Now that, I did not see coming. Gray, last season’s Bluetoothed leader of the Overseers, is none other than Graham Bauer. I turned my head doglike when I heard Jack mention a brother, and within a matter of seconds, they do the Big Reveal. Brother hates brother! Son hates father! Brother had a fling with brother’s wife before being betrothed (more on that later)! It’s like “24” has suddenly turned into “Rome.”
The general storyline didn’t move much – the President deals with the aftermath of the bomb, while southern Californians run for their lives – but some pretty colors have replaced the shades of gray. The tastefully coiffed Hamir Al-Assad gave CTU the name of a Russian contact named Gradenko (while Police fans everywhere laughed out loud), and a cursory search of Gradenko’s call history pulled up none other than Jack’s father who, we discover, hasn’t spoken to his son in over nine years. Well, he hasn’t spoken to Jack, anyway. Whether he’s in direct contact with Gray has yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Abel pays a visit to Cain for info about their father, exchanges a longing look with Heidi Petrelli (yep, that’s Rena Sofer playing Gray’s wife)…and then ties his brother up in a chair in order to “extract” information from him. I don’t remember the exact exchange, but it was something like:
Jack: Don’t make me hurt you.
Gray: You’re already hurting me.
Jack: Trust me, I’m not.
Sweeeet.
Meanwhile, over at the local Minority Round-Up, Sandra Palmer’s boyfriend Walid is coerced into cooperating with the authorities (i.e. wear a two-way transmitter) after a tip he provided to the Feds revealed that there were four other suitcase nukes. The Feds do a good dog and pony show in order to give Walid some street cred, beating him up in the bathroom (and giving him the transmitter at the same time), and Walid bravely chats up one of the men he suspects has terrorist ties. Walid goes fishing for links to Fayed, but the man doesn’t bite. Still, the man welcomes Walid to meet the other men in his group, men who don’t trust Walid at all. The whole setup screams “dead informant.”
Which is why I think Walid knows more than he’s letting on.
The scene where Walid is talking with the man who calls him brother (IMDb isn’t giving up his name yet) is shot very carefully. They show you Walid talking to the man, and they show the man answering Walid’s questions, and they show you the security feed that’s taping them. But they never show the two men in the same shot. Walid tells the man, rather convincingly for a reluctant stool pigeon, that the Feds found Fayed’s name in his wallet, and asks if he knows who Fayed is. The man says no, but still invites him to meet the others. What Walid just did is a dead giveaway that he’s a mole, which is why I think there was some non-verbal communication between Walid and the man that we, and the security cameras, didn’t see. Ten bucks says he mouthed the word “No” to the man after he asks about Fayed. The man takes the cue, and brings Walid into the group, knowing that they can blow so much smoke in the Feds’ faces through Walid’s transmitter that the government won’t have a chance to find the bombs before it’s too late. (The one pushy Fed chortles about how it usually takes weeks to get an informant into a situation like that. Methinks that’s about to bite him in the ass.) As an added bonus, this makes for two great subplots. Sandra Palmer spends the whole show defending her boyfriend’s innocence only to discover that he’s guilty, and Wayne has to deal with the fallout of his sister’s lack of judgment, much like David Palmer had to deal with the evil machinations of Lady MacBeth when she denied that elderly politician his meds and he subsequently died.
Let’s get back to Gray’s family for a second. Is there anyone who doesn’t think that Josh Bauer is Jack’s son and not Gray’s? That would certainly explain the bad blood between the two brothers and the awkward conversation between Jack and Josh, not to mention Heidi Petrelli’s frosty but heated look at Jack. I remember a shot from the pre-season clips that showed Jack embracing a brunette. Mystery solved. The show is getting back on track. Whew.
Oh, and IMDb accidentally revealed that Old Yeller is slated to return next week. Good dog. (Actually, they have him listed for tonight’s show, too. Did anyone see him?)
