Previously on 24 – Heller gave a speech to the Parliament, which we were thankfully not present for, because it might have turned us comatose; Embassies still make air ducts that are easy to get into and human-sized; Audrey – AAH! (Sorry, should have warned you); Chloe was frustrated by cable bandwidth uploads; Navid was convinced to fly the drones after Simone gave her mother the finger; Kate sat on Jack to save him from the Marines, which we’ve heard is a well-known CIA move.
The following takes place between 3pm and 4pm
3:00 pm – Cardaro has a complete hissy fit in front of Kate about not being able to shoot Jack like he wanted. Jack’s “in custody”, which for Jack means he’s just waiting to beat them up. The marines can’t find the flight key, and for some reason it doesn’t occur to them that Kate might have it. Jack dials his Jack Attack meter to 0.5, and wiggles around a bit creating a diversion. Cardaro tells Kate to leave. He very clearly needs to switch to decaf.
Kate exits, and calls Chloe even before she’s ten yards away from the rest of the marines, who are standing around not looking very marine-like. Chloe suggests that Kate get to a computer with a 4G network to upload the data. Kate thanks her for a very nice product placement, and hangs up.
Erik arrives, and as he and Kate walk out to the car, they discuss how the heck they’re going to prove that Jack is telling the truth about the drones being hijacked. Kate points out that even though they have these guys from the “24” show following them around filming their every move, no one would believe them. Instead, she says they’ll have to use the flight key to prove Tanner, and therefore Jack, is telling the truth. Erik says, “Tell me that’s not the flight key”. She makes a shadow puppet with it and says it’s actually a really old metal cigar. Erik looks relieved until he realizes she was telling the truth in the first place. Kate tells him that Chloe needs to get the data, and he says, “This is crazy!” Kate says, “This is ’24’.” Erik realizes she has a point.
As they drive away, Kate tells Chloe she has a computer. Chloe tells Kate to put the flight key in the USB port, and even though the flight key looks like completely ancient technology, it fits in the computer, and begins to upload the rest of the data to Chloe. Kate marvels at this, since even booting her computer takes 20 minutes.
Over at Margot’s House of Nine-Fingered Gloves, Navid attempts to wrap what’s left of the fingers of Simone’s hand with super gauze – super gauze because there’s not the hideous amount of blood you’d expect. He leaves, and Margot comes over to her. She tells Simone that she knows Simone is in pain and confused, much like every viewer of the show. It turns out that Margot does have a heart after all, and she tells Simone that she shouldn’t blame herself for having a guy cut off her finger. And besides, she’ll be able to count in base 9 a lot more easily now. Margot says it’s her fault, and if she’d known what Navid was planning, she would have acted sooner, which we can only interpret as cutting off Simone’s fingers even earlier than she did. Margot leaves, but she looks concerned that Simone might still be upset.
Margot comes downstairs. Navid tells her not to hurt Simone anymore. Margot asks, “Where are we?” Navid says, “We’re in your house!”, and then catches himself and tells her that four of the drones are right on schedule for some terror later on in the show.
Back at Chloe’s Hack-o-rama Hideout, she and Adrian stare at a hex dump scrolling on the screen, and she asks Adrian if he notices anything weird. Adrian says that he’s not really ever been part of The Matrix, so there’s no way he could read a scrolling hex dump that fast. He gets lucky and notices something that proves that Tanner wasn’t lying.
Kate gets the image from Chloe, and calls Jordan. She tells him to get Steve (no relation), so he can listen too. She uploads screen grabs from her phone to Jordan’s computer, using their mystical magical ultra-fast data connection, which most people would have to wait quite a while for.
Kate asks Jordan what he sees, and he tells her that it looks like an override code. Steve asks “What’s that? What are we talking about here?” It seems that whatever Heller has, it appears to be spreading to other people on the show. Kate explains that they’re trying to catch bad guys.
Kate goes on to explain that Tanner wasn’t lying and that Margot used the drone to kill the soldiers. Steve says, “Whoa! Whoa! Slow down!” She says it again, only slower, so he can understand. Steve puts her on hold, and tells Jordan that he’s about to put his ass on the line, and there can be no doubts about this. Jordan agrees. Steve is about to put his ass on the line. Steve calls the president.
3:10 – At the president’s place, they get the news that Jack wasn’t lying. Heller looks surprised, and asks to talk to Kate. Kate explains everything. Heller orders all the drones, world wide, to be grounded. And they’re to stay grounded until they do all their homework.
