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Kiefer's retirement doesn't last long once he gets an eyeful of that mushroom cloud hanging over Valencia. Wayne and his staff relocate below ground to the completely renovated Undal Office, where he battles to rein in his people's basest political impulses while preparing to deliver a live speech. And Walid officially goes undercover, agreeing to wear a wire so that the Feds can listen in while he sucks up to the real terrorists inside the detention facility. Assad arrives at CTU to help trace the remaining four nukes (which are riding around in the back of Fayed's red van while Fayed frantically tries to find himself a new Numair), and supplies one clue. The name Assad gives leads CTU to a batch of other names, including one Phillip Bauer, Kiefer's father. (It's not going to be Donald Sutherland, so don't get all excited.) Kiefer hasn't talked to Philip in nine years, but what better reason to reopen communications is there than questioning Dad about his indirect connections to a nuclear terrorist? Alas, Dad's incommunicado for now, which means Kiefer has to settle for a talk with his brother Graham. I'll say that again: Kiefer's. Brother. Graham. The same Graham who was secretly plotting with President Logan last season. Is Kiefer's brother. Just take a moment to put your brain back in your head. Okay? Good. Amid any number of subtle allusions to some history between Kiefer and Graham's hot wife, the Bauer brothers are reunited. And it doesn't feel so good for Graham, especially when Kiefer starts torturing him for information about their dad. Graham! Is Kiefer's brother! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's the immediate aftermath of a hostile nuclear detonation in the United States, and what are the country's leaders doing to take control of the situation? They're standing around in the Oval Office watching the news, of course. Over a live feed of the big gray mushroom cloud hanging in an otherwise blue sky, an anchor speechifies about the unthinkable. A square mile of Valencia has been obliterated (you suppose it was the square mile that Spawn lived in?), but the "good" news is that the wind appears to be blowing north, away from the more heavily populated areas. Everyone north of Valencia is like, "Hey!" Wayne shuts off the tube and asks for initial casualty estimates. Tom thinks at least 12,000. That's kind of a lot. Karen comes in at this point to say that she just got off the phone with her husband (although she insists on referring to him as "Bill Buchanan at CTU," like they haven't been on the phone with him pretty much constantly all morning), who says they've just learned that there are four more suitcase nukes in the country and nobody has any idea where they are. The music gets all serious and resolved as Wayne calls for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs and confirms that all civilian air traffic has been grounded. Wayne's Secret Service detail enters, and the agent in charge -- I'm sorry to report that it's not Aaron, who has direct, specific experience in protecting Wayne, after all -- says that they're moving Wayne down to the bunker. I expect Wayne to put on a big production about how he doesn't want to appear afraid, but he quickly agrees. In the process, he deputizes one more speaking role on his staff, saying he wants to make a live televised speech within the hour. Presumably, he's the one who's going to have to write the thing. Everyone heads out, down the hallway, and into the elevator.
Okay, so maybe the people at the very top are entitled to a little tube watching at a moment like this, as long as the people on the front lines, like those at CTU, are all humming with activity. But no, they're all still standing around slack-jawed, still glued to the TVs even as Wayne is already moving. Buchanan enters, and I expect him to fire everyone in sight, but right now he just wants to know about his field teams. They're all dead, of course. Damn, that's gotta hurt. Hiring, training, equipping, and deploying a whole new army of tactical agents is probably going to take hours. After a shocked pause, Buchanan tells Morris to try and find out if Fayed was inside the blast radius. Morris is all over it. What's he going to do, go check the mushroom cloud for DNA?
The Presidential party arrives at the bunker beneath the White House, which looks to have been completely redesigned and rebuilt since Season 4. It's a darker, more militaristic-looking space. Gone is the Undal Office; you're looking at the Battle Bridge. Presumably President Logan wanted the area updated, given the amount of time he expected to spend down there. While leading the group inside, the Secret Service agent briefs Wayne on where everyone is: the as-yet unnamed Vice President is on alert, the Joint Chiefs and most of the Cabinet are on their way to the Battle Bridge, and the rest of the Cabinet is being sent to "Site R." R they really? The gigundous, NORAD-sized blast doors to the elevator lobby clang shut behind them. Too bad for the Joint Chiefs, I guess. That'll teach them to take more than five minutes getting to safety. The agent ushers everyone into the below-ground Situation Room, a circular conference space which appears to be the main room in the complex. Something tells me we'd better get comfortable down here.
