24 Season 6 – Episode 12 – 5 pm to 6 pm Summary

Previously on “24”: We found out: Security guards like coloring books; Yellow and Red don’t mix; President Logan doesn’t look any tougher in plaid and a beard; Expensive special effects at the beginning of a series lead to inexpensive special effects in the middle of the series – we expect at this rate the final scenes of the show will involve popcorn poppers.

The following summary takes place between 5 pm and 6 pm:

5:00 pm – President Wayne is going into surgery for some Borg implants.

5:00 pm – President Logan seems to bet getting all Leo Buscaglia with Jack, trying to have a tender moment with Jack, but Jack’s not buying it. Logan tries to explain being at his estate and being alone, and Jack doesn’t seem very sympathetic since he his own “estate” was a Chinese prison cell.

5:01 pm – Jack’s retro ringtone goes off on the JackPhone, and it is Bill calling. Bill tells Jack about the assassination attempt on President Wayne, and that they’re pretty sure that if they do the paperwork right away, they can blame everything on Assad. Bill does his best McCoy impression and says, “He’s dead, Jack”. Jack points out that this doesn’t make any sense, since Assad was there to HELP the president, and Bill seems disturbed that the paperwork won’t be nearly as easy Jack’s way. Logan looks hopeful that maybe he’ll get to be president again.

5:02 pm – In President Wayne’s operating room, (which no presidential bunker should be without) it looks they’re working on installing something on Wayne’s neck. They also have a machine that goes “ping!”, so the situation is pretty dire. Reed watches through the operating room window while this is going on, and goes to make a phone call just as a secret service agent walks up and completely freaks him out. He tells Reed that they want Lennox in the room where the vice president is being briefed.

5:03 pm – Safely away in the vice presidential airplane, vice-president Noah is getting briefed about President Wayne’s condition. He didn’t suffer any head wounds, which everyone considers a miracle, so that rules out going on a reality TV show. Secretary of Defense Kanin seems really anxious to make Noah the president.

5:05 pm – Kanin talks to Reed, and is surprised he doesn’t know where Lennox is. I think Kanin thinks Reed is a Lennox groupie. Kanin calls over an agent and tells him to sweep the bunker. After they’re done sweeping, they should find Lennox. The agent makes a phone call using his sleeve, which we all know is an important secret agent device since they upgraded from those shoe phones in the 1960s. Reed takes this opportunity to run/walk away to his electrical closet.

5:07 pm – The guy who screwed up and mixed the red markers and yellow markers instead of using the blue and green markers (which are much less prone to leaking) starts to argue with Reed because he’s seen the first half of the show and he REALLY wants to kill Lennox. Reed wants to be all high and mighty by saying that technically, they’re not murderers. They didn’t kill Wayne, only gave him a flesh wound, and Reed thinks he even heard him say that he’d like to go for a walk.

5:08 pm – Reed talks to Lennox. Reed tries to guilt Lennox into believing that Wayne was about to do the equivalent of sending the terrorists flowers. The only other option was to go with Lennox plan, which still involved flowers, but also many explosives and internment camps. Reed seems convinced that doing all this will prevent the nuclear weapons going off, which is typical Washington logic.

5:10 pm – Reed, Lennox and the incapable Red and Yellow Marker guy all walk out into the hallway, Reeds plan in place. All they have to do is tell the Secret Service agents that see them in the hallway everything is A-OK. Lennox decides that he’d end up with more screen time by telling the agents that Reed and Red and Yellow Marker guy were the ones that tried to kill Wayne! Reed looks a bit angry by this turn of events.

Commercial

5:16 pm – A woman named Lisa brings VP Noah a bunch of flashes that she wants him to look at. He tells her that he has no time to pick out camera equipment, because he’s about to be crowned king of the United States. He does want to talk to CTU though.

5:17 pm – Bill gets a call from VP Noah. Noah says that he heard that the White House flashed President Logan, which he considers highly unpresidential. Bill tells VP Noah, that Logan can meet with the consul, and that Jack is going to keep Logan on a short leash with very small collar so he won’t try and get away. Noah says that as soon as everything finishes up, he wants Logan sent back to his house, and to have Logan put under house arrest Noah hangs up before Bill can ask how to arrest a house.

5:18 pm – Outside the Russian consulate, Jack and Logan get out of the limo. Logan informs Jack that he wants to see Markov alone, since Markov owes him money. Jack looks pretty nervous about being in a consulate, which is probably justified considering what happened the last time Jack was in a consulate. Jack finally agrees to wait outside, but tells Logan that if he tries to escape through the bathroom window, he’ll know about it.

