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.
11:02 am – Bledsoe apparently has a drinking problem because he is giving Dana a drink of water, but pouring it about two feet above her head onto a towel over her mouth. He says that all he needs all she needs to do is tell him about the Russians, everything will be finished, and she can leave the show. She refuses, so Bledsoe gives her another drink of water.
Outside, Jack is using a cool little telescope that he got in a box of Apple Jacks (the breakfast cereal endorsed by Jack Bauer). He sees a couple of guys guarding a building. They’re trying to act like this is perfectly normal, but Jack knows they’re sentries.
Jack goes back to the car to talk to Cole. He tells Cole they’re going to go through the alley in the back, which will involve a lot less killing, but will probably be easier to get to Dana.
Chloe calls Cole to ask what his ETA is. He tells her that he hasn’t his cholesterol checked in a long time, but he’s sure it’s low. Also, he has Jack in custody, stuffed into a manila envelope, inside a duffel bag, under the spare tire in his trunk. Chloe isn’t suspicious about this, but instead talks about how worried she is about Jack, since he finally went off the deep, deep, deep end, rather than just the deep end like he usually does.
11:08 am – They walk across the street to an alley and then start running to the building.
Arlo gets a call from Chloe in her office, which is about two stories above Arlo, which makes her look much taller than she actually is. Chloe thinks it would be a good idea for Jack to talk to the same person that was giving grief counseling the night before. Arlo’s pretty convinced that the grief counselor will need a grief counselor by the time Jack is done with her, but he agrees to set up the meeting. Jack, however, has other plans about attending, since he’s busy going after Dana.
Jack climbs up a ladder to a rooftop, followed shortly by Cole. They have their guns out, just in case a pigeon or brick wall gets in their way. They do a bit of freestyle parkour while they sneak up on the guy guarding the roof.
Cole tries to throw a rock at the guard, but it falls far short. He looks very embarrassed. The guard goes to investigate, which only leads to him getting punched in the face by Jack. Jack throws him over the edge of the building, looks down, and realizes he’s made a horrible mistake: He only threw the guard over to the next rooftop area, which is three feet below the edge. Jack makes a mental note to find the real edge of the building next time. Jack grabs the guard’s two-way radio.
He and Cole make their way into the building, keeping their guns pointed at the open doorway, just in case it tries anything stupid. They go in, keeping their guns drawn to be sure the stairs don’t try anything stupid either.
They finally make it to a room where a couple of men are standing around. Jack makes a fake radio call to someone who is sitting around a bunch of laptops and considers himself quite the computer expert. Jack radios that there are a bunch of women in bikinis on the roof, and that they need to get up there right away. The guards to running to the roof. Cole and Jack continue through the building.
The guards can’t find any bikinis anywhere, on girls or otherwise, so they start to get suspicious. At that moment, Jack catches Mr. Computer Expert playing Plants vs. Zombies, and takes him by surprise. Jack asks where Dana is, and when he doesn’t get an immediate response, he threatens a thigh shot! Mr. Computer Expert, who saw Jack in action in previous seasons, knows that Jack is serious, so he tells Jack where they have Dana. Jack slaps him unconscious.
Jack walks straight to the door and kicks it in. Bledsoe pulls a gun on Dana, and while he explains why Jack won’t shoot, Jack shoots anyway, killing Bledsoe. Jack tells Cole to untie Dana, because they’re going to get company soon, and not the wine-bottle bringing kind. A couple of guys show up unannounced, so Jack shoots them too. Dana and Cole start to make their way out of the building. Jack follows, throwing a nice flash grenade at some more bad guys, just in case.
Commercial
11:20 am – Arlo tells Chloe that they got word that Jack has fooled them all. Chloe admits that Jack probably knew what she was going to do even before she did, which is very astute, because, well… he did.
Chloe announces to a bunch of CTU agents at headquarters that since they never talk, she’ll do all the talking: Jack is no longer in CTU custody, Dana isn’t in custody, and she’s pretty sure that nothing is in custody either.
She asks Arlo to get her best friend Julie on the phone to let her know that she’s going to be late for dinner, and that last recipe Julie’s been working on. She also asks to speak to the White House. Arlo suggests speaking to the president would be more helpful.
11:19 am – Jack, Dana and Cole are driving around New York. Jack wants the video file evidence that Dana was talking about before. She wants to know what the deal is. Jack tells her that she’ll get the royal flush if she doesn’t cooperate. Besides, all they want is the file, not her. She can go after they have it. He pinky swears he’s telling the truth. She starts to act like this is a big joke, which doesn’t go over too well with Jack.
He pulls the car over under a convenient bridge, pulls out a gun, and starts counting down. Three, two, one, half, quarter, eighth… Dana finally realizes Jack won’t be able to do much more division and yells that the file is in a safety deposit box. He asks where, and she says “a bank”. She starts to apologize about Renee, but Jack doesn’t want to hear it.
Cole starts to take Dana back to the car, where she tries to explain that Jack isn’t exactly in the best frame of mind, and that she’s pretty sure that Jack’s going to start shooting everyone that has anything to do with the plot. And by plot, she means what the terrorists were up to, not the actual “plot” of 24. Cole throws her into the car and shuts the door.
Cole goes over to Jack and pushes him, which is all part of Jack’s plan. Cole just wants to know whether Jack was going to kill Dana when he was counting down, and Jack admits he wasn’t – but he really, really wanted to. It’s just that it would be harder to get someone who speaks with the dead, to get the information if Dana had died, so he decided to go in a different direction.
11:24 am – The press conference is still going on, where reporters are in full suck-up mode with Dalia. While Dalia answers their softball questions, Tim enters the room and gives Mrs. President a note. She looks down, realizes that she’s not wearing pants so her fly couldn’t be open and gives a confused look to Tim. Tim hands her another note, she reads it and leaves the room.
