Season 7 – 24 – 6pm to 8 pm

Previously on “24”, we learned: There was Good News and Bad News if your name ended in “ika” (as in Erika The Apprentice Mole and Marika The SUV Flipper): The Bad News – You died. The Good News – Your boyfriend tried to escape, but he was caught and is now in custody; Dubaku needs to get some pockets for his data storage devices; Chloe ALWAYS has backups – Even Chloe’s backups have backups; Instead of Janis being the only annoying one on the show, we also have Olivia. We would gladly trade Edgar for Janis AND Olivia, even if Edgar were still dead; Tony has the ability to find Jack, no matter where Jack is in Washington, DC; Instead of picking on Jack Bauer, Senator Red Foreman should be picking staff that aren’t parts of terrorist plots.

6:00 pm – At the hospital, it looks like they’re trying to build a bionic Dubaku, which wouldn’t be good for anyone. Someone seems to have realized this because they squirted a gin and tonic into Dubaku’s intravenous tube, putting him into cardiac arrest.

6:01 pm – General Juma is on TV reruns at the White House. Mrs. President and Ethan spend some time arguing with an Admiral about finding Juma.

6:06 pm – Finding him doesn’t appear to be very difficult, because he’s standing in the middle of Washington, DC wearing military fatigues. (Score another win for the INS). Juma talks things over with Dubaku’s son, Laurent, who is wondering where his dad is. Laurent said his father was going to take him to a baseball game, get him some cotton candy, and execute a terrorist plot. Juma assures him that everything is OK, and then gets a phone call from the guy that gave Dubaku that gin and tonic IV. Dubaku is dead. Renee arrives at the hospital just in time to ask what happened, since she has no idea what’s going on. She gets the official diagnosis from the attending physician: He has no idea what happened either.

6:07 pm – Over at FBI headquarters, Agent Larry is throwing a meeting while Chloe gets some work done. She gets a phone call from Jack, who tells her that now Juma wants to do some terrorist things, and Burnett has been in on the plot all along. Jack has the bright idea to have Chloe take Burnett off the list, so Jack can work some Jack Magic on him while he’s at the White House. Chloe sees Janis coming, and deletes the file. Chloe looks REALLY annoyed at “Ms. Computer Expert” Janis for the mere suggestion that she can help in any way. Chloe finally agrees to let Janis click the Trash Icon, which gets Janis to go away.

6:09 pm – In the car, Tony asks Jack whether it’s a good idea to let Bill know about Burnett being a bad guy, since Jack wants to do Jack Magic on Burnett, and Bill might not like that. Jack says, “I’m driving off a cliff here”, and Tony screams like a little girl until he realizes that 1) there’s no cliff, 2) he’s parked, and 3) Jack was just using an expression. Jack convinces Tony to stay behind just in case they need to blow some things up.

6:10 pm – Burnett calls to ask if Juma can push back that whole “terrorist plot” thing, because he’s stuck in meetings and just can’t get away from the White House in time. Juma tells him they really can’t do that. Ethan interrupts and Burnett brings him to see Senator Red Foreman – who wastes no time and says the word “ass” in one of the first sentences he speaks.

Ethan explains that Jack was a very good anti-terrorist guy for the last couple of hours, which sets Senator Red Foreman right off. He can’t believe that Jack is in an “official capacity” and he doesn’t like how this looks. Ethan reminds him that the entire Congress is in an “official capacity” and NOBODY likes how THAT looks.

Senator Red is really on the warpath about Jack, since he’s been following Jack for years. Ethan says he doubts that because he’s pretty sure that Jack would have seen Red following him around. Ethan also explains that the President is very fond of Jack, especially for getting her husband back, so Red should just back off or she’ll just end up giving Jack a pardon. Red doesn’t like this at all, and tells Ethan that he can tell the president that “she just walked into a street fight”. (I don’t know about you, but I’d be happy to have Jack in a fight like that).