Meanwhile, Karen steps aside to call her hubby. Despite being two hundred feet underground, she's getting great cell phone reception. She asks if Buchanan has any news, but he hasn't learned a great deal in the two minutes since they last talked. Slacker. They speculate as to whether CTU's arrival at Fayed's HQ caused the terrorists to detonate the nuke, and whether the bad guys had initially planned to use it on another, more populated target. They still don't know where Fayed or the other four bombs are, but they're not going to risk assuming that they're currently raining down on Valencia. Buchanan adds that Assad is on his way to CTU to help find Fayed. They ring off, Karen telling Buchanan to be careful. He doesn't bother returning the sentiment, because she's two hundred feet underground. She probably isn't going to fall out a window.
Chloe tries to get back to work, but is having trouble concentrating. It doesn't help when Morris flits up and informs her, "It's a lot to proh-cess." She's freaking out about the deaths of all those people, as well as that of Curtis. "I know you and he were friends," Morris exaggerates. "Why do people I know keep dying?" Chloe wonders. Morris doesn't have an answer to that. I do, but it's rather unkind. Returning to the subject of work, Chloe asks if Fayed's been found yet. No, duh. "You want to help me boot up routers?" she asks. "Who wouldn't?" is his charming response, and they get to work. But we're not done bringing new viewers up to speed, so Chloe has to mention that Kiefer quit. "I'm sure it's because he was forced to kill Curtis." Anything else from the previouslies that we haven't covered again? "You know I'm here for you, right?" Morris says. Chloe says that she does, not even a little bitchily.
It's chaos in the streets, with fire engines tearing around and crowds of people hurriedly packing up their cars to search for less radioactive pastures. The mushroom cloud is still in the northern sky, starting to look more like a cauliflower cloud. At 10:07:13, a teenaged girl runs into the street for no reason, and is nearly hit by a red van, which skids to avoid her. Hey, where have I seen that red van before? Well, the sight of Fayed sitting in the shotgun seat on his cell phone provides one clue. It doesn't really seem like his style to go out of his way to avoid squashing an innocent civilian, but I suppose the last thing he needs right now is the state and local police dropping whatever they might be doing this morning so they can look for a red van that was involved in a hit and run. The teen's mom shepherds her out of the street. The van continues on its way, the cauliflower cloud in its rearview mirror. "The bomb never reached its target," Fayed's saying into his cell phone.
That person turns out to be a rather angry guy named McCarthy with an iffy Aussie accent, who's carrying some luggage out to his car. "I sold those weapons to you," he bitches. "The least you could have done was warn me before you blew them up in my city." Fayed says that wasn't the plan, and he's got problems of his own now: his nuclear scientist and the trigger reprogramming device both got vaporized, and now Fayed is sitting on four more nukes that he needs to get functional in a hurry. McCarthy says that he's headed to Vegas, until Fayed offers to pay him double the amount from before, whatever that was. Now he's got McCarthy's attention, but McCarthy still isn't sure he can find any one who (a) can and (b) will do what Fayed wants. But Fayed needs someone in the few hours, and asks if McCarthy can help or not. McCarthy promises to get back to him, hangs up, and gets in his car. Fayed sighs unhappily. Even the sight of a helicopter that just crashed on top of a house he's riding past doesn't seem to cheer him up. Hell, that even cheers me up.
