24: Live Another Day – Hour 1 and 2 Recap

24
Many of you know that I wrote recaps for 24 over on Dave Barry’s Blog when the show was running. The show ended four years ago.

Well, it was back last night, and the tradition continues. Here’s my recap of hours 1 and 2 of Live Another Day:

LAST TIME ON “24”:

Madam President used her phone a friend to stop her agents from trying to kill Jack Bauer, which was a good thing because she would have ended up with a bunch of dead agents; Jack was warned by Madam President that the US and Russians were going to be after him, and not because they wanted his autograph; Chloe made a promise to Jack to watch after Jack’s daughter Kim and her family and sensed an opportunity to start “Chloe’s CTU Day Care”.

Chloe’s last words on the show where “Shut it down”, but after several seconds of careful scientific analysis of the video, I’ve found out that she follows that by mumbling “…but Jack will be back!”

24 Fans, we gather together here, on this blog, to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Jack Bauer!

LET’S GO!

No boop noises, so you know something weird is going on…

Several very short-haired guys looking around a London market for bargains, and they seem to be disturbed that even this place can’t beat Walmart.

At some place that looks remarkably like CTU, Steve (no relation) Navarro asks where they are on satellite tracking, at which point everyone breaks out their iPhones and brings up Google Maps.

A blonde woman quietly packs up her office, which she’s doing a remarkably good job of because she’s even packed some of the walls. This woman’s name is Kate. Someone named Marianna asks for Kate’s encryption keys and passcodes. These need to be handed in because no one at this place has figured out that can just change each of those, and because they’ve been told by their upper managers that all encryption keys and passcodes need to be reused to save money.

Kate asks what’s going on out there, and Marianna tells her they have a high value target that they’re trying to track in London. Kate says, “Barry Manilow?” Marianna says, “No, I said HIGH value target.” They both laugh. Kate asks, “Is it connected to the President being here?” Marianna tells her no, the President doesn’t have anything chained to him, because he’s like…the President.

Meanwhile, back at the market, the three guys meet up with two more, plus a homeless guy and get their guns ready to break into the back of a warehouse. The homeless guy cracks open a hole in the side of the wall and throws his prized robot into the room where they find someone sleeping. They break into the warehouse and find a stock pile of homeless people that haven’t been put out on the Walmart shelves yet. After throwing some Dollar General smoke bombs into the room, they try to find who they’re looking for.

The person they’re looking for isn’t there, but he is on the run. One of the guys who broke into the warehouse runs to try to find him, and runs right into a fist. Several times. The people back at makeshift CTU are watching this on a camera the guy was wearing, and it’s…. JACK BAUER! Jack looks just like Jack used to, except now he’s in a hoodie, which is what all the cool ex-CTU agents are wearing these days.

Jack beats up several other agents, all without firing a shot. He even uses a gate to take one of the agents out. Finally, one of the agents decides to shoot at Jack which is always a bad idea. Jack shoots back, but strangely, doesn’t hit a thing. Jack is out of practice.

Meanwhile, back at CTU, Kate starts giving Jack advice about how to escape, not realizing Jack can’t hear her. Jack runs outside, hits several people, beats up a few empty crates, and heads to the river. Jack jumps over the railing and… GETS CAPTURED. He just looks really mad. So mad, that he sets the boop machine off.

11:06 am – President William Devane, in disguise as President James Heller immediately violates the first rule of being a President on “24”: Never stand in front of a window. After President All State, you’d think he would know that. Anyway, he’s in town for a drone convention, and to explain why Amazon is using them to deliver assassinations to terrorists, which is much quicker than using Amazon Prime. He’s also in town trying to convince England to keep an American base. He’s informed that no other country is comfortable with even going to first base with America, let alone second or third.

The Chinese are ticked off about this whole thing, and the Navy are holding a “friendship tour”, which coincidentally Jack Bauer participated in several seasons ago. The President takes the time to hold an impromptu history lesson about Roosevelt, which the whole staff appears to be worried about . Heller says that he has to go work on his speech, and needs to “go to the sandbox” because he drank too much each. Everyone leaves.

Before he leaves, Mark decides to tell Heller that he really doesn’t know trivia, and corrects him. Instead of doing what he would have done as a previous Secretary of Defense (and kill him), Heller laughs it off and tells him the he’d make a good Pat Sayjak on The Price Is Right.

Steve calls Mark and says that he has Jack Bauer. Mark asks “Are you sure?” Steve says, “No, I’m Steve, but thanks for asking. Oh, and it is really Jack Bauer. It’s tattooed on the back of his neck.” Both of them think that Jack being in London is no coincidence. Mark seems really angry about this, so angry that he wants Jack transfer to “extra naughty, naughty” custody. He hangs up and tells a minion that overheard this that no one should hear about this. The minion doesn’t point out that it’s too late, because HE’S already heard it.

Back at CTU, Kate is doing some extracurricular spying, trying to figure out why Jack didn’t try and get away on rooftops, considering Jack’s affinity for Parkour. She tells Steve that Jack is up to something, because Jack wouldn’t be this careless after being off the grid for four years. Steve thinks Jack just misses driving around in black cars.

