Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Now That's Hospitality
By M. Giant | Season 5 | Episode 9 | Aired on 02.19.2006
Audrey's walking McGill through a bunch of DoD busywork. She tries to ignore her desk phone when it starts ringing, but McGill ominously intones, "Shouldn't you get that?" Audrey picks up the handset, and Kiefer quickly tells Audrey that he needs her to help him with the data he got from Nathanson. "Sorry, Steve," Audrey says smoothly, "you have the wrong extension. I'll transfer you to IT." And she punches out a few numbers on her keypad while McGill, literally standing over her, watches suspiciously. The call duly dumped, Audrey goes back to her boring spiel.
Kiefer's call rings on Chloe's phone, and as she picks it up I notice that the little videophone monitors from last season are gone. Good thing, too; not only would it have gotten Audrey busted, but they were stupid, as well. Kiefer wants to know why Audrey bounced him over even as I wonder why Kiefer didn't call Chloe in the first place. Chloe says that McGill is shadowing Audrey: "He thinks she's been talking to you behind his back, which I guess she has." As Kiefer hops back into Curtis's CTUmobile, presumably leaving Nathanson and the other two bodies on the roof to bloat in the sun and eventually explode, he tells Chloe he's got a "thumb drive" full of data that she needs to mine for him. From his PDA, he messages the data to Chloe, and it appears on her screen almost instantly. He asks her to keep it "under the radar," which she decodes as "keep it from Lynn." "At least until we know what we've got," Kiefer confirms. Isn't it great how with so little discussion, all of the CTU folks from last season are able to just slot right into their respective roles and work together as a cohesive unit to shut out the boss? Chloe hangs up and puts on an "innocent" face, which Audrey only dreams of being able to mimic as she works under McGill's watchful eye. And his even more watchful other eye. At this rate, his hands are going to get pretty watchful in a minute as well. It's 3:38:16.
Commercials. I think I finally figured out what's bugging me about this Pepsi ad with Jimmy Fallon and Parker Posey: it's that I can't believe there's any overlap at all in their respective demographics. Which, now that I think about it, is probably the diabolical genius of it.
3:42:32. Logan is actually sort of doing something as we come back from break: he's holding an open folder in one hand and a pen in the other, reading. But then the hilarious thing is that as Novick comes in, Logan briskly snaps the folder shut and tries to smoothly drop the pen in his inside jacket pocket. Except he misses! As Novick keeps walking towards him, he has to devote his full attention to the task and ends up fumbling around in there for a full three seconds. And then he fixes Novick with this guilty/suspicious glare, like, You didn't see that, did you? I hope that was just a mistake and they only decided to keep the take because Gregory Itzin threw in that awesome, yet completely-in-character facial expression. And now I know why Logan spends so much of his time just standing around and staring: because everything else is too hard. But back to the actual, scripted events of the show, in which Novick hands over the information about Suvarov's route that Bierko requested earlier. Good thing Bierko's late in calling back, because that was eighteen minutes ago. I'm wondering if the writers weren't somehow betrayed by the people who actually cut this episode together. Maybe they should shoot multiple versions of each scene that contains a reference to a specific time interval, but change that interval in five-minute increments each take. Then when they edit the episode together they use the take with the correct interval and you don't end up with Kiefer showing up seven minutes late and Bierko calling fifteen minutes later than he promised, just for example. See, I'm not just here to tear down. Also, while I'm making suggestions, how about y'all start planning out the season in advance? Whoops, I think I just lost them there. Anyway. Novick repeats his advice that giving up Suvarov is a bad idea: "If President Suvarov is killed and the Russians find out we supplied his killers with this information, it would be considered an act of war." Logan would prefer to believe that any attack on Suvarov's motorcade is doomed to failure. Obviously he hasn't heard about Bierko's additional men and resources. When Novick still looks doubtful, Logan tries to compromise by suggesting an analysis of the vulnerable points on the route. Novick protests that that would give away the fact that they had advance knowledge of the attack.
"What attack?" asks FLOTUS, who has just wandered into the room unannounced. And she's wearing yet another outfit. I think she changes clothes more times in one day than Ferris Bueller. Logan and Novick look busted, and Logan tries to tell her not to worry her pretty little head about it. Like that's ever going to work again. FLOTUS flatly says, "Charles, you invited me into this circle." Actually, not to keep going on about the size of Logan's staff, but it's not so much a circle as a triangle. And if FLOTUS weren't there it would be a line. Logan, seeing that Novick has turned away and is leaving him twisting in the wind on this, takes a deep breath and tells his wife, "The terrorists want Suvarov's motorcade route. They've threatened to deploy more Sentox gas if I don't give it to them." FLOTUS haltingly asks whether Logan is actually considering this. Logan doesn't answer, and now Novick steps in, because as important as it is for the United States to not give in to terrorists and not help its treaty partners get killed on American soil, it's more important for Novick to disagree with FLOTUS. Using both their first names, he starts to explain Logan's position, but FLOTUS yells at him to shut up and let Logan speak for himself. Logan nods reluctantly, and Novick excuses himself from the room. FLOTUS lets him leave this time, so she must have picked up on the fact that this latest bad idea wasn't his.