Nearby, some bloody guy is dashing around, trying to get some help from the panicked citizens dashing obliviously around him. Nobody wants to help him, so of course his attention lands on a guy across the street who's just standing there staring blankly at the cauliflower cloud in the distance. The blank-eyed guy is, of course, Kiefer. Being grabbed by someone in need seems to jolt Kiefer out of his state, and at 10:09:06, the bloody guy leads Kiefer at a run to where he left his friends. One of them is unconscious, the other is dead, and they were all in the same helicopter that just crashed. Which means that Fayed just passed within a block of Kiefer. That's just a bit too Six Degrees for me. I certainly hope there won't be any more unlikely coincidences coming up this hour. As they dash around the corner together, the guy says that he doesn't know what hit them. Kiefer does: the shockwave of a nuclear bomb. The poor guy hasn't even seen the mushroom cloud yet. Hey, shouldn't there also be an EMP? I don't know what the radius of that phenomenon would be from a one-kiloton nuke, and I'm assuming that's what the show's counting on. Reaching the house with the helicopter precariously jammed into its roof peak, Kiefer effortlessly (especially for a guy with a fresh knife wound in his shoulder) climbs the front porch trellis right up onto the roof and makes his way to the wrecked chopper, followed closely by the bloody guy. We see that the guy in the right front seat is awake now but trapped, while the guy on the left isn't moving. He must be the dead one. No idea how the first guy got out of the aircraft. Kiefer tries to open the chopper door, but it's jammed. So he finds something to pry it open: a broken off TV aerial antenna. Kind of an anachronistic artifact to discover up here, especially considering that we've already seen that the very same roof has a satellite dish on it. Still, it's just the thing for prying the door open. Kiefer rescues the surviving aviator, and not a moment too soon; no sooner are they all clear than the tail section snaps off, leaving the fuselage to drop into the side yard, where it explodes hugely. Because falling out of the sky wasn't enough to blow it up, but dropping two stories turned it into a fireball.
Kiefer goes to the edge to view the damage and pull out his cell phone. From up here on the roof, both flyers can now see the cauliflower cloud, and the one Kiefer pulled out realizes it's in Valencia, where his family is. Downer. He announces that he's on his way there, even though Kiefer tells him that the radiation will kill him before getting through to CTU and asking for Buchanan. While he's waiting, he tells the initial bloody guy not to let his friend go home, and that's both of them out of the story. Once Kiefer reaches Buchanan, he says that he's still in Grenada Hills, and Buchanan tells him not to go any further north. Kiefer asks how bad the damage is, and Buchanan tells him a square mile got flattened. He adds that Fayed's not done; there are still four suitcase nukes out there. "You need to pick me up," Kiefer says. Buchanan reminds Kiefer that he' out. "Not after this," Kiefer says. Aww, who's our brave little counterterrorist operative? It's 10:11:42.
10:16:04. Wayne has the present Joint Chiefs gathered around his conference table and the absent ones up on video conferencing screens. He says he knows that Fayed has to be state-supported, and he wants to know which state. A shortlist has been generated, but they've already talked to the ambassador of each nation on it and they all disavow any knowledge. One particularly crusty-looking admiral says that someone's lying, if not all of them. Wayne asks the admiral what he suggests, and the admiral wants to have the carriers in the Persian Gulf strike multiple targets in each country in question. Which would be kind of embarrassing if Fayed's sponsor turned out to be, say, Centralasia. The admiral boasts, "I guarantee you that if each of these countries has to sustain three major metropolitan nuclear strikes, they'd no longer have the time or the resources to play in our sandbox any more. These people want to live in the Stone Age, I say let's put them there." Rather than sending the Admiral back to his AM talk-radio broadcasting booth, Wayne starts politely empathizing with the admiral's emotions, but the admiral doesn't want to hear it. Tom leans forward and orders, "The President is talking, Admiral. Do not interrupt!" And thus a Joint Chief is silenced by the Biscuit. Wayne firmly assures everyone that there will be retaliation, but it will be only against the country's enemies. Refreshing, that. Wayne turns to Karen and asks what CTU knows right now. Karen shares what she learned from Buchanan earlier, which is the theory that the bomb was being assembled in Valencia for use elsewhere. "By the scientist that I released," Wayne points out. "Yes," Karen says. Well, technically, Numair escaped before Wayne could release him, but whatever. Karen says the worst-case scenario is that Fayed is still alive and has four nukes in his possession. So of course everyone is going to operating under that assumption indefinitely. Or at least until they're flash-fried into airborne isotopes.
