Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Friday the 13th, Part XXIV
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.17.2010
his famous sleeper holds. Kiefer leaves the inert ex-POTUS on the floor, and somehow gets out -- without Jason or any of the CTU guys seeing him -- before Jason finds Logan on the ground and has Eden call the paramedics for his boss. And given what happened after Kiefer and Logan's last tense tête-à-tête, three seasons ago, a bug-sweeping team might be in order as well.Arlo and Chloe quit eavesdropping -- because they've been listening in this whole time -- and return their attention to the issue of how to contact Jim. Arlo wonders what Chloe plans to do next. Aside from the fact that Jason will know if they divert someone, "all of our agents are fully deployed in the field. There's nobody to send." "There's one," Chloe reminds him, at 1:35:32. Oh my God, who could she mea--? Oh, it's Cole. Never mind.
1:39:52. Eden accosts Chloe in the CTU hallway, upset because she just heard that Division is releasing Cole into Chloe's custody. And if Eden's mad, imagine how Morris will feel. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm still in charge of U.N. security," Chloe snits. Why would she have noticed? "You've taken away all my resources, and not that it's any of your business, but Agent Ortiz designed the entire U.N. operation. The signing is in two hours. His assistance in the field is vital." You wouldn't think it's possible to say "vital" snottily, but Chloe's powers of snottiness are more than up to the task. Eden says she'll need to clear it with Jason, and Chloe leaves her to it. "To me you have bigger problems, like not finding Jack Bauer." Good thing Chloe doesn't have that problem.
Reed is sitting in a coffee shop, where a giant news screen is playing old (i.e. yesterday) footage of Hassan. A barista comes up to tell her she has a phone call, and she comes up to the counter to take it. Still in his office, her editor Gary tells her that the FBI showed up before he left, and they're looking for her. Maybe he'll hit the door a little faster next time one of his reporters calls him with a desperate story. He says he didn't tell them anything, but they have an executive order and are throwing around the words "national security risk," which at this point is one of those phrases that always makes me worry more about the response than the actual threat. Reed says it's a cover-up, and Gary tells her to protect the evidence. "I told them I haven't had any contact with you, but for all I know, they're tracing this call. You better get the hell out of there." "Go where?" Reed whines. He's your boss, not your dad, Reed. An agent bangs angrily on the locked glass door of Gary's office, and Gary claims to just be cancelling an appointment. Which he sort of is. While the Feds work on breaking in, he quickly tells Reed that he'll try calling someone at the Justice Department, "But until then, lay low. Now go." Reed goes.
At 1:42:06, Cole paces in his cell until Chloe hands an order to the guard outside and comes in. "Let's go," she says. Cole wonders what's going on, and Chloe says she needs him at the U.N. "Are you coming or would you rather wait here for your federal prosecution?" Cole goes with the former. In the hallway, Chloe quietly gives Cole the real story: they found Jim, who is now also ex-CIA, officially deceased. "Most likely he's gone into business for himself, dealing arms or intel. In any case, he's not going to be happy we tracked him down." Maybe not, but he should be more embarrassed than anything else. She wants Cole to go talk to him. "Are you good with that or are you still not taking sides?" Cole has taken one, and he asks whether any more "intel" has "surfaced" on Kiefer. "Yeah, you could say that," Chloe understates.
At Novakovich's hotel suite, one of his guards tells him that Suvarov's plane just landed at JFK, and Novakovich wants to go meet him at the U.N. Meanwhile, in the parking garage below at 1:44:02, his driver gets the call to bring the car around. But before the driver can even get behind the wheel, Kiefer appears, dressed once again in his civvies, and bounces the driver's head off the roof of the car a few times before demanding, "Where's Novakovich?" Well, he would have gotten in the car in a couple of minutes from now if only Kiefer had waited. The driver is briefly resistant, but when he finds a gun at his throat, he starts rattling off suite numbers, instructions for getting on the secure elevator, and guard positions. Kiefer gratefully pistol-whips him to the ground and stomps over to the elevator, pumping a shotgun. The he switches back to the pistol, and effortlessly double-taps two guards as soon as he comes around a corner into their sight. He loots one of the corpses for its elevator key card, which he swipes and hits the button. But while he's waiting for the elevator, one of the Russians turns out to be only mostly dead and comes after Kiefer with a knife. He manages to stick Kiefer with it before Kiefer twists his arm around and uses it on his attacker. This time he's really and truly most sincerely dead. Finally the elevator arrives, and as Kiefer gets on, he checks his shirt and his hand comes away bloody. Damn, second time today he's been stabbed in that spot. It's 1:45:56.
