24: High Noon

It’s almost lunch time in ’24′ land! This week, we only have an hour to cover. What a treat! I’m still recovering from the carpal tunnel syndrome recapping 4 hours gave me last week.

I hope you are hungry for some twists, some turns, a bunch of angry faces, a double-cross or two, and some staggering acts of D-Baggery!

Let’s recap it all. Follow me…after the jump!

It’s high noon, and we open in FBI HQ, where Agent Larry Moss is deploying a SWAT team to protect former PM Matobo, who is already stuck in a safe room and at the mercy of the terrorists. The FBI is, once again, woefully behind he curve. The SWAT team is headed by Agent Remick, who is played by “That Dude.” You know…the one who’s been on just about every TV show ever? I had a bitch of a time trying to figure out his name, but it’s Peter Onorati, for the record. I think he played the abusive husband of the cougar lady on ‘Desperate Housewives’ this season? I dunno…don’t really watch that show. Another Fun Fact: He played Samantha’s wrestling coach f*ck-buddy in the episode of ‘Sex and the City’ that also featured the death of Miranda’s mother. Thankfully, he’s not decked out in a wrestling unitard and chasing Janis around the office, he’s paying attention to Larry’s instructions.

“Can we speed this along? I’m filming a bit part as “Hands-y Field Hockey Coach” for ‘Gossip Girl’ tonight.”

Ol’ By-The-Books Moss wants to make sure that the team comes back with Almeida alive. Remick would obviously rather go in shooting, so he whines about it a little. It’s framed as “My men should be allowed to return fire”, but the look on his face says: “I wanna blow away a few dudes and come back with a necklace made of human earlobes!” Moss reminds him that Almeida is the only link they have to recovering the CIP Module and, therefore, critical to the mission of saving innocent American lives. Therefore, there will be no blowing terrorists away with automatic weapons! So, in addition to being the second biggest pushover in the world (which we established last week), Moss is also the second biggest Party Pooper in the world!

#1

Meanwhile, back at the safe room, Matobo and his lovely wife are patiently waiting for that SWAT team to rescue them. You know, the one that hasn’t left FBI HQ yet?   Methinks that SWAT team needs to exercise a little more “shut up and do” and a little less “whine, whine, whine” about returning fire. Outside the safe room, Emerson is beating the bejeesus out of a poor Sangalan security guard. The dude is all stoic about the beating and even reminds Emerson that the only way to open the door is from within. So, he can keep kicking the shit out of the dude, but if he expects a different result, he may need to shift tactics. Oh yeah, and we cut away to Almeida looking vaguely uncomfortable with the whole “senseless beating” thing.

Tony goes into the crawl space where Jack is working on finding a way into the safe room, and reminds him that they need Matobo! He’s the only way to get to Dubaku. Jack just grumbles “I know!” since Tony last mentioned that at precisely 11:59.30. (Hallelujah for the week in between episodes! I actually don’t want to scream “You just said that!” to one of the characters). Emerson comes back and wants a progress report, which Jack is unable to give him. Emerson radios his other little Baddie henchman, whose name is officially given as Litvak. You know how it goes when those nameless baddies get identified, right? Litvak is going to be joining Agent Erika Deadmeat on the deathwatch clock. The role of Litvak is being played by some dude that looks just like Adam Levine from Maroon 5. I’m too lazy to go look the actor’s actual name up, so I’m just going to go ahead and claim he’s Adam Levine’s learning-disabled brother Larry Levine.