COMMERCIAL

11:15 am – At a US Air Force Base, a guy playing a black and white video game hands over the game to a new guy who just ran into the room. The new guy phones General Sheperd in order to get a reprimand from, and get grounded for not flying his drones properly.

11:17 am – Steve decides he wants to interrogate Jack himself before the Extra Naughty, Naughty Squad gets there.

11:18 am – Kate talks to Erik, who also thinks that Jack should have tried to escape via the roof. Erik won’t give any information to Kate, even though she asks for it. She has enough clearance to still be there in CTU playing with computers, but not enough clearance for that information. A guy in a beard helpfully points out that Jack is being streamed on Google Hangouts on a monitor right in the open. The monitor apparently DOES have clearance, but only clearance in black and white, not color.

11:19 am – Erik tattletales to Steve on Kate for asking about Jack. We find out that Kate’s husband was selling Ancient Chinese Secrets, and she’s getting kicked out of there because of it.

Beard guy (Jordan) says that he has the information for Kate, but since it’s so important, he waits to tell her that she should fight the transfer. Kate points out that fighting the transfer will do no good, because it’s people that will make that decision, not a piece of paper.

Kate reads that the Prague Police had a tip about Jack. It says “Doo doo doo doo, dah dah dah dah”. It also has a timestamp that’s out of sequence, which proves that the message from Prague is fake, planted by someone.

Down in the interrogation, the agent watching Jack is pretty impressed with Jack’s vital signs, which are steady as a rock, as if Jack is either a killing machine, a robot, or not worried about anything in particular. Or that maybe the sensors they attached to him don’t have a good connection. Maybe all of the above.

Steve walks in to talk to Jack. He goes into a monologue about how Jack is considered a criminal. Jack just gives him a Jack Stare, but it could well be that he’s just asleep.

Further downstairs in an even MORE secret dungeon, an agent announces that Jack is going to be down in a few minutes. The special agent in charge of naughty, naughty interrogation walks into a room where CHLOE is strapped down on a table. It appears they’ve been doing psychotic grunge makeup experiments on her. The agent injects something into Chloe, and from her screams, we can only imagine it induces her to think of Justin Bieber.

COMMERCIAL

11:28 – Mark is in his office, looking at Jack’s VERY impressive Game Center kill list when he’s interrupted by a high pitched screech from someone saying “I’m almost ready”. It’s AUDREY! That can only mean that Mark must have lost some kind of bet. He tries to convince her to not go the reception, mainly because he doesn’t want to be seen with her. They discuss President Heller’s condition, which is undoubtedly caused by having Audrey as a daughter.

Mark’s minion, who is trying to impersonate Batman’s voice, says that he has an update about Jack.

11:30 – The minion tells Mark that Jack is about to go to the Naughty, Naughty room, and that he’ll probably go to trial afterwords. Mark doesn’t think that’s the best course of action after Jack is interrogated. Mark says, “He could disappear.” The minion says that he doesn’t believe Jack has the power of invisibility, but anything is possible. Mark wants Jack handed over to the Russians. Mark is really mad about Jack and what he did to the Heller family. He says that Audrey was lifeless, unresponsive, under psychiatric care, not expected to recover… Which is all normal operating mode for Audrey AND he married her like that anyway. And he just stood by her for three years. The minion thinks that’s a very long time to stand next to someone, but doesn’t say anything. Mark swears, “As long as she lives, she’ll never hear the name Jack Bauer”. The minion takes this as a sign to kill Audrey, but then realizes that Mark only meant that Audrey has earplugs now.

President Heller and Audrey exit the building with Mark, to see a big crowd protesting Audrey’s return to the show. They even have “No Drones” signs to reinforce this point.

Steve asks Jack if he can call him “Jack”, which is kinda weird because I’m not sure what else he would be called, unless they started calling him “Jack Jack”. Steve informs Jack that he could arrange it so he could talk to his daughter Kim, who had another baby, and they know what causes that now.

Jordan tells Kate that they figured out where that mis-timestamped message came from. It was just three blocks from where Jack was captured. Kate thinks this is really weird, and thinks Jack planted the message.

Kate tells Steve that Jack wanted to get captured, and in true CTU form, Steve doesn’t take this seriously. Marianna comes down to tell them both that the orders came through, and Jack is being transferred. Possibly for a CTU agent to be named later. Kate runs back into the room and locks it. She tells Jack she knows he planted the message and that he’s after someone. After seeing Kate, Jack’s pulse skips a beat, but goes back to normal. Steve gets back into the room and tells her to leave. Fortunately for Jack, Steve continues to ignore Kate, and gets her escorted out of the building. He even takes away her CTU grocery rewards card.

COMMERCIAL

11:40 – Just three people are escorting Jack out of interrogation, which is a huge mistake. Just one person is escorting Kate out of the building, which is an even bigger mistake because she grabs a taser and tests it. It works! Flappy guard all over the floor, didn’t make it past the first set of poles. She hides the guard in a server room, and calls Jordan. She asks if Jack has a prior history with anyone in the building. Jordan asks if she has a crush on Jack. Kate calls him a big silly and to shut up, and he says he’ll call back once he finds out anything.

Outside, a really angry looking service worker (but I’m being redundant) hooks up some wires to a junction box of some kind.

