Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Undercover Lover
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 6 | Aired on 02.01.2010
Dana comes out into the same surface parking lot where she met Kevin earlier, and Kevin gets out of the van so they can step around behind it and whisper with their faces really close. She gives him the phone, which she says has the address and schematic of the evidence lockup. She also gives him the keycard, and tells him to look for evidence bin 4301. She also gives him a comm earpiece so she can give him instructions as they go. And then she gives him a big window cling to stick on the vault's door that reads, "THIS INSIDE JOB WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY Dana Walsh AT CTU." Does she really think none of this is going to be traceable back to her, especially given how quickly she's pulling this together? No way is she spending any time at all covering her tracks. She repeats the deal they have: she helps him with this and he never calls her again. "Sure. Jenny, that's the deal," he says. She seems satisfied with this, even though he's about as convincing as a dentist who says, "This won't hurt." I think Dana's only hope here is that she's secretly sending him into a trap, where live, heavily armed guards will shoot him and Nick in both the face and the phone records. He says he'll call her when they get there. Meanwhile, Nick is watching this in the van's mirror all creepily, but that isn't Dana's biggest problem; someone even creepier is watching even more creepily. That would be Arlo, who is at his desk playing back the security cam footage of what just happened in the parking lot, showing Dana and Kevin behind the van, talking very closely. No way does this look good.
Walker opens the shower curtain, wraps a towel around herself, and steps out. Good thing she did it in that order, because Vladimir is standing there in the open doorway. Didn't she lock that? "Be out in a minute," she mutters, trying to dismiss him. He says he can't wait that long, even for her to get dressed. "Why waste the energy? I'll just have to get you undressed all over again." How many drinks did he have while she was in there, anyway? Walker again repeats that this isn't what she's here for. Kiefer is hearing all this as he drives to the meeting, now with a white dress shirt on under his leather jacket. So Walker showered with her earpiece in? That doesn't seem wise. Of course it wouldn't be good for Vladimir to see it sitting out on the sink, either. Vladimir continues being creepy, ordering her to come to him. When she doesn't, he drains the glass he's holding and then hurls it against the wall. Well now, how is she supposed to come to him, barefoot in a room with broken glass on the floor? She'll be stranded there for the rest of the season, unless Vladimir owns a broom. But he says if she doesn't come to him, the deal's off. Still damp and wearing only the towel, she goes. He gets all in her space, kissing and touching her, while her eyes go even more horrified and haunted than usual. "I'll take that drink now," she finally says. And some ether, if he's got it. Vladimir agrees to wait for her outside, and she again hears Kiefer in her ear, saying, "You don't have to do this. We have a team standing by. We can get you out of there now." Walker says she has to, even as Kiefer begs her not to go through with it. She sheds one tear and then shuts down. "I'm going dark," she says. Which I think actually happened about an hour and a half ago. Then she removes the earpiece from her ear -- with Kiefer still talking helplessly into it -- and washes it down the sink. She leaves the bathroom at 9:37:02.
9:41:22. At the U.N., a British delegate is complaining to the one from Kamistan about what Hassan has been doing. Hassan's delegate is defending his boss, which is why it's kind of ironic when Hassan's security chief walks up and interrupts them so he can talk to the Kamistani delegate. Specifically, to arrest him, although he does it discreetly. The delegate wants to talk to Hassan, but the Security Chief says it's Hassan who gave the order, and repeats his request for the last time. The delegate draws himself up and agrees. The security chief orders the delegate taken to his car at 9:42:52, and says he'll be right there. The British delegate is left wondering what's wrong, and the security chief gives him some lame excuses. And then he goes off to call Hassan's daughter Kayla. He wants to talk to her about her father when he gets back from the embassy. Well, this should be so fascinating we won't even hear any more about it this hour.
