Category: 24

Previously on “24”: We learned that: Mike Doyle needs to work on his people skills when meeting new people; Jack can do some pretty cool kung-fu moves with his belt; VP Noah likes to threaten people; The Russian consulate is going to need a lot of new windows, and employees; Slicing up kiwi fruit makes Martha Logan homicidal, but it might get her a Ginsu knife endorsement.

The following summary occurred between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm:

7:00 pm – Outside the Russian consulate, which you can tell is the Russian consulate because of all the flags, they’re having a body bag display, with many styles to choose from. Mike goes to see Jack, who is refusing the nonsensical “medical treatment”, since he’s Jack Bauer and it might slow him down from shooting more bad guys. Mike tells him that it’s in “CTU’s hands”, and that Jack shouldn’t be involved. Mike has apparently not been briefed about Jack.

7:01 pm – Bill’s on the phone with VP Noah, telling him about the drones that Gredenko has. Bill says that they’re repositioning satellites. Noah says that getting better TV reception is not going to make the plot any clearer, and that what Bill really needs to do is find out what’s going on where Gredenko is. Bill tells Noah that he has no idea how close Gredenko and Fayed are to launching the drones.

7:02 pm – Fayed is in a staring contest with the people trying to get the drones ready, as if he can command them with his mind alone, which he saw someone do on TV once. Gredenko wants to know how many of the drones have been armed. Fayed tells him that drones have wings, not arms, and that one is ready to fly. Gredenko isn’t very happy about this, because everyone knows where they are. Fayed starts to play the “Nah, Nah! It’s your fault!” game with Gredenko, which doesn’t go over very well. They start packing up. Gredenko makes a phone call to someone that’s adjusting the sensitivity of some big black packing crates. He tells the man to launch drone 0-7-0-9. This guy has been a pretty big slacker, because he didn’t have time to set the evasion vectors. He does seem pretty impressed with himself that he remembers how to use a gaming joystick from the 1990s.

7:05 pm – Nadia tells someone on the phone that they have people pushing satellites into position and that their real-time feeds will be ready soon. Milo, who doesn’t seem to have ANY work to do since he’s been shot, goes over to bother Nadia. Chloe comes over just in time to see Milo touching Nadia, and announces that Nadia has been using Milo’s security code. Milo tries to blow some technical mumbo jumbo by Chloe which (as expected) doesn’t even come CLOSE to working. Nadia explains the directive that came down from Homeland Security, and Chloe STILL isn’t buying it, but won’t tell on them and says to be careful.

7:06 pm – Bill calls Nadia to tell her that Morris has used his mad skillz to find out that Gredenko has released the hounds, only it’s not a hound it’s more like drones. And actually, only one drone.

7:07 pm – Bill goes into a conference call with General Walsh, and Morris relays the information about the drones to Walsh. Instead of just acting on it, Walsh starts reading the manual over the phone, describing to everyone at CTU what the drone is capable of.

7:08 pm – Morris suddenly announces that the drone is no longer on the screen that he’s watching. Bill immediately looks on the screen right next to it, but it didn’t fly over there either, so he’s stumped. Morris runs off to “readjust some vectors”. Walsh says that he’s going to have his F-16s in a holding pattern, because apparently all of the army’s satellites don’t work anymore and they have to rely entirely on CTU to find the drone.

7:09 pm – The terrorist guy with the joystick has accessed CTU’s computers! From there, he can readjust their screens to prevent them from seeing the drone. He also says that he’s going to play some KFed videos on all their screens to try and induce vomiting.

7:10 pm – Lennox gets off the phone with Bill, and has the pleasant task of telling Noah that CTU has lost the drone. Noah, not having been briefed about important things (since he’s only the VP), doesn’t understand why the military can’t find the drone using the satellites just like everyone else that’s watching. Lennox says they’re still positioned for the NCAA tournament from last weekend, and that the drone just slipped through. As he’s explaining this, Noah says something to his sidekick, the evil “Lisa”, to get the joint chiefs together. Lennox says he doesn’t understand what smoking and Indians have anything to do with what they’re talking about. Noah tells him that he’s warned the ambassador (from the still unnamed country) that there would be a lot of things smoking in his country soon. Lennox tries to argue with Noah, until he realizes that Noah REALLY REALLY wants to drop a nuclear bomb, and he’s not all that particular where he does it.

Commercial

7:15 pm – Chloe uses her amazing computer skills to determine that since they haven’t been blown up yet, the drone must be headed elsewhere. Bill does the manager thing and agrees with the obvious.

