter. No, I kid. The flunky says the warhead is due to arrive at "7:00 AM local time, five hours from now." Since military convoys apparently travel at 40 miles per hour, ImhoTerror calculates it as being 200 miles east, in "Ill-inois." The flunky says they can intercept it, using his light pen to trace an imaginary road across the Iowa/Illinois border. "Let's put our people in place," ImhoTerror orders, and both men hop into a black van. Does ImhoTerror have people everywhere in the country? And who pays them all?

At CTU, Soul Patch is explaining to Bitchelle that a number of our warheads are being moved around due to "daily shift and hide operations." Yeah, maybe it would have been a good idea to cut that shit out for one day, given everything that's going on. Bitchelle says they have the coastal areas covered, but since the Midwest is a primitive backwater where we still communicate via Pony Express, they'll have to get info on that region from the DoD through DoDder. That out of the way, Bitchelle looks about ready to move the conversation to a personal level. Which of course is the cue for heavy footsteps to come clomping up. Everyone knows it's Potato Face before she even steps into the frame. "Am I interrupting something?" she frets. Almost always. Potato Face goes ahead and alerts the bosses that a credit card carrying the name Eric Murphy was just used at a gas station in Torrance, and that Eric Murphy is the alias of a watch-listed guy who's connected to ImhoTerror. She's got archive photos of NotEricMurphy on a pay phone and everything. Too bad they weren't watching him when he met up with ImhoTerror in that alley in Episode 12. Potato Face allows that it's a pretty lucky break. Soul Patch suspects that that's reason to believe it's a decoy, but Potato Face points out that a decoy would give away where he is and which direction he's going. "This was a mistake," she insists. Bitchelle asks for security camera footage from the gas station, which they've already beamed over to CTU with the state-of-the-art security system common to all gas stations. NotEricMurphy is driving a black Lexus whose license plates are clearly visible in the super-enhanced gas station security camera footage. Potato Face promises that "If this guy's still on the road, we'll find him." And then she leaves much more quietly than before, because the Foley guys have had their fun for now. They've got to save something for the final scene.

Bitchelle asks who's in the area near the gas station, and Soul Patch says that Curtis just left Division. Well, that's odd. Bitchelle sent Curtis to Division a few episodes ago, and then he was back without ever returning, and then he handed over TerrorTeen, and then went to Division? Way to keep us guessing, Curtis. Keep it up. You'll live longer. Bitchelle wants a Field Ops team to meet Curtis at the gas station. Soul Patch heads off to make it so.

Kiefer calls DoDder from on board his helicopter. She tells him that 72% of the warheads have been accounted for, but they're having trouble tracking down all the nukes in the jerkwater Midwest. That's because these weapons are on their way to be dismantled, "in accordance with the arms reduction treaty." I suspect that's a little early dig there to draw in the folks who like to blame everything on multilateralists and damn dirty hippies who only want to make the country weaker. Subtle. She adds, "A lot of them were rerouted after the train bombing this morning." Rerouting is good. You know what would have been better, though? Securing the fucking things. You're telling me that 28% of the country's domestic nuclear arsenal was sixteen hours away from the nearest Army base as of 9:00 AM Pacific Time, when it was clear to the general public that terrorists were active inside the country's borders? Bullshit. The DoD screwed up, and I like to think that this is DoDder's fault personally. It's not like her DaD is around to take the blame anyway. Now Kiefer asks about his real concern: his boyfriend. DoDder says that the doctors are having a hard time keeping Grayadder stable. Kiefer promises to be there in twenty minutes, but he leaves out the part about hoping he'll be able to awaken his sleeping beauty with a kiss. It's 12:07:12, and as Kiefer flies through the night, it looks like every light in Los Angeles is back on.

ImhoTerror's riding in the back of his van when his cell phone rings. It's NotEricMurphy, in something of a panic because he's realized that he just paid the pump with the wrong credit card. ImhoTerror's so mad he almost changes expression. "When that transaction gets flagged, they'll be searching the highways," he bitches. NotEricMurphy says that's why he's not on the highway, which makes me wonder how he covered the eleven miles from Torrance to Inglewood so quickly. He's on his way to meet someone named Prado. ImhoTerror says that since NotEricMurphy is closer to the marina, he should just meet Prado there, and "Prado will help you get out of the country." NotEricMurphy profusely thanks ImhoTerror and hangs up. I think NotEricMurphy is kind of a lightweight -- all of ImhoTerror's other guys kill themselves when something like this happens. He must be ImhoTerror's favorite or something.