5:19 pm – Logan goes into to meet to with Markov. Markov doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Logan out of house arrest. Logan explains about the suitcase nuke saying that they’re pretty sure that Gredenko is behind it all, since they know he’s creeping around. Markov offers Logan a cigar. Logan says that he accidentally lit himself on fire once, and since he put it out, he doesn’t smoke anymore. Logan really presses the issue, and Markov admits that he and Gredenko were close (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Turns out that Logan has some incriminating phone conversations of Markov, and he’d be more than willing to send them to the Russian president. Markov still doesn’t give up, and Logan relents in his questioning.

5:23 pm – Logan tells Jack that since he’s an expert liar, he recognized that Markov has been lying about knowing Gredenko’s whereabouts.

5:23 pm – Sure enough, Markov makes a call to Gredenko. Markov tells him that the United States knows about him. Gredenko is mad about this, since Russia just exposed itself to everyone.

5:24 pm – Jack tells the driver to go through the gates out of the consulate, and pull over right away, since he hasn’t been to a bathroom in over twelve hours. Jack calls Chloe and tells her to pull the old “power outage at the Russian consulate trick”. Logan points out that consulates have not been a good thing for Jack.

Commercial

5:29 pm – Madam Haig does some product placement by showing her Sprint phone showing a little teeny tiny picture of a news guy talking about the special effect that went off earlier that day. She gets a phone call from Bill. After hearing what happened to President Wayne, she’s pretty sure that her resignation paperwork might have gotten blown up too, so she’s going to head back to the secret presidential bunker.

5:30 pm – Noah is really anxious to enact “The Lennox Plan”, as he gets on an elevator with his assistant Lisa. Lisa isn’t sure they should be considering installing air conditioners with everything that has happened today. Noah tells her “The OTHER Lennox” plan, the plan that Wayne DIDN’T want to use.

5:31 pm – Noah meets with Kanin, who was just waiting in the hall when the elevator doors open flanked by two army guys in camouflage. No one seems to think that this is the slightest bit odd. Noah wants to know about Wayne’s condition. Kanin tells him that he thinks its Humectress, at least it used to be, since he doesn’t have hair anymore. Kanin says, that’s not important now, since it’s too soon to find out what will happen to Wayne since he just blew up and they only now have him stabilized. Kanin mentions that Lennox remanded himself into custody. Noah gets a look on his face, thinking that this is a revolting development.

5:32 pm – Lennox is giving a statement to a secret service agent, regaling him with tales of his expert pole-dancing and his fancy footwork that sets pipe alarms off. Noah walks into the room, and tells everyone that he wants to talk to Lennox alone. Noah tries really hard to implicate Assad in the bombing, but it doesn’t make any sense to Lennox. Noah tries to find out what Lennox knows about “The Others” involved in the attack, and Lennox tells him that’s the wrong show, this is still “24”. Noah keeps saying that Assad was probably involved, and Lennox bursts out with a phrase that I think he’s been waiting to say since the show started: “That makes no sense whatsoever!” Lennox puts two and two together, and finally figures out that Noah wants to implement “The Lennox Plan”, but still isn’t sure about blaming Assad. Noah gives Lennox an ultimatum: Either he can stick with the “Assad is innocent” story, or he can be cleared of all charges and go along with “The Lennox Plan”. Lennox asks for door number 3, but Noah ignores him and leaves. After he leaves the room, VP Noah, who by now I think we can all agree is even scarier than VP Scary from last year, tells an agent that he wants to see Lennox’s statement before it goes to the Attorney General.

5:35 pm – Jack proves his versatility by climbing over a wall in coat and tie without getting it dirty, AND that he can speak Russian in a non-alarming “I’m not American” accent when a Russian agent sees him. Jack is able to divert the agent by telling him that he was ordered to count babushkas in the backyard. Chloe calls Jack that he has sixty seconds from the time things get turned off until the power gets turned back on.

5:36 pm – The Russian agents instead seem completely freaked out about the whole electricity thing, not understanding how things like “power outages” can happen in the US, since they thought that was just a Russian problem. While they’re distracted Jack sneaks into Markov’s office, proudly holding his gun out in front of him. Markov says, “What is this?” Jack points out that it’s a gun, and that he’s pretty sure they have those in Russia too. What he really wants to talk about is Gredenko.