6:13 pm – Jack arrives to meet Bill and does what Jack always does when he enters a room, he beats the snot of someone that was guarding him and pulls a gun on everyone else. But this is Bill we’re talking about here, so Bill seems at least a little surprised. Jack asks where the heck Burnett is, and for some reason Bill doesn’t agree to help, even though Bill helped run a super double secret probation operation to catch Dubaku. Jack ties up Bill, which doesn’t seem like a good idea. Jack finally tells Bill that he just wants to keep him out of the whole situation, and gives him a Jack Hug. The Jack Hug makes Bill pass out. Jack goes through a bag and finds a taser. Must be Chloe’s purse.

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6:19 pm – Renee calls Larry to let him know about Dubaku, and that there might have been a “one of these things is not like the others” situation in the ICU when Dubaku died. She’s suspicious of a guy that no body seems to remember, who was the ninth man in the room, and he tried to look really innocent. Larry thinks there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this orderly – like the guy might have just gotten lost and was wandering around trying to find the way back to his tour group. Renee is still suspicious. Larry wants Renee to come back to do some paperwork, which is always a great way to get employees to come back to work. Renee convinces him that she needs to stay out in the field. Good thing too, because a police officer brings her a photo of the really innocent looking orderly getting into his innocent-looking car, going for a innocent-looking drive – the heck away from the hospital. Fortunately, they got a screen grab of this license plate: “NOTABADGUY”.

6:20 pm – Back at the FBI, Chloe rolls her eyes as she see Janis race into the room with important news – She’s figured out how to turn on the computer. Having done this, Janis figured out there is extra data that can’t be accounted for, and that it appears to her that someone deleted a header! Chloe tests Janis by making up the term “phantom data string”, which Janis completely overlooks. Janis really wants to get the data on her own terminal, but Chloe convinces her that she’s perfectly capable of handling things herself. Janis stomps off, probably headed to the nearest computer manual to figure out what “phantom data string” means.

6:22 pm – Chloe calls Jack to let him know that Janis has been snooping around, and to hurry up to get Burnett.

Elsewhere, Burnett is making whatever excuses he can think of to get the heck out of the White House as soon as possible, but Senator Red wants to talk. Senator Red says that he wants to make pardoning Jack as “politically toxic” as possible, which could imply that Jack is willing to discuss … SOCIAL SECURITY! Senator Red says that Mrs. President is in a highly emotional state, implying something that any man in his right mind would never… not EVER.. and I mean NEVER EVER imply to a woman… not and live to tell about it. Someone comes in to tell Senator Red that Mrs. President is ready to see him, so he leaves.

Burnett calls Juma, telling him that he’s about to leave, so Juma can get on with his yet-to-be-revealed Evil Plot. They plan on a rendezvous at 9:30pm, assuming that Jack hasn’t shot everyone involved by that time.

6:24 pm – Jack is in disguise, wearing a suit and holding a briefcase while on the prowl looking for Burnett. Jack finds Burnett, and gives him a “hello” taser which Burnett wasn’t expecting.

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6:28 pm – Janis goes to see Larry and gives him evidence that Chloe and Jack have been talking this whole time. Larry can’t believe it… Janis actually did something on a computer! Larry has Chloe taken into custody. She gives Janis the “Chloe Look Of Death”.

6:30 pm – Senator Red Foreman has taken this opportunity to lecture Mrs. President about all the campaign promises she gave. She seems amused the Senator Red still believes in campaign promises. She tells him that things aren’t as black and white as they seemed only a few hours ago, and Senator Red says there’s nothing grey about Jack Bauer. Just as this looks like a party where they’re going to discuss whether Jack is a winter or autumn, the subject switches to a long diatribe about whether Jack’s methods are good or not.

Agent Larry’s phone call goes through to the President. He informs her that Jack is probably somewhere in the White House carrying out an unauthorized interrogation of Burnett. Senator Foreman looks horrified.

6:33 pm – Back in Jack’s Office of Interrogation, Burnett is holding up remarkably well for someone who is getting casually tasered by Jack Bauer. Burnett still isn’t talking. Jack says he knows about the pending attack, and just wants to know where it is. He takes out part of the taser to up the voltage, and sticks it to Burnett’s throat when Burnett finally says, “Oh! THAT pending attack! Why didn’t you say so?” Jack is just about to get the location of the attack when Mrs. President interrupts via a page on the phone, telling him to stop what he’s doing. Jack tries to talk to her, but she won’t listen. Jack finally gets so frustrated that he tasers an innocent phone to death.