It's 10:18:12 and the FayedMobile is keeping to back streets. He tells his driver, "Tell them we're safe. We're moving away from it now." Well, you were safe, until you made the driver do the phone calling. Fayed glances into the back, where several silver briefcases are peeking out from under a dark, heavy tarp. Nukes in a blanket!
Here's something I don't think I've seen before -- it's an actual exterior door that you can see from inside CTU, with sunlight shining through it and everything. Disorienting. Assad and the agents escorting him are buzzed into the outer security lobby, where Nadia and Buchanan are there waiting to meet him. Assad speaks to Buchanan: "I know that you see me as your enemy. But today, I assure you that I am not." He extends his hand in friendship. Buchanan just leaves him hanging, turning down the hall with a curt, "Follow me." Assad's thinking, I shook that skanky-ass, half-melted lump at the end of Kiefer's arm, and this Tim Gunn-haired dude's too good for me? Fuck this noise. But he follows anyway.
Inside the Situation Room, Chloe and Morris have just finished setting up a recording device for the meeting with Assad, which they've been doing since at least the act-in splitscreen. Morris wonders why Assad is getting the red carpet treatment, to Chloe's grim amusement. Meanwhile, Assad himself is being led across the floor, inviting stares from all the people who have spent years looking for him and now see him in person, just walking right in. Nobody leaps on him or wrestles him to the ground, which tells me that word travels a lot faster at CTU than it does in my office. Assad, Buchanan, and Nadia cross to the Situation Room, and the O'Brians leave them to it at 10:19:45.
Buchanan starts speaking in that formal way people have when they're initiating a recorded interview session, but things get informal quickly when Assad hears Buchanan tell the recorder that Fayed may have four more nukes. He's surprised at the news, and is quick to assure them that he came to the U.S. to stop Fayed, although he didn't know his old compadre had The Bomb. Buchanan says that he does, which means there has to be a trail of people who were involved in the planning. Assad says that was after he and Fayed split six months ago. Buchanan asks if Assad can think of a possible lead to Fayed, and Assad suggests "the source." He backstories that a year ago, he sent Fayed to negotiate with an ex-Soviet general for a cache of nuclear weapons, but Fayed wasn't able to close the deal at the time. Okay, hold it right there. I've been giving Assad the benefit of the doubt up until now (largely because he's a very handsome man and therefore entirely trustworthy), but does anyone else have a problem with this news that Fayed probably wouldn't even have nukes right now if Assad hadn't told him where to look? Apparently Buchanan doesn't. Assad says that the general's name was Dmitri Gredenko, but he doesn't know anything more about him than his name. Buchanan's going to have his people run with it anyway. It's 10:21:17. Not much of a cliffhanger, there, but I'll take commercials where I can get them.
10:25:42. At CTU, Milo's busy micromanaging Chloe when Morris rushes between them to show them a list of names of people Gredenko has done business with in L.A. It fills the whole screen, which is all kinds of not helpful, as Chloe points out. "But one of [the names] kind of floated to the top, if you know what I mean," Morris points out. We don't see what he means, but Chloe does, telling him to send it to Buchanan as she dashes up to his office. "Wow," Milo says. I'm not sure if he's bowled over by Morris's find or the spectacle of Chloe running in a dress.
Chloe reaches Buchanan's office in record time and tells him what Morris just sent him. He pulls it up, and she tells him to look at #17 on the list of names. It's the chairman of BXJ Technologies, a gentleman named Philip Bauer. "Jack's father," Chloe helpfully adds. They don't have anything else right now, but she says that she'll look into it as he picks up the phone to call Kiefer. She flounces out at 10:26:56.