The Veep and his posse are walking through the White House's one hallway as Poor Man's Hume Cronyn suggests, sotto voce, that maybe cowering in the White House bunker immediately after taking the oath of office might send the wrong message. As opposed to cowering in the Oval Office where everybody can see him. The Veep insists that "It is always wiser to take the prudent course." I'm kind of sad that we never got to see the debate between this loser and Palmer's Vice President. Who, as you'll recall, was played by Alan Dale. Can you imagine this weenie up against Caleb Nichol? They step into a big elevator with a couple of other guys, including a hulking Air Force officer with the new Football. After an awkwardly silent fifteen-second ride, they're in the Bunker. It's 12:09:06. Congrats to the Veep for spending almost the entire first ten minutes of his presidency above ground. And I must say, they've really fancied up the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue since the last time I saw it. It's now a cavernous, bustling room, and for some reason it's really orange. PHMC assures the Veep that he'll be able to function at a hundred percent from here (well, a hundred percent for the Veep), in total protection, two hundred feet below the surface. At least until ImhoTerror sends one of his guys to stick a cork in the airshaft opening above ground. There's a really nice outer lobby adjoining the underground equivalent of the Oval Office (the Undal Office, we'll be calling it), and the Veep wanders over to stare through the glass doors etched with the Presidential Seal. PHMC interrupts his reverie with the news that Buchanan is on the phone. The Veep and PHMC decide to take the call in the lobby. You think the Veep is still uncomfortable with his new position?

Buchanan is in the CTU conference room with Bitchelle and Soul Patch (who's "heading up tactical," which is sad for Curtis. First he gets passed over for a temporary promotion, then he loses his regular job. No wonder he's been vanishing lately). They explain about NotEricMurphy and how they hope to use him to catch ImhoTerror. The Veep wants Bitchelle to say she's confident that they'll catch ImhoTerror before he strikes again, but Bitchelle won't commit to anything. The Veep snaps at her and whines, "We need to get control of the situation." PHMC is staring at the Veep throughout this scene as though he's working for a ticking time bomb. And indeed, the ticking is getting louder as the Veep says, "I can't run the government from down here indefinitely, but I'm not going upstairs until it's safe." PHMC cuts in before his boss can embarrass himself further, recommending that they let CTU get back to work. The Veep glares, then agrees, and Buchanan ends the call. "Let's get back to it," Buchanan says. But on his way out of the conference room, Soul Patch stops him. "Wait a second Does anybody else feel uneasy about what we just heard?" Soul Patch says the President is supposed to exude confidence, not fear. Bitchelle doesn't say anything, but she obviously agrees. Buchanan says to give the Veep time, but Soul Patch says, "We don't have time." Which is funny, because he's taking the exact same position that Special Agent Breck took against him a few episodes ago when Driscoll was acting all distracted in the wake of DrisKid's death. What do you suggest, Soul Patch? Invoke the 25th from the conference room? Before we get an answer, Potato Face enters with the news that a traffic cam has picked up NotEricMurphy, who seems to be headed towards the coast. Bitchelle says she wants Curtis running point on the takedown, and Buchanan clarifies that he wants Curtis to hang back until they know who NotEricMurphy is meeting. Then he leaves Soul Patch and Bitchelle alone in the room to stare lustfully at one another for a while. It's 12:12:22. Don't worry, the satire's coming later.

12:16:44. NotEricMurphy drives coastward, Soul Patch wanders the CTU floor, Kiefer's still in the air, and ImhoTerror glowers in the back of his van. I guess he's sitting back there so traffic cams don't spot him, but he looks pretty uncomfortable perched on his milk crate or whatever. At CTU, Soul Patch approaches Bitchelle and makes this little speech: "I was out of line a couple of hours ago about you and Bill. It's your life and I've got no reason to judge you." He goes on to say -- not meeting her eyes in order to conceal the sneaky glint in his -- that he'd like to "leave the past in the past and move on." Failing to see through his suspiciously hangdog expression, Bitchelle lies that that sounds good. Soul Patch wanders off, satisfied that his little trap is set. Buchanan has of course witnessed the whole scene from across the floor. Lispy Skip comes up to report that Curtis is getting set up near the marina. Soul Patch offers to run point, but Bitchelle says she and Buchanan will take care of it, although they want Soul Patch in on it for his tactical expertise. Soul Patch peels off to have Lispy Skip set up the live feed to the conference room.