Jack resumes the “discussion” with Burnett when several army guys blow up the door to the room, taking Jack by surprise. Before Jack can say “Oh, the old exploding door trick!” they have him in custody. Jack and Senator Red have a brief discussion about who’s conscience will be more burdened, and before Jack can tell anyone that HIS conscience is Jiminy Cricket, the President walks in.

She insists on finding out who gave Jack the source of the intelligence that Juma is about to attack. When Jack finally says, “Tony Alamedia”, Senator Red blows his stack. He lies and says he doesn’t care where the intel came from, even if it came from “The Blessed Virgin Mary”. (I’m pretty sure if The Blessed Virgin Mary came down and gave out intel, Senator Red would listen to her). Jack finally says that Senator Red is weak, and can’t look evil in the eye and deal with it.

6:36 pm – Ethan is about to point out that evil doesn’t have eyes when Mrs. President takes him out of the room to talk. Ethan says he believes Jack, so she goes back in to tell them to take Jack Bauer away, to raise the terror alert level to “Very Skittish”, and that she wants to talk to Burnett herself.

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6:40 pm – Agent Tim tells Ethan and the President that they’re doing everything they can to protect the surrounding area, which means they’re complete sitting ducks.

Mrs. President tells Burnett that she wants to know everything that’s going on, or she’s going to ask again even more forcefully. Surprisingly enough, this doesn’t work. Ethan tries a different strategy: If Burnett talks, he’ll not only go home with a lovely radar range and a refrigerator with an ice maker, but he’ll also have his sentence reduced to “complete bozo”. She finally tells him that she really hates torture, so hurting him is completely out, but she’s always up for a good execution. Burnett still doesn’t buy it.

6:45 pm – Renee is at a warehouse where the orderly parked his getaway car. She sneaks around, and see a lot of guys in suspicious military uniforms with suspicious guns. Her phone rings! It’s Larry…. He wants to talk. Renee explains this is a bad time, and that she could REALLY use some back up, because of the whole “guys with guns” things she’s witnessing. She’s pretty sure that unless there are two terrorists attacks happening tonight, she’s stumbled onto the right one.

6:46 pm – Larry wants to send reinforcements so, naturally, he asks Janis to get a helicopter to the roof immediately. Janis starts to explain that she just joined Club Penguin and thinks it’s pretty cool. Larry gets her to focus, and she calls to get a helicopter to the roof.

6:47 pm – Renee hears Juma lying to Dubaku’s son. Juma’s telling him that he’s still alive, that he feels fine, and that he’d like to go for a walk. Renee feels this is important enough to make a call to Larry. She SWEARS she just saw Juma. She’s pretty sure that the “Juma” tag on his clothes is authentic. Larry tells her not to take any chances. (NOW he tells her).

6:48 pm – Renee goes back upstairs in time to notice a lot of heavily armed military guys leaving the building and heading for a boat. She decides it’ll be a good idea to hide under some bright lights. Everyone’s looking the other way, so she’s able to sneak up on the boat, and jump on it before it pulls completely way from the dock.

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6:54 pm – Bill asks about Jack, and finds out he’s in holding. Bill calls Tony to ask how real the intel about the attack is. Tony tells him that on a scale from one to ten, the real factor of the intel is “very”. There’s no fall back plan, because the guy Tony talked to isn’t among the living anymore. Bill gets very upset about this, and Tony tells him not to be because Jack was trying to protect him.

6:55 pm – Larry is on the phone with Janis, who is completely baffled about how to find Renee since calling her cell phone isn’t working anymore. She’s going to try “triangulation”, with real triangles if necessary.

6:56 pm – Renee does exactly the opposite of what Larry told her to do, and sneaks further onto the boat to hear Juma giving the last minute instructions for the attack. The military guys leave, all jumping into the water with diving masks and tanks. Renee takes this opportunity to go into the cabin with the plans and sees they’re going to attack the White House!