Once Buchanan gets Kiefer on the line, he asks if Kiefer knows Gredenko. Kiefer, now being chauffeured back to the office in a CTUmobile, says that he doesn't. Buchanan says, "Your father does." Kiefer is confused, and asks if his dad's a suspect. Buchanan says no; it's just that Bauer, Sr. just came up on a list of people who had had contact with Gredenko and CTU plans to question him. I'm sure they'll be just as careful to interview the other sixteen-plus people on the list, but nobody cares about them. Buchanan just wanted to check to see if Kiefer knew anything about it first. As Kiefer says, not so much: "I haven't spoken to him for over nine years." Buchanan takes an "all-righty, then" pause and says that they'll send someone over. But of course, Kiefer wants to handle his father's questioning himself, saying his dad will open up more quickly if he goes alone. Buchanan not only thinks it's a swell idea to let the crazy PTSD murderer/torturer go question his own father, he says Kiefer can take the CTUmobile he's riding in. Kiefer agrees, hangs up, and tells the agent driving the CTUmobile to pull over. That poor driver. If you're a CTU agent, it's got to give you some kind of complex if the biggest terrorist attack in history takes place twenty miles away and you're left standing on a street corner waiting for someone to come pick you up.
At the Anacostia Detention Facility in Washington, D.C., a whole surveillance room has been set up in what was probably the school's science lab or something. Sandra Palmer is hanging out among the agents manning computers and flat screen monitors, and she's not exactly happy to see the blond agent who arrested her and Walid a few hours ago. He claims he didn't want to arrest either one of them, and introduces another agent named Jennings, a tall, Dubya-looking dude who's going to be working with them. Agent Blond says that Jennings will be putting a wire on Walid. Sandra thinks replacing Walid with someone else is a better idea, since Walid doesn't have the training. Good point. Plus I think it'll totally work if some guy no one's ever seen before goes up and says, "Hey, remember that guy who came to your defense when the guards were hassling you before? Pretend that was me." Sandra tries to ask Jennings how the wire's going to be getting on Walid, but he's not particularly forthcoming.
Kiefer's now got his CTUmobile to himself, and as he drives down the road he dials his cell phone. The call rings through to a rather large mansion, where a blue-jacketed butler answers the phone. "Sam, is that you?" Kiefer asks, and identifies himself. Sam is amazed to be talking to Kiefer. "We thought you were -- where are you calling from?" he asks. Kiefer says he's in L.A. and needs to talk to his dad. But Sam tells Kiefer that his dad left yesterday without saying where he was going, and hasn't been heard from since. He even left his cell phone at home, so he can't be reached that way. Sam says, "It's all a bit mysterious. I tried calling your brother. He didn't know either." Brother? Let's all take a moment to wonder whom they've cast as Kiefer's brother, shall we? Ideally it would be one of his eighties-era costars. Jason Patric? Kevin Bacon? Michael J. Fox? The entire cast of Young Guns? Kiefer's bitter expression and the ominous music tells us it's someone we won't like. Kiefer asks for a cell phone number for "Gray," and Sam reads it off. Kiefer asks Sam to have his dad call him back if he hears from him, and Sam agrees. "I know he would want to talk with you. He regrets the way things ended between you." Kiefer thanks the gossipy old bastard and hangs up.
The entire conversation was being monitored in real time by some creepy security guy sitting at a bank of monitors. As soon as Sam hangs up, the guy picks up his own phone and dials. "You'll never guess who just called here," he says into the phone. And you'll never guess who's on the other end. The tight close-up of the Bluetooth in one ear is a clue, though. "Your brother, Jack," security guy says. And the camera pulls away from the Bluetooth to give us a look at -- brace yourself -- Graham. The same Graham who was always giving Logan such a hard time over the phone and trying to get Kiefer killed during the end of last season? Who kept talking about the need to "get rid of Bauer?" He's a Bauer himself. Graham Bauer, to be exact. I'm sorry for babbling, but come on. Paul McCrane and Kiefer barely look like the same species, let alone family. This is so stupid it's awesome. Graham's driving a car as he has this conversation, which I have to admit I'm not really paying attention to any more because my mind is totally blown. Anyway, the security guy warns Graham to expect a call from Kiefer any minute. "Dammit, we should have killed him when we had the chance instead of handing him over to the Chinese," Graham curses. "We tried," security guy reminds him. "My brother has a way of digging things up that need to stay buried." And the opposite, occasionally. Iâm not really sure what I mean by that. It's 10:33:52.