On their way to the conference room, Buchanan observes to Bitchelle, "I get the feeling that Soul Patch's not entirely comfortable with theconfiguration here." Bitchelle says it's tough for both of them. Buchanan says the difference is that Bitchelle is able to stay "on point." Which may just be another way of saying she has a nicer rack. Bitchelle assures him that the same is true of Soul Patch. Except for the rack part. Buchanan, dude, you bowed out. Don't be trying to bow back in now.

It's 12:18:32, and NotEricMurphy is standing around at the marina. A full moon reflects off the water. A couple of CTUmobiles arrive some distance off, and then sit there with their parking lights on for some reason while a bunch of plainclothes agents, including Curtis, disembark and quietly fan out around the area, out of NotEricMurphy's sight. Curtis peers at NotEricMurphy through his little telescope. The director makes sure to show us that one of the agents is a chick. I'd call her Poor Man's Kirsten Dunst, but it's not like she's going to get any lines. Curtis murmurs into his headset, "He's alone." As Buchanan, Soul Patch, and Bitchelle listen in back at CTU, Curtis explains that NotEricMurphy is just standing around, looking like he's waiting for someone. Buchanan gets confirmation from Soul Patch that the marine unit is in place. Given the context, I assume that's a reference to a bunch of CTU guys in a boat rather than actual Marines. Agents continue watching. One of them is still a chick. Curtis spots another shadowy figure approaching NotEricMurphy and reports it in, saying he can't yet tell if it's ImhoTerror. Buchanan reminds him that they need both men alive, and Curtis copies that, giving instructions to his team to contain them, but "do not shoot to kill." Still a chick agent in the house. Just then, Curtis notices a uniformed guy approaching NotEricMurphy's position and tells everyone to hold off.

The guy approaching NotEricMurphy is Prado, who turns out to be a steely-haired, square-faced white dude in a leather jacket and shirt that he stole off of a dead porn producer. He approaches NotEricMurphy, who bitches about his tardiness. Prado wants to get going, but NotEricMurphy spots the harbor patrol guy and freezes. Lucky for them, this is the worst harbor patrol guy ever, because he reports that the area is clear, despite the presence of two guys standing right out in the open not fifty yards away. Maybe that's because the full moon is gone; a couple of minutes later, it's now pissing down rain. Curtis watches as Prado leads NotEricMurphy along the docks. It's 12:21:15 as the two conspirators head down a gangplank towards a docked yacht. Soul Patch asks if anyone else is around, and Curtis answers, "Not unless there's somebody else on the boat." He orders the marine units to move in, as well as his own people. They all do, including the chick agent. Look, she's got a gun and everything! Still no lines, though.

Prado lets NotEricMurphy into the cabin of his boat, still reassuring him about the harbor security guy. The CTU agents move in closer around the boat. Inside, Prado happens to glance out the window and spot agents sneaking into place, despite the fact that it's light inside the boat and dark outside and he should only be able to see his own reflection in the glass. "Who the hell is that?" he demands, while NotEricMurphy looks out another window, sees the fuzz, whips out his cell phone, and starts dialing. Curtis starts his "you're completely surrounded" speech. NotEricMurphy has gotten through to ImhoTerror, saying they're pinched. "You can't let that happen," ImhoTerror says. "I understand," says NotEricMurphy, pulling a gun from his waistband. See, this is the episode's first warning about an inevitable outcome of what will happen if we make torture standard operating procedure: you get terror suspects offing themselves before they can be brought in, and they take their vital information to the grave. We saw the same thing earlier this season with the Velveteen-Voiced Hostile and TerrorProf, the latter of whom took out at least one CTU agent in the course of blowing himself up. Unintended consequences are a bitch. ImhoTerror adds that Prado must die as well: "He knows too much." See? It's spreading. "I'll do what's necessary," NotEricMurphy promises, then turns around just in time to take two bullets from Prado's gun. He goes down. Aw, how's he going to kill Prado now?

As Curtis is still yelling from outside, Prado walks calmly past NotEricMurphy's corpse, with the dead man's gun and cell phone lying to it. He steps out onto the aft deck, still holding his own weapon, but with his hands up. Curtis orders him to drop it, and he immediately obeys. There's a boat coasting into position behind him as well. "There's a man inside," Prado yells at the converging army. "I shot him. He was gonna kill me. He was trying to steal my boat. It was self-defense." Quick thinking, that. Too bad a dozen agents saw him leading NotEricMurphy aboard the boat after a conversation on the docks. ImhoTerror is listening to all of this over NotEricMurphy's cell phone, which is still on. Prado is cuffed, still proclaiming his innocence to an unimpressed Curtis.