Dubaku’s son sees her, and instead of raising the alarm, decides to fumble around with a door long enough to let her make her escape. He shoots at her while she swims away. Then he grabs a rubber boat and starts to go after her. She makes it to shore at the same time as Dubaku’s son, who despite stopping right near her, doesn’t shoot.

Meanwhile, Juma and the underwater gang start to drill for oil underwater.

7:00 pm – Time’s up!
Previously on 24: Just happened! Read the summary, why don’t ya?

7:00 pm – Within the last one minute, Juma and the gang drill a hole big enough for them all to get through, and end up an some kind of underground tunnel with twisty passages, all alike. They don’t appear to be aware that a Grue might eat them if they take one more step.

7:01 pm – Olivia is back, and she’s complaining that she hasn’t had a line in over an hour. And that she wants to see her mother, Mrs. President. She tries to bluff Agent Aaron, but since Agent Aaron has been on many episodes of “24”, he can’t be bluffed.

Ethan comes in to tell Olivia that there’s been another terrorist threat and that the terror level has been raised to “Very Skittish”. They might even raise it to “Completely Skittish” soon. They’re positive that she’ll be perfectly safe at the White House.

7:02 pm – Mrs. President’s aide wants to spin the terrorist threat as only “Kinda Skittish”, but Mrs. President says she shouldn’t bother. They should issue a press release that tells everyone they know about a possible attack, but won’t be specific about where it is. She feels this should keep everyone calm.

Larry gets a call through to Mrs. President. He informs her that Juma is leading the attack, which surprises her. We can all tell she’s surprised because she takes off her glasses very dramatically and says, “What?” Larry repeats himself, but this time she’s not wearing glasses, so she can’t do anything dramatic again. She says that she really, really has to have a talk with the custom agents at the airport for letting this happen. Larry tells her that they’ve lost contact with Renee. Mrs. President says she hates it when she loses her contacts, so she knows what Renee is going through. Larry tells her that they have every reason to believe that Renee is still alive, despite losing her contacts, but she might have trouble seeing more than a few feet in front of herself. Larry says they’re looking for Renee.

7:05 pm – Renee runs like crazy through some underbrush, and finds a park ranger. She tells him to contact the FBI to let them know that she’s found her contacts and that there’s going to be an attack on the White House. The officer starts to call in, and is shot by Laurent Dubaku.

7:06 pm – Bill goes to talk to Jack. Jack’s in a cell where he’s letting the guards hold him, until he can perform some kind of daring escape, and possibly disable a couple of them. Bill says that the attorney general wants to file criminal charges, and Renee saw Juma. Jack starts to argue with Bill about Burnett. Jack tries to convince Bill that interrogation techniques are really a fun time, and that Bill really needs to try it out, especially now, since Jack, regrettably, is a bit indisposed at the moment. Bill finally refuses, and leaves.

7:08 pm – Juma and his guys are in a dark tunnel having missed the Grue completely. Juma has an Evil Handyman on the other side of a wall, who says he’ll help them once they make it though the wall. A co-worker comes into the room, and invites Evil Handyman over tomorrow to have Chinese food. This sets Evil Handyman right off, because he HATES Chinese food. He stabs the co-worker in the back with a stiletto, and prepares to meet with Juma.

7:10 pm – They break through the wall, and within thirty seconds, they have access to the highly secure Secret Service tracking grid. They make they way through the White House, pausing to kill people as they move along, consulting a laptop using Google White House as they move along.

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7:16 pm – A few more hallways, and a few more people dead. Juma encounters the woman who was going to spin the press release for Mrs. President and shoots her. Ironically, she spins in place before slumping to the floor. Juma and his men continue through the White House, shooting people as they go.

Elsewhere, Agent Larry is out looking for Renee with a lot of FBI guys. They’re going to feel pretty stupid when they find out what’s going on at the White House right now. Boy, are their faces going to be red!

