I’m one of the many people that posts on the “24″ thread every week over on the Dave Barry blog, and I write summaries of the show while the show is playing and post them over there. (I’m the “Steve” that Dave refers to over in some of his posts. Since I have my own blog too, this is where I keep the archives of what I write over there.
Summary of “24″, Season 6, Episode 3
PREVIOUSLY ON 24, WE FOUND OUT THAT:
Terrorists taste like chicken; Some people that weren’t quite done moving out of their house are going to be surprised to find a dead terrorist with a really bad knee wound has messed up one of their chairs; Jack needs hand cream; you get about three seconds to kick a guy that’s about to explode off a subway car after he hits the “explode” button; and after five really bad days when he’s always been right, no one believes Jack when he tells them important news
The following summary occurred between 8 am and 9 am
8:00 am – After detonating the subway bomber and being blocks away, Jack just happens to be exactly in the right place for Assad to pick him up with the car Assad stole.
8:01 am – Fayed calls “The Handler” (the guy who escorted “The Bomber” to the subway), to tell him that plans have changed, and tells him to pick up a few things on the way back to the Terrorist Warehouse.
8:01 am – Bombs have gone off in St. Louis and L.A., and the authorities in St. Louis are asking if L.A. has any spare Jack Bauers they can have.
8:02 am – Fayed uses his super cell phone contract to contact President Wayne via CTU. Fayed demands 110 military combatants released and sent to Hollywood for immediate acceptance as “American Idol” contestants.
8:03 am – Jack notices that The Handler’s car is headed north, which is a bad thing because as we all know, there is absolutely no traffic north of L.A. Jack wants to call CTU for support. Assad finally agrees after Jack tells him that even if he were to go to prison, they have GOT to be better than prisons in China.
8:04 am – Milo tells Morris to look at the terrorist’s resumes in case one of them slips though the “American Idol” auditions, and Morris tells him that he would do it for “Dancing with the Stars”, but not “Idol”.
8:05 am – Jack calls Chloe and asks to talk to Bill. She puts him through, and Bill takes off his glasses because he can hear phone conversations better that way. Chloe tries to reposition a satellite for tracking, but they’re all busy with TV broadcasts of all the shows that have been on hiatus since the fall.
8:06 am – Curtis gets a call from Bill who tells him that Jack and Assad are working together. Curtis can’t quite believe it and asks Bill why the people in the field are always the last to know about things like this.
8:07 am – Jack demonstrates that when he needs an SUV, he’ll be willing to push a Yuppie to the ground to do it. He’s also willing to driving like a crazy maniac, which no one in L.A. seems to notice. Jack crashes right into the side of The Handler’s car, and starts to stage part one of “Changing Lanes” right there. The place they crash looks suspiciously like the area where Jack was chained to a grate earlier. Jack and The Handler start yelling at each other.
8:11 am – Assad gets out of another car, and everyone starts arguing with everyone else. Someone tells Jack that his mother shoots with 22 caliber bullets, and he gets upset and drives away. Assad convinces The Handler that he can take The Handler wherever he needs to go, and they drive off. Assad dials his phone so whatever he says can be heard.
8:12 am – Jack calls Bill and tells him to listen in on Assad’s one-sided phone conversation, and Bill tells him he has plenty of experience with that sort of thing after listening to Madam Haig…Or should I say, Mrs. Bill? Bill tells Chloe to inform Curtis of this change of plans, because he doesn’t want to get Curtis upset again.
8:13 am – Back at Terrorist Warehouse, Fayed is informed that the future “American Idol” contestants are going to be loaded onto buses soon. They still don’t have “The Component”, which Fayed says Ahmed is going to stop off at Best Buy to pick up.
8:14 am – Ahmed and Scott go back to Scott’s house, where Ahmed informs Scott’s family that he has no medical insurance and that he wants Scott’s mom (who just happens to be a nurse) to bandage him up. Ahmed informs them all that Scott’s dad is going to have to make a drop, since Ahmed took a coffee table to the leg last hour. Ahmed says if he sees police, FBI, or anyone from the set of “Harold and Kumar Go Back to White Castle For More Burgers”, Scott and his mom are dead.
Commercial
8:21 am – Chloe finds out Curtis is WAY behind, and is still five minutes away from getting to Jack. Morris and Chloe have a nerd fight, and Chloe wins when she tells Morris he has a character flaw. Morris goes off to check with the “24” writer’s to see what can be done about that after sending the files to Milo.
