Summary of “24”: Episode 19 – 12 am to 1 am

I post as Steve (The 24 Guy) over on Dave Barry’s live blogging of “24” each week, and write a summary of the show each week, in the same spirit as the rest of the blog.

You can read the rest of my Season Six of “24” summaries on that page, if you need to catch up.

Here’s this week’s episode:

Previously on “24”, we found out: Audrey regrets going for Chinese take out; Wayne regrets forgetting about VP Noah’s Jedi mind tricks; Karen regrets not picking up Noah’s resignation earlier than the press conference; Evil Lisa regrets getting involved with VP Noah; Bill regrets not paying attention to Chloe during meetings; Chloe regrets not being sneakier when uploading things to Jack’s phone; Mike regrets not letting Jack drive; Jack does not regret going to take out some Chinese.

The following summary occurred between 12 am and 1 am:

12:02 am – Mike forgot to go to “How to Commandeer a Car” class, and jumps right out in front of traffic to grab a car after Jack left him behind, nearly getting killed. He finally flags someone down, and throws the driver to the ground in the middle of traffic, which was especially thoughtful. Mike calls to tell Bill that Jack “got the drop on him”, he avoided getting “slipped a Mickey”, and intends to find “that dirty rat”. Bill holds a very short impromptu meeting, in which he summarizes what’s left of the plot so far, just in case anyone at CTU wasn’t paying attention. Chloe, who has been playing Desktop Tower Defense on the hardest setting (and winning), gets interrupted by Bill who wants her back on the job to find Jack.

12:02 am – Jack drives to his favorite burger joint, only to find that land developers have put up power lines there. He uses the opportunity to disable the tracker. Chloe and Morris argue, and Milo takes the opportunity to spread some gossip about Audrey. Bill, Morris, Mike, Chloe and Milo are all afraid that Audrey might come out of this alive.

12:05 am – Meanwhile, at the White House briefing room, a spokeswoman gives fair warning to everyone that VP Noah might take over the country and to hide the children.

12:06 am – After dismissing everyone from the Oval Office, Noah asks everyone to leave except Lennox. Noah asks what Lennox’s intentions are, and Lennox says he’s flattered, but not interested. Noah explains that he’s worried that Lennox won’t like how he looks sitting in the President’s chair. Lennox repeats that he’s flattered but not interested, and then realizes what Noah really means. Lennox says that he just made the tape to protect himself, and now realizes that a bulletproof vest for bullets and a lead hat to prevent Jedi mind tricks would be better. He also says that he doesn’t intend to use the recording he made earlier. Lennox tells Noah, “You have my support”. Noah says, “Support can be beautiful”, and Lennox says for the third time he’s not interested, and also that slogan is for a competitor of one of their sponsors. Noah switches subjects and wants to know if Karen Hayes is going to slow them down, and Lennox says only as a speed bump. They decide to keep Karen on staff for now.

12:08 am – Jack calls Cheng, who still has a really tacky ringtone. Cheng tells Jack that Audrey’s life means nothing to him with Audrey sitting right there, and she must feel so appreciated. Jack tells Cheng that since he’s being chased by CTU, they need to alter the plans. Jack tells Cheng to meet him at an abandoned hotel. Cheng says he’s very flattered, but not interested. Jack says that he just wants to meet there for the exchange of the chip for Audrey. Cheng agrees, forgetting that Jack has been out of the country for the last couple of years and that the abandoned motel might just be a new shopping center by now.

Commercial

12:14 am – Karen tries to explain they have their TOP people at CTU trying to find Jack, but Noah won’t hear about it. Lennox suggests they send other agencies, like the FBI, the CIA and the Men in Black, after Jack. Noah agrees, and Lennox and Karen leave.

12:15 am – Aaaaah! Noah and Evil Lisa are kissing each other right next to the Lewinsky memorial couch, temporarily blinding millions of viewers.