One is a Hit man, the other is a One Hit Wonder

Back at the FBI, Agent Erika Deadmeat is informing Larry that Tanner’s lawyers are pressing charges against the Bureau because of Renee’s whole ‘Torture with a Tear’ act from last week. I’m pretty impressed because, by the ’24′ timeline, said torture occurred about 10 minutes ago. If only our government’s efficiency and system of checks and balances worked that fast in real life! We’d all have universal healthcare and be riding around in personal hovercraft fueled by eco-sustainable ethanol reserves. It’d be just like Wall-E, except without all the messy ‘total destruction of Earth’ parts. Oh, and also without cute robots! Daddy Moss is totally pissed at Renee, so he gives her a call. She’s all: “Nice to hear from you Larry, but I’m on my way to the residence to check things out and coordinate with the SWAT team. Gotta go do that whole ‘save the world’ song and dance, ya know?” Daddy Moss isn’t having it, he wants to know about the interrogation of Tanner, specifically the tortu-rrific parts. Renee gets an “Oh Shiz, I’m busted look on her face.” And admits she may have crossed a line or two or three or four in getting the info out of Tanner. Daddy is pissed! Renee tries to calm him down, and tells him she will explain everything after she makes sure Matobo is safe. Daddy Moss makes grumbly growly faces and orders her back to HQ! She pleads to let her see this through and clean up her own mess. He says no, again, and orders her back. Instead, Renee chooses to go off the grid, Bauer style, and take things into her own hands. She hangs up on him and turns her phone off! He totally makes yet another grumbly growly face and storms off in a huff.

Larry’s Mad Face #1,209

That gives us just a little time to check on Ol’ D-Bag Dillinger who is receiving a call from his wifey. She’s just letting him know that she landed safely, but she’s got this knowing grin and horny little growl in her voice. She senses D-Bag might’ve had something to do with getting her flight grounded and wants to thank him with a night of unbridled pleasure back at home. After all, it’s been a week since they saw each other. Sean plays it cool and never really admits to having anything to do with moving her flight up. Also, as to that whole sex offer thing? He’s really really really busy and has to get back to work. Rain check? She reluctantly agrees to let him go and he immediately runs up to Daddy Moss and begs for some more work to avoid going home and servicing his wifey. What’s up with that?! In D-Bag’s defense, his wife is a user of the pink Razr phone, which means she’s worse than a trend hopper…she’s a hopper of trends that were dead and buried a year ago.

Sean is now responsible for coordinating with Matobo’s security, which is a useful way of getting us out of the Skinemax-lite dialogue regarding matrimonial boot-knockin’ and back to the whole Terrorism thing.

“Mmmm…smells like 2007!”

Back at the safe room, Matobo and his wife, Alama, are discussing their current predicament. Turns out they already knows why Dubaku wants them. They are convinced he wants to get the names of Matobo’s supporters in Sangala out of him, so that they can go after them and solidify power. It’s obvious Matobo is a hero and a bad-ass who would never sell out his friends. The couple deduces that it must be Mrs. Matobo they are after, as a way to get the PM talking. He tries to calm her down and insists they’ll be rescued, but she’s scared. Also, his first name is Ule, which we discover when she says “Ule, I’m scared!” See how that works?

The couple is interrupted by Emerson, who now has access to the monitor in the safe room and Eto the security guard at gunpoint. Emerson tries again to get them out of the safe room. Saying he’ll spare the life of Eto if they come out. But wait! Eto pipes in to let the former PM know that he is Prepared to die for both the PM and the people of Sangala. Alama is obviously all over this “stay inside the safe room” idea, and tells her hubby that he is needed by Sangala and the loss of him would be too much for the struggling country. Matobo is convinced, and lets Emerson know, via PA system, that Eto taking one for the team makes him officially a hero and has the eternal gratitude of both himself and Sangala. While Larry Levine Litvak and Tony look on, Emerson continues his countdown from 10 seconds. Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, a cell phone rings in Eto’s pocket!  Emerson pulls it up and the caller ID says “F.B.I.”. Eto assumes it’s his friend Richard calling. Apparently, he just got back from taping season 3 of “The Pickup Artist” and is insisting that everyone refer to him as ‘Mr. Female Body Inspector’. Of course, It’s actually D-Bag Dillinger on the horn, calling to coordinate with security. Remember when Larry asked him to make that call 5 minutes ago? Way to stay on the ball D-Bag!