At 1:50:13, Cole is loading a couple of big duffels into the trunk of a CTU car, although the two of them together don't add up to one Duffel of Justice. "Better to have it than not," he tells Chloe when she questions whether he needs a whole arsenal. "Besides, Ricker's a trained killer. He's gone to a lot of trouble to stay off the grid. Also, I have to consider the possibility that Jack's with him." Oh, so one of those duffels has an air strike in it? Cole isn't as concerned about bringing Kiefer in alive any more, "After what he did to Logan....He terrorized a tunnel full of commuters with automatic weapon fire. He shot Secret Service agents." Oh, and he gutted a dude, too. Did Chloe tell Cole that part? "He shot to wound," Chloe says lamely in reference to the Secret Service guys. Cole says Kiefer only cares about revenge. "Does that sound like the man you know? Like the man you're trying to save?" Chloe continues to insist that this is about exposing the Russians. Cole wants her to be sure. "Because if Jack's there, and he makes a move other than complete surrender, I'm putting him down. Still want me to go?" Chloe knows she has no choice. And it probably doesn't hurt that in a match-up between Kiefer and Cole -- well, never mind, that hypothetical match-up was over before I could even finish that sentence. "Whatever happens, call me at the U.N.," Chloe says. Exit Cole, with a squeal of tires, at 1:51:35.
Somewhere at the U.N., some chick is telling Kayla the plan for the signing ceremony. Kayla will be honored to get to sit next to her mother, but points out that she has no official government post. Before we can go down the rabbit hole about how five hours ago neither did Dalia, someone else enters to tell Kayla that there's a woman on the phone insisting on talking to Dalia. But since Dalia's in a meeting, she's wondering if Kayla can take it instead. They run things pretty tightly over there at the U.N.
Obviously it's Reed, calling from a pay phone in a hotel lobby. She makes the mistake of giving Kayla her name, and of course Kayla isn't all that keen on letting her talk to Dalia, or even to herself. You know, because of Reed's history of Hassan-fucking. Reed gets that, but insists that there's something Dalia needs to know before she signs the treaty. "It's about the people who really murdered your father," Reed blurts. "What you don't know is that those people were working under the orders of Russian agents." That's got Kayla's attention. She takes down a number Reed gives her (for the pay phone?), even as Reed sees what looks like a couple of plainclothes FBI agents getting closer. She quickly hangs up and starts trying to cross the lobby, but another agent who just walked in calls her name, and a moment later she's suffering a bullshit arrest for the second time in as many days. A female agent ransacks her purse -- because the purse-tossing should always be left to the ladies -- and hands the lead agent the memory card she finds inside. "You're under arrest," the agent declares, and she's frog-marched to the door. That'll teach her to carry memory cards around.
At 1:53:56, Taylor is moping out the window when Tim enters. He's already learned about Reed's arrest and the confiscation of the memory card. "No one sees what's on it but me," Taylor says. "Understood," Tim says, and withdraws. Tim may seem like an undistinguished bureaucrat, but his ability to learn about things almost before they happen must make him a valuable member of the administration.
Somewhere under New York, Logan is on a gurney with an oxygen mask in his face, being wheeled along surrounded by an army of agents and paramedics. Big baby. All he's endured is a little manhandling, a punch to the gut, a sleeper hold, and a snootful of tear gas and he's acting like he's at death's door with a battering ram. Jason insists on riding in the ambulance with him, but first he tells the milling uniforms to clear out so they can talk. Logan pulls down the mask and manages to gasp to Jason, "Novakovich. Bauer knows. Warn Novakovich. Bauer's coming after him." Jason tells the EMTs to hold off while he makes the call. Is it too late? Maybe if they had a Tim Woods on their side.
There's a phone ringing in a hotel suite somewhere. There's also a body on the floor outside the door, with a gun nearby. And another body. And a puddle of gore on the cream carpet. And a smeary red trail leading from