Tim explains that Jack is acting like “Jack Bauer”, and therefore any plans they had with Dana have gone straight out the window. Much like so many terrorists in previous years. The note also mentions Logan, who has been throwing temper tantrums.
Mrs. President leaves and calls Logan. He tells her that she shouldn’t panic, just like her favorite science fiction book always advises. She realizes he has her on speaker phone, and tells him to pick it up.
Logan apologizes for not thinking, because he’s pretty new to his whole “thinking” thing, and hasn’t had a lot of practice. Mrs. President tells him that she hasn’t been thinking very much lately either.
Logan says he has another great idea. He can send Jason Pillar, the guy who looks like Jacob from LOST, after Jack. He tells her that she’ll tell Tim there will be an operational change, and hangs up on him in mid-sentence. To save face with Jason, Logan thanks the telephone for its utmost confidence, and hangs up. Jason pretends not to hear the dial tone. Jason leaves.
Commercial
11:31 am – Mikhail Novakovich, no relation to Mikhail from LOST, enters the room to talk to Logan, and wants to know what he’s doing there.
Logan tells Novakovich that Dana has evidence of Russian involvement, but there’s a slight problem: Jack Bauer has Dana. Logan suggests that Novakovich and his people go after Jack, using Jason as the go between. Logan offers them a cool phone if they’ll do it. They take it and leave.
11:34 am – Jack and Cole, with Dana in between them, walk down the street to the bank, which doesn’t look the slightest bit suspicious. Jack tells Cole that he has to take Dana into the bank, and be sure not to leave her in a vault someplace. Dana and Cole go into the bank, with Jack close behind to stand guard.
Dana tries to convince Cole that Jack wants to use his gun on her, A LOT. Cole tells her to just be quiet. They go into the bank, speak with a bank officer, and go to the safety deposit box.
Commercial
11:40 am – Chloe works with Arlo to try and find Jack. Chloe basically wants to run all the data from all the cameras in New York through the CTU computers to find Jack. She knows that this is pretty futile, since Jack already knows where most of the cameras are in town, and will be using all the Homer Simpson-like blind spots to his advantage.
Chloe gets a call, which informs her that Jason is headed upstairs to talk to her. Jason enters the room with a blonde woman and tells Chloe that White House has given him authority in the manhunt to find Jack. Chloe tells Arlo to leave, because she doesn’t want him to get any blood on him if she decides to rip Jason limb from limb.
Jason tells Chloe that it doesn’t seem like she’s really into wanting Jack to be captured at any cost. He knows that she told Chloe to use “non-lethal force” on Jack. He tells her that it’s time to take off the kid gloves. She tells him that she never wears goat gloves, and besides that’s disgusting.
The woman tells Chloe they’re going to need all the information, protocols, secret handshakes and Jack dimensions so they can take over. Jason tells his assistant to change Jack’s status to “armed and dangerous” and the use of force to “unrestricted”. Chloe wants to tell him that they don’t want to see Jack go all Bruce Banner “incredible” on them, but decides not to. She’d rather watch to see what happens to Jason.
11:43 am – Dana and Cole enter a large room, waiting to get the safety deposit box. Dana starts to laugh and tells Cole that everything wasn’t supposed to be “like this”. She tells him that a Russian producer got her into this whole “24” thing, and since she was young, impressionable, and hadn’t seen the show before, she agreed. It wasn’t until later that she realized what a serious mistake she had made about going on the show.
She tells him that the video file was something she was going to use on “Russia’s Most Embarrassing Home Videos” to keep the Russians away from them after everything was over. Cole doesn’t believe her.
The bank employee comes back with the safety deposit box, which Cole opens. Surprise! It’s got a gun in it, and a machine that goes “ping”. The machine, Cole soon realizes is an explosive device, mainly because it explodes. The employee comes back in to check on them, which they’re never supposed to do when customers are looking into safety deposit boxes, so Dana shoots him.
She makes a prank phone call saying that “a guy out front of the bank” might have a gun, and then leaves. Cole continues to be unconscious, which is some of his best work this season – and that’s including those mean faces he made a few episodes ago.
Commercial
11:51 am – Jason orders people around in CTU while trying to track down Jack Bauer. Jason’s assistant brings up a Cisco product placement video of the bank, and they spot jack.
Jason phones Novakovich’s assistant to tell him that he’s going to have to get Jack while he’s in custody, which is pretty funny – Jack in “custody” – ha!
Two police officers arrive to try and get Jack. Jack sees Dana leaving . That only results in one disarmed officer (the weapon, not the limbs), and what I believe is a first ever “toe shot” on one of the officers. Jack apologizes, takes the gun apart, leaves it behind, and leaves.
Dana continues down the street, still holding a gun by her side, which in New York is very common place. Jack runs out into the street, sees Dana, and chases after her.
They exchange a few bullets, missing everyone on the crowded street.
Dana hides in a building that’s still under construction, shoots some sheet rock, because it has been very naughty, and continues to run. Jack uses the old “shoot my jacket” trick and Dana runs out of ammo.
Jack tracks her down, and gets her to put the video file on the ground. She tries to make a deal, asking “What can I do?” He says, “Nothing.” That really isn’t technically true, because he shoots her dead. She does however fulfill his wishes at that point, and does nothing, but on the ground. Maybe a little bleeding, but other than that, nothing.
12:00 pm – Time’s up!
NEXT TIME ON “24”: Store dummies shot! Snipers! Revenge! Dogs and cats living together! Blowtorches on bad guys!
SEE YOU NEXT TIME!
Dogs and cats living together!!! Pandemonium!
Awesome.