Last time on “24” – We found out that: Bill picked the best time to resign from CTU; Cheng can’t afford to buy shirts with sleeves for his commandos; CTU is impenetrable, except for the wire grates that give easy access from the sewers; Marilyn couldn’t deploy her CTU defense couch in time to block the Chinese terrorists; Milo can’t do that bullet catching trick as well as he used to; CTU air vents double as child storage devices; Grampa Bauer plans on kidnapping Josh Bauer to turn him into a Graeme replacement, as soon as he can shave his head, find a Bluetooth headset, and wire glasses.
The following summary occurred between 3 am and 4 am:
3:00 am – Morris puts a black drape over Milo, who looks good in that color. The commandos take Josh away to the tunnel they created for easier access to CTU, and all the adults freak out. Marilyn goes crazy, because Josh still has her car keys. Nadia finally decides to do something, but smashing her face into someone’s gun doesn’t work. Jack gets punched for no apparent reason, but convinces Head Commando that he can keep Marilyn quiet. Head Commando says that they’re going move everyone to a secure room, which is an obvious lie because we already know that no room in CTU is secure.
3:03 am – The Chinese commandos with Josh give him a crash course in what it will be like to be in college and explore all the sewers underground, but he seems unimpressed.
3:04 am – Head Commando wants everyone split into two groups. The first group has people that aren’t on camera and have no lines, the second group has Marilyn, Morris, Jack, Nadia, and Chloe. Jack and Nadia make a quick plan, which Jack considers a long shot. This means that Jack has a 95 percent chance of succeeding. Chloe wants to know what’s going on, but since she doesn’t have her taser, Jack tells her to keep going. Everyone at CTU springs into action and starts beating up commandos. Jack, of course takes out the Head Commando. We find out he really earned that name “Head Commando” because Jack twists his head to kill him. Just as Nadia is about to be killed, Mike shows up and shoots the guy on Nadia.
3:06 am – Jack quickly explains to Mike that the Chinese guys must really be into kidnapping Bauers, but he doesn’t have an explanation why yet. Jack says he needs a tactical setup and a JackPhone – but Nadia points out that he’s still under arrest…. Everyone laughs at this, and Jack gets going. Chloe tells Nadia that what they did was brave, and seems a little bit upset that she didn’t get to kick anyone’s butt.
3:07 am – Jack, Mike and a bunch of CTU tactical guys are headed after Josh through the sewers, getting completely wet because they all forgot their CTU rubber pants.
Commercial
3:13 am – Jack and company continue to walk through the water instead of walking on the cement right next to the water, because it’s much more dramatic that way. Meanwhile, Josh and his new found Chinese friends pop up out of a new hole and Josh is convinced that they’ve arrived in China after seeing Cheng there. Cheng hands Josh a phone. It’s Grampa Bauer. Grampa Bauer explains that he’s really sorry about the whole “dramatic kidnapping” thing, and promises him a fun anti-patriotic renouncement of citizenship and a trip to China. Josh doesn’t want any part of this. Josh and all the Chinese jump into black cars and start to leave.
3:14 am – Jack still isn’t done with his Chinese take-out, and pops up through the hole in the floor just in time to shoot at the cars. One car is crippled by shooting out a side-view mirror, which confuses the driver causing the car to crash. By now Mike and more CTU agents are out and shooting. This is more shooting in one scene than we’ve seen for most of the whole season! Jack uses his bullet dodging powers and slides on the floor to shoot a couple more bad guys as he runs after Cheng and Josh, who, like Elvis, have left the building.
3:16 am – Jack continues to run after Cheng and Josh, taking out bad guys while on the run, and still finds time to tell everyone where he is and what he’s up to. Cheng throws open a door on the roof and invites Josh to go ahead of him. Josh finally gets the guts to ask “WWUJD?” (What Would Uncle Jack Do?), turns and kicks Cheng down the stairs! Cheng makes the very bad strategic move to get caught on a catwalk with two rails. He’s not going anywhere…. Until Josh accidentally slips from his hiding place underneath that catwalk. Jack looks at him for a moment, just long enough for Cheng to do his best Lo Pan impersonation and disappear! Jack grabs Josh and pulls him to safety. Jack phones Mike, and Mike promises to set up a Curtis memorial perimeter around the building.