Emerson freaks out about the call, which saved Eto’s life. Larry Levine Litvak, for one, advocates for immediately getting the hell out of there before the Feds show up. But wait! Jack has a plan that is full of MacGuyver-y goodness. Turns out he can whip up a batch of ammonium dysterate gas using normal everyday kitchen supplies and place it in the ventilation system of the safe room. He also estimates that they have a good 15 minutes before the Feds show up because headquarters is “21 miles” away and they would have evacuated Matobo before they got there if they had known about it. Emerson sides with Jack and tells Litvak to STFU. If he wanted a pretty face AND a voice, he would’ve hired his brother Adam. He then sends Jack and Tony off to the kitchen for some private boyfriend bonding time over the mixing of potentially lethal chemicals.

“Oh Jack…you’re so cute when you whip up potentially lethal chemical compounds!”

In the kitchen, Tony politely interrupts his boyfriend’s frantic search for chemicals to remind him that this ammonium dysterate stuff could potentially kill the Matobo’s. Jack’s response: “It’s a chance we have to take! It’s our only way to get to Dubaku and CIP device.” He then growls to Tony “Grab those bowls!”. Tony totally mishears the world bowls and blushes…telling Jack “You know I’ll gladly grab those balls, but we should at least wait until the missions over, agreed?” and we cut to commercial break.

Five minutes later, Jack is putting his concoction in the vent. He starts a chain reaction with a spritzer and quickly closes the vent. Emerson goes to the monitor and tells Matobo and his wife about the ammonium dysterate. He tells Matobo that laying down his own life for Sangala is one thing, does he really want to sacrifice his wife? Ule and Alama seemingly mutually decide that the cause of freedom in Sangala is more important than their lives, and they don’t want to name names for Dubaku. In other words, it’s a suicide pact! The effects of the gas are quick, they both start hacking and coughing.

We cut to FBI HQ, where Agent Smurf Janis meets Raymond Howell and his posse of busybodies from the Attorney General’s office. They are trying to get to the bottom of the torture business from the hospital. Gold claims ignorance. Tanner wasn’t her suspect and she wasn’t in the room. Unfortunately, the AG team knows about her snow-job of the lawyers keeping them from getting to the room while Renee went all medieval on his ass. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m torn when it comes to this Janis character.  On one hand, Janeane Garofalo is awesome. On the other, she’s playing a character that looks like she has no social life and two cats named Penelope (one is pronounced PeNELope and the other is pronounced PeneloPEE). At any rate, he looks on her face are priceless in this episode. You can almost hear her laughing at the lines in her own head. Right now, her expression is one part “Oh shit!”, and one part “Bitch, please!” Luckily, Larry comes over to rescue her from Howell, telling him that they have a situation of National Security interest to take care of, can the lawyering wait for later? KTHXBAI! Once Moss pulls Gold aside, he tells her about the situation with Matobo and about Renee going off the grid/not answering her phone. Janis just deadpans “Oh…” like this kind of stuff happens every day. Moss then tells D-Bag to keep trying Renee’s cell, just as we cut to Renee pulling up to the residence and getting out of the car to do a little recon.

Confused Smurf

Emerson, Jack, Tony, and Larry Litvak continue to snark back and forth about how much time they may or may not have. Litvak is still on “Team GetTheFuckOutNow”. Inside the safe room, Matobo and his wife are feeling the effects of the gas. Now, I’m not an actor, so I can’t speak to their choices in this scene. I’m sure gas has different effects on different people. Mr. Matobo performs the entire scene with his eyes rolled back in his head “Exorcist”-style, while his wife’s eyes are fine. Her tongue, however, keeps flapping out of her mouth like a puppy. It’s a little unsettling. Mr. Matobo tells his wife he loves her and they need to just close their eyes and go to sleep. That doesn’t do it for her, and she decides to open the door! Matobo freaks out and his eyes return to normal in time to yell “Alama, no!” Too late. As soon as the doors open, Emerson and crew swoop in to pull them out, get ‘em a little fresh air, and then off to the getaway car. Mrs. Matobo tells her hubby she’s sorry.