7:16 pm – Jack arrives at CTU, and no one seems to be the slightest bit surprised that every time they’ve seen him today his clothes are getting better and better. At this rate he’ll be dressed in a tuxedo by the end of the show, and no one will notice. Bill tells Jack all about the drone and the part about not getting blasted to smithereens, and gets Jack to go to medical. Bill tells Mike to go watch Milo, because there hasn’t been any real conflict inside CTU for a while now, and they really need some.

7:17 pm – Jack heads off the medical, and sees Marilyn who says she regrets everything that happened between them. She goes to kiss him and completely misses his face. Marilyn then drops a bomb of her own that AUDREY IS DEAD! (Note: If you had stepped outside at that exact moment, you would have heard the entire nation yell “YES!” in one voice. It was pretty impressive.) Audrey was killed in a Chinese car accident, which probably means she was really kidnapped in China, just to have leverage on Jack for later in the show. Jack doesn’t realize this, and goes to ask Chloe why no one told him about Audrey. Chloe nearly says that they were STILL having parties about the news, but decides instead to tell him that Bill thought it would be nicer if Jack went to his death at Fayed’s hands thinking that Audrey was still alive… and they forgot to tell him once he wasn’t going to his death at Fayed’s hands. Chloe explains that there’s a file on all this. Jack wants to see it NOW, and actually yells at Chloe. Under different circumstances, I think Chloe would have gone into the computers and wrecked his credit rating, but she says she’ll help Jack get the file. Jack sees Bill and Mike from across the room and puts on his “I’m Mad You Didn’t Tell Me About My Annoying Girlfriend’s Death” face and stalks off.

7:19 pm – Evil Lisa tells Noah that all the right people are going to attend the nuclear bomb meeting, and one wrong person: Karen Hayes (Madam Haig, for you long time “24” fans). Noah says that he doesn’t want to underestimate her. Or overestimate her. Or estimate her at all.

7:20 pm – Karen goes walking down the hall, sees Lennox and the cuts on his face, and asks if someone pushed him down the stairs. He says he tripped over her ineptitude. She says that wasn’t really a question, she just wanted to be the first in line to do it, if the need arose. That out of the way, she tells Lennox she intends to stay to represent President Wayne. They both go into the meeting.

7:21 pm – VP Noah runs a VERY strict meeting, since it appears that no one can sit down before he tells them to. When they finally all sit, Noah announces that there are efforts to find the drone, and that he’s just itching to drop a bomb on someone as soon as he can. Noah uses the logic that since there are a bunch of terrorists in that country, exploding a bomb there will just make them stop all their terrorist antics. Karen disagrees and thinks this could start another World War. Noah quickly says, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”, to the alarm of Karen. Karen says that stakes are just too high. Noah says that they’re not vampire slayers so that won’t be a problem, but someone should get them down in case they need them later. Noah declares the debate over, which is pretty weird since no one else said a thing about Noah’s plan.

Commercial

7:28 pm – Milo asks for some SIM files from Nadia, which she says she gave to Morris. She leaves, so Milo goes over to bug Chloe. Chloe is annoyed by this and Milo’s sudden interest in Morris. Milo asks Chloe to go check Morris’ breath, so she goes to do it by kissing him, which explains why Milo didn’t do it.

7:29 pm – Karen talks to Lennox about the nuclear bomb thing, thinking that Lennox might be a little bit iffy about the whole nuclear bomb idea. Karen says that Wayne wouldn’t like this decision. Lennox points out that every decision Wayne made today was wrong: rejecting his security proposals, believing Assad, and being president on a show like “24”, which has a really bad track record for presidents.

7:31 pm – Chloe comes in and announces that one of their computers is leaking information. Bill immediately looks down at the floor, so he doesn’t step in any and get it all over his shoes. Chloe explains that the information they’re using at CTU is being intercepted by someone on the outside, and they are using that to make sure CTU doesn’t find the drone. Mike tells Chloe to check Nadia’s workstation. Milo doesn’t like this one bit because he thinks that Mike is doing it just because Nadia is Muslim, and Mike admits that yes, that’s why he’s doing it.

Chloe does a quick check, and what do you know, it is Nadia’s workstation alright. Only problem is they’re using REALLY old computers that don’t run parallel FSK, so it’ll take 20 minutes to reboot the mainframe. Mike goes out and arrests Nadia, which is a huge surprise to her. Milo looks at what’s happening, and acts suspicious.

7:33 pm – Gredenko calls to find out where the drone is, and Fayed says that it’s still up in the air the last time he saw it. And that it’s 130 miles away from its target, which is San Francisco. Gredenko says that no one will be able to use that Mark Twain quote ever again after this.

