Episode Report Card M. Giant: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Uranium? MY-ranium!
By M. Giant | Season 9 | Episode 9 | Aired on 02.22.2010
Back at CTU, Chloe has already identified Farhad's voice on the call. "So he got his fuel rods," Hastings says. That very second, Arlo is on his way over to tell Hastings that Rob Weiss is on the line. Before going to take the call, Hastings tells Chloe to start interrogating Bazhaev as soon as he arrives. For all the good it will do.
Chloe calls Kiefer to get an ETA from him, and Kiefer says it'll be about fifteen minutes (which it won't). As for the likelihood of getting anything useful out of his prisoner, Kiefer says, "If Bazhaev could have told me how to get to the people who just killed his son, he would have." Chloe asks Kiefer if he's okay after his recent ordeal, which she already heard about somehow. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," he says, not huffily for once. He asks about Walker, and Chloe says she's still in Medical. Kiefer asks Chloe to patch him through to there, and a moment later, Kiefer's on the line with Walker. She's changed into a lighter shade of clothing and has her hair in a sleek ponytail, so clearly she's already emerging from that dark place she's been in. He quickly updates her on having and then losing the fuel rods, and says he's done with all this as soon as he delivers Bazhaev to CTU. Kiefer then asks her how it went with her telling about what happened between her and Vladimir. He's glad to hear that Chloe did the debriefing, and Walker corrects that it was more like a short talk, followed by Walker writing out a statement. Kiefer wants to confirm that she said she acted in self-defense. "Yes, like we agreed," Walker says, which isn't good enough for Kiefer; he wants her to believe she did nothing wrong. She says she'll try. I assume he means she hasn't done anything wrong since cutting Ziya's thumb off. She awkwardly brings up another topic: "When you said that I have you..." "I meant it like it sounded," Kiefer non-answers. Walker asks what's next, and he says they'll figure it out, which doesn't tell her much more. Between Dmitri and Ike Dubaku's brother and the Chinese and the Coral Snakes and everything else, Kiefer's maybe gotten a little too good at not answering questions.
At 12:08:42, Hastings finally reaches his office to take that call from Rob Weiss. Must have stopped to take a dump on the way. Rob already seems to have the whole picture, which he describes as "Not good, Brian. Really not." But isn't it good how he learned about Farhad's acquisition of the rods at the same second CTU did? There's something to be said for communication, after all. Rob reminds Hastings that he leaned on President Taylor to put Hastings in charge of the new CTU because he thought he could do the job. Hastings insists he can, which Rob is glad to hear. "'Cause when things get this colossally screwed up, people look for someone to blame." Yes, but those people are never anyone we like. Rob says he doesn't want Hastings to be the scapegoat, because that would blow back on Rob. "And that cannot happen. Are we on the same page here?" Hastings isn't even in the same book, so Rob brings up Walker. "She killed one of our main leads, isn't that right?" Yes, but at least she waited until he had proven himself useless. Hastings, who an hour ago was after Walker's blood himself, comes to her defense now, saying she was defending herself from a psychopath. "She stabbed him fifteen times," Rob says. Maybe he was a very persistent psychopath. Hastings points out that Walker risked her life. "I'm sure that will weigh in her favor," Rob says. Clearly it already has for Hastings, because he continues to resist this idea until Rob impatiently asks him who he wants to take the fall. When Hastings doesn't give an answer -- not even Chloe -- Rob says he's sending over someone from Justice named Kristin Smith. "Just open the door and get out of the way." It's 12:10:22, and I think there might be some doubt regarding whether Hastings will be able to accomplish even that much.
12:14:42. Now that Cole has satisfied himself that the truck stop Bazhaev sent them to is a dry hole, uranium-wise, it's time for him and his team to pack up and head back to CTU. Except then he gets a call from Arlo, who has the GPS coordinates from Dana's phone. Cole tells Arlo to send them to his PDA, and when stupid Arlo points out that might not be such a good idea, Cole snaps, "You're the one who stuck his nose in all this. Just do it." Cole tells Arlo that the rest of his team is heading back and he'll follow within the hour. "If Hastings asks, just tell him I'm following up a lead," Cole adds. Which I'm sure will satisfy Hastings. With Cole and Dana both out on vague errands, he's probably going to assume they got a room somewhere. Arlo asks Cole if this is worth going AWOL over. "She's my fiancé, Arlo," Cole snaps, and hangs up. Then he walks over, commandeers a CTUmobile, and sits behind the wheel considering for a moment before pulling out. Of the parking lot, that is, not out of the relationship. Which is the opposite of what he should do.
At 12:16:05, Dana kills her headlights as she pulls into a secluded area of what I guess is Central Park, following Kevin's van as it parks near what I assume is the Reservoir. It's dark and wooded enough to be in south Jersey, but then the Manhattan skyscrapers are awfully close in the background. Anyway, Dana pulls her gun out of her purse, screws on a silencer, and settles in to wait, while Kevin and Nick canoodle in the van with a couple of strippers while listening to heavy metal music. I wish I could tell you that the tunes are provided by a 24-core band called Cyprus Audio, but that would, as far as I know, be a fiction.
Back at CTU, Hastings asks Arlo if Dana's back yet. Arlo says no, and asks, "Do you need her for something?" Hastings incredulously repeats the question, and says, "She's my chief data analyst. I need her to do her job." He tells Arlo to let him know when he finds her. Arlo doesn't tell Hastings where she is right now, even though he could, so I guess he's more loyal to Dana and Cole than his boss for some reason. And now, every person at CTU has officially covered for her. I hope they can still find time to save the country in between keeping her out of trouble.