Episode Report Card M. Giant: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT A Terrorist Walks into a Bar[ometric Pressure Chamber]
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 10 | Aired on 03.01.2010
am, you say I'm a doctor and I'm cleared." He makes Owen precede him into the building at 10:47:02. You know, I thought those intelligence files were a bit of overkill at the beginning of this episode, but now it looks like they might just save the hour. Good thing Hassan didn't ask for them back the minute his brother died.There's a private jet idling on a runway at 1:51:22, and Hassan's soon-to-be-ex-wife Dalia is on it. She answers her cell phone, even though she tells Hassan not to try to change her mind about leaving. Or, as she pronounces it, "leavink." He says he's not calling about that, but about Kayla, and the possible danger she's in. "She's run away. With Tarin. They've been seeing each other." Dalia already knew that. Hassan asks her how long she's known, but she correctly says that's a little beside the point right now. Hassan tells her that Farhad is dead, the terrorists have the rods, and they're planning to use them in Manhattan. He doesn't have time to tell her the whole story; he just wants her to call Kayla, because he figures she's more likely to answer a call from her mom than from him. "She's angry at me," Hassan explains. "I had Tarin arrested. I thought he was part of the conspiracy." Wait, "thought"? What changed his mind? Tarin's escape? Which he clearly had inside help with? Maybe just the fact that he didn't kill Nabeel is enough for Hassan to snap out of his five-hour fit of paranoia. Dalia agrees to help, but wonders about Hassan. "Don't worry about me. Just help me find our daughter," he says. Dalia agrees. Aw, you think they'll get back together?
Owen is still leading Marcos through what must be a very big hospital. Either that, or he's pulling a Janis and pretending not to know where Farhad's room is. They get on an elevator while Marcos stares creepily at the side of Owen's head. Meanwhile, Kiefer is leading a small army of CTU agents up the stairwell while Chloe tells him she's identified the detonator, but she'll need to see the vest before she can figure out how to jam its signal. "Copy that," Kiefer says, and switches channels so Owen can hear him in his ear. Kiefer instructs Owen to get Marcos in front of a surveillance camera and make him show off his vest. Not asking much of this kid, is he? While Kiefer and his men take position out of sight in a side hallway -- and hope some geezer doesn't come wandering out with his IV stand squeaking away -- Marcos and Owen come through a third-floor door at 1:54:12. Owen spots a camera overhead, and stops where he is. He tells Marcos he wants to see proof that he has a bomb, pretending not to believe him. Marcos threatens to hit the detonator, but Owen's got his feet planted. "You want Farhad, you show me." There's a long moment while I try to identify the emotion I'm experiencing while watching this. I think it's actually suspense!
Finally, Marcos unzips his jacket and shows off the ordinance underneath. Chloe tells Kiefer, "Owen did it, Jack." Yay, Owen! Marcos gets Owen moving again. Kiefer is waiting near Farhad's room, and asks Chloe what's next. She just needs the receiver's frequency now, which apparently the computer finds by rapidly cycling through images of bombs. Most of us would get in trouble for doing that at work. Hastings gives her thirty seconds before Owen and Marcos get to Farhad's room. "Three-point-one-five gigahertz, standard GSM!" she finally auctioneers over to Arlo. Arlo punches it in through CTU's mobile comm systems, but it's going to take a few seconds to transmit the jamming signal. Kiefer tells his men to stand by. By now, Owen and Marcos are in Farhad's room, where Farhad is hooked up to all manner of machines, including a beeping EKG. Marcos yells at Owen to get on the floor face-down, which Owen does. Hastings rushes Arlo to finish up already while Marcos barricades the door. He takes a moment to look from Owen on the floor to Farhad in the bed, which gives Arlo just enough time to get done. "Jack, the vest is disarmed. Move in!" Hastings orders over a comm system that can apparently transmit voice communications as well as jamming signals simultaneously. Better hope it worked. Kiefer leads his men down the hall toward Farhad's room. Before they get there, Marcos hits the button. Nothing happens. Owen starts to get up, but is too slow to do anything more before Marcos pistol-whips him with his own gun. Nice try, though. Marcos then turns Owen's gun on Farhad, plugging the corpse six times. Yes, that should do it. But then Marcos sees that the EKG is still reading a steady 60 BPM. I wonder if the person in the adjoining room that it's plugged into misses it and wants it back.
Marcos seems to just be figuring out what happened when Kiefer bursts into the room at the head of his CTU column, coming in low so that when Marcos turns and shoots at him the bullet goes over his head. And that was his last round. CTU agents only get seven shots per clip in their sidearms? Maybe CTU should spend a little less on cutting-edge office design and more on ten-round magazines. Marcos drops Owen's empty gun and spreads his arms to face Kiefer and the other agents. Kiefer has his men lower their weapons, and does the same, saying they just want to talk. I don't know why he's approaching Marcos so gingerly, until I see the giant third floor window taking up an entire wall. What idiot's idea was it to put Farhad's body in this room? I only ask because Rob Weiss is going to want to know who to blame next hour while other people are dealing with the actual crisis. Marcos smiles at Kiefer and dives through the closed vertical blinds and the glass, landing hard on the pavement below. He's hurt but not dead, and Kiefer watches out the window as he gets up and runs off. "He's still moving, notify the perimeter," Kiefer says before following him out the window. Unlike Marcos, Kiefer has the benefit of being able to see the SUV parked not far from the window, and leaps down to the ground from there to pursue Marcos on foot. Kiefer has the further advantage of not being as injured as Marcos, with only his fresh knife wound in the gut and bullets in the shoulder to contend with. Kiefer bellows orders not to fire at the unarmed man. Marcos runs down some steps and across a courtyard before reentering the hospital through an unlocked entrance door that doesn't have a single CTU agent posted at it. Nice job "securing" the place. Kiefer follows, just in time to see a light go on in a room he's passing. Marcos just locked himself into a walk-in hyperbaric chamber. Which is also unsecured, apparently, in case someone walks in off the street in the middle of the night with the bends. Marcos spins the airlock wheel from inside and jams it by wedging in a metal leg from the cot in there, which he just snapped off like it was a Lego. Kiefer tries to get in, but of course can't. Oh, man, It's Joseph Wald all over again.
In other splitscreen windows, Hassan looks tired in his office and Taylor enters the UN parking ramp with her still Ethan-free entourage while Kiefer reports, "Suspect has barricade himself in some kind of pressure chamber. I need a team down here to help me open the door. Kayla and Tarin are naked in bed by now; Kamistanis do it with the sound off. And Dana and Cole seem to be en route back from their crime scene, sitting in sullen silence instead of figuring out some story to keep them out of trouble for the next hour or two.
At the Terror Diner, Samir's phone rings. It's Marcos, still able to get a cell phone signal even inside a room with solid metal walls a foot thick. "It was a trap," he reports. "Farhad was already dead." He says he's locked in someplace where they can't get at him yet. "You know what you must do," Samir says. Marcos says the detonator's scrambled, and Samir tells him to set it off manually. "I don't know how to do that," Marcos says, so Samir offers to talk him through it. "Work quickly. You can not let them take you alive." But doesn't that chamber have external controls? Kiefer could be