Margot watches Navid’s screen and sees that the drones are all altering course. She tells him to send the override, but he hesitates. She tells him not to “try her patience.” Navid is about to tell her he didn’t realize she was a doctor, and now that finger thing makes a whole lot more sense, but he stops himself. He types in the code.
At Heller’s place, they see a drone turn red, which is bad. Then they all disappear from the screen, and that’s really bad.
Commercial
3:17 pm – The general explains with a 3D graphic and a nice PowerPoint presentation that if the drone attacks, things will go boom. And if it attacks a nuclear plant, things will be even worse. But on the bright side, if it attacks where they’re standing, Audrey will be blown up.
Audrey, who for some reason is still there, despite this being a very high, national security, classified, and a few other adjectives I can’t think of right now, event. She asks if they have any idea where the drones are headed. Heller stops himself from telling her that if they knew, this wouldn’t be such a big issue. Instead, he makes a giant frog face while the general explains that the drones are headed to London and this Audrey blowing up thing might actually happen.
Heller wants to know if the drones can be shot down, and the general explains that the drones are equipped with the latest and greatest stealth technology, making them absolutely secure. Unless someone hacks them and takes them over.
Heller’s had enough. He wants to talk to their best secret drone that can’t be detected by anyone expert, Jack Bauer. For once in his life, Mark did the right thing and already ordered that Jack be brought to Heller. Jack will be there shortly. They’ll be able to tell when he arrives by the ceremonial thigh shootings that will take place outside before Jack enters the building.
Mark tries to apologize for being a butthead. Heller says they’ve all been buttheads, and that’s OK. What’s important now that the British be informed about the threat they’re facing. Audrey gets up to leave, to warn them, not realizing she’ll be the one that’s considered the threat. Heller calls after her that while it’s really important that they be told, only tell a small circle. Audrey looks confused, and tells him that she doesn’t know what geometry has to do with this, but she won’t tell many people, just in case.
Mark goes after her, and lamely takes some time that would be otherwise be better used to tell the British they’re going to get bombed. Audrey leaves.
3:20 – At make-shift CIA headquarters, Steve gives a nice PowerPoint presentation to all the extras who haven’t been on the show long enough to know what the heck is going on.
When Kate arrives, Steve informs her that he’s “taking her off the roster”, because Cordaro back at the embassy has his panties in a wad. Someone back home at CIA headquarters, found out that Kate was there, and couldn’t understand why someone who’d been ordered back home was still out in the field. Kate explains that she wasn’t in the field, she was at an embassy. One is big and grassy, and the other is big and gassy. Steve tells her that she has to fill out at TPS report, and Steve brings up her ex-husband AGAIN, just in case it hasn’t been pounded into our heads enough.
Jordan interrupts and tells Steve that he has something to show him. It turns out that Margot has her own YouTube channel! She issues a threat that thousands of people in London will die unless Heller is turned over in three hours. Heller drops to the ground, turns over, jumps up, yells “Ta Da!” and stands there expectantly, until someone tells him that’s not what Margot meant.
Commercial
3:28 pm – Back at Chloe’s Nerd camp, they’re also watching Margot’s channel. A visibly larger Ron Weasley is freaked out about the coming drone attack. Adrian explains to Jack’s thug friend that they’ve done everything they can do, and they’d really like to leave because everyone’s about to be blown up. Chloe doesn’t want to leave.
General Video Presentation gives another powerpoint presentation on the exact drone strike that killed Margot’s husband, proving that even from London he has some really special multi-media archive retrieval skills. They even have a picture of Margot crawling away from after her husband was killed. Heller wants to know why he was never told that civilians were killed, and Mark argues that they were trying to do surgical strikes. Heller tells him that he didn’t realize doctors walked out on work and onto a picket line. Heller also points out that half the world is going to blame him for the bombing that’s going to happen. They discuss that they’re all not very happy with their acting today, and then get back into character.
Some butlers announce that Jack’s arriving now. Heller goes to see him. Heller explains that Margot has six drones, and Jack points out that he was right. Just like every other person that doubts Jack, Heller completely ignores this. He wants to know if Jack happens to know any new plot twists that would help them stop Margot from bombing London back to the 1990s. Jack just so happens to have a guy in mind. He knows of an arms dealer who has stayed in some of the worst prisons on earth. Heller tells him that it would be a lot better if they dealt with someone who didn’t deal in body parts, and someone with a little better taste in hotels. But he doesn’t go along with the idea of Jack going out, even if Jack pinky promises that he’ll come back. Heller thinks that the Russians being mad will be worse than London blowing up.