Renee is still on the run, and Laurent finally catches up with her. Renee immediately tells him that Dubaku Senior is dead, and that makes Dubaku Junior the new Dubaku Senior. Laurent doesn’t believe this, even after she gives him the name “Udo”, saying that’s who killed Dubaku Senior. Laurent tells her that’s a really the name of a card game and is distracted long enough for Renee to pick up a shovel and belt him with it. They fight and just when it looks like Renee is going to die, Larry shoots Laurent.

7:18 pm – Bill transfers Jack to the custody of the attorney general. Right at that moment, Bill gets a phone call from Larry telling him the target is the White House. Bill says that Target doesn’t have a store at the White House, and then realizes what Larry is saying. Larry calls to all the other non-dead agents at the White House that they’re going to Condition: Elmo, and that the President has to be secured. Bill makes Jack promise to follow his orders, which Jack does (with his fingers crossed!)

Agents go to get Mrs. President telling her the White House is under attack. Agent Aaron grabs Olivia. They start to head for lockdown, when Bill arrives with Jack. Now, with the White House under attack, and an agent taking her away… and what’s her first question? She sees Jack and says, “What’s he doing here?” Jack points out that right now, she needs all the friends she can get.

Bill calls to agents in zones five, seven and nine, but they don’t respond, mainly because they’re all dead. Bill realizes they’re heading straight for Mrs. President, and he knows why. Turns out that Mrs. President is wearing one of those Track-A-President bracelets that Mr. President bought on one of those TV infomercials, and they’re using that to track her. Bill grabs the bracelet, saying that he’ll go in a different direction to send Juma off track. Jack and the other agents go with the President to lockdown.

7:20 pm – Juma’s man with the laptop tells Juma that Mrs. President has left the Oval Office. Must be an old laptop, because this happened minutes ago. Juma splits his group into two parts, hoping to trap Mrs. President.

7:21 pm – Bill runs through the hallways, and so do Juma and his men. They finally catch up with Bill. Bill is the first person they don’t shoot on sight. Now, after killing some two dozen people, Juma tells his men they need to start taking hostages, and sends a few more towards lockdown to get Mrs. President.

7:22 pm – A few Secret Services agents FINALLY find some of Juma’s men, and they exchange bullets.

7:22 pm – Some more of Juma’s men break into a room… Hey! It’s full of hostages! How convenient!

7:22 pm – Jack phones Aaron to let him know they’re at lockdown, and it’s really important that Aaron step it up a little so they can all be in lockdown together. Jack estimates they have about two minutes. This turns into about 2 seconds, because Juma’s men are already there. Jack locks himself and the President into the lockdown room. Jack better hope Juma doesn’t know about the “cutting through wall board” and “making poison gas” tricks he used on the Prime Minister. Anyway, as soon as they’re in lockdown, Jack calls Aaron to apologize for locking them out, and that they’ll have to find their own lockdown…or escape. Jack’s radio gives out… Juma is jamming it somehow.

7:23 pm – Juma arrives at lockdown, and shoots the door in the mistaken belief it’s one of those wimpy, foreign-made lockdown doors. The door doesn’t budge, because… There’s another door behind it! Tricky, tricky Americans!

7:24 pm – In a slight miscalculation, Juma thought that once they killed all the Secret Service agents in the building, that would be it. He didn’t realize the Secret Service has emergency backup agents too. As soon as he realizes they’re surrounded, he decides to bluff. He gets on the radio and tells the agents that he has the President.

The bluff works… The agents all retreat by moving backwards, which as we all know is the international method of retreating. The only people that realize that Juma is bluffing are Agent Aaron, Olivia and millions of viewers, because they know Jack and the President are in lockdown.

They gather hostages as one of Juma’s men uses a Target gift card to try and break into the lockdown room…. And it’s working! It’ll be done in 15 minutes

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7:31 pm – Renee arrives outside the White House by helicopter just in time for the agent in charge, Agent Hovis, giving all the excuses about why they retreated. Hovis says that ass far as they know, they have no agents inside the White House right now. Little do they know they have Agent Aaron, Bill and Jack all in there… I don’t think Juma stands a chance.