At 10:38:14, Kiefer's finally gotten around to calling Graham himself, and you can tell from his sour expression that it's not a conversation he's looking forward to. Graham gets the call on his Bluetooth as he's getting out of his fancy car in the fancy driveway of his fancy house. Graham acts all amazed and mind-blown to hear from his brother (almost as mind-blown as me!), assuring him that he and their dad called in a lot of favors to try to get Kiefer sprung from China. He asks how Kiefer got out, and Kiefer either doesn't know or isn't saying. "Must have been one hell of an exchange," Graham marvels, now loitering out on his front walk. Kiefer says that he's looking for their dad on behalf of CTU, and Graham says Philip left the day before, probably to visit one of his girlfriends. "One of them's kinda hot, if you can believe that," he laughs nervously. Kiefer's not playing though, and asks Graham if he can help find Philip. Graham readily agrees, and says that he'll get back to Kiefer. Kiefer mutters a terse thanks and hangs up. I'm starting to suspect that Kiefer and his brother aren't exactly close.
At 10:39:36, his call is to Chloe at CTU so he can ask her for his brother's address. Graham's moved since they last saw each other, but Chloe has the new address. She gives it to Kiefer, but wonders why he didn't ask Graham himself when he was on the phone with him. "I'll get back to you," Kiefer says as he hangs up. In other words, he doesn't want Graham to know he's coming.
Graham walks into the house and finds his family watching the news reports. Guess what the headline is: "Los Angeles freeways jammed." National news, people! Although it probably has something to do with the mushroom cloud in the background. Graham hugs his son, a blank-eyed teenager with a blond Beatle haircut, and assures him that they're probably safer now, because the terrorists will probably try to nuke another city . With that out of the way, Graham says he needs a private moment with the kid's mom, Marilyn, who hasn't said a word yet. Maybe it's because she's so completely out of his league. She's being played by the striking Rena Sofer, who I'm sure will be striking Graham at some point in the few episodes. Once the parents are alone, at 10:40:54, Graham tells his wife, all casual-like, who he was just on the phone with. Marilyn is suspiciously interested in the news, and asks if Kiefer's coming over. "Why? Are you hoping he will?" Graham asks faux-pleasantly. Marilyn tells him not to go there. "We're already there," Graham says. "I'm just looking for a little honesty." And speaking of digging things up, he thinks she wasn't over Kiefer when they got married, and still isn't. So she drops a little honesty on him: "Insecurity in a grown man is not attractive." With that, she stomps upstairs.
Down in the Battle Bridge, Wayne and his staff are going over the text of the speech he's going to be delivering shortly. Surprisingly, there's some debate as to whether the speech should include the term "nuclear bomb." Wayne is also worried that if he gives insincere reassurances and then another bomb goes off, his credibility will be shot. "That can't happen," he insists. Oh, and thousands will die, but that's beside the point. Tom hijacks the discussion to start pushing once again for his draconian agenda of internments and deportations, because that kind of thing will probably poll a lot better now. Karen calls this "politics of fear," and Tom calls it reality. Wayne puts an end to the debate, saying he's not going to try and panic people any more than they already are. He just wants the American people to know that "every single member of this administration is working with the single purpose of restoring order and making our streets safer." When they're not arguing with each other, that is.
Meanwhile, McCarthy's still in the car and working his cell phone, trying to get a hold of someone who wants to help a terrorist set off a nuke. I just scrolled through my entire cell phone directory and I can't find a single person who matches that description. At least as far as I know. He pauses long enough to pick up his trashy-looking blonde girlfriend on a street corner, who throws her bag and coat in the back seat and bitches at him for, well, something. Getting in and struggling with her seatbelt as McCarthy drives off, she tells him that she just wants to get to Vegas before the wind changes. He says that they're not going to Vegas, so she starts in on this whole bit about Palm Springs. He tells her they're sticking around in L.A. for a while. When she sputters at him, he says, "I'm talking about a lot of money! Stop talking! Now!" Amazingly, she does. Just in time, too, because Fayed is calling. McCarthy promises Fayed good news within the hour, and says to have the money ready to wire. Fayed, now out of the car and getting ready to walk into some old stone building, says it's ready now, and hangs up. He informs us that the bombs will go off today as scheduled. It's 10:45:12.