The agent who secured the boat comes back and hands Curtis NotEricMurphy's phone. ImhoTerror has presumably hung up by now, because we don't hear him saying, "Hello? Who's this?" Curtis reports to CTU that although NotEricMurphy is dead, they do have Prado and NotEricMurphy's cell phone. "We'll try to pull something off it," he says. This is great! They can look at the last number dialed and triangulate themselves right on top of ImhoTerror, like they should have done with TerrorDad's phone. Better late than never, I suppose, although Keeler might not agree. In any case, that'll be a whole lot easier than trying to get anything out of Prado, right? Bitchelle congratulates Curtis and hangs up.

It's 12:23:52 as ImhoTerror ponders this latest development. His flunky asks him what he wants to do. "Control the situation," he mutters. It's a little odd to see this generally unflappable character use the same phrase as the panic-prone Veep. As ImhoTerror tells his flunky, he wants to prevent Prado from talking, but there's no way to get to him. What ImhoTerror does instead is make a call on his cell phone. He orders the person at the other end to get a hold of an attorney from "Amnesty Global" and say that "an innocent man is being held without charges and is about to be tortured at CTU Los Angeles." Now, see, this is where the satire starts, because the show is trying to get you to think that ImhoTerror is using our respect for human rights against us, even though he disregards those same rights as a matter of course. But if you think about it, all he's doing is playing on CTU's almost total lack of imagination when it comes to interrogating suspects. If CTU figures out a way around this minor obstacle, he's totally screwed. I'm sure they'll come up with something, aren't you?

The Veep is addressing the nation on TV, reporting that Keeler's alive, although 75 others on Air Force One aren't. He talks a little about feelings, saying he and his family are "shocked, saddened, and maybe a little afraid." Soul Patch, Bitchelle, and Buchanan are watching in the CTU conference room, looking none too impressed. DoDder comes in, just getting off her cell phone, to report that "There's a convoy missing." DoDder says it disappeared just inside the Iowa border. The convoy is completely incommunicado, and nothing is showing up on satellite. "What was on the trucks?" Buchanan asks. "A nuclear warhead," says. Way to bury the lead there. On TV, the Veep is saying, "Our faith and our resolve will prevail." Smooth move, Veep, saying "our faith will prevail" when the other side thinks it's fighting a holy war. I know you don't mean "our Faith will prevail," but still. If you could drop the word "crusade" in there, that would be even better. It's 12:25:33.

12:29:58. The Veep waits for some faith and resolve so he can prevail already, ImhoTerror is still on the road, Lispy Skip is on the phone, and Bitchelle is standing over him. One he's done, Bitchelle tells Skip to have holding prepped so Curtis can start the interrogation immediately on arrival. "I want him broken in minutes, not hours," she says. Then she addresses the floor at large, telling everyone to put all their resources into finding the warhead. Meanwhile, Buchanan is walking across the phone on the floor, getting his ear chewed off by PHMC. Who's "not pointing fingers" (even though, in my opinion, it's long past time someone did), but the Veep isn't going to be happy about this new development.

Meanwhile, a bunch of terrorists are loading what looks like a very large coffin with a "U.S. Army" stamp into the back of a pickup truck. Another truck, this one overturned, burns in the background. The driver of the pickup calls ImhoTerror on his cell phone to say, "We have it. We're heading out now." And the six terrorists it took to wipe out an entire Army convoy take off in their pickup at 12:31:06. This, then, is the cost of rampant arms proliferation: too many nuclear weapons for us to reliably keep our hands on. An entire platoon should have been protecting that warhead on a day like today, but the ridiculous size of our arsenal has the largest army in the world spread too thin. What does 24 want? Arms reduction! When does it want it? Now!

