By M. Giant
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Even with Kiefer in his hideout, Vladimir's not doing so well on tracking down those rods. He prefers to drink, grope Walker, and taunt Kiefer. And even when he does get a hold of Sergei Bazhaev, his countryman is no help. Bazhaev blows off Vladimir, postpones the delivery of the rods, and then… well, we'll come back to that. Finally, after coming up empty, Vladimir finally pushes Walker too far and she stabs him to death with a bread knife. The same clusterfuck also gets Vladimir's two surviving goons killed and Kiefer stabbed, although he recovers in record time even for him. Kiefer thinks they have enough to work with and that he and Walker are done for the day, but then the Russian hit squad Bazhaev sent shows up. Kiefer lets them take him, on the assumption that CTU will be able to track him from the air. But since the bad guys took him out by the sewer tunnels, that's not going to work. What do we say about assuming, Kiefer?
Dana's dodging work to run ops on that little robbery for Kevin (who's even dumber than she is), and people are starting to notice. Worse, Nick gets greedy and they hang around the evidence lockup too long, ending up beating down a cop so they can make their belated escape.
And on the U.N. front, President Taylor keeps the peace deal together and then spills word of the contraband uranium to the British delegate for some reason. Meanwhile, Hassan lets his security chief think he's talked him down from the ledge he's on, but he's just going further into the dark side. And Hassan still has plenty of people who will follow his most paranoid orders. Will even the security chief's relationship with Hassan's daughter help him now? Well, she's already showing signs of growing a pair, which is one of the biggest surprises so far.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!President Allison Taylor, President Omar Hassan, Dana Walsh (telling Kevin about his upcoming heist, "Nobody will know you were there"), Sergei Bazhaev, Renee Walker, and Jack Bauer are in the previouslies freeze-frames this week. Nice of them to pick a shot where Kiefer was wearing his disguise that consisted of a pair of Harry Potter glasses.
At the U.N., that meeting Taylor wanted to have with the representatives of the countries signing the peace agreement already seems to be over, and looks to have been a success. By the way, this looks like another Ethan-free episode. Perhaps that medication we saw him taking at the beginning of the season is to keep him from phasing entirely out of existence. Rob remarks to Taylor that they're probably safe until tomorrow morning, at least. Does that mean no more screen time wasted on this? The British delegate we met last week, not having been fooled for a moment, approaches Taylor to ask her what's really going on. He invokes the century of mutual trust between the U.S. and the U.K. (only a century? Was the War of 1812 more recent than I thought?) and promises to keep whatever she tells him quiet. She rolls right over and says to keep what she's about to tell him between the two of them and the delegate's Prime Minister: the people who went after Hassan are also after nuclear materials. "CTU is running an undercover operation to retrieve them as we speak." I hope that whatever Taylor's reasons were for keeping this quiet, they're sufficiently balanced by the need to maintain her relationship with Downing Street and the demands of early-episode exposition.
Vladimir's chief lieutenant Lugo is driving Kiefer's undercover Audi (not a Volkswagen, as I wrongly said in last week's recap, but still -- German engineering!) with Kiefer riding in the back seat, his gun leveled at Lugo's head. Kiefer's cell phone rings, and he tells Lugo it's probably his "backup," which is true enough. "No calls 'til we get to Vladimir," Lugo pronounces. Echoing my thoughts and sounding almost sincerely curious, Kiefer asks Lugo over his gun sight, "Does this look like a situation where you get to make demands?" Instead of waiting for an answer, he takes the call. It is indeed Cole calling, on his way out of the building whose roof he used as his sniper perch. Kiefer doesn't even have to be discreet as he tells Cole they're on their way to Vladimir's place. Cole offers more backup, but Kiefer says to hold off on that. "There are other considerations," he says, rather more discreetly. Cole realizes that means Walker, and agrees to hang back. "I'll let you know," Kiefer says, and hangs up. Lugo gets all curious about the call, and Kiefer tells him, "Shut up and drive." Audi's new slogan, ladies and gentlemen.