Meanwhile, Erik starts insulting Jack about the way he used to be this big top dog CTU guy, but not anymore. Erik asks to be let into the Naughty, Naughty interrogation room.

Turns out that Jack really might be a robot, because he presses a button under his skin, sending a signal to the service worker, who triggers an outage. Jack proceeds to show Erik and his cohorts why Jack Bauer is still the top dog by beating them all up with both hands handcuffed behind his back. Jack even takes the time to rub it in by sitting on Erik and un-handcuffing himself.

The naughty, naughty interrogation agent opens the door and Jack says hello the way only way Jack knows how, with a gun to the face. He asks to be taken to “her”, warning the guy that if he tries anything funny, he’ll blow his head off. They get into the room and he sees that Chloe is hooked up to an IV, and is unconscious. Jack is really mad that this guy did this to Chloe, and knocks him out.

Jack roots around and finds a huge USB stick and drives it right into Chloe’s chest, rebooting her.

Jack came to save Chloe. Damn right!

Jordan calls Kate to say he’s found a connection. Chloe has changed her named Snowden, and has released a whole bunch of information about House of Representatives spending habits, the fact that the White House pays women less, and the fact that guy who is the head of the Senate likes to dress in women’s clothing, and they’re all really mad at her. Kate correctly assumes that Jack is breaking out Chloe. She finds Erik and one of the guards, and is so mad she shoots an innocent door before heading through it.

Jack tells Chloe to run for cover because he’s going to have some fun. He knocks the knobs off of two gas lines, just as Kate appears. Kate realizes that someone let out some gas, and it wasn’t anything she had for lunch, so she wisely runs for cover as Jack shoots at the gas. Big explosion, large fireball. Doors all the way two floors up inexplicably blow off their hinges.

Outside, the service worker goes to a tool chest and pulls out his standard issue rocket launcher gun, which they issue for these kinds of neighborhoods.

Kate reappears and pulls a gun on Jack. He turns around, makes a mean face.

Again, outside, the service worker shoots the pavement with the launcher, causing a huge explosion right where Kate, Jack and Chloe are. The worker sends down a ladder, and much to his surprise, out pops Jack and Chloe! It’s like this was all planned or something. He takes the ladder so Kate can’t follow. She runs off and the truck drives off. Kate tries to shoot the gate she’s behind out of frustration.

11:53am – Audrey and Heller are riding in the limo. Heller talks about feeling history, which Audrey interprets as an uncomfortable discussion about Heller’s dating Eleanor Roosevelt. She quickly changes the subject to the history lesson where Heller made a mistake, and tells him she’s worried. He just makes a funny face at her, and tells her that he’s terrified he’ll end up like her soon.

11:54 – Back at CTU, there’s a lot of Jack destruction everyone is shifting through. PERIMETER called! Kate says that they should go after Chloe, because she’s been in town longer than Jack has. Steve is unconvinced, and says that he’s under a microscope and can’t do anything. They both look up, don’t see a microscope, and continue to talk. Kate says that beside the fact the she had NO idea that her husband was a traitor, she’s the right person for the job, and proceeds to prove it by trying to blackmail Steve (again, no relation). Steve looks thoughtfully into the distance.

11:56 – Chloe tries to fix her makeup and the car stops. Jack tells her to get somewhere safe. She leaves, and Jack admits he bugged the phone because he’s not sure she would have said “yes” to helping him. And that he doesn’t have friends. And that he can still make a sad face.

Meanwhile, a triangle shaped drone goes flying through the air under the control of the lieutenant who was playing the video game earlier. There was a very bad bug in the software, because the drone launches a missile killing Shepard. The lieutenant is horrified, even though it’s pretty likely he’s not going to be grounded anymore.

12:00 – COMMERCIAL

HOUR 2

Last time on 24: It just happened! What’s wrong with you?

12:00 pm – Chloe’s walking down the street, which apparently is a safe secret place to hide, in London.

At CTU, Kate discovers Chloe’s phone, which Chloe got for a very good price, free, from a stolen shipment. The naughty, naughty interrogation agent wimps out and says they usually get the local police to supply them with free phones.

Kate calls Ken who she convinces to check out the stolen cell phone number from Chloe’s phone. Ken’s been working for CTU, but must be retired because he looks really exasperated that people still keep calling him for info.

Steve tells Erik that Kate’s back on the payroll again, at least for now. Steve tells Erik that he’ll be working with Kate. In case we didn’t hear it the first fifty times, Erik points out that Kate missed the fact that she was married to a SPY selling secrets to the Chinese. Steve points out that in all fairness, Kate’s husband was married to a spy too. Erik’s pretty mad about that.

12:02 pm – Out on the street, Chloe goes to an abandoned building site, which appears completely secure, except for the hole behind a sign, and the twelve jillion graffiti tags all over the place. She goes into the building and buzzes herself in. A bunch of people who look like they’re off versions of the IT Crowd greet her. They even have a completely silent pinball machine, that one of them was playing.

