Season 8 – 24 – 4 am to 5 am

Previously on “24”, we discovered: Someone’s been supplying some really, really bad body armor around in New York; Parole officers from the south are really through at their jobs, and know about things like “metadata”; If there’s a countdown timer going in the backseat, your first instinct should NOT be to get in the car; None of the equipment at CTU was hardened to withstand the blast of an EMP, except the camera that was filming “24”; It’s finally starting to dawn on someone that a secret location from CTU would be a good idea.

The following takes place between 4 am and 5 am:

4:00 am – Immediately after the explosion, armed CTU guards finally decide to show up from their hours long coffee break and diligently look through the rubble for something to shoot. Arlo has good news and bad news for Hastings. The bad news: The surveillance drones they’ve been using all over New York will go into auto-pilot mode, eventually run out of gas, and drop out of the sky. The good news: A large number of children will have an incredible show-and-tell tomorrow, using some really cool drones they found in their backyards.

Hastings goes to deal with Kayla. He tells Dana and Chloe to organize a meeting, which they had hoped to get out of, but even an EMP couldn’t stop that.

4:02 am – Jack is still in his car, and called someone named Phil at the NSA. He’s one of many Phil’s because that’s what everyone at the NSA is named. Jack asks Phil to look at all the traffic cameras in the area, and of course, they have access to those. Jack also wants Phil to shut down bridge and tunnel traffic into New York, which Phil agrees to do. Phil’s powers are pretty impressive. I wonder if Phil knows Chloe? Jack suspects they’re going to use the river to transport the rods.

4:04 am – The terrorists all stop their cars at an undisclosed location. One of them tells Samir that CTU is a pinball wizard: blind, deaf and dumb. Samir asks “Who?” and the terrorist lackey that explained this says “Exactly!” and offers proof on his portable “Spy on CTU!” device he got at the local spy shop.

While the lackeys load the rods, Samir tells Tarin that he sure is sorry about Kayla “blowing up and stuff.”

4:06 am – Back at CTU, they’re using their emergency glow sticks to light some of the paperwork that Hastings insists on having. One of the agents is trying to play Solitaire on a candle powered computer, and is actually winning.

Kayla asks wants to know what’s going on and won’t tell Hastings anything until he explains everything that happened in the last 15 minutes. Kayla seems pretty surprised that Tarin staged the whole thing.

4:07 am – The Zodiac boat is now loaded with the rods, when a sniper lackey radios Samir to tell him that a traveler from the East is coming. Samir looks up to make sure there isn’t a really bright star in the sky (there isn’t), and then asks who is approaching. The lackey tells him it’s a typical black SVU, with no markings, tinted windows, driving out in the middle of no-where, right into the area where they’re hiding, but other than that, he sees nothing suspicious. Samir tells him to shoot the SVU.

4:08 am – Jack continues to drive while Cole looks through some infrared binoculars, which the terrorists also have. They must shop at the same place. Anyway, Cole realizes that his phone isn’t working. Jack tells him that he should be using another cell phone carrier and brings up his coverage map, which covers New York city, all of the United States, and the rest of the entire globe except one street in downtown Miami. Then he realizes his cell phone might have bars, but isn’t able to make calls either. Realizing that neither of them is using the Palm Pre, they see it’s a set up. As they start driving away as fast as possible, the terrorists come out and start shooting.

Jack drives backwards right into the side of a building, which disables the car. Everyone gets out of the car and starts shooting. Nobody hits anyone else, since it’s dark and nobody can really see.

Both sides realize they can use their infrared binoculars to see the other side, so they do. The terrorists appear pretty alarmed that THE Jack Bauer is shooting at them. They’ve seen what he’s done with other terrorists in previous seasons. They all cover their thighs, and decide to make a run for it.

Samir and Tarin decide to leave, telling the rest to kill everyone on Jack’s side, which is pretty much a death sentence for them.

Cole uses his infrared ViewMaster to fully describe how Tarin and Samir are leaving in a large rubber boat, instead of just shooting the thing while it was still in range. Now that its safely out of range, Jack comes up with a plan: There just happens to be a telephone call box across the compound near the other dock warehouse. They take this time to fully explain to each other the ramifications of trying to get to the box (they might get shot) and what to do instead (make sure they don’t get shot). One of the guys makes a run to the phone… probably to call his agent to get off the show.

Commercial

4:17 am – Arlo explains what’s happening at CTU to Hastings, but hasn’t explained how the emergency lights, which go on after the power is cut, were not at all harmed by the EMP. A woman tells Hastings that a team from the NSA is here to help CTU with the EMP. Hastings tells her, “Well, EIEIO, take me to them”. The NSA is there to help, and it turns out the guy they sent is a smart-alec tech support guy who helped set up the servers in the first place.

4:18 am – Chloe is busy trying to figure out how to use the computers without power, when Hastings arrives and describes everything that was just explained to the TV audience in the last minute. Chloe and Hastings talk about Jack, and THEY rehash everything that was said too. Chloe really wants to help Jack, but Hastings sends her to the server room.

4:21 am – Chloe tries to help in the server room, but NSA tech support guy really doesn’t want to hear any of her suggestions. He keeps telling her to reboot to see if that fixes the driver problems. Chloe thinks they can tap into the trunk line directly, but NSA tech support guy is pretty sure that it’s a driver problem. Chloe leaves, mumbling that none of this would happen if they used Macs.

4:22 am – In the next room, Chloe asks Arlo if there’s another way into the trunk room. Arlo is as helpful as he always is: Not At All. Chloe storms off, determined to find a way to get them back online, and reminds herself to never, ever leave home without her taser.