Commercial

7:39 pm – Karen watches Wayne through a window, who’s being cared for by doctors and his Borg feeding tubes. Karen asks the doctor whether Wayne can be woken up for national security reasons, and he says no, but his family can wake him up for whatever reason they want. Wayne might suffer brain damage if they do that though.

7:40 pm – Back at CTU, everyone’s watching closed circuit TV for Nadia’s audition on “America’s Funniest Interrogations”.

7:41 pm – Morris explains some completely bizarre computer lingo, and says that they can trace the source to back to a building that just happens to be nearby.

7:42 pm – Mike asks Nadia to cooperate, but she won’t say anything. He tries an incorrectly placed Vulcan Nerve Pinch on her, which doesn’t help either. Mike really seems to be trying to be Jack, but he’s just not the same since his Silver Spoons days. Milo interrupts some particularly vicious hair-pulling, and tells Mike about the location of the signal. Mike leaves the room.

7:44 pm – In the CTU medical center, Jack has changed clothes again, and is now wearing a white halter-top which just isn’t his style. He reads a scary picture book, which turns out to be the file on Audrey. There are pictures of her body. Jack looks at it pretty carefully to make sure it’s not staged, and to be sure Audrey might not turn up as a zombie soon. A passing tactical guy tells Jack that they’ve found the signal location, and that he’s all excited there will be “shooting and stuff”.

7:45 pm – In the main CTU room, Bill’s having another meeting. That makes about 57 meetings Bill has had in the last 14 hours or so. He orders a perimeter from some new person we’ve never seen, and you can tell Bill knows it won’t be nearly as good a perimeter as Curtis used to do.

7:46 pm – Jack goes to Chloe to get a spare JackPhone, and tells Bill that he’s going out with the tactical unit because he hasn’t shot anyone in over an hour. He also says that when everything is over, he’s going to take a trip to China, NOT BY BOAT, and that he’s going to track down the people that killed Audrey, and thank them. Then shoot them. So he has some closure on all this. (I’m not sure about the “thank them” part). I see another illegal embassy intrusion in Jack’s future.

Commercial

7:50 pm – The terrorist drone controller guy is still working on flying the drone using that vintage joystick, when Gredenko calls for a full report. The guy gives him a full report and says it’ll be about three minutes until detonation. Gredenko tells him to concentrate on the task at hand. This must be some kind of Russian test they give people, where people ask you questions, and you’re supposed to ignore what they ask and keep doing whatever you’re doing.

7:52 pm – After receiving instructions from Chloe, the tactical team (and Jack) start moving in. Someone walks around the corner, and Jack is giving the honor of shooting this guy first, since he’s the lead agent in charge. One of the terrorists goes to check the source of the noise and receives several bullets, which answers that question. Joystick terrorist hides behind the flimsy computer stand he’s been working at and starts taking shots at the first shadow he sees. Unfortunately for him, Jack throws a couple of bullets his way. He tries to get a grenade, but can’t. Jack gets to the computer, and they know it’s headed to San Francisco, which coincidently was having a protest march in support of the terrorists that evening. (Those kooky people!) Jack turns the plane just in time to miss the perimeter and lands it in an industrial park area, where it bursts into flames making this a nearly picture perfect Russian plane landing. Jack tells Mike to get the Joystick terrorist awake.

7:56 pm – At the crash site, one of the guy’s pacemakers starts to make weird noises, so he asks for a Geiger counter. Since they don’t have anyone that can count Geigers, one of the firemen brings him another type of radiation detector. Woops…. There’s radioactive material in the area, so they all back off.

7:57 pm – Evil Lisa tells Noah that Bill is on the phone, and he seems really disappointed that the bomb didn’t go off in San Francisco. When Bill tells him there’s a small leak when the plane landed, Noah twists this into it being a dirty bomb. Karen points out that it did land in an industrial area, so of course it got a little dirty. Noah ignores this, and asks if there are casualties. Bill says the first responders are going to glow for a very long time, but HAZMAT will get it cleaned up. Bill hangs up.

7:59 pm -Noah decides that never mind what he said before, he REALLY REALLY wants to drop a bomb. He makes all kinds of justifications to himself, and tells Secretary Kanin to move the submarine in position and go blow some things up.

8:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: FAYED AND GREDENKO FIGHT! SANDRA IS BACK! NOAH IS MAD THAT NOTHING HAS BLOWN UP YET! JACK STORMS SOMETHING AND SHOOTS SOMETHING ELSE!

With the number of “24” postings I write, I thought people knew that I write them first for Dave Barry’s 24 Blog and that the summary I write there is supposed to be funny.

Check the comments section of the summary of Episode 10….

