Episode Report Card M. Giant: B+ | 1 USERS: C- YOU GRADE IT Women's Work
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 13 | Aired on 03.22.2010
At 4:30:04, Chloe returns to the server room, and takes a moment to heave a nervous sigh before entering. When she does, Haynam isn't any happier to see her then he was before, even when she tries to show him the safety workaround she came up with. With a loud but slightly shaky voice, she says, "I'm going to have to ask you one last time, we really need to do this my way. We have agents in the field who are close to finding the nuclear rods and they need our help." Haynam again tells her to get out, threatening to call security. But instead of leaving, she pulls a snub-nosed automatic on him and says, "You get out!" She orders everyone to clear the room, and while they do, Haynam, with his hands held high, tries to reason with her. Because that usually works out well for people. She says she doesn't want to hurt him. "You're probably an okay guy when you're not at work. And you're wearing a wedding ring. I swear to god, if you don't leave right now, I will shoot you." He hesitates, and she finally gets him to clear out. She locks the door behind him. Outside, Haynam tells his men to get Hastings, and security. You think?
Shooting is still going on at the docks. Someone's going to have to run out of ammo at some point, right? The bad guys are slowly moving in, and Cole warns that they're about to be flanked. I think the greater danger is that the shooters might get close enough for Kiefer to kill them all and then he won't need to execute his genius plan. Which he now explains to the other agents, now that two large, rectangular armor plates have been removed from the truck. He explains to them that they'll use the two plates to "form a wedge so we can make it to the call box." He says they need to move slowly and stay together or it won't work. "No mater how difficult it gets out there, this armor is going to protect us. You need to trust that." Okay, so if the armor's so awesome, why did Kiefer panic and crash the CTUmobile in the first place when he and his fellow agents were safely inside? He has Cole and King take one plate while he and Owen take the other at 4:32:33. They form up, and the two big black armor plates slowly walk out into the pavement with the men behind them, bullets bouncing off them the whole way. It's clearly too much for King's nerves, and he wants to make a run for it, even as Kiefer tells him to stay in formation. "We're almost there, move!" King says, trying to rush ahead. Uh, what does he think is going to happen when they get there? It's not like the call box is protected or anything. But it's moot anyway, because of course he gets shot and their little mobile shelter immediately collapses, leaving them out in the open. Kiefer, Cole, and Owen run for cover, firing the whole way, while King lies there helplessly, occasionally stopping a bullet with the odd extremity. Once the other three reach the relative safety of a storage shed, Kiefer tells a clearly worried Owen, "There's nothing we can do for him now." And Kiefer doesn't seem to feel too bad about it either. This is of course what happens to everybody who doesn't listen to Kiefer, sooner or later. The terrorists are of course being careful not to actually kill King, because nobody's going to come out to rescue a dead guy. Owen hates to abandon his colleague, and Cole agrees: "We don't leave our men behind." Well, if it makes them feel better, they can't leave at all when they're pinned down like this. Again. Because of King, I might add. Kiefer maintains, "Best thing we can do for him is make it to the hard line, try and call for help." He tells Cole to cover the north and Owen the east, and Kiefer can make it to the phone. King raises a hand for help, and gets it shot. I don't know what Kiefer's waiting for now that he's outlined the plan, but after a long moment, Owen runs out into the open after King anyway. Since he's just committed them anyway, Kiefer and Cole jump out to provide covering fire while Owen drags King toward the shelter. He's almost there when he gets shot and goes down as well. Cole and Kiefer have to drag both of them in now, but at least Cole finally scores a hit on one of the bad guys. About time. When they're back in relative safety, Owen apologizes to Kiefer through a mouthful of blood. "I couldn't leave him behind," he says. "You did great," Kiefer assures him. Owen asks if King made it, because apparently he's too badly wounded to turn his head and look. Kiefer looks over at Cole, who shakes his head; Kiefer lies that King survived, and tries to plug Owen's leaky carotid artery with his thumb or something. Cole says the bad guys are repositioning. "Stay on them," Kiefer orders, like it matters at this point. It's 4:35:22.
At 4:39:43, the Hassans are all finally reunited as Kayla tearfully steps off the elevator at the U.N., trailed by CTU agents. She and her mother embrace, almost emotionally enough to disturb Dalia's makeup, which is still holding up spectacularly. Kayla assures her that she's all right, and then apologizes to her father for not listening to her about Tarin. Never mind the fact that Hassan was probably still wrong when he started suspecting Tarin the first time because the writers hadn't yet decided to make him evil. He tells her she's safe and that's what matters, which is big of him. One of the CTU agents who escorted her here tells Hassan that CTU is working on an underground evacuation route. "If there is a radiological attack, you'll be shielded underground," he explains. We'll see how that works out, I'm sure. They'll be leaving as soon as possible, and the agent adds that President Taylor is waiting with the other delegates at the evacuation site. Oh, yeah, it's been such a long time since we've even seen President Taylor, I'd almost forgotten about him. Kayla goes on ahead with some of the agents to look at those intelligence files while Dalia pulls herself back together and tells Hassan, "She's strong. She'll be all right." You have to be, on this show. Hassan, though, is still shaken. "We almost lost her. And I almost lost you. All for a peace agreement that could fall apart at any moment." He's starting to worry about the enemies waiting for him at home, too. Dalia tells him the one thing she hasn't doubted is that he's doing "an absolute good." She wants him to be strong, too. Yeah, I seem to remember him being particularly "strong" in the hours after the assassination attempt, and look how that worked out. Instead of responding, he takes her arm and leads her into the other room. At this rate they're going to be renewing their vows by the end of the season.
Hastings, Haynam, and a hardware tech (who I think was actually an AV guy in Season 4) head down to the server room. Haynam's in a big hurry to get in there before Chloe blows the place up (again), and the tech says it won't be more than a few minutes to drill through the lock mechanism. While they're waiting, Haynam takes advantage of the downtime to bitch at Hastings about Chloe: "Where the hell do you find these people, Hastings?" Hastings tries to calm Haynam down by saying he thinks Chloe was just trying to scare him with the gun, and Haynam says she succeeded. Dana appears in the hallway, apparently having been summoned by Hastings. "O'Brian's gone off the deep end," Hastings explains. "She thinks she knows how to get the CTU [sic] up and running, but she's locked herself in the server room to do it." Dana asks what she's trying to do, and Haynam tells Dana about Chloe's trunk line plan. Dana's reaction is hard to read, but it looks as though she's thinking that might actually work. The drilling commences.
Inside the room, at 4:42:52, Chloe's busy with all manner of hand-wiring when she hears the drilling start. She keeps working, but the door's open in a matter of seconds. Two uniforms enter with guns drawn, and Hastings, followed into the room by Haynam, tells her to stop what she's doing and give up the gun. Chloe limply hands it over, saying, "Don't shoot or anything." Chloe babbles about how she knows this is crazy, but "I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it could work." She just nee