Renee sees that Jack is on the list of people in the White House, and it surprised to hear that he’s under arrest! Jack finally achieved his lifelong goal – to interrogate someone in the White House. Well, that was his goal last season… and the person that season was the President… but hey, this was still pretty close.

Larry tells Renee that even though Jack has top billing on this show, it’s the President they’re trying to help, not Jack. They both laugh at this little joke, but then get all serious and say, “yeah, the President”. They wink and laugh again.

7:33 pm – Mrs. President watches the hostages being gathered together. Senator Red Foreman is there too. Olivia isn’t there, which Jack says is good news, because if Olivia was out there whining, Juma would probably shoot her first.

Mrs. President sums up the entire season so far: “This is insane”.

7:34 pm – Jack realizes they’re breaking in using that Target card, and he disables the access panel. Juma finds out the panel is disable, and isn’t happy about it. He tells his men, “We’ll find another way”.

7:35 pm – Juma makes a phone call to Jonas Hodges, (who looks a lot like John Voight), who’s having Chinese takeout while wearing a linen napkin, just to make himself feel fancy. Hodges takes the phone call. Juma complains that they can’t get to the president, even with all the help Hodges has given them so far. Hodges says his part in this is done, which would make this one of the shortest cameos in “24” history.

Juma points out that Voight doesn’t have “the shipment” yet… without explaining what “the shipment” is, but making it sound mysterious. Juma says that unless Hodges helps him, “the shipment” will be destroyed. Hodges looks through some lists, and sees that Olivia is in the building. Find Olivia, and if he can stand the whining, they’ll get the President. Juma agrees to send the shipment.

Hodges then gives the motto of the “24” season so far: “Stress is the fertilizer of creativity”…. There’s a LOT of stress this season, if you know what I mean.

7:40 pm – Juma looks through the assembled hostages for Olivia. Senator Red decides to complain little more about Jack, but Bill ignores him as best as he can.

7:41 pm – Agent Aaron and Olivia make their way through the halls, and despite Aaron’s best efforts to leave Olivia some place so he can escape from her, she still wants to tag along. They hatch a plan to send a signal from the windows that the President is NOT being held hostage.

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7:46 pm – Agent Larry talks to the Vice President, and tries to convince him to let them storm the building to get Juma and his men. The VP doesn’t like this idea, because Mrs. President might get killed. The VP seems completely unaware that if things DID go wrong, he’d be President, so it’s hard to tell what he’s been thinking. He does say that “prudence” dictates they hold off, because Mrs. President might be killed. Renee responds asking whether “prudence” is called for in this situation, since there are terrorists in the White House. Larry asks who “Prudence” is.

7:49 pm – Agent Aaron is still roaming the halls with Olivia, when they finally meet up with one of Juma’s men. There’s a shot exchange of projectiles, and Aaron is shot! So logically, what does he do? He starts teaching Olivia Morse code. She’s to signal “Code Green”, which is Secret Service jargon for “come in shooting”. He directs her to a room that has a flashlight in a security kit.

Olivia finds a flashlight and has enough time to put a couple of blinks out the window, when Juma’s men catch up with her. They take her and Agent Aaron to Juma.

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7:55 pm – Juma’s men find a camera in the chandelier, and realizes Mrs. President is watching. Juma uses this to his advantage, and does a little dance. He demands to be let on Dancing With The Stars. That doesn’t work.

He shows Mrs. President that he has Olivia and threatens to cut all kinds of things off Olivia before killing her. That works. Mrs. President starts to argue with Jack about giving up, but Jack won’t let her. She finally orders him to open the door.

Juma just about cuts Olivia when the door opens. Jack comes out with his hands up. Mrs. President tells Juma to give up the hostages, and Juma slaps her. Rather than start a slapfight, she stops. Juma tells her that she’s about to give the last address she’s ever going to give.

8:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: MRS. PRESIDENT MIGHT MAKE A SPEECH! JACK DOES MAKE A PLAN! RENEE MAKES A PLAN TOO! THE VICE PRESIDENT DOESN’T MAKE A PLAN!