Month: January 2009

Previously on 24, we found out that: Chloe, Bill and Tony miss CTU so much that they’re doing CTU pro bono work; Chloe can probably use a toaster to break into a computer system if she really wanted to; Thugs should never tell their boss “It’s either me or him”; If you’re on the bad guys team, they issue you a standard set of dark clothes; Jack’s golf game has a mean slice, even when trying to break through dry wall.

12:00 pm – Agent Larry talks with a SWAT commander who says he’s afraid of exposing his men when they go try and get the Prime Minister. Larry tells them to wear coats, and to watch out for bullets from Tony and Jack’s new BFFs.

Over at the prime minster’s place, Emerson can’t get into the room, so he decides to punch one of the body guards who looks like Yemi from Lost. They don’t appear to know about Yemi’s friendship with a certain Smoke Monster, because they really beat him up.

While this is going on, Jack decides to do a bit of freelance handyman work, and crawls up into the ceiling for a plot device to exploit. Tony and Jack discuss their plans to make sure and get the Prime Minister so they can get to who they REALLY want to (Dubaku), completely unafraid of being overheard by the bad guys who are just eight feet away.

12:04 pm – Agent Larry gets an urgent message from the Attorney General, and calls Agent Renee Walker, who is driving in the completely empty streets of Washington, D.C. Agent Larry is quite upset about Renee using what she learned on America’s Funniest Interrogation Videos, and knows what she did to Tanner The Sniper. They argue about Renee going to the Prime Minster’s house, and she wins by hanging up on Larry.

Shaun is on the phone with his wife having an incredibly creepy conversation during a pretty big FBI operation. Shaun seems to have a lot of extra time on his hands, but successfully fills a few minutes of valuable air-time before the show moves on to a more interesting plot point.

12:06 – Back in the Prime Minster’s safe room, he inserts a few more quarters into the machine to make sure it stays locked for another thirty minutes. He’s pretty worried they’re going to run out of quarters soon.

His wife asks what Jack and Tony want, because she’s running out of different ways to says “Who is it?” to stall them. The Prime Minister says that they want the names of his allies in Sangala. She says that even though it’s a fake country, she knows that he would never expose them. (What’s with everyone exposing themselves tonight?) She realizes that she’s the real person he’s protecting, and she looks worried.

12:07 – It took a while, but Emerson finally figured out how to use the webcam that leads into the safe room. Emerson threatens to shoot the guy who looks like Yemi, if the Prime Minister doesn’t come out soon. Yemi’s not afraid, because he knows he’s got an “in” with the island. Emerson counts down, is about to shoot Yemi when Yemi’s phone gets a call from the FBI! Those guys have the BEST timing.

Turns out it’s Shaun on the phone, but he hangs up after nobody answers. Emerson uses his powers of deduction to realize that since the FBI called, they might know what’s happening at the Prime Minster’s place. He’s still not sure, so he asks Yemi. Yemi doesn’t answer, so Emerson hits him for the umpteenth time.

Tony, Emerson and a Miscellaneous Thug argue about what to do next. Jack walks in and says he has a plan to “flush them out” with “gas”, which disgusts everyone until he explains what he means. Miscellaneous Thug still doesn’t believe the FBI isn’t right around the corner, even after Jack explains the magic of “24” traffic rules to him – The FBI office 21 miles away will take least 15 minutes to get to them (with traffic!). They finally quit arguing after Jack says he can make some gas that he learned about by watching MacGyver. Tony and Jack are pretty sure of themselves, because they discuss their plan AGAIN, thinking that no one is within listening range of them.

Commercial

12:15 – Back at the Prime Minister’s residence, Jack works on his MacGyver gas in the air ducks. It doesn’t look at all like baking soda, vinegar and dry ice. Emerson gets back on his webcam to let the Prime Minister know about the gas, saying it isn’t laughing gas that’s pouring into the room. The Prime Minister and his wife take a chance and decide to cough and choke a bit while they think about it.