The head of their group, which you can tell because he looks a LOT older than the rest of them, greets her, and asks where she’s been. She sheepishly admits she’s been in a CIA black site, which immediately arouses suspicions because none of them have ever had that happen before. The guy asked if they’ve been compromised, and she tells him that “someone I used to work with broke me out”. The guy says, “That’s impossible.” Her response: “Not for him. It’s Jack Bauer.” They guy pees his pants, just a little, and yells, “Shut it down! We have to move!”

Chloe tries to reassure the guy, but that lasts all of about two seconds because Jack breaks down the door and enters, with the guy I’m beginning to suspect isn’t really a service worker.

Jack calls the guy Chloe has been talking to “Adrian Cross”, and begins yelling for Derrik Yates. Now it’s the rest of the nerds turns to pee their pants.

Adrian says that Yates doesn’t work with them anymore because they had a clash of styles, plaid and stripes. Adrian refuses. Jack responds by showing why people shouldn’t disagree with people named Bauer.

Chloe asks Jack why he’s looking for Yates. Jack says that he intercepted some intel that mentioned an assassination attempt in London that was linked to Yates and Chloe’s organization. More maybe Gates. Or Mr. Bates. Definitely something that ended in “ates”.

Adrian says that Yates started selling intel on a new system from Ebay, “Intel-bay”. He says that Yates didn’t follow the protocol of only posting information, not selling it.

12:06 – Chloe uses her Chloe powers to convince everyone standing around to help her look for Yates, which they immediately do, because they know that Chloe wouldn’t like it very much if they didn’t.

Chloe’s very mad at Jack, for not just asking for her help in the first place. Jack tries to point out that if he had tried to ask in the first place, she would have just had her tongue hanging out drooling because she was unconscious at the time.

Back on the street, the camera person must not be paying attention because it moves all over the place looking for someone.

Cut to the inside of an apartment building with no doors, where a guy with a black knit cap is walking down the hall. Knit cap goes into a room where big scary guys are openly packing up drugs and counting money. We can barely understand Knit Cap says because he’s speaking English. Like from England English. He’s complaining about another guy at a computer, and his girlfriend.

The girl is Russian, because she has a thick Russian accent and skips words in her sentences. The guy, who we assume is Yates, tells her he’s working, and she should behave or go in the other room. She understandably doesn’t want to, because there are big scary guys in the other room. Yates gets a phone call from someone he considers even scarier, which is reinforced because we can only see her in dark shadows AND she speaks in foreign accent. Yates tells her that the Americans will have no idea he took over the video game, because he pinned the whole thing on someone else. The Dark Shadows lady tells him that blaming it on someone else would have been better than using a pin. Even a staple gun would have been better. He assures her they’re still on schedule, even with the modifications, and with the Russian woman acting frisky. The Dark Shadows lady is pretty suspicious that something is going on, but appears to be dumb enough to fall for the “it was just the TV” excuse, at least for now.

COMMERCIAL

12:15 pm – Back at an army base, the lieutenant is getting interrogated about the drone incident. They’re suspicious of him because he just had a weekend pass revoked, which tells us one thing: The army needs to hand out a LOT more weekend passes if this is how they think people will react to having one revoked.

Tanner (the lieutenant) says just to check the flight key, and to check the logged keystrokes and date. The thing is definitely army issued, because it is HUGE. You could probably log all the keystrokes in America on that thing. Tanner is informed that not only was it checked and cross checked, but it was cross-cross checked, triple cross double checked, and quintuple by-pass double scotcherooed checked. It shows that all the keystrokes came from his console. Tanner looks very worried and he insists that the flight key has something on it that will prove he’s innocent. Plus he still has his family photos on that thing, and he’d really like it back.

At a party, Heller tells the Prime Minister, Alister Davies, “I can not tell you how much I appreciate your support on this, Alister”. Davies looks perplexed, and says, “But you just did!” Heller tries to scare Davies by introducing him to Audrey, and then leaves her with him after Audrey says Heller is needed. Davies doesn’t look nearly as worried as he should be.

Heller goes to talk with Mark and the Advisors (which would be a good name for a really dorky rock band). The general informs Heller that a drone might have, kind of, accidentally, whoopsies… killed four guys, two from our side and two from England.

Heller tells the advisors that it’s important that Davies hears this news from himself, because he wants to see the expression on Davies’ face when he tells him. As he turns to tell Davies, we see two British officers are already there, likely to protect the prime minister from Audrey. Audrey leaves and either she farted, or Davies just received the bad news, because he walks off in disgust before Heller can get to him.

Mark receives a call from Steve and is informed that Jack escaped. This surprises Mark, because he’s obviously not as familiar with Jack as he thought. Steve says that he broke out an ex-colleague of his. Mark asks, “So he has no designs on President Heller?” Steve says that Jack doesn’t even have a doodle on President Heller. Steve thinks it’s very doubtful that Jack wanted the president to be killed. Mark does not like this one bit, and tells Steve that unless he gets Jack back, he can kiss his career and frequent flier miles goodbye.