3:19 am – Jack questions Josh about Cheng. Josh says that Cheng did this unspeakable act, and made him talk to Grampa Bauer. Josh correctly diagnoses Grampa as just a little bit crazy. Jack suddenly realizes that this attempted kidnapping is exactly the same sort of thing that Grampa Bauer used to make Jack and Graeme do as kids, only instead of Chinese, he used squirrels. Mike arrives, and Jack tells him that he’s going to go find Grampa Bauer and ask about this very elaborate trick he just pulled.
Commercial
3:25 am – At the White House, Karen goes to see Noah. Karen says that the Russians have moved two mechanized divisions into the central Asian theatre. Noah thinks he can counter this by moving two Transformer divisions into Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, but Karen says that won’t work. The troops are double high, super duper, extra red level alert. Karen says that she hasn’t seen Tom Lennox weaseling around the White House in the last thirty minutes, so she’s getting really suspicious that something might going on. Noah confirms that Lennox is out shooting a new public service announcement YouTube video with Lisa as the main star. He adds that Lisa hasn’t been paying attention to who she dates from the Internet, since she’s dating someone from Russia, which should have been the first tip off. Noah explains the whole situation to Karen, and then apologizes for keeping her out of the loop, because he knows she doesn’t look good in loops. Noah confesses that he’s been dating Lisa, only in a secret pact known only to them, and their entourage of Secret Service agents. Noah’s a little upset none of those Secret Service guys didn’t say anything about Lisa sneaking around, but he’ll deal with that later. That and the whole Russian War thing that’s about to happen.
3:28 am – Lennox is getting the typical YouTube video quality that he expected, still directing the video from a remote van. Lisa and Evil Mark finish interrogating each other, and Lisa goes into another room. Evil Mark goes into the room with Lisa’s purse and hooks her PDA up to his secret device. He looks at it for about thirty seconds right in front of Lisa’s Camera Purse. Mark suddenly realizes he’s on Federal Candid Camera, and puts the PDA away! He must have heard the two way microphone in that purse. Mark goes to get some wine for Lisa, hands it to her and then accuses her of not being as evil as she usually is. Lisa corrects that mistake by smashing a bottle over his head! They fight until Mark pins Lisa to the floor using his hand and her neck. Lennox and the Secret Service break into the room just in time to save Lisa and arrest Mark for being a bad Russian monkey.
3:33 am – Lennox goes to talk to Mark, and lays out the situation to Mark: He’s supposed to upload the information about the e-mails, the chip being destroyed, and the secret plot to have Paris Hilton arrested.
3:34 am – Cheng calls Grampa Bauer to let him know that Jack has Josh. Grampa Bauer tells Cheng that since he lost Josh, the Chinese won’t get the circuit board back. Cheng promises severe consequences if Grampa doesn’t return the circuit board: no English translations to any Chinese menus, quadruple starch in his underwear sent to Chinese laundries, and the possible return of Audrey’s speech. Even that last one doesn’t scare Grampa, and he tells Cheng that there will be severe consequences too, namely: No more MSG shipments to China, no more free black Hummers to drive in, and a possible return in next season’s “24”. They both get really mad at each other and hang up.
Commercial
3:39 am – Chloe is still trying to get her techs to get the bullets out of the computers when Nadia gets a visit from “Ben” from Division. Nadia says that she hadn’t gotten the memo, doesn’t think that Ben should talk to anyone, and that she thinks “multiplication” is better than “division”. Ben says he doesn’t really care what Nadia thinks, “so nah, nah, nah”. He tries to blame the security protocols that the Chinese used to break into CTU, the very same CTU protocols they’ve been using since the late 1950s, are all Nadia’s fault.
3:41 am – Ben says he really wants to start a progress impeding investigation right away, and Nadia points him at Bill’s favorite old conference room. Morris tells Nadia that she’s not at fault for any of this, but Nadia won’t listen. She’s still very upset about what happened to Yau-man, and if she hadn’t been distracted by that, none of this wouldn’t have happened.