12:16 – Agent Janis is completely shocked to find that someone from the Attorney General’s office wants to talk to her about a letter he received from The Snipe’s lawyers about something that happened less than half an hour ago. Things like this usually take a lot longer than that. She, of course, denies every thing, and Agent Larry grabs her away. She seems completely fine with that.

12:18 – Renee is outside of the Prime Minster’s residence, which is still a completely police officer free zone.

Inside, Miscellaneous Thug wants Jack to “put more gas” in. Jack tells him that would “kill them instantly”. It appears that whatever gas Jack uses moves more quickly the more you make of it, and knowing Jack something like that is completely possible. Since Miscellaneous Thug doesn’t understand chemistry, he leaves.

Meanwhile, the safe room has turned into the unsafe room, what with all the poison gas and all. Mrs. Prime Minister decides to hit the “deal” button, and the door opens. Tony and Jack help them out of the unsafe room, and out of the house.

They move the prisoners to an inconspicuous large yellow ice cream truck while Renee watches. She calls Agent Larry, lets him know what is happening, and is promptly caught by Miscellaneous Thug. Larry tells Janis to get Renee back. Janis nearly leaves, but realizes Larry met to get Renee back on the phone. Larry trips one of the FBI extras in the room, and leaves.

Miscellaneous Thug brings Renee over. She swears at Jack using some naughty words, and they lock her into the yellow ice cream truck. The truck leaves without turning on the bells, which disappoints all the children in the area.

12:22 – Emerson calls Nichols to let him know that Renee knows the FBI knows that nearly everyone knows they want to know what the Prime Minster knows. What they don’t know is what Renee might know about what’s REALLY going on, so they have to check their source at the FBI. Renee takes this opportunity to call Jack a naughty word.

Commercial

12:28 – Henry’s Secret Service Agent Brian gets off the phone with a friend, who says he’ll help break the encryption on the thumb drive. These guys are obviously computer experts because they were able to determine the drive was encrypted even without having a computer with them to check it. They chit-chat a bit, going over what they’re doing, in case we’ve all forgotten last week’s show when we fell asleep.

Brian’s idea is to meet this “friend” in an apartment in about 20 minutes, which sounds completely safe to Henry. Henry says that he knew Roger was murdered all along, and he can’t wait to go “neener-neener-neener!” to everyone that didn’t believe him. He also wants to find the people that killed Roger and make them pay. Brian wants to tell the President, but Henry says it’ll be more exciting if he waits until later in the show.

12:29 –Ethan comes in to talk to the President, and doesn’t even bother knocking first, which in past administrations was a big “no-no”. It was safe though, because all the President was doing was looking at her script to make sure she got her lines right. The President wants to do a military strike in Sangala, and cites many good reasons to do so, not the least of which is that it is a fictional country.

The Secretary of State comes in and tells everyone about the Prime Minister’s abduction and that Tony and Jack are with them. She just can’t believe it, and paces around to prove that. The President wants to find the Prime Minster, and tells Stevens to bring in “every relevant agency”, forgetting that CTU isn’t around anymore.

12:32 – At the FBI, Shaun walks around and acts generally creepy around Blonde Female Agent… And then we find out why: They’re having an affair.

Janis interrupts just in time to spare us any further creepy talk, and asks Shaun to “babysit her downloads”, which sounds even creepier than what Shaun was just talking about with Blonde Female Agent.

Larry takes a phone call from the head SWAT Guy, who just got done sweeping up at the Prime Minister’s residence. SWAT really is a full service outfit nowadays, if they’re housecleaning too! After SWAT Guy tells Larry about Renee, Larry FINALLY tells Janis that everybody in the office should making finding Renee a top priority. That’s probably good, because so far it seems like it’s just been Larry, Janis, Shawn on the job.

12:34 – The yellow ice cream van drives down the road. Renee decides that it’s a great time to apologize to the Prime Minister, even though she’s never met him before. The Prime Minister thinks this is a little creepy, but tells her not to worry about it.