4:23 am – Renee, who’s been waiting at Jack’s place for the last couple of hours, gets a phone call from Chloe, who explains the subplots up to this point. Renee wants to go help Jack, and Chloe complains about the NSA tech support guy some more, promising to reboot his sockets when she sees him the next time.

Commercial.

4:28 am – Everyone at CTU continues to wander around in the dark. Dana finds Prady, explains that the surveillance video he wanted was erased, and tries really hard not to smile while she says this. Prady tells her that he’ll be in Little Rock if she gets any additional information.

4:30 am – Chloe heads back into the server room, tries to calmly explain her ideas to NSA tech support guy one last time. He completely ignores what she’s saying, and tells her to reinstall Windows again. Chloe explains that will take about seven hours. So she does the one thing so many people left to deal with tech support have wanted to do: She pulls a gun on them. NSA tech support guy all of the sudden is much more on board with the whole idea of installing Snow Leopard for Mac OS or Ubuntu or any Linux distribution Chloe wants, but she just wants them out of the room. They leave, and Chloe locks the door.

4:32 am – Jack and the terrorists are still shooting all over the place, which has given Jack enough time to construct armor shields, which they use to move out into the middle of the open area. Jack tells them all if they pretend they’re Steve Martin and “Get Small” behind the shields, they’ll be OK. Unfortunately, one of the guys doesn’t understand the reference, freaks out, and tries to make a run for it. And it works! For two steps – then he’s hurt (but not dead), still wearing some of that completely ineffective body armor.

This leaves them all wide open, so they start shooting and make it to cover. The terrorists keep shooting the CTU agent that went down. This really bugs the CTU Kid that we’ve all had pegged as dead ever since Jack adjusted his straps in the elevator. Despite Jack’s warnings that the bullets will really, really sting if he runs out there, he runs out there.

This leads to more terrorist shooting, which kills the first CTU agent, and wounds the CTU Kid. At this point, the terrorists have alternated back to being the worst shots in the world, because Jack and Cole drag them both back to cover.

CTU Kid wants to know how the other agent is doing, and Jack can’t quite bring himself to tell The Kid that the Agent has gone to visit The Choir Invisible.

Commercial

4:39 am – Kayla is reunited with her parents, Dahlia and Hasan. She’s really, really sorry that she picked the one guy who ended up being a terrorist. Hasan is informed that CTU has an evacuation route, leading underground, and he tells them to take Kayla there.

Hasan and Dahlia take this time to rehash their subplot so far, and follow after Kayla.

4:42 am – At CTU, NSA Tech Support guy admits that Chloe scared the tar out of him. He rehashes this subplot to Dana for a short time. Chloe is in the midst of fixing things when they break in. Hastings wants to know what Chloe was doing, and she explains that she’s figured out that she can get the latest beta of Starcraft this way, oh, and that she’ll need ten more minutes to fix things so they can help Jack. She admits that what she did was reckless and that she “doesn’t even like guns” (unless they’re tasers). Hastings asks Dana what she thinks of the situation, and Dana thinks that Chloe is being reckless too, and she’s an A-Number-One authority on doing reckless, so she should know.

Chloe points out that she’s been right about things a number of times so far, and that she deserves the ten minutes. Hastings gives that to her to the protests of NSA Tech Support guy, who really, really, really wants to reboot the machines. Chloe gives him the three finger salute on the way out.

4:46 am – An agent arrives to tell Hastings that a “Bill Prady” wants to talk to him. This completely alarms Dana. Hastings says he’ll be there in 15 minutes, which could drag this subplot out for another week.

Commercial

4:50 am – Chloe continues to work her magic in the server room and is finally ready to go. She’s pretty sure that it will work, or that she’ll electrocute herself. She flips the switch and TADA! She did it. NSA Tech Support guy looks like he’s out of a job. Chloe tells Hastings that Renee is on the way to help Jack.

4:52 am – Over at Jack’s ambush, The CTU Kid dies. Jack decides that since the bad guys can’t be seen, the best thing to do is for him to run out there and draw their fire while Cole makes a run to the call box. Despite all the shooting, very few people are being hit. Jack finally runs out of ammo in his machine gun, and pulls out a pistol to shoot. He gets hit and goes down! Fortunately for him, it looks like he got hit in the chest and had the one piece of body armor that appears to be working.

One of the terrorists looks through the scope at Jack. He’s just about to put a bullet into Jack’s head, when Renee decides to do the same thing to the terrorist instead. She takes one step out, fires her gun, and kills the last terrorist. They needed her from the beginning! Cole races to the phone and makes the call to CTU.

She runs to Jack, who of course, is OK. Slightly winded, but is OK. Cole arrives with the info that CTU is back online.

4:54 am – Hastings tries to pay Chloe a complement. It doesn’t work.

4:55 am – A helicopter arrives, Cole takes it and leaves Renee and Jack behind to deal with a lot of police cars that are just arriving. They appear to all want Jack’s autograph.

4:56 am – Dana goes into the holding cell where Prady is waiting to confront him. She points out that a holding cell is not “Little Rock”. Prady appears to have psychic powers, because he really knows she’s involved. And as if to prove his point, she belts him hard in the stomach and strangles him to death, which I’m pretty sure is against CTU protocol.

Dana hides Prady’s body in a panel in the holding cell, which is sure not to smell at all.

Dana makes a phone call to….SAMIR! They discuss the entire new subplot in which Dana has been working for the terrorists the entire time! She’s going to use CTU resources to help them, which is definitely against CTU protocol. She’s probably been working for the Cylons too! The terrorists leave in a cab.

5:00 am – Time’s UP!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: People on the phone! Manhattan not safe! News flash! It’s not safe now! More shooting! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

One thought on “Season 8 – 24 – 4 am to 5 am”

  1. When did Dana have time to do anything to help Samir as she was running around with her ex-boyfriend for most of the season?

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