10:49:32. Nadia's finished with Assad, and leaves him sitting in the CTU Situation Room. She finds Buchanan and says that Assad gave her some more names, but nothing as juicy as Gredenko. Buchanan asks what else Assad said. "He wants peace," Nadia answers. Buchanan asks if she believes him, and after a pause, she admits that she does. Buchanan enters the Situation Room to tell Assad that he's being flown to Washington, D.C. now. But when will he see Kiefer again? Buchanan adds that Assad gave them some helpful information. Assad wishes Buchanan good luck and hopes the worst is over. Buchanan thanks him, and extends his hand in friendship. Aww. Assad shakes it, then gets escorted out at 10:50:37.
Milo flags down Buchanan to report that the FBI is feeding them live audio from the Anacostia Detention Facility. Buchanan tells him to assign Chloe to it as a priority, but it's really just another excuse for an unnecessarily slick scene transition. We now see Walid sitting alone in the schoolyard, looking sad and worried with his new bruises. Across the yard, Salim has taken up Walid's case with one of his buddies, and the two debate in Arabic as to whether Walid can be trusted. "He's one of us," Salim insists. Only nerdier.
Actually, I've been trying to figure out why I get such a nerd-vibe from Walid, and I think it's because the first time I ever saw Harry Lennix in anything, he was on ER as a doctor who got dumped by Gloria Reuben in favor of her ex-husband who had cheated on her and given her AIDS. That kind of loser-stink don't scrub off.
Anyway, Sandra's been watching a video feed of Walid sitting there, and she gets worked up enough to go over to Agent Blond to complain once again about what a bad idea this is. They argue some more, and Agent Blond says Walid "might be able to find something out within hours." Well, I hope so, or this plotline is kind of going to sputter out. Still, Sandra is being an obnoxious, shrill pain about it, to the point that Agent Blond says that she probably shouldn't even be there. "Let's be honest," he says. "The only reason you're here is that you're the President's sister." Sandra warns him to remember that. "You don't have any trouble bending the rules when it's to your advantage, do you?" Agent Blond snarks. Oh, just fuck already. But before they can get to it, they're interrupted by new developments on the Walid-feed.
Salim approaches Walid and sits down to him, wondering what the Feds wanted from him. Walid acts all reluctant to get his new friend in trouble, but of course he's just playing out line like an old pro. Of course, it's just motivating Salim to try harder to win Walid's trust. Finally, Walid "confesses" that the Feds found a phone number in his wallet belonging to Abu Fayed. Salim's face closes off, but the hook is set. He invites Walid to join his circle, and the two get up and walk across the yard together. I'm expecting Salim's buddies to shank Walid the second he gets close enough, but it looks like they're saving that for week.
"He did that well," Agent Blond comments to Sandra. Now all Walid has left to do is "sell himself to the others before they'll open up," he adds. I'm sure he knows how to do that, having been fully trained on the relevant methods and techniques while getting thumped in the bathroom.
Graham goes to answer his front door at 10:53:54, and isn't all that pleased to see Kiefer standing on his front step. I'm sure that's exactly what Kiefer was expecting. Maybe with all the money that's clearly been poured into this giant house, Graham could have invested in, I don't know, a peephole. Graham swallows his initial oh, shit reaction at seeing his brother and invites him in, throwing a hug around him that goes totally unreturned. This is still fucking with my head. Trying to keep the mood jovial, Graham asks Kiefer when they last saw each other. "When Teri died," Kiefer buzzkills. Actually it was at Bride's funeral a few days later, because Graham was still on ER then. Kiefer asks if he's found their dad yet, and Graham says that he's still working on it. Just then Graham's son Josh comes down the stairs, and Graham introduces them. Kiefer drops in all sorts of long pauses so we are sure to know that the kid is Kiefer's biological offspring. Just what we need: a male Spawn. He even has the vapid eyes of the original. He's quite a bit younger, though, which would mean that Kiefer did Graham's wife when he was married to Teri. That dog. Kiefer extends his gnarled meathook and asks Josh how he's doing. Josh takes the corpse-yellow hand with an uncertain look but doesnât comment on it, saying it's been a weird day. Yeah, tell Kiefer all about it, kid. Just then Marilyn appears on the upper balcony, telling Josh to leave the men alone. Josh wanders off, saying maybe they can talk later, like no teenager ever does, just so Kiefer can respond, "I would like that." Marilyn turns her cold gaze on Kiefer, and into the silence that's stretching out, Kiefer apologizes for the intrusion and says he'll leave as soon as he learns what he needs to about his father. Marilyn just nods and disappears again. "Well, that was pleasant, wasn't it?" Graham snarks, and invites Kiefer into his home office.