Emerson gets a phone call from Nichols and nearly takes an ice cream order before realizing who it really is. The news is, Renee found out about the abduction because of The Sniper, and as far as everyone knows, nobody knows anything else. He tells Emerson to kill Renee.

Emerson tells the driver to drive to an abandoned construction site. Jack seems interested in the fact that Washington must have a lot of those, just like LA does.

Tony suggests that they find out what Renee knows. Emerson disagrees. Tony wants to suggest that they really, REALLY try to find out what Renee knows, but creepy music starts playing and the discussion ends.

Commercial

12:40 – Agent Larry is still really upset that Renee is missing. Shaun is shocked that Larry’s acting this way and is really shocked when Janis tells him that Larry has “feelings” for Renee. Shaun says that bad 1970s songs were banned from the office, when Janis tells him she’s sure Larry and Renee have a relationship. She says she knows this because of her “instinct”. Shaun looks a little worried this “instinct” will reveal not only that he and Blonde Female Agent have an affair going, but also that Janis is about to figure out she’s the only one in the office not seeing someone else at the office.

12:41 – Dubaku gets off a phone call from Juma, who tells him that the President hasn’t moved any troops anywhere. Nichols tells him to look on the bright side, and that an invasion hasn’t started either and that just means more screen time for all the actors who aren’t in that other subplot. Dubaku wants to use the module again, and Nichols convinces him not to do so.

12:42 – Brian and Henry get to the apartment, which is completely secure since they hid the key under the doormat. Brian re-secures the room by putting the key back under the mat after Henry enters.

Henry looks around. He realizes that they’re in Samantha’s apartment, just in time to see Brian putting on some rubber gloves. Henry protests and says that he didn’t mean THAT kind of investigation. Brian explains everything to Henry, and Henry keels over from the muscle poison he slipped into Henry’s drink. Brian promises to make Henry’s death quick.

Brian goes into the next room to pick out some cutlery, and uses his “phone a friend” to tell Agent Vossler to get Samantha and bring her there. Their plan is to frame Henry for the murder, and stage a suicide. Brian explains Henry that he’s REALLY sorry about the whole “killing you” thing.

12:46 – Agent Vossler tells Samantha that she needs to be put into “protective custody”, which should be less creepy than it sounds, but won’t be. She agrees.

Commercial

12:51 – Shaun and Janis take some time to stall some more by rehashing even more of the “Renee and The Sniper” plot we saw last week.

The guy from the Attorney General’s office goes to talk to Agent Larry and informs him that he knows that Renee is missing. Larry explains the situation, but the guy decides to be a jerk and presses the point that he would just love to have an investigation as soon as he possibly could. Agent Larry stands up to the guy for being a jerk.

Janis calls Larry, using the same ringtone they used to use in CTU. She tells him that Renee was referenced during an NSA intercepted phone conversation, and it wasn’t a telemarketer. She tells Larry to come and listen to the conversation.

While Larry is on his way over, Janis tries to impress Shaun with her elite minesweeper skills, but he isn’t impressed. Larry finally gets there and they play the clip: They’re going to kill Renee.

12:55 – The yellow van stops at the abandoned construction site, and Emerson gives Jack a gun to kill Renee. He and Tony get Renee. Emerson and Miscellaneous Thug watch while she and Jack talk. Jack fake kills her, grazing her neck.

12:59 – Jack covers her with a giant sheet of plastic wrap, and walks back. Emerson tells Jack and Tony to bury her, which Tony and Jack start to do, even though Renee is really still alive.

1:00 pm – TIME’S UP!

NEXT TIME ON 24: BRIAN STILL HASN’T KILLED HENRY! DUBAKU PUTS SOMETHING HORRIFYING OUTSIDE THE PRESIDENT’S WINDOW WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING! JACK WANTS TONY TO SHOOT EMERSON SO THEY CAN GET ON WITH THE SHOW! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!