At the clinic, the hostage doctor is showing Josef how to administer Oleg's anti-radiation drugs via injections directly into the IV bag. "Radiation poisoning is transferable through bodily fluids," he warns. Yikes, I hope he hasn't been peeing in that restaurant pantry. The Board of Health might have a thing or two to say about that. He's getting three weeks' worth of meds, and if it's working, the symptoms will start getting better in seven to ten days. Which right there tells us that Oleg is doomed. But Josef reassures Oleg that it's all in hand. There's another knock on the door, and Dr. Levine says it's the nurse with the meds. Josef takes up position with his gun and nods for the doc to open. But when the doctor does, it is so not a nurse that he gets shot dead by a guy with a gun. Before Josef can react, another gunman comes in through the room's other door, ordering, "Throw down your weapon, Josef." Josef is flanked, with two guns pointing at him from different directions. All he can do is obey, after a long, tense moment. The gunman asks who else knows. "Just the doctor," Josef says. They start pulling out Oleg's IV, saying, "your father sent us to bring you home." Yeah, Bazhaev must have realized something was wrong the minute Josef pleaded traffic. There's never traffic in the 24-verse. When Josef protests, Oleg says it's okay, and they clear out of there, passing two more corpses in the hallway while the speaking thug calls Bazhaev to say they found them, "At a clinic in Mount Vernon." He doesn't explain how he knew where to find them, so we'll just have to hope that Josef's phone doesn't have a trackable GPS that he was stupid enough to forget about. The gunman tells Bazhaev, "Nobody will know we were here." They'll just assume it was some bizarre murder-suicide pact, but the participants changed their minds at the last second? But Bazhaev is satisfied. "Now bring my sons to me."
Kiefer's costume now also includes a pair of Harry Potter glasses as he arrives at the rendezvous on the roof of the parking garage at 9:46:07, Manhattan beautifully lit up behind them. After showily doing a donut in his German-engineered Volkswagen sedan, he gets out of the car, and Lugo asks, "Meier?" "That's right," Kiefer growls, not even attempting a German accent. "I grew up traveling with my father," he explains, pulling out a cigarette. In subtitled German, Lugo says, "Never been there, but I hear the women are beautiful." "You heard right," Kiefer agrees in the same language. Tricky! "Unfortunately I am too busy working to enjoy them." Still in German, Lugo comments on Kiefer's American accent. Kiefer says he went to university here, and does most of his business with people who speak English. "I guess it rubs off," he says. "Maybe we should speak in English," Lugo suggests. "German is such a...dirty language." Remembering to pretend to take offense, Kiefer shoots back, "And you are a dirty people. But here we are." This working relationship is getting off to a great start. Switching to English, Kiefer asks, "Are we gonna do business or not?" They spar a bit about the five million, and Kiefer's insistence on speaking to Vladimir before making the transfer. I guess he figures if Vladimir's on the phone with him he can't be sexing up Walker.
Unfortunately, Vladimir seems to have already finished up with her. He's up but she's still in his bed, although she isn't exactly carving hearts with "R+V" in them on the wall. Vladimir's phone rings, and he agrees to talk to Kiefer. He promises that it shouldn't be more than an hour before he knows something about the uranium rods, and Kiefer wants to talk to Walker. Vladimir refuses, and Kiefer lets it go for now, handing the phone back to Lugo. Whom Vladimir tells, "Once the money's confirmed into our account, you know what to do." End of call. Meanwhile, Kiefer has a laptop out on the trunk of his car, and asks for the account number. Lugo hands him a card. Kiefer gets busy with the computer as he says, "I'm transferring the money through multiple accounts so it can't be traced." Even through the handy world-map graphic interface that shows the money physically bouncing all over the globe? How secure can that be? "This'll take a moment," Kiefer says. We'll start the moment-clock at 9:48:52, then.
9:53:04. Walker's just about dressed, back in her previous clothes, and is putting her hair back in a ponytail while fretting at Vladimir that he should be making calls to track down the rods. Vladimir says there will be no calls, because there will be no deal. Thinking he's so clever, he says they won't need the buyer any more once they have the five million. Walker's pretty pissed, obviously, but he says he's no fool. "I'm not about to get involved with the kind of people who traffic in nuclear arms." Much better to kill one. Walker, letting her real distress show, tells Vladimir that this deal has to happen. "I bring you the score of a lifetime and you just piss it away?" When that doesn't work, she tries working on his other head, getting all breathy and in his face. "Once we've made the deal and we have money, we can be together...But I need my buyer alive." Despite having just