Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Heads of State
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 16 | Aired on 04.05.2010
er her hood along the way, and he peels her face off the airbag and drags her out of the car He hauls her out by her hair and pins her against a support column, demanding, "Who are you, you lying bitch?" So does this mean the engagement is off? He holds his gun to her bloody mouth until Hastings comes running with some more guards, holding a gun of his own like he's looking for someone to hand it over to. He makes Cole release her, and gets in her face himself, asking where Hassan is. "I want to talk to Jack Bauer," Dana says. "You want answers? Get Bauer." Two uniformed guards drag her off. It's 7:12:36, and this is not going to help Kiefer's messiah complex.7:16:54. Dana's in one of those dorky little white interrogation capsules that CTU uses now. Obviously if they wanted to question her while the power was still out, they would have been shit out of luck. Watching her being secured there on a video feed while she glances around in a way calculated to project maximum evil, Hastings asks Cole, "If her name's not Dana Walsh, who is she?" Cole says she told him she was Jenny Scott. Hastings asks for more specifics. Cole tells him about her past involvement with a felon, the armed robberies, and the person who ended up dead. "That's all I know, but it's not relevant to finding Hassan." Notice how he left out what happened tonight? Hastings says he'll decide what's relevant, and asks why Cole didn't report it. Cole says he just found out himself a few hours ago, which does not impress Hastings. Cole looks at Dana, still looking around the capsule evilly, and says he was just trying to protect her. Now that kind of seems like a wasted effort, doesn't it? Hastings wonders what was going on when they were AWOL earlier, which is probably something he should have asked at the time, LIKE I SAID. "It's a long story, sir, and it won't help us find President Hassan," Cole insists, without mentioning that telling it would also violate his Fifth Amendment rights. He offers to do a full debrief after the crisis, but wants to stay on until it's over. "Give me a chance to make this right," he begs. Instead of answering, Hastings answers the ringing phone and hears that Kiefer has returned to CTU. "Send him to Interrogation," Hastings orders, and hangs up before telling Cole to go to debrief. Cole protests that Hastings needs him, but Hastings says he needs people he can trust. "Start by getting down everything you know. Then we'll talk." Exit Hastings. Cole is left staring at his fiancée on the monitor, and wondering how he's going to get his ring back. Should he ask for it politely, or just take the whole hand?
Kiefer enters the observation room, where Walker is doing some observing with the tech guy from before. Walker brings Kiefer up to speed on Dana, and the most important part, which is that "she's not saying anything until she talks to you." Hastings bursts in and tells him he just talked to Cole. "You know he was her fiancé?" "That would explain a few things," Kiefer deadpans. Hastings and Walker debate how much Cole might know about Dana, until Kiefer pronounces, "Cole's clean." Well, that's one less thing for everyone to worry about. Hastings wonders why Dana wants to talk to him. "Don't know. Just met her today," Kiefer shrugs, shedding his jacket because there's no room to wear it inside that little capsule. "But I think we should find out, don't you?" It's 7:19:45 as Hastings orders the capsule opened so Kiefer can get in there with her. Handing Hastings his weapon, Kiefer quietly and somewhat pissily reminds him, "I kept up my end of our deal. The nucular rods are recovered. The only reason I'm still here is because I gave President Taylor my word that I would protect President Hassan." He looks ready to rumble, until Hastings agreeably says, "I know." Abashed, Kiefer thanks him and lets it drop. That isn't going to make him feel very psyched up as he steps inside the white cylinder.
Kiefer's first question to Dana is, predictably, about himself, wondering why she wants to talk to him. "Because you're the only one here who doesn't have his head up his ass," Dana says. Exactly what he wanted to hear. She gets to the point, offering to deliver Hassan, because she knows what the bad guys have planned for him. All she wants in exchange is immunity, a clean record, "and I want to be compensated." Is that all? In other words, she wants her share of the cash the IRK agents are sitting on. "I lost a lot of money when this deal went south," she explains. Is that all? She doesn't want CTU to pay for her wedding? A pre-pardon for the other crimes she committed earlier tonight before she turned evil? A chance to reshoot the Battlestar Galactica finale? Kiefer is surprised that this is about money. "Isn't it always?" she condescends. Kiefer wants proof before taking this to Taylor. "In about a half hour you will have all the proof you need," she says. "Hassan's head." Well, he walked into that one. Kiefer loses it, hissing, "You little bitch," and dragging her up against the wall by her throat. Twice in an hour, she gets called that. Everyone in the observation room just observes, although Hastings curses quietly. Kiefer tells her that her only leverage comes from the fact that Hassan is alive, "so stop screwing with me!" Dana grits, "They are going to force him to make a statement and then they are going to kill him, live over the internet." Oh, I hate when that happens. "So I suggest we stop haggling and you start making this happen!" Kiefer lets her go, and says he'll go to Taylor. "But you'd better understand that if we don't recover President Hassan alive, you get nothing." As he heads for the door, Dana says that's why she wanted him. "Hassan is heavily protected. I need someone with your experience running the show. There's been enough screw-ups for one day, don't you think?" You would think that, yes. Kiefer asks her about the money comment she made earlier. "Who was supposed to pay you?" Her only answer is, "Tick tock, Mr. Bauer. You're running out of time." Kiefer leaves her with the last word. As much as I've hated her all season, I have to admit that it was fun watching the two of them go at each other like that.
As Kiefer reclaims his weapon out in the observation area, the tech says the biometrics hold up, which Walker doesn't buy. Kiefer agrees. "This isn't just about the money for her. She's hiding something." But they have no choice but to follow up. "We need to call the president," he says. Fortunately, Taylor is constantly attended by staff who can give her immediate access to missile launch codes, a phone line to the Kremlin, and her giant stack of blank immunity agreements.
At 7:23:05, the Hassan-da pulls through an alley into an off-street parking lot shielded from public view. Still wearing her blonde wig, the driver backs up to a tear in the chain-link fence where one of Samir's men is positioned, and where the lookout on the roof can see them. Hassan is crashed out in the trunk with his eyes half open until she makes with the smelling salts, and the henchman helps him out of the trunk, through the hole into the fence, and down the stairs to a basement entrance of an apartment building. Dragging him up the stairwell, he encounters a little Muslim boy with a ball, and tells him in Arabic, "Get out of here. Go play somewhere else." At the landing, the non-blonde takes off her wig. Well, that should throw off any pursuers.
In an apartment upstairs, Samir waits next to the latest of his makeshift TV studios, complete with an IRK flag as a backdrop behind a chair. The bomb tech from earlier enters to say Hassan is on his way up. He thinks they should kill Hassan right away, but Samir insists, "We need him to confess his crimes, renounce his lies." Yeah, that'll happen. The tech says the longer they wait, the greater the chance of a rescue attempt. "He will never be rescued," Samir says in an evil whisper. "He will die. Right here." Well, speak of the devil; Hassan is brought in and plunked down in the chair. Samir stands over him, and it turns out this isn't their first meeting. "You were a general in the Revolutionary Guard," Samir reminisces. "I had the honor of briefing you on our operations in Abul Province. You were a great leader then. What happened? Why did you turn your back on our country?" Hassan, still pretty groggy from the knockout drugs, manages a weak "I'm rubber, you're glue" type of response. They argue for a bit about the concepts of surrender versus peace, and Hassan says he remembers Samir. He asks if Samir in turn remembers the four-day, uphill battle back in the day, when everyone expected them to get their Revolutionary asses handed