Chloe continues to do her work, but gives Jack’s service worker the evil eye. She says that the tattoo he has means he’s been a very, very bad service worker. All the marks on his arm show how many murders he’s committed, and the marks on the other arm show how many DVDs he “forgot” to return to Red Box. She asks what Jack has been up to for the last four years, and she goes into snark mode. She wants to know why he’s doing this. She finally figures it out that he’s doing this for Audrey! She, and the rest of Earth, throws up a little. Chloe says she’s convinced that what all intelligence agencies do is criminal. He responds that she’s just talking like Adrian Cross, which, for the first time that I can recall, leaves her speechless. She tells him that he’s not Judge Judy or even Judge Reinhold, and that he can’t judge her.

One of the nerds sees video showing the aftermath of the Afghanistan attack, and Jack quickly comes to the conclusion that Yates has been a very naughty information dispenser. Adrian says that he found out where Yates has been hiding, but it’s in a place with drug dealers, and someone who is a “nasty piece of work”. It looks like Jack is going to work. Jack goes to leave, and Chloe volunteers to go with. Jack leaves, and Chloe orders everyone to put down their video games and help her give Jack some communications backup.

COMMERCIAL

12:29pm – Heller tells Mark and the General (which would be a good name for a terrible TV show) that he wants to phone the Prime Minister and talk to Parliament while it’s in session. Mark points out that if he does it while Parliament is out of session, it wouldn’t have the same impact anyway. It’s pointed out that people are already saying the incident has been white-washed, which is probably a land-speed record from the time it occurred until now for people to have come to that conclusion. Anyway, Heller decides he wants to get Chris Tanner, the drone pilot, here, and for the General to make the arrangements. The General doesn’t understand what flowers have to do with this, but he’ll follow the orders, even though flowers are against the U.N. florist convention.

Mark is worried that Heller won’t be able to handle Parliament because he’s not on the “top of his game”, and puts on his sad eyes as he says it. Heller smiles like a crazy uncle, and says that Mark didn’t think he was up to it when he spoke at a town meeting in Ohio. From the look on Mark’s face, you could tell that he didn’t have the heart to tell Heller that meeting was a bunch of dogs out for a walk with their owners at a park in Washington.

Audrey says that she just passed the General, and he looked really upset. Mark doesn’t want to tell her that the General was upset just because Audrey walked by, so he tells her about her father’s plan to talk to Parliament. Mark is completely against it, but Audrey wants to help her father prep for the speech. She reminds Mark he did pretty well against those dogs at the park.

The Russian girlfriend back at Hotel Hell, sees news coverage of the aftermath of the strike, which is somehow already on network TV, despite the strike being in the middle of Afghanistan. She asks if Yates did this, and he admits to it. She asks if he doesn’t feel a teeny tiny bit bad, and Yates says, “They were already dead. They just didn’t know it.” She asks if he means like in that old Michael J. Fox movie, and he says, “yes”. He tells her that the President is going to die on foreign soil, which is sure to trigger a huge war. His plan is to wait it out in Greenland, which is a bad plan because Greenland is the icy one, and Iceland is the green one. Anyway, that’s his plan, but he has to get something done within 28 minutes, or the Dark Shadows lady is going to be very upset.

12:33 – At makeshift CTU, Jordan announces they haven’t found anything. Kate enters and says two phones from the stolen shipment are at a housing project. Everyone looks shocked, SHOCKED that’s where they could be. They decide to follow the lead, but someone will be in big trouble if they find teenagers with those phones.

Jack and Chloe arrive at the housing project where Yates is, and decide to do a communications check. Jack says, “Testing, 1, 2, 3,” and Chloe looks at him like he’s stupid. “I’m sitting RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!”. She looks worried that Jack’s years alone in the field might have affected him. Jack leaves and Chloe goes to try and hook up to the closed circuit cameras in the run down housing projects. Because that’s where you keep closed circuit cameras: in run down housing projects.

Commercial

12:39 pm – Tanner is getting more of an armed escort than Jack did. They enter a truck, probably headed for the President.

Mark and Audrey stage a mock parliament speech with Heller that goes well, all the way up until the point where Heller starts speaking. Mark asks him a series of increasingly tough questions, eventually going to the literature category in Trivial Pursuit before switching back to the dead soldiers, of which Heller said there were three (when there were really four). This throws Heller for a loop, and he looks stage left and mumbles “LINE!” under his breath. He leaves, remembering the soldier’s name he forgot, as he walks away. Audrey storms out because Mark yelled at her daddy.

Jack scouts out the housing complex, and asks Chloe where are the people they’re looking for. Chloe, of course, has video feeds running on all the cameras in the complex already. Jack asks her to turn off the camera he’s looking at, which, because of the Jack/Chloe telepathy thing, she’s able to do without asking any further questions.

Bashir, the guy counting the money in the drug apartment, tells Knit Cap guy to check the camera that went out. Knit Cap guy, who had been playing a game on his handheld device, a broken piece of TV remote control, presses control-alt-delete a few times and brings up a picture of one of their colleagues hanging by the end of a rope.

With Chloe’s help, Jack navigates past some bad guys right to the door where Yates is, and grabs Knit Cap guy as he steps out into the hallway.

Jack gives Knit Cap a Jack hug around the throat and escorts him back into the room with Bashir. Jack assures everyone, even the people with guns, that all he wants is Yates, and it would be a very bad idea to think that Jack couldn’t hurt every one of them very badly because he’s the star of the show, and they’re just mostly extras. They don’t believe him, and Jack proves he was right by killing a couple of them immediately, knifing Bashir in the throat.