12:16 am – Mike continues to drive around aimlessly looking for Jack, while on the phone with Nadia and Bill. Fortunately all the streets are completely empty because everyone in Los Angeles has gone to sleep. Mike drives up to the exact spot where Jack parked under what have to be the only set of power lines in L.A., and uses his boy scout training to confirm that he did in fact find tire tracks. Somehow, he’s even able to determine the direction Jack headed, presumably because all CTU truck tires are installed with the treads in a certain direction. Apparently, the power lines don’t block cell phone signals, just circuit board trackers. Mike asks what roads are up ahead. Nadia tells him, and within ten seconds justifies the direction that he thinks Jack might be heading, and that Jack might have grabbed one of the terrorist cell phones that can be used to trace where he’s going. (Reminder: “might” in 24-speak means “for sure”).

12:17 am – Milo can’t even believe Mike’s amazing power of deduction. Morris tries to pick a fight with Chloe when Morris gets upset that Chloe sent over some actual work that replaced the minesweeper game he was playing. Chloe asks Milo if he can defrag Huffman keys, and Milo says, “Can a packet sniffer decode Ethernet headers? Sure!”, so Chloe sends the file to Milo instead. Morris and Chloe argue a bit more about who’s encryption schemes are better until Chloe goes too far and tells Morris not to arm any more nuclear weapons for terrorists, which hurts Morris’ feelings and he stomps off. Chloe makes a sad face.

12:19 am – Karen gets a phone call while talking to Lennox, and gets a visit from a new guy named Peter. Peter has a YouTube video that Karen just HAS to see. Karen rightfully points out that Reid is a weasel, which he goes on to confirm later on in the video: Bill had Fayed in custody, and let him go! (Reid makes a surprised face!) Karen knew about it! (Another surprised face!) Karen is in a cover-up! Karen admits that while the “facts” were true, Fayed entered the country illegally, so of course they let him continue to wander around without supervision. They had NO idea that Fayed would go nuclear. They were surprised as anyone. She continues with a little speech until Peter interrupts and asks about Karen’s attempted resignation. Peter wants to make sure that Bill or Karen gets in trouble for letting Fayed go.

Commercial

12:28 am – Jack drives up to the old motel, which looks like summer camp in a slasher movie, except with less screaming and dead bodies (so far), and goes inside one of the (ahem) bungalows.

12:29 am – Nadia calls Mike to let him know they found Jack’s call to Cheng, and it shows (surprise!) Mike was right about where Jack was headed. Mike asks if there’s anything between him and Santa Maria, and Nadia says she didn’t even know he was Catholic. Mike says he meant the town, and Nadia tells him that some towns are up ahead.

12:30 am – Bill gets a phone call from Karen, and she asks if he has a minute. Bill says that he doesn’t, and Karen says she’ll call back, not letting on about the BIG trouble they’re both in. Bill hangs up and looks worried that he’s going to be asked to pick out drapes soon.

12:31 am – Nadia tells Bill where they think they might be able to stop Jack. Bill rolls his eyes because he’s sure it won’t work, but doesn’t let on.

12:32 am – Karen goes to Lennox’s office and asks if he remembers threatening to completely destroy her career and Bill’s career. Lennox says, “Sure!”, but apologizes. Karen explains about Reid, Peter’s deep need to indict someone as soon as possible, and the fact that someone in the Justice department is up at midnight. Lennox points out that the choice is easy, since Bill can take the fall, forgetting that Karen is married to the guy. Karen doesn’t want to hear about it. Lennox doesn’t seem very sympathetic, but has tons of advice about how to be a sleazy weasel and throw Bill to the sharks.

12:33 am – At the motel, Jack has been able to use some bed springs, a bed vibrating mechanism, and some old soap to create a plastic explosive and detonator which he installs in the room. Jack calls Bill and for the first time in the history of “24”, does NOT get Bill on the phone. I can only guess that Bill has taken this opportunity to go to the bathroom, and forgot his phone. Jack explains that he set up an explosive in the motel room, that he intends to blow himself up along with the nuclear weapon component, and that he thought it would be cool if Bill got the message after he blew himself up.

Commercial

12:38 am – Morris goes to talk to Bill, and asks for a transfer to anywhere else but near Chloe. Bill points out that Morris’ timing is really awful, but agrees.