8:22 am – Haig fills in President Wayne on what Jack is up to. She also tells him that the bus tickets for the prisoners aren’t quite ready yet, but they will be soon, and they’ll be ready to get to the airfield soon.
8:23 am – Assad starts reading road signs to let the people listening on the phone where he is. This makes The Handler nervous, but Assad says not to worry because he picked up that habit by reading Burma Shave signs when he was a kid, and he never broke the habit.
8:24 am – Curtis finally meets Jack. Curtis hands Jack a Babelfish that Jack puts into his ear. (Curtis, by the way, makes it there one minute ahead of schedule). Things are again right with the world: Curtis is driving Jack around, chasing terrorists.
8:25 am – Curtis calls Bill at CTU, and Bill tells them he’s going to authorize their radios to get subscriptions to XM radio. He’s also going to download some satellite information about Assad’s to their GPS.
8:26 am – Curtis nervously says that he hopes Jack can forgive him for that whole, “driving you over to be handed over to terrorists so you can be killed” thing, and laughs nervously. Jack looks like he wants to slap Curtis in the forehead, but restrains himself. Curtis presses on and asks Jack what it feels like to work with a terrorist like Assad who has killed a lot of people, and “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Jack’s not sure, but it seems like Curtis really wants to use the words “Make My Day” when he sees Assad.
8:27 am – Over at Scott’s house, Ahmed asks for something stronger than Flintstone’s Chewable vitamins for the pain he’s having. Scott’s mom says she keeps all her really strong drugs in the cabinet over the TV, just in case she accidentally dials in and sees “Dr. Phil”. Ahmed tells Scott to go get the drugs and a glass of water, which Scott jumps up to do, but is disappointed when Ahmed says HE wants them for himself.
8:27 am – Scott gets everything. While he’s filling the glass, he sees a knife sitting in the sink, which he grabs and hides. He gives Ahmed the drugs and water, but he can’t quite bring himself to stab Ahmed with the knife. Scott’s mom looks like she wishes that Scott hung around with a tougher crowd at school.
Commercial
8:32 am – Lots of prisoners, who are dressed up as if they’re going to go deer hunting, are lined up in front of buses, while President Wayne watches on the President’s Channel. The prisoners don’t look too excited, so I don’t think anyone’s told them they’re going to be on “American Idol” soon.
8:33 am – Tom Lennox enters the room to tell Wayne that his sister Sandra is going to add to today’s problems by getting arrested by the FBI. She’s been taken to a provisional facility, which is where they keep provisions.
8:34 am – At the provisional facility, which looks like a boarded up version of Sunnydale High School, Sandra and Walid are unloaded from the car and brought inside. Walid is taken away. One of the agents hands Sandra a phone, and says, “For you”. She looks surprised at this nice gift, and answers the phone.
8:35 am – Wayne takes time out of his busy day, and tries to reason with Sandra, and they both go into highly political speeches. Wayne hangs up, and Sandra stomps off to talk to the agent that gave her the cell phone. She’s really mad because she found out that she got set up with a 30 minute per month plan. The agent doesn’t want to hear anything from her, and tells her that it’s too late since she already accepted the phone. Sandra is released and stomps off, but dumps the phone.
8:36 am – One of the soldiers looking after the prisoners at the provisional facility says that they have to take off their clothes, have a cavity search, and then they’ll get back their clothes. The prisoners look pretty upset that their dentist would treat them like this. One of the prisoners doesn’t like this too much, and decides to fight back. Walid tries to stick up for the guy but doesn’t get back in line, so they decide to use that stick on Walid instead.
Commercial
8:41 am – Assad’s driving around with The Handler still, and The Handler asks to be dropped off. Nobody notices there are two pitch black SUVs that have been following them. The Handler gets out of the car.
8:42 am – WE HAVE A PERIMETER FOR CURTIS! AND AS A SPECIAL BONUS, IT IS A MOVING PERIMETER! Even so, Curtis gives Assad the evil eye when he meets him. Curtis pulls rank and tells his men to search Assad, and won’t even listen to Jack! (Is this the first time he’s done that?)
8:43 am – Jack explains to Assad that this is all part of a CTU hazing ritual, and that Curtis is a lovable guy once you get to know him. Finding no phasers on Assad, they go to Curtis’ car.