While this is going on, Yates packs his things to leave. He dodges machine gun fire from Jack’s fight, breaks through a window and escapes with his Russian girlfriend.

Jack follows, after picking up something in the apartment. He tries to shoot Yates like one of those ducks at the carnival from another catwalk, but misses.

Meanwhile, Chloe gets a phone call from Adrian, who tells her that unless she ordered food to be delivered, some agents are headed her way. She looks really worried. She did order food, but it couldn’t be here that quickly.

The cars drive up to the van. Agents yell for Chloe to come out, and then open the door. The only thing left is a smoking computer, on which Chloe had quickly installed Windows 7, destroying it completely.

Kate and Erik run up to the building, and see Yates and his girlfriend. Yates calmly explains that there’s a guy upstairs with a gun as he passes. Jack comes barreling down the stairs, gun his drawn and yells for Yates to stop. Jack pleads with Kate and Erik to stop Yates and his girlfriend, which of course, they don’t do. He finally gets on his knees, sets down his gun when he’s shot. It’s Bashir, who, despite having a knife neck wound, is able to shoot Jack from over 200 yards away. The trained agents, with machine guns, can’t hit Bashir, even though he remains in the relative open before ducking behind a post. Jack escapes, going after Yates. Kate and Erik follow.

COMMERCIAL

12:53pm – In an underground garage, the agents play the quiet game, not letting on where they are, except for the bright flashlights they’re all holding. Jack catches Kate, and tells her that she’s chasing the wrong guy and he’s trying to prevent an attack on Heller. A light flashes by and Kate makes what Jack thinks is a wrong move, so he gives her an autographed head butt to the face, knocking her out.

Jack sees a light above him, knocks out a board and escapes. A car drives up; it’s Chloe! Despite all the noise, the rest of the agents in the garage only arrive after Jack’s gone. Erik yells they have a man down, forgetting that Kate is not a man. Jack drives the car away.

Chloe is concerned that Jack is bleeding, he tells her it’s OK because he’s only been shot. He gives her a USB stick that he recovered from the apartment, and it turns out to be a drone commandeering system, which can control up to ten drones! Unfortunately, it starts deleting itself. It could have been a self-deleting program, or again, it could have been Windows 7. Either one.

In a bar, Yates explains to his girlfriend that Margo is likely the one that sent Jack to kill him. He wants to sell the device to someone else. He goes off to the bathroom, and the girlfriend follows into the same one, because she can’t read English.

We soon see, it was something completely different. She pulls out a pick and drills it right into Yates’ ear, which had to really, really hurt. And caused death. She grabs the case and leaves. It turns out that she’s not Russian at all, she’s working with her mother, Margo! It’s Catelyn Stark in disguise!

NEXT TIME: JACK BAUER IS COMING!

Season 8 – 24 – 3pm to 4pm

Previously on “24” – JUST HAPPENED! PAY ATTENTION!

3:00 pm – Suvarov makes a heartfelt speech about the peace agreement. Dahlia gives him a look at that makes it seems she’d like to feel his heart personally. Suvarov notices that Dahlia isn’t her normal, chipper self. Mrs. President tells him that they’ve all been awake for more than 23 hours now, and that really wears on a person.

Suvarov realizes this is a lie, questions Mrs. President about this. She tells him all about Meredith. Suvarov says that he thinks Mrs. President must have threatened to pull America Idol off the air before the final show, because Dahlia is still at the negotiating table.

His assistant interrupts to tell him Logan is calling. Suvarov rolls his eyes as if to say “Not THIS guy again!”, but takes the call. Logan insists on talking to him in person in his suite. Suvarov doesn’t like this idea until Logan tells him that someone has either sprung a leak, or taken a leak, and it’s in his delegation. Suvarov adjusts his Depends, and hoping to keep his secret, agrees to see Logan.

Logan talks to Jack, while contemplating how he fell for the old “Never Be A President On 24 And Stand In Front Of A Big Glass Window” trick. Jack tells Logan to sit down.

Chloe wakes up and tries to convince Jack that if CTU comes up, there will likely be a lot of shooting, and she’s really hoping to be on any “24” movies that might come along in the next few years.

Meanwhile, Logan sits at his desk, his arms outstretched, trying to do his best Richard Nixon impression.

Chloe’s phone doesn’t answer. Cole paces back and forth, wondering what to do in a very Billy Rosewood sort of way. Cole finally makes a call to the tactical team, and tells them to go after Jack!

Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 3pm to 4pm”

Season 8 – 24 – 2 pm to 3 pm

Previously on “24”, we saw that: Jack gives good introductions, and could be a successful television spokesman; Jack can make an ex-President wet his pants by just giving him a mean look; Some people think yelling into phones makes the CIA work harder; Chloe has a foundation that releases CTU agents out into the wild; Ex-President Logan has bug around the collar; Someone who was hungry asked Jack for “Russian Take Out”, and he completely misunderstood what they said.

The following takes place between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm:

2:00 pm – Cole gets a call from Arlo, who tells him that Jack has been making life-size pin cushions. Cole thinks Chloe might be able to help stop Jack’s rampage through the city, but Arlo thinks that they’d have an easier time calming down Godzilla. Arlo also warns Cole that James, Jack’s paranoid friend, probably has an explosive doorbell, so he should be careful.