3:34pm – At Margot’s drone shack, Margot proves she’s British by saying the word “schedule” in a weird way. Time to Drone: 14 minutes. Navid really wants to see Simone, because they have some time to kill before the drones come and do some killing of their own. She tells Navid go, while Ian monitors the flight path.
Navid goes to see Simone, whose bandage is still relatively blood-free. He then says that he’s put a tracer after the end credits of Margot’s video, just like in the Avengers movies. He tells Simone to fake out the authorities, and to tell them she doesn’t know a darn thing about those old drones.
At make-shift CIA headquarters: London, Jordon points out that he’s incredibly lucky, but they have an actual IP address, and they’ve found out where Margot is! Steve’s so happy that he’s going to go out to Margot’s estate with everyone else. This freaks out Erik a little bit because usually the captain stays aboard the ship. Erik points out that it’s a good thing Steve isn’t wearing a red shirt.
Commercial
3:42 pm – Audrey goes to the room where Jack is being held. First thing Jack says, “You shouldn’t be here!” It sounded more like a plea. She explains they have a lead, and that they’re going after Margot.
Audrey starts to cry, which makes Jack start to cry, probably because of whatever gas she gives off. We really can’t understand what Audrey is saying, and it gets hard to hear what Jack is saying because Audrey tries to stick her nose in Jack’s eye.
The Prime Minster arrives and Heller tells him that Margot has control of six drones that are headed for London. The PM says, “I don’t understand”, which again is not the first time people have had to have things re-explained in this episode. Heller says that he’s got a TV channel set up so they can watch Steve trying to act like an agent in the field.
3:46 p – Out in the field, four black SUVs race down the street. It’s Erik and Steve, and some other CIA people. The streets are completely empty, which makes it a lot easier to get around London.
Back at headquarters, Jordan sympathizes with Kate. Jordan thinks that Kate should really be out in the field, and it’s just like a high level manager to take credit for something a lower level person did.
Kate’s pretty suspicious of this whole “IP address” thing, so she calls Chloe and asks that Chloe take a look at the tape. Chloe doesn’t have access directly to their network, and admits she’s not good enough to (WHICH WE KNOW IS A LIE, BECAUSE CHLOE CAN DO ANYTHING….ahem….anyway…). Just to make it tough, Chloe decides to do this over her phone, rather than using a desktop computer.
At Margot’s House of the IP Address, Margot reveals that they know all about Navid’s plan! Ian found the buffer that Navid was using, and no one is actually going to the right place! Navid points out that they’ll still need him to pilot the drones, but it turns out that Ian was peaking over his should the whole time and he thinks he has a pretty good idea of how to pilot them. Kind of like watching a bunch of movies about shuttle launches would allow you to be able to pilot a space shuttle. A thug comes over and beats up Navid. Margot tells Ian that the Americans will be at the “other house” soon, and no one should get out alive.
Commercial
3:53pm – Adrian tries to get Chloe to stop helping Jack, but she won’t. Jack’s thug has to step in when it looks like Chloe might be stopped, so she stays. All the other nerds leave. Much larger looking Ron Weasly is the last to go.
The SUVs arrive near Margot’s House of the Fake IP Address. They all get out, acting really stealthy, except for all the car doors slamming. No one, including Steve, realizes they’re about to attack Downton Abbey. The agents circle the house and break in. Everyone goes inside, but it’s empty.
Chloe finds something wrong with the tape and calls Kate. She says that the buffer has an inserted redirect! (I hate it when that happens). That, logically, means that Steve has walked into a trap. Kate immediately calls Steve to get out of there. Steve has a bad connection on his headset, it’s a cheap Bluetooth, because he asks her to repeat what she said. She again tells them to get out of there. They start to leave just as Ian hits the missiles on a drone that’s arrived.
Downton Abbey blew up! Steve and Erik can’t be found!
Margot comes downstairs and tells Navid that Ian proved he knew how to use the drones. She tells Navid, “I treated you like a son!” Navid points out that she did, except for chopping off fingers, but don’t get him wrong, that’s just fine. He likes his fingers right where they are. He begs Margot not to kill him, and that if she loves Simone, she’d know that Simone wouldn’t want her to kill him. Simone happens to be on the stairs, and doesn’t say a thing. Margot kills Navid. For a second, Simone realizes that Navid finally doesn’t have to be on the show anymore, and she’s still stuck there with a crazy mom.
4:00pm – Time’s up!
NEXT TIME – Jack has a gun! And Kate! Margo has drones! Bad guys have a power drill! Kate looks like she’s having a Jack Bauer day!
SEE YOU NEXT TIME!