Possessed by Satan

Outside the residence, Agent Walker sees them loading the Matobos into the getaway car and decides it might be a good time to check in the with Bureau. She calls her boyfriend Larry and lets him know about her visual ID of Jack, Tony, and the Matobos. Larry tells her to retreat and wait for SWAT, who are still 5 minutes out. But wait! Larry Levine Litvak comes up behind Renee and takes her cellphone at gunpoint. He destroys the cell phone, leaving Larry on the other end going “Renee! Renee! Dammit!” He barks at Janis to get Renee back on the line, tells Sean to find out where the hell the SWAT teams are, and then trips over a portly and badly permed office assistant. She’s part of the FBI’s new Long Island Outreach program and recruiting efforts. Instead of apologizing to her, he screams to “move!”, which is totally awesome. Everybody hates Long Island girls, even Larry. Janis has a stunned but highly entertained look on her face throughout the whole ordeal.

“Oh My Gawd! I shoulda kept that job at Payless in the Mawl!”

Back on the abduction front, Litvak comes strolling up to the getaway car with Renee, who says “Damn you, Bauer you son of a bitch!” He is forced to let them all know she’s FBI. Emerson, of course, wants to dispatch of her right away. Bauer manages to save her life for the time being…after all, she’ll be useful for determining how much of the mission is compromised by Tanner’s information. They need to know what she knows. Tony backs his boyfriend up and Emerson agrees to kidnap her along with the Matobos. Renee, still not grasping the concept of being outnumbered by 4 heavily armed mercenaries tells Bauer “Damn you, don’t you touch me!” while he tries to frisk her. Jack goes agro and tells her to shut up, or he’ll shut her up! They chuck her in the van, and take off. It should be noted that their getaway vehicle is a bright yellow and highly suspicious looking unlabeled reinforced utility truck. It’s the short bus of getaway vehicles.

Emerson calls his partner Nichols, who is still holed up with Veruca Salt Colonel Dubaku. Nichols must be the government connection, because Emerson tells him to call his source in the Bureau and find out what this Walker chick knows. Renee turns to Jack, who is conveniently sitting right next to her cell and expresses regret for ever trusting a lying sonofabitch like him! And we cut to break.

Five minutes later, we check in on the First Hubby and his little Secret Service buddy Brian. First Hubby is still sitting on a park bench staring at the thumb drive Samantha gave him which holds all the account numbers and such. Apparently, he’s been sitting there looking at the damn thing for about a half hour, since we haven’t checked in on him since the end of last episode. Lil’ Secret Service buddy is calling a friend in the “private sector” that can totally decrypt all the incriminating data for them. Lil’ Brian wants to make sure First Hubby is sure they shouldn’t let anyone know what’s up before they go to get the data decrypted. Mr. Taylor doesn’t think they should let anyone in on the Hardy Boys fun until they know how badly the administration has been compromised. Mr. Taylor inquires if Brian’s friend can be trusted, and Agent Gedge says “of course”, which most likely means they are headed to some kind of death trap.  Then we are treated to an aside from the first hubby about how hard it has been being the crazy old dude nobody believes and how he feels vindicated knowing Roger’s death wasn’t a suicide. He finally understands what Jean Smart went through playing the “deranged old bat” role two seasons ago. Lil’ Buddy Brian tries to discourage him one last time, asking if they should at least let the President know what’s going on. But First Hubby doesn’t want to take it to his wife until he can prove everything.

She feels your pain, Henry!

Speaking of his wife, she’s in the Oval Office with slimeball Kanin. She observes that Presidents don’t make new friends, so they have to lean on their old ones. She tells Kanin she is going ahead with the invasion of Sangala, and that she needs his support. He brings up the CIP Module business and the risk to American lives. Oh, is THAT what the issue is? I forgot! I’m so glad they remind us in every single episode, and sometimes more than once. I have a bad memory for stuff like that. Kanin makes one good point, and that is: critics will likely point out her job is to protect American lives first and foremost. President Awesome shuts him up noting that giving in to threats does not protect America’s interests. Also, the intervention in Sangala has been great PR for the country and she can’t afford to back down! Just then, they are interrupted by Joe Stevens who informs them that Matobo and his wife have been abducted. He lets her know that Almeida and Bauer were involved, and that Dubaku now has the CIP device AND Matobo. Great timing! Kanin pipes in that maybe the invasion isn’t such a great idea anymore. After all, Matobo is really the only person who can lead Sangala after they are free of Juma. Without him, the country will collapse. Both Kanin and Stevens are firmly on team Pansy-Pants. Cut and run! Madame Prez is still not quite ready to cave. She notes that there is still 30 minutes before the deadline, and she wants Matobo found by then.