2:02 pm – James watches television on a series of branded monitors and is alerted by his Paranoia surveillance system that Cole is in the building. Cole shoots the door, because it has been a very naughty door, and bursts into the room. James is already pointing a gun at him. James has had a lot of practice, because he’s been waiting for that door to make the wrong move for years now, and it finally happened.

Cole tells James that he has two choices: “1” Have his cover blown, and have every federal agent from here to Mars altered to his “non-dead” state or “2” Help find Jack. Cole tries to reason with James, but it doesn’t seem to work until Cole suggests that if Jack dies, it’ll be James’ fault. James finally agrees to help Cole. He just has to change into his spy clothes first, before they go out.

2:06 pm – Chloe arrives in the field where the CTU agents have set up shop. One of the agents stops selling t-shirts long enough to ask why Cole, who had been helping Jack, was now free. Chloe resists the urge to taser him, and tells him that Cole designed the UN protocols. Chloe goes on to say she’s seen many protocols in her time, and was very impressed with Cole’s, so he’s going to be helping out. And that the agent questioning this is a moron. She gets a phone call from Cole.

Cole tells her that James told him all about the bug on Logan’s collar, and it recorded that Suvarov is in on the whole plot. Oh and Jack is probably going after him to kill him. Cole is unsure of how an insect with a little recording device could get all that, but at this point she’s just going along with what’s happening.

Cole tells her that the evidence that was recorded was wiped out, but Jack should have a backup copy. Chloe tells Cole to shmoosh the bug, and that she knew Jack would have a backup, because that’s just the kind of guy Jack is: He practices safe computing.

Chloe thinks she can re-route Suvarov’s motorcade to go to the UN so he’ll be safe, because nothing worthwhile ever happens at the UN. They think Suvarov might be in trouble if he gets out into the open there, but there’s very little chance Jack will be able to do anything about it.

Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 2 pm to 3 pm”

Season 8 – 24 – 1 pm to 2 pm

Previously on “24”, we learned: If someone comes in to take over a job and has an assistant, they are probably up to no good; Jack really hates department store mannequins; If you’re an ex-president, don’t ask to take credit for something if you’re not 100% sure everything is going to plan; Don’t ever swallow a SIM card if you’re near Jack Bauer; If you call terrorists on the phone and get a call back, you better have your voice mail answering message recorded in a disguised voice, because if it’s Jack Bauer calling you back, you’re going to be in big, big trouble.

The following takes place between 1 pm to 2 pm:

1:00 pm – Ex-President Logan puts on a red polka dot tie, which he still had from the days when he performed as a clown. He watches a fake news conference, which is taking place to let the world know that he’s helping out with the mid-east peace process. An assistant comes in to tell him that his car is in the heliport, which would be great if he drove a flying Jetsons’ car, but he doesn’t. She informs him President Suvrarov is arriving in 20 or 30 minutes, and that if he orders Domino’s right now, she’s pretty sure the pizza will be there before the Russian president. She leaves.

President Logan receives a phone call from Jason. Jason informs Logan that Jack has been playing Operation again and Pavel is dead. Jason also tells him that it’s likely that Jack has given information to the press, so the whole story is going to come out.

President Logan is so deep in denial that he can almost read the hieroglyphics at the bottom. He tells Jason that he might be able to solve this Bauer problem with “management”, which as we all know won’t do anything.

Jason informs Logan that Jack appears to have reverted to his “Lost Boys” days, because from the condition they found Pavel in… well, Jack’s out for blood. And not in a sparkly vampire, or stupid, Sunnydale vampire kinda way… he’s out for revenge for what happened today. Logan tells Jason to find Jack, and to keep him posted. Jason tells him he doesn’t think the US mail system will take a man of his size, but he’d be willing to try after they finish off Jack.

Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 1 pm to 2 pm”

Season 8 – 24 – 12 pm to 1 pm


Previously on “24”, we learned that: Jack will shoot people even before they get done with the reasons Jack won’t shoot them; Never volunteer to make sure Jack doesn’t get in a building – you will be shot… probably multiple times; You should always ask for the non-explosive safety deposit box; If you ask Jack Bauer what you can do to help, and he says “Nothing”, you’re about to be shot.

The following takes place between 12 pm and 1 pm:

12:00 pm – Cole is escorted to Dana’s body by one of the Village people, where he identifies it.

Meanwhile in a cab, Jack plays the copy of Dana’s Funniest Home Videos where he gets to see Dana’s Russian contact, who is about as fun as Renee’s Russian contacts, except with more fingers.

Jack calls his paranoid friend with all the electronic equipment, and tells him he’s coming in “hot”. His friend freaks out until Jack reassures him he’s not about to crash a fighter jet into him. Jack does however want the Russian in the video identified.

12:05 pm – Jason tells everyone at CTU that Dana is dead, and they all resist the urge to start applauding. Jason wants two things: First, they have to find Jack Bauer, who is suspected of killing Dana. Second, everyone has to take some extra time to see if they can figure out what smells like a body hidden behind some wood paneling – the smell is becoming unbearable. Cole is also coming in to CTU, mainly to assist in figuring out where Jack is and to make some faces.