12:39 am – Bill calls Karen, who lets him know that because of no fault of his own when he and Homeland Security let Fayed go, she has to fire him as the head of CTU. Bill points out that she did that last season, but she says that it’s different this time, and she really means it. Bill points out that his job is kind of important, and that he’s going to look pretty guilty even though he’s not. Karen says that it’s pretty important that she keep her job too, since it’s only been her second season on the show and she’s close to the president. Bill doesn’t see Karen’s side of things and hangs up on her.

12:41 am – Mike calls Nadia, and wants to know more about Jack, but she has nothing because Jack used double secret probation codes to encrypt the phone call.

12:42 am – Jack calls someone, just as Mike drives up to the motel where Jack is hiding with his bomb. Mike was able to find Jack with almost no help from Nadia, which I’m sure will be in Mike’s report at the end of the season, if he lives that long.

12:43 am – Bill calls Nadia in, and says he’s going to resign. Nadia thinks this is all pretty weird and Bill confesses that he didn’t so much “resign” as “got fired”.

12:44 am – Some CTU rent-an-agents come to escort Bill out of the building, and Bill tells Nadia that she’s in charge until they send a replacement. Bill starts to point out that the last replacement ended up marrying him, so Nadia might just be meeting her new husband soon, but he has to leave and doesn’t get the chance.

12:45 am – As Bill leaves, Morris runs to him to let him know that Mike found Jack’s truck, and Bill says “That’s good news” and leaves with the guards. Morris turns to Nadia to tell her that he had no idea that security was that strict around CTU, especially with everything else that has already happened today. Nadia tells him that she’s now in charge of CTU, and Morris looks like he’s going to bust out laughing.

12:46 am – Nadia immediately holds an impromptu meeting. Bill would have been proud because she immediately tells everyone to do exactly what they’re doing already.

Commercial

12:51 am – Mike breaks into Jack’s car, pulls out a gun and calls CTU to let them know that he’s arrived at what looks like the Bates Motel, so he’s going to check all the showers looking for Jack. They start using all the satellites they have to find Jack, but Mike stops them. Mike says that perhaps, just perhaps, the long stretch limousine that just pulled up might be something important, so he’s going to surveil it with some surveillance, and asks for a massive amount of backup.

12:53 am – Cheng gets out of the car, and goes to the exact bungalow that Jack is hiding in. Jack says he won’t do a thing unless he sees that Audrey is safe. Cheng calls someone in the limo. Audrey gets out and starts to head for the room. She’s got a gag in her mouth. Cheng explains they were so freaked out about Audrey’s crying all the time that they finally had to do something about it. Jack scribbles this down on his hand for later, in case he makes it out of this alive. Jack takes the gag out of Audrey’s mouth, and she seems to be pretty freaked out and unsure of Jack. There’s a pretty good chance that Cheng kidnapped a woman from a Chinese laundry and disguised her as Audrey, because Audrey would never wear the kind of clothes she’s got on right now voluntarily. Jack tells Cheng that Audrey needs to leave the building WITHOUT the gag, out of the range of the sniper Cheng has set up, so he knows she’s safe. Jack tells Audrey to leave to go to a gas station to pick up some Skittles. She leaves.

12:56 am – Just as Jack tosses the component to Cheng, Mike shoots the sniper. There’s lots of shooting and Jack is shot! Someone launches a missile at a helicopter! Cheng is getting away! This never would have happened with Bill in charge!

12:57 am – Some of the Chinese guys who missed the “let’s go now” signal from Cheng get shot by Jack. Fortunately, Jack was wearing a bullet proof cummerbund. A bunch of agents enter the building, and Jack demands to talk to the person in charge. Mike walks in and Jack explains that he had a spectacular special effect all ready to go off, and Mike ruined the whole thing. Mike also helpfully points out that he let Cheng get away too. Mike calls Nadia, who orders that Jack be placed under arrest.

12:59 am – They bring Audrey inside, and that Chinese laundry lady theory is looking a lot more plausible because Audrey doesn’t recognize Jack! She’s acting weird! Even weirder than usual!

1:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: AUDREY BABBLES! NOAH’S WORRIED! A SPY! KISSING! (NOT AUDREY AND JACK!) FOUR MORE EPISODES TO GO! (TWO HOUR FINALE!)