PMHC nervously enters the Undal Office and squirms under the Veep's "glare" for a moment. "General Thomas just told me we're missing a nuclear warhead," the Veep snits. PMHC confirms it. The Veep bitches about the satellites missing the hijacking, but PMHC makes the totally reasonable argument that "it's mountain terrain at night." Between Illinois and Iowa? Okay, there's the Mississippi River Valley, and there's the Great Plains, both of which are arguably the opposite of mountains. You can climb to any rooftop in Moline and see fricking Denver. I guess the Veep didn't make many Midwestern whistle stops during the campaign, because instead of calling PMHC on his statement, he asks what happens if they don't catch ImhoTerror. PMHC assures him that it's going to be difficult for ImhoTerror to leave the L.A. area. The Veep scoffs that it's also "difficult to shoot down Air Force with one of our own stealth fighters, but he managed to do that." The Veep even freaks that ImhoTerror's "gonna come after me ." PMHC says there's no indication of that, which the Veep rightly (if bitchily) argues is irrelevant. He'd be perfectly correct to point out that they haven't had an indication of anything ImhoTerror's done all day until ten minutes before he did it. PMHC keeps almost all of the contempt for his boss out of his voice as he slowly explains that the head of Secret Service is on his way. The Veep looks a little embarrassed by his own outburst. Don't feel bad, Veep. Just because you acted like a baby doesn't mean you were wrong.

Curtis and his posse are escorting Prado into CTU, less than ten minutes after leaving the Marina. I totally have this CTU triangulation thing under control now. I'm totally serious. Lispy Skip looks up with murder in his eyes. "That's the bastard Curtis caught at the Marina," he growls at Potato Face. "The one who's helping the terrorists." Since when does Lispy Skip say "bastard?" ["Also, 'the one'? Now he's going all Lispy Harry?" -- Sars] Potato Face barely notices Skip's jarring shift in character. "I'd like to get him in a room for a few minutes. He'd talk to me in about two seconds," Skip snarls. That's a tweak there at all the shlubby Joe Sixpacks out there who think that the only reason the war on terror isn't over yet is because they aren't in charge of it. When in fact it's abundantly obvious that the only thing that a chiseled bad-ass like Prado would be saying to lumpen, low-blood-sugar Skip after two seconds is, "Quit bleeding on me." In any case, Skip's remark gets Potato Face's attention. "Oh, you want to hurt him to get revenge for your mother dying. I can understand that." Oh, still bucking for that promotion to Narrator, Potato Face? I can understand that.

Curtis hands Prado off to the Redshirts and confers with Soul Patch. Prado, it turns out, is an ex-Marine with no criminal record, but over the last five years he has no record of employment. "Which means he's a criminal or a mercenary," Curtis concludes. I wonder if I can count the time I spent as a freelance writer as being a "mercenary." That would look awesome on my rsum. In any case, Curtis is off to question Prado.

Potato Face calls Soul Patch over at 12:33:16 to tell him that the missing convoy is no longer missing, but the warhead it was carrying is, and "everyone's dead." Soul Patch rattles off a bunch of orders to her, including instructions to find out if there are any nearby airstrips or "someplace where they might be able to put down a chopper." In Iowa. At 2:30 AM Central Time, I-80 is an airstrip. As for a potential helicopter landing site, please see above, re: just about anywhere between Moline and Denver. The total lack of phone and power lines helps, you know.

Curtis joins Bitchelle in the observation room, where she's already observing Prado, who's sitting alone in interrogation. She reminds Curtis, "Remember, he's an ex-Marine. He won't cave easily." Curtis talks tough, rolling up his sleeves and saying he'll use Eric the Torture Guy to help him. And here's a silent yet eloquent expression of one of tonight's themes; namely, the detrimental effect that sanctioned torture has on its perpetrators. Eric the Torture Guy is standing there, but he's abandoned his creepily detached reserve; he's staring at the closed door to interrogation, holding his case and leaning forward like a runner in the starting blocks. The message: you do something bad enough times, it starts to seem less bad. If you'd asked Eric what he does for a living this morning, he'd probably have said, "I'm an interview facilitator." Now he'd probably say, "I torture scum." If he ever said anything at all, that is, which he doesn't. Curtis and Eric the Torture Guy enter the interrogation room.

Where Prado is still sticking to his story about killing NotEricMurphy in self-defense. Curtis is still not buying it. More tough talking, this time on both sides. Curtis nods at Eric the Torture Guy, who puts his case of implements down on the table in front of Prado. Naturally, the top of the case opens flat on the table so Prado can see into it, even though it's faced away from him. He demands to know what's going on. The only answer is Eric the Torture Guy prepping a syringe. Notice how they're not even bothering with the threatening anymore?

In the observation room, a phone rings. It's Buchanan, sounding very stressed and telling Bitchelle to stop Curtis, and for both of them to join him on the floor. She calls Curtis on the intercom and relays the order. Curtis, who was holding Prado's head tilted to one side to provide easier access to Eric the Torture Guy's needle, releases Prado. He and Bitchelle head out to the floor together.