Jason won’t listen to Chloe’s suggestion that perhaps Jack really is on to something with the Russian connection. He completely ignores this because he knows about it already, and doesn’t want anyone at CTU to figure this connection out.
Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 12 pm to 1 pm”

Season 8 – 24 – 11 am to 12 pm

Previously on “24”, we learned: the budget for exciting helicopter sequences only permitted 40 second of flying time; Mrs. President can look really concerned when she wants to; When Jack does laundry, he sends out entire bodies with it; People not familiar with Chloe hand her perfectly good, secure electronic devices, only to have them backed up and posted to the Internet two seconds after Chloe touches them; Dana wears black napkins on her head when she travels. The interrogation team really doesn’t understand when people ask for a class of water.

The following takes place between 11 am and 12 pm:

11:00 am – At a fake news conference, Dalia talks about a few generic things about peace. She even thanks Mrs. President because she’s been in heroic raid mode, rather in normal raid mode. Mrs. President looks guilty about that.

Ex-President Logan talks with Jacob-Looking-Guy (JLG) about Dana. Dana isn’t telling them anything so far, probably because the last time we saw her she had a towel over her mouth and was having water poured over it. That makes it a bit tough to talk, but they haven’t realized that’s probably the reason.

JLG starts to talk in code to Logan about what to do after Bledsoe is done “interrogating” Dana, just to make sure they’re all on the same page. Logan rifles through his script just to be sure, and he says they are. Logan, however, thinks this means they’re going to take Dana out for an ice cream later, while JLG thinks she’s going to be killed. Boy, they’re going to be so embarrassed!

Logan says, “Not that I have any idea what you’re talking about”, which means the situation is normal.
Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 11 am to 12 pm”

Season 8 – 24 – 10 am to 11 am

Previously on “24”, we saw: Ex-President Logan is still a weasel (apologies to any weasels that may be reading this); Dana is Russian for “mole”, since that’s who she was working with all this time; Jack tried to give Dana a “desk slam makeover”; Most people watching the show fell asleep for 50 minutes, yet somehow didn’t miss anything – fortunately they woke up just in time to see Jack take a CTU helicopter, because he’s just plain sick of driving cars.

The following takes place between 10 am and 11 am:

10:00 am – Jack continues his flight over New York city, only narrowly missing getting mugged. A couple of more helicopters show up, and tell Jack they’d like to have Jack’s helicopter back, so Jack lands it on the “Cooper” building. The helicopters continue to circle, providing narration to Jack’s actions as he makes his way down the fire escape and to the ground. The Fake New York Police arrive just in time to lose Jack, who has already made his way into the crowd.

Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 10 am to 11 am”

Season 8 – 24 – 9 am to 10 am


Previously on “24”, we found out that: They choose new temporary directors of CTU by seniority (but we’re still happy Chloe is now in charge); They choose new presidents of fictional countries by marriage; They choose new plot lines by recycling old presidents; The sniper who killed Renee better be choosing his coffin, because Jack is going to be doing some recycling of his own.

The following takes place between 9 am to 10 am:

9:00 am – Jack tries to use his powers of staring to bring Renee back to life, but it isn’t working. A nurse comes in to take Renee’s body away, and I have to say it is the best acting Renee has done all season.

Jack wanders down the hallway and another nurse gives him some new clothes, with less blood on them, to put on. His phone rings. It’s Chloe.

Jack insists on finding the person who killed Renee. Chloe doesn’t know who did it, but does know the Russian mafia is involved. She’s reluctant to give Jack any information since she’s now in charge of CTU. She’s also pretty sure that Jack is completely capable of taking out the entire Russian Mafia with a shoelace and a butter knife, so she declines to tell him where he can get more information.

Jack knows they still have Bazhaev in custody, and he promises not to interfere with the overall CTU investigation. In Jack Talk that translates to: “I’ll only kill him a little bit if he doesn’t give me the information I want.” Chloe, who has known Jack for eons, believes this for some reason, and tells him where Bazhaev is currently being held – he’s in federal court downtown.

9:02 am – Ethan, who had a major heart attack a few hours ago, who was denied treatment by some White House staffers a few less hours ago, and who got out of surgery even fewer hours ago… shows up for work. This guy is the very definition of a workaholic. Mrs. President is shocked to see him.

Mrs. President tells Ethan that she decided to send ex-President Logan over to the Russian embassy to pick up some of those cool nesting dolls, and to negotiate a peace treaty while he was there. Ethan asks how Logan intends to do this, and like everyone else on the show, Mrs. President is completely stumped. She has no idea, and assumed that he was going to try to win them over by offering them a bunch of blue jeans and iPads. Ethan thinks this is pretty suspicious.

9:04 am – President Logan shows up at the Russian embassy outdoor buffet, and orders an espresso from one of the KGB agents. Novakovich tries to explain how sorry he is about Hasan’s death, but Logan isn’t buying it. It could be the huge smile on Novakovich’s face while he says it. He goes on to explain that he doesn’t think Hasan’s wife can do a thing to help the peace process, since there was so much opposition.
Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 9 am to 10 am”