This turns out to be a well-appointed room that's about as big as my garage but much better organized. Graham invites Kiefer to sit, but Kiefer declines and gets right to the point. He drops Gredenko's name and asks if Graham knows him. Graham pretends to think before saying no and launching into a story about some of dad's drinking buddies of late. He's all set to go into a tale about pre-Chavez Venezuela, when Kiefer rudely cuts him off: "Gray! I didn't come here to listen to your stories." He says that they need to find dad ASAP. Graham's like, dude, chill. You're home. Enjoy it. So Kiefer does, by socking his brother in the face and dropping him unconscious to the rug. Nice, hitting a man wearing glasses. You know, maybe Buchanan should have told Kiefer that CTU has at least sixteen other names that are of as much interest in this investigation as Philip's. Kiefer locks the office door and, at 10:56:43, yanks the cord out of a table lamp with one hand. Nice lamp, Graham, you cheap bastard. Kiefer positions a straight-backed chair in the middle of the room and lifts Graham onto it, lashing him in place with the lamp cord. Graham's coming around, too late to resist. Kiefer grabs Graham's throat and hisses at him, "If you raise your voice, I will rip your tongue out, are we clear?" Graham nods, grunting in pain. Kiefer starts his standard pre-torture spiel. "I need some information. Are you going to give it to me, or do I have to start hurting you?" "Actually, you're hurting me now," Graham manages. "Trust me, I'm not," Kiefer threatens. Ooooh. He releases Graham's throat. Can you imagine these two growing up together? I wonder if this happened every time Graham hid the cookies.
Wayne is hanging out alone in the Battle Bridge when Tom comes in to say that the speech is waiting in the TelePrompTer. Tom asks if Wayne's all right, and Wayne says he can't let the American people know how scared he is. Tom agrees. "But then, we just got hit by a nuclear bomb. Bravado would be no more appropriate than fear." At first I thought he said, "Nevada would be no more appropriate than here," which makes no sense. Either way, his comment is enough to bolster Wayne's confidence, and he thanks his Chief of Staff with a small smile. Having found the courage to go on, Wayne heads into the Bunker's below-ground Oval Office set, an exact replica of the above-ground version, complete with fake daylight shining through the window curtains. Oh, what am I saying? It's probably the exact same set. Wayne begins his speech, and it sucks. It's not all that well-written, an obvious rush job, and Wayne's got kind of a rotten TelePrompTer manner. I hope this is intentional. Fortunately, we have other splitscreen windows to distract us: Walid hangs with his new friends, Sandra and Agent Blond watch him on the monitor, McCarthy and his girlfriend are still in the car, and Fayed stands holding some electronic device and looking pretty relaxed for the most wanted man in America.
After all that's over and we cut away from Wayne's speech, Kiefer's making his own speech to Graham about how "this is going to start to hurt." Too bad Kiefer didn't think to snap a camera-phone picture of that exploding helicopter earlier; one look at that and Graham would spill everything. Graham is still protesting his ignorance of Philip's whereabouts, swearing it on his family's life. Kiefer looks in his brother's eyes for a long moment. "Not good enough," he whispers. I wish we knew what Kiefer knows about Graham, because right now Kiefer just looks like an asshole. More so than usual, I mean. He moves around behind Graham. "You brought this on yourself," Kiefer weasels, and yanks a plastic bag down over Graham's face. Graham obligingly commences suffocating. Well, looks like someone's back in the saddle again. Fucking hooray. It's 11:00:00.