5:37 pm – The power goes back on long enough for Markov to hit his Big Red Easy Button, but it only goes off for a very short time. The Russian agents knock on the door, and Jack knocks Markov out with one punch! (Go Jack!) Jack tells the agents that if they come through the door, he’ll kill Markov. Jack calls Bill and tells him that he’s in another consulate again, and he’s doing illegal stuff AGAIN. Bill looks pretty disappointed Jack didn’t learn his Chinese consulate lesson. Jack says that he just wants the White House advised of what’s going on, and that he’s NOT showing off for VP Noah by doing something like this. He’s just trying to get information from Markov about Gredenko.

Commercial

5:43 pm – VP Noah walks around the president’s desk while listening some really bad “I’m about to become president” music. Lisa walks in and tells him the press conference is going to start in about 10 minutes. She says they’ve checked and nobody with explosive magic markers has entered the building since the last guy, so she thinks things will be OK. Lisa says that Madam Haig is going to try and come back and pretend that whole “resignation” thing didn’t happen, and that Haig was against the Lennox plan.

5:45 pm – Bill calls VP Noah to tell him that Jack decided to hold Markov hostage, since things have been REALLY boring for the last couple of hours. President Suvarov calls Lisa on her phone (which begs the question of how he has HER number), and Noah takes the call. Suvarov is very mad, wants Jack to stop what he’s doing, and threatens to use “forceful diplomatic measures”, which is so funny that even Noah has to smile at that. Suvarov wants everything to go through “proper diplomatic channels”, after Jack surrenders.

5:46 pm – Jack surrenders one of his punches right into Markov’s nose, and yells a lot. Markov makes the mistake of telling Jack that he hasn’t spoken with Gredenko since Gredenko arrived in the US, and Jack never said a thing about Gredenko being in the US. Jack threatens Markov with a cigar cutter, and when Markov doesn’t say anything, Jack starts playing a really gruesome game of “This Little Piggy”.

5:47 pm – Outside of Markov’s office, the Russian agents watch “24” on a Dell PDA, and it happens to be the very same show they’re in right now! This kind of freaks them out a little, but they plan on breaking down the door soon.

5:48 pm – Jack tells Markov that Markov has to give him the information he wants, or Jack will shoot him, make sure Gredenko finds out, and then he’ll make sure that Paris Hilton will be exported to Russia. This proves too much for Markov, who finally says that Gredenko is in the Mojave Desert, in the Shadow Valley. Markov tells him that Gredenko is there sending off nuclear-weapon-equipped drones, which really makes Jack mad. He punches Markov again, and goes to leave.

5:49 pm – Tactical error on Jack’s part: Never try and exit through the front door. The door to Markov’s office blows up, knocking Jack backwards. Russian agents are all over the place! Markov gets up, gets a tissue for this finger, and punches Jack! They grab Jack and take him away!

Commercial

5:54 pm – Noah is making a speech on TV. He says he regrets to inform everyone that he’s now in charge. Noah says that he’s been really anxious to implement all kinds of repressive stuff.

5:54 pm – Nadia goes to talk to Chloe and Morris, and Morris thinks he can get messages that Jack might have been trying to send out of the consulate through a Windows PC that doesn’t have Service Pack 2 on it yet. Morris, who happens to read Russian, finds information that an American Agent is in custody and that they take this threat very seriously since he threatened them with Paris Hilton. Nadia tells Bill about Jack being held prisoner, which is exactly where Jack was 12 hours ago. Bill takes a play from the Jack Bauer Plan Of Action Playbook and orders special ops to draw up plans to take over the Russian consulate to get Jack back!

5:56 pm – A Russian agent comes into the room to watch Jack, and Jack tries to convince him that Markov is in on the whole Gredenko plot. The agent can’t believe Markov is involved, is about to leave, and Jack finally tells him, “I know you believe me”. This stops the agent cold, and he says “Was it in my eyes?” Jack ignores this, and asks for the agent’s help. Jack wants him to call CTU at 310-597-3781, make a vote for “Jack Bauer” on American Idol, and tell Bill Buchanan about Gredenko in the Shadow Valley.

5:59 pm – The Friendly Russian agent leaves to go to another room and calls CTU. One of the other agents comes into the room and shoots Friendly! The other agent turns off the phone! He just left Bill hanging there!

6:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK SHOOTS PEOPLE! MARTHA LOGAN SITS ON A COUCH WITH SECRET AGENT AARON YELLING AT PRESIDENT LOGAN! NOAH THREATENS TO BLOW STUFF UP! BILL CALLS FOR THE CONSULATE TO BE STORMED!

Be sure and catch all of Steve’s summaries of Season 6 of “24”!