8:44 am – The Handler goes to a “You Store It” storage warehouse that has no outer fence or guards watching anything, and opens the door to one of the storage garages while armed CTU agents walk across the top of the metal warehouse buildings without making any noise. It’s full of explosives in crates.
8:45 am – Jack says that The Handler hasn’t taken them to Fayed. Bill tells Jack that he has to run in there and start interrogating the guy right away. Jack turns him down! (Is that the first time he’s done that?? Lots of “firsts” tonight). Jack thinks this is too “risky”.
8:46 am – The Handler opens one of the boxes, and pulls out a Windows laptop, which we know all the bad guys on “24” use. Maybe this guy is really smuggling laptops. He FINALLY hears someone on one of the metal rooftops, and goes to grab his briefcase and pulls out a gun. He starts firing, and so does everyone else. Fortunately, none of the
crates reacts like any other crate of explosives in any movie before this because they don’t blow up. Curtis finally shoots the guy, who does what any terrorist would do, and pulls out a hand grenade from nowhere and rolls it six inches from his hand. The warehouse blows up, and only takes one other storage unit with it. I bet those people don’t have “We Have Stuff Next to a Terrorist’s Storage Unit” insurance. The rest of the storage units are made of anti-explosive material, and don’t blow up. Jack has a burnt up hard drive that he’s recovered.
8:47 am – President Wayne watches “Releasing the Prisoners – A Documentary” on TV, but doesn’t look happy about it. Bill calls President Wayne and tells him The Handler decided to explode, and that they have almost a 100% chance that they won’t be able to find Fayed, if you don’t count Jack, in which case there’s almost a 100% chance they will. Wayne gets off the phone with Bill, and tells Lennox that the prisoners are free to go to their “American Idol” auditions. They start loading prisoners on to the plane from the buses… including a red head? Did they just load Naomi Judd on the plane?? Don’t they know Simon doesn’t like country music?
8:48 am – Back at Terrorist Warehouse, one of the Terrorist Lackeys tells Fayed that the president has given in, and that the prisoners are being loaded onto the plane. Fayed slaps his forehead and says that he forget to demand that all the prisoners get special meals, but definitely not Kosher meals.
Commercial
8:53 am – Scott’s dad takes the package to an seemingly empty office. He finds a guy there who opens the package. The package is full of realistic looking money. The guy doesn’t think it’s enough realistic looking money, and tells Scott’s dad to get more. Scott’s dad says he doesn’t know where to get more realistic looking money on such short notice. Scott’s Dad calls Ahmed, and Ahmed says he doesn’t have any realistic looking money either, and that there might some realistic looking problems waiting at home if Scott’s Dad doesn’t bring back the item.
8:54 am – Scott’s dad asks to see “The Item”, which looks like an AM/FM radio with the front cover taken off of it. Scott’s dad grabs a lamp and bashes the guy over the head with it, and being that it’s his first bludgeoning, he doesn’t get it quite right. A fight ensues, and Scott’s dad finally figures out the whole bashing thing and kills the guy.
8:57 am – Chloe, through the magic computer she has, is able to access the burnt up hard drive remotely, and tells Jack that the guy has a portion of a screenplay he was writing on the drive, which figures because everyone in LA is working on a screenplay. She was also able to find a couple of pages in Arabic. Jack asks Assad what the plans are for, and after looking at it, they figure out that it is a nuclear device schematic, since it has a big nuclear symbol on it.
8:58 am – After some quick checking, it turns out that they guy Fayed wants is one of the prisoners who is a nuclear scientist. In thirty seconds, Chloe is able to match a guy who they already have in custody, but who is being released right at this very moment. Fayed did all these bombings so this prisoner would be released. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that someone should have checked this before Chloe. Oh, and that Chloe is WAY underpaid?
8:59 am – A couple of army guys, with guns, get on the plane, and ask to for Prisoner Namir. Every single prisoner raises his hand. They finally go down the line looking for him. Well, it’ll be a while before they realize he’s not there, because it turns out that the guy they’re looking for was hiding in the bus bathroom, and that one of the guards is in on the whole thing. The scientist they’re looking for escapes.
9:00 am – Time’s up!
Be sure and catch all of Steve’s summaries of Season 6 of “24”!