3:43 am – Tom Lennox calls Noah to let him know that they were able to send the Russians the fake messages. Tom suggests calling the Russian President with this information, and that sending flowers probably wouldn’t hurt either. Tom says that he does have some bad news: Lisa was hurt during the operation. Noah asks what in the world was she doing being operated on, but then realizes Tom meant the whole “pass the Russian’s fake information thing”, and gets nostalgic for the 1980s. Tom snaps him out of that and tells him that the lack of oxygen to Lisa’s brain might make her turn out like Audrey. Noah isn’t happy about the implications of having two people like Audrey on the show.
3:44 am – Karen says they really have to call Suvarov and get that candy gram to him as soon as possible.
3:45 am – Mike tells Jack that Cheng got away, there’s no circuit board to be found and that kneeling in front of a hole in the floor isn’t going to make it go away. Jack calls Marilyn and tells her about the Chinese plans that Grampa has. Marilyn asks to speak with Josh. Josh says that his Uncle Jack kicks butt, and Marilyn says she knows that, plus he has a great show too.
3:46 am – Back at the White House, the Cisco-branded tele-presence stations, which look like a bunch of widescreen televisions, are all set to go and ready for Noah to start lying. Noah starts lying, and since it’s his first day on the job as acting President, he does a very bad job of it, because Suvarov sees right through the lie that Noah is telling him. He tells Noah that he had Boris and Natasha watching Evil Mike’s building, so he knows exactly what’s going on. Noah says that he doesn’t like to be threatened, and Suvarov tells him that’s too darn bad. Suvarov says he’ll advance his troops within two hours, or by the end of the show, whichever come first, and hangs up. Noah tells Karen that they’re about to go to war over a piece of circuitry, and Karen just about points out Noah was about to go to war over some bigger pieces of circuitry a little while ago when it looked like he could scare them, but decides not to.
Commercial
3:54 am – Lennox is back at the White House, and he gets a phone call as he’s walking to Noah’s briefing with the military. Noah is in the Oval Office telling everyone what everyone at home already knows: The slick plan to make the Russians think that everything is OK wasn’t as slick as they had hoped. Tom interrupts and says that he needs Noah and Karen alone. Noah says he’s flattered, but then realizes that Tom doesn’t mean that and tells the generals in the room to leave.
3:55 am – Tom says that Grampa Bauer is on the phone, and wants to speak with Noah. Grampa says that all he wants to have are Josh, free passage to a country of his choice, and to get off of this stupid show. Noah is surprised to hear that Grampa was working with the Chinese, and wants to know if Grampa is bluffing. Grampa reads the serial number off of the circuit board, 3PTL3, gives his demands and hangs up.
3:57 am – Karen asks how Noah can even entertain the idea of giving Grampa what he wants, especially after everything else he was involved with today. Noah points out that they all accepted roles on this show, so it’s everyone’s fault for not stopping this ridiculous plot. Karen says that’s not what she meant, and says she meant the bombs. Besides, Grampa is a sociopath! Noah asks Tom’s advice, and Tom agrees that Grampa is a sociopath, but he thinks that entertainment is the only option.
3:58 am – Noah says, “None of this makes any sense”, and millions of people at home nod their heads up and down. Karen and Tom don’t realize what he really means, and point out that Suvarov might be having problems of his own, such as the military pressing for more action, more generals that want to blow things up, and possibly, quite possibly, a Russian version of the plot from this season of “24”. Noah says there’s no choice, they have to get this show to end as soon as possible and asks to talk to CTU.
3:59 am – Jack takes Josh to a car and tells him that everything is going to be OK, which is a clear sign that everything is about NOT to be OK. Someone tells Jack that he has a call for Jack. Jack goes to take the phone call, and Mike grabs Josh and drags him into a helicopter! Mike is taking Josh! Jack yells a lot, but his voice isn’t enough to bring down the helicopter. The helicopter takes off!
4:00 am – Time’s up!
NEXT TIME ON “24”: BILL IS BACK! PLANES! HELICOPTERS! CHLOE LOOKS HURT! CHENG DOWN! EXPLOSIONS! SEASON FINALE! TWO HOUR BLOGGING SESSION! NO MORE “24” SUMMARIES UNTIL NEXT JANUARY!
Thanks for this link, Amazing Steve!! You do a kick-butt job!
Thanks, Karen!