Back at FBI HQ, D-Bag saunters up to Deadmeat’s cubicle and wants her to send some information for him to the SWAT team. She’s a little testy with him, noting she already did it. D-Bag takes the opportunity to apologize for being a jerk earlier. She’s all, “It’s OK, I know you were worried about your wife.” But then she drops a bomb! She can’t stop thinking about “last night” He can’t either! I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and hoping that all they had was one A-M-A-Z-I-N-G bible study last night, but they go and shoot that whole theory to death by leering at each other and making conspiratorial giggle faces.

Ok. So this is an interesting news flash! Agent Erika Deadmeat has been boning D-Bag Dillinger! It’s not quite clear yet if this is something ongoing, or a one-time dalliance while his wife was on the road. Wow. Way to skyrocket on the D-Bag ladder, Sean! And, Erika…ooh, girl! Now I need to try and be a gentleman about this, because I don’t know where my lady readers fall on the “attitudes toward perceived gender inequality in matters of infidelity” spectrum. Why don’t we have a show of hands out there. Who wants me to lay-off Erika? Anybody? Not one single person? C’mon, there’s gotta be someone that will be offended if I use the phrase ‘Special Agent Erika DeadSlut?’ Wait. Oops. Too late. It’s out there. Sorry!

Agent Smurf Janis breaks up the slut-fest because she needs D-Bag to do some important computer stuff.

We immediately cut to Janis knocking on Larry Moss’s door, because she has many hidden talents, one of which is teleporting. She lets him know that Remick the SWAT dude is on the line and wants to talk to him. Larry tells Janis to wait in the office while he makes the call. She kinda sideway walks into the office with a look on her face that says “What does this fool want now?” Remick informs Moss that Renee was taken alive with the Matobos. Larry does a lot of grunting and groaning and tells him to trace her cell phone. But no can do, the Baddies destroyed it. Remember? He tells Janis to send Renee’s information to every agency, put him in a queue to receive real time updates, and tell everyone in the office that finding Renee is their top priority. Once again Homegirl Garofalo does a great job of nodding gravely. I feel like she’s silently mocking the show and I love it! She asks him if he’s OK, because she knows he’s totally in love with Renee. He pretends not to know what she’s talking about.

“Is that all, Larry? ‘Cuz PeneloPEE has a bladder infection and I hate leaving her alone like that.”

Back in the Baddie short bus, Renee tearfully apologizes to former PM Matobo for not being able to protect him. What is up with FBI Spice and her emotions? One second she’s a growling ass-kicking superFed, and the next she’s a simpering crying mess. Matobo tells her she has nothing to apologize for while looking directly at Bauer. Oooh, burn! Renee turns to Bauer and demands to know how much he’s being paid. She doesn’t really wait for an answer…just keeps going on about how she hopes it’s enough to compensate for the loss of American lives. Tony chimes in to defend his boyfriend, and tells her to shut up, which she doesn’t. Emerson gets a call from his partner Nichols, who informs him that Renee doesn’t really know anything other than what Tanner told her in the Hospital Room. He tells him she’s extraneous and to please dispose of her quickly before they get there. Veruca Dubaku wants the PM, and he wants him now! Emerson informs Jack and Tony that their new plan is to bring Renee to an abandoned construction site, kill her, and ditch the body. Ruh-Roh! Tony pipes in that maybe they should try and interrogate her themselves, just for shits and giggles. Emerson says “no way, no how!” Nichols wants her out of the way before they deliver Matobo. There are a lot of silent dramatic looks at the faces of jack, Tony, and Renee. They probably just sat there in silence staring at each other for five minutes, but we’ll never know because we cut to break.

