By M. Giant
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After the failed attempt on Hassan, everyone knows everything. Cole, who survived the explosion, goes after Davros and nearly gets killed by him, but Kiefer arrives just in time to kill Davros instead. Farhad, learning the jig is up, kills a CTU agent to make his escape. Hastings, man enough to admit he was wrong, springs Reed and vindicates Chloe. And since Davros's corpse turns out to be covered in Russian gang tattoos, Dana decides to bring in an expert on the subject, someone who spent some time deep undercover with the Russian mafia. That expert's name: Renee Walker. What are the chances?
And while they're waiting for her seriously damaged ass to show up, the CTU morgue discovers that Davros has recently been in contact with weapons-grade uranium. Hassan figures out that it's the same uranium that some bad Russians offered the Hassans not long ago, and that Farhad still hopes to get it. So Hastings decides to send Walker in undercover to find the Russian mob boss. Out of concern for her emotional state (seems her idiotic stunt with Alan Wilson at the end of last season led to her firing and a bit of a meltdown), Kiefer tries to talk her out of it, but she's adamant. So Kiefer insists on going along with her. Not that he's able to stop her from cutting a dude's hand off to get what she wants. He is, however, a big old girl about it, which is absolutely hilarious.
On the personal front, Hassan dumps Reed for the sake of the peace process, and Dana's got her increasingly unstable ex rattling around her apartment. She looks like she's going to need to be killing him soon, which I think we're all looking forward to.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previouslies freeze-frames: Brian Hastings, President Omar Hassan, Farhad Hassan, Dana Walsh (because even the previouslies aren't buying into this stupid "Jenny" crap), President Allison Taylor, and of course Jack Bauer.
Unsurprisingly, the president is still being evacuated from the U.N. to her in the back seat, her Chief of Staff is doing what he does best: yelling at Hastings. Although I guess that since there's been a large explosion in the last couple of minutes, it's understandable in this case. "It's a damn disaster, Brian! What do you mean, you don't know what happened?" Taylor chimes in to demand how Hassan is, and Hastings still doesn't know. But he has been admirably quick in figuring out that the original bomb threat was a hoax, and that a real bomb was planted along the evacuation route. "And you drove him right into it!" Weiss yells. Hastings explains what Cole did, and Weiss yells, "You better pray he got there in time!" and cuts off the call. Well, I guess Taylor was done talking to Hastings, too.
Somewhere behind them, a whole section of pavement has been heaved up from the street by the explosion. Cole, alive and conscious, manages to scramble out of his inverted car-becue into a scene of total chaos. Nobody seems to know what to do until Cole shows up to take charge again, so it's super lucky he wasn't killed after all. Hassan's car is still stopped and the driver appears dead. Cole runs up to it and tries to get Hassan's door open. Hassan is barely conscious and his bodyguard points a gun at Cole protectively, but lowers it when Cole says he's with CTU. Cole finally manages to pry the bent car door open and urgently tells Hassan they need to get him to another car. Because this one worked out so well. "Sir, you do not want to stay here," Cole warns. Indeed, because here comes Davros, locked and loaded and apparently unnoticed by anyone as he walks toward Hassan with his police weapon leveled and with obvious murderous intent. What's he been doing during the previouslies, anyway? But then a big black SUV cuts off his approach, and that seems to break his focus. Cole gets Hassan and his bodyguard into that CTUmobile and sends it off, then pulls out his cell phone. Watching this, Davros realizes he's missed his chance and starts walking away, defeated. Assassin fail.
Cole has apparently called Dana's personal cell phone instead of the CTU switchboard. She's relieved he's okay, again, and he tells her that Hassan is also safe and en route to CTU. Dana calls that news out across the floor to Hastings. I'm sure Hastings will rush to call Weiss back to see if he can get yelled at for that, too. Cole tells Dana the assassin had infiltrated the security team, which Dana already knows from Chloe. A cordon is going up now, for all the good it's going to do. Remember how awesome CTU perimeters are? Whatever other issues last season may have had, at least the FBI knew how to seal off an area properly. Fortunately for CTU, Cole has just spotted Davros. I don't know if it's something about the way the guy in the motorcycle cop uniform is walking away, or that Cole recognizes Davros's face from a photo I don't think Cole ever saw, but when Davros sees Cole looking at him and breaks into a run, that's pretty much a giveaway. Cole draws his weapon and updates Dana that he's now chasing the suspect toward a neighboring building. Dana has Chloe put out a priority APB, which doesn't explain how Cole runs right past all these cops and agents and security guards milling around and ends up following Davros down a dark alley on his own. Davros ducks into a building, Cole in pursuit.