In FBI HQ, Sean is snarking to Janis that Larry is going nuts! He looks like his head is going to explode and they’ve never seen him that way. Awesome Janis tells ol’ D-Bag that he’s a moron and Larry is freaking out about Renee because he obviously has feeling for her. D-Bag is all, “Whoa…wait? You mean when colleagues are totally into each other and having illicit affairs, other people in the office can pick up on it? Wh-what?!” He wants to know how Janis can make such shocking claims, and she replies “Instinct. I just know.” Awesome! Then she dismisses him with a quick “stay on task.” He glances over at his little DeadSlut and ponders the damage continuing to screw her could do to his career.

That deaf/mute Tranny hooker down the street is looking pretty good now, isn’t she D-Bag?

Back in the generic evil underground lair terrorist bunker. Dubaku confronts Nichols. General Juma says the invasion forces are still off the Coast of Sangala. Nichols is all: “Whatevs, dude! At least they haven’t actually invaded yet.” Dubaku calls president Taylor stubborn and says their display with the jets at JFK wasn’t forceful enough. So Nichols calls his bluff and tells him to go ahead and use the CIP module. Maybe then the President will stop being such a stubborn cow. Dubaku wants to know what the delay is with Matobo, and Nichols tells him about FBI Spice gumming up the works. He promises Dubaku he’ll deliver Matobo personally as soon as she’s dead. Dubaku stares at the CIP module while dramatic music plays. Do you think he’s contemplating using it?

First Hubby and Brian arrive at what Mr. Taylor think is the home of Lil’ Secret Service Buddy’s Lil’ Buddy. Whew! President Taylor thanks Brian, again, for agreeing to play Hardy Boys today. After all, the role-playing stuff is totally fun, but all of this sneaking around could hurt Brian’s career. Gedge tells the First Hubby not to thank him until after they confirm the information. They get a key from under the doormat, and after First Hubby enters the apartment, Brian puts the key back and looks around like a sketchball. First Hubby asks Brian to turn on the air, because it’s hot, and takes off his jacket. The camera makes a point of lingering on the jacket…potential evidence? First Hubby sees some pictures of Samantha and Roger, and realizes they are in Samantha’s apartment! Holy crap! Brian is putting on latex gloves. First Hubby is shocked. He tells Brian he likes him as a friend, and really isn’t into that kind of stuff. But he’s flattered by the attention.  He’s all “You?” and Brian is all “I’m sorry, Sir.” Apparently, Roger was looking into things he shouldn’t have, and Bad Brian is working with the administration links! He tells First Hubby that he tried to get Roger to stop looking into things he shouldn’t, but that Roger inherited the First Hubby’s determination. Mr. Taylor starts to lunge at Brian, but quickly collapses. Brian is suddenly soft-spoken and sociopathic while he explains it’s tetradyzine, a neuromuscular paralytic. He calmly explains the drugs effects while he lifts the thumb drive off of Mr. Taylor. Then, he tells him “If it’s any consolation, Roger died quickly and I’ll make sure you do to.”

Young Brian Gedge

Brian calls a coconspirator downtown that is keeping tabs on Samantha, who is conveniently sitting all alone at an outdoor café enjoying some coffee. Brian tells the dude to bring her back so they can kill her and stage a murder/suicide scenario with the first hubby! They’ll tell everyone he went to confront her about Roger’s suicide. Once there, he went off on a tangent about her eyebrows, lost his shit, killed her, and then killed himself. The coconspirator, who watches a lot of ’24′, is dubious. He’s not sure it’ll work. Brian apologizes to the First Hubby once again. He says “If only you’d left well enough alone”, which is a downright rude thing to say to someone you are about to kill, if you ask me, which you didn’t.

At the café, Brian’s Bad Buddy approaches Samantha, flashes a badge, and tells her the First Hubby sent him to protect her. She reluctantly agrees to be whisked off by him to the Apartment of Terror!

D-Bag Dillinger confronts Janis at HQ and wants to know what the AG folks are doing there. Janis gives him the 411 on the torture of Tanner and D-Bag is surprised and doesn’t think Renee would have had it in her. Of course, Janis being a total social retard and poor judge of character spills all the details of having been kicked out of the room and ordered to stall the lawyers. She’s about to confess to the time she snuck a cigarette into the bathroom in Junior High, but D-Bag cuts her off. Sean tells her she is now an accessory if a case gets made against Renee. Also, he doubts if Larry will protect her since she isn’t gorgeous, redheaded, and banging her boss. All she’s got going for her are the cats.

“I swear to God, I’m going to cut his balls off if he doesn’t absolve me of this torture stuff in time to get home and dole out the Meow Mix!”

In Larry Moss’s office, the AG dude wants to know what is up with FBI Spice. Moss tells him about the kidnapping. AG dude is not sympathetic. He’s like Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon’, and he’s going to bring Renee and Janis to justice, dammit!  Larry flips out on him and basically screams “You have to be kidding me! We’re trying to save the world.” Smell that? Those are Larry’s balls. He actually has a pair! Larry gets all up in the AG dude’s face and asks for the luxury of getting Renee back before she is thrown to the wolves. Just then, Janis calls in and mentions they intercepted a communication in which Renee was mentioned and, by the way, could he come listen to it now? KTHXBAI! Larry takes off to listen to the message, leaving the prosecutor telling the walls of the office that “We aren’t finished here!”

Larry’s Angry Face #1,214, or #1 PTD (Post-Testicle-Drop)

At Janis’s workstation, she is grilling D-Bag about the intercepted phone call. She asks a lot of tech questions, because she’s surprised the call just fell into their laps so conveniently. I no longer smell Larry’s balls, and have picked up the faint aroma of general D-Baggery and suspicious behavior wafting from Sean’s direction. He tells her to STF Up about the tech stuff because the content of the call is the important part. Hopefully, she’s finally starting to suspect him.

They play the call, and it’s the one we saw earlier between Emerson and Nichols, claiming Renee is extraneous and needs to be gotten rid of. Larry has a look on his face like Old Yeller just got shot. It’s pretty sad, and not all that funny. Poor Larry.

Next they’re gonna tell him there’s no Santa Claus either!

Speaking of Larry’s girlfriend, we finally see the short bus pulling into the construction site they were supposed to be at 10 minutes ago. Emerson hands Jack a gun and tells him to kill Renee and leave her in the ditch. Tony follows him out of the truck silently. There is a lot of silent emoting on both of their parts, lest we forget they are actually agents of good and don’t like to kill innocent people!

Jack makes a big show of being aggressive with Renee, as Emerson is watching in the rear view mirror. Renee asks if he’s really going to kill her. Jack doesn’t respond at all. Then she says “I won’t beg for my life”, and he just says “good.” Once they get to the ditch, she starts in again on what a traitor he is, and how she won’t allow him the luxury of shooting her in the back, he has to do it in the face. Kinky! Jack turns her around forcefully, but wait! Tells her he can get her out of this alive if she trusts him. What!?

Jack shoots her, but it’s obviously only a grazing wound on her neck. He kicks her into the ditch, and she seems to be playing along. Emerson and Larry Levine Litvak look on from the truck with delight while Tony broods from outside.

But, uh-oh! Complications! Emerson wants her buried so she won’t be found before they get out of the country. He asks Tony to help. We are treated to our first smorgasbord split-screen of the season. While Jack and Tony bury Renee alive (‘Twin Peaks’, wrapped in plastic style!), we check in on the whole gang. Dubaku and Matobo brood, President Taylor prays, Larry Moss stares into space, and Lil’ Brian positions a lifeless First Hubby in Samantha’s apartment. Tony notices that Renee is obviously alive and obviously freaking out. He looks to Jack, who says and does nothing…just continues to bury her alive! We are treated to a shot from Renee’s point of view, as Jack puts the last few piles of dirt over her face, and we cut to a SILENT CLOCK! The first of the season. No Ba-Bum, Ba-Bum. ’24′ Purists are aware that the silent clock is usually used to mark the death of a major character!  Who is it? Renee? First Hubby? Janis’s cat Penelope? Or maybe the whole buried-alive thing just tends to drown out white noise? Guess we’ll have to wait for next week, but feel free to leave your predictions in the comments!