I understand that not everyone likes all the jokes, and some people won’t understand any of the jokes…. But folks, it’s supposed to be snarky.

That’s the point!

Previously on “24”: We found out that: President Logan’s new look seems to be a really bad impression of Grizzly Adams; Soon-To-Be-President-By-Explosion Noah is setting the wheels in motion to implement all kinds of repressive tactics, but on the plus side wants to build a very big ark to save the animals; The Russian embassy has explosive doors; Jack really needs to stay the heck out of foreign embassies, because the ambassadors there look madder than Chick McGee after a Redskins loss.

The following summary takes place between 6 pm and 7 pm:

6:00 pm – President Logan enters CTU, but no one is asking for any autographs as he’s lead to a holding room. Chloe goes in the same room to set up a computer, because it has a particularly difficult installation procedure that requires that the software be installed in the presence of an ex-President. Logan really doesn’t like being in that room, and Chloe comes close to tasering him, but decides to leave instead of listening to his questions.

6:01 pm – Bill introduces everyone to child actor Ricky Shroder, who will be playing adult Mike Doyle for the remainder of his stay on the “24” set. Milo starts to whine about the whole “illegal” part of the plan to storm the embassy to get Markov and Jack, which clearly shows he hasn’t been paying any attention to any of the previous seasons. Bill says he wants a comprehensive siege plan on his desk soon, and it better not be an incomprehensive siege plan like last time.

6:02 pm – Doyle asks for the keys to the server, and Chloe says she doesn’t have a spare set but she’ll let him look at the computers if he’s really good. Nadia says she can set up what he wants on the computers, and Doyle proves that he’s as good at spouting technobabble as any of the rest of them. We also find out that Milo and Doyle know each other from something that happened in Denver, and I can only guess that it has to do with Olympic skating and a bet gone bad. That’s only a guess though.

6:04 pm – Jack is being taken downstairs at the consulate, and when he turns the corner we see a body laying at the bottom of the stairs, which is the custom in Russia for bodies. The guy with Jack pushes Jack down the stairs, and calls Markov to confirm that he’s supposed to kill Jack. This gives Jack just enough time to steal a really cool belt from the dead guy, take a face-plant whiff of the dead guy’s shirt. Just as the guy is going to shoot, Jack uses some Kung-Fu Fighting belt slinging to get the gun away. Jack grabs the gun and shoots the guy, who clearly didn’t learn any lessons from The Untouchables and brought a knife to a gun fight. Markov, who has been watching all this on his computer screen, sends a bunch of men after Jack, who uses the old “hide in a storage room” technique to get away from them.

6:06 pm – They can’t find Jack, who’s hiding near the ceiling, but they’ve set up a Russian Perimeter to catch him. This probably won’t work, because Russian perimeters aren’t nearly as good as the American versions. Jack uses the storage room phone, because that’s where they keep phones in Russia, and calls Morris. Unfortunately, is a Soviet-era phone and it hangs up immediately. Jack can only tell Morris that he knows how to find Gredenko. Jack finds a fuse panel. Jack takes a squirrel, which is the expert animal at this sort of thing, and throws it into the fuse panel. This shorts out all the lights in the consulate.

6:08 pm – Milo goes running to Bill to tell him Jack knows where Gredenko is. Bill tells Milo to let Doyle know that Jack is no longer dispensable, since without him the show would end, and they still have twelve hours to go.

6:09 pm – Bill goes to talk to Logan, who has been sitting around. Bill tries to get out of talking to Logan, but when he realizes Logan knows something about Jack and the consulate, he listens to what Logan has to say. Bill tells him about the plan to distract the Russians with some excellent vodka and then they’ll grab Markov and Jack. Logan says it’ll never work because Markov won’t let himself be captured, which is a trick I think everyone at CTU, including Jack, would like to see. Logan seems to think that Mrs. Logan, who has been put away in the funny farm, can help them talk to President Suvarov’s wife. Logan says Martha is in a unique position to help them. Bill points out that hanging upside-down from suspension boots in a strait jacket is indeed a unique position, but he’s willing to help. Logan wants to try and get through to Martha, which I believe involves wearing a tin-foil cap and howling, but we’ll have to see.

6:10 pm – Doyle tells Chloe that he wants three people on each team, instead of five. Chloe points out that the NCAA tournament won’t allow a rules change like that, and to just leave her in peace while she fills out the brackets for the office pool. Doyle ignores this, and wants to know who has the defense figures. That would be Morris who gives a smart aleck response to Doyle. Doyle doesn’t like this and thinks that making Morris lean over in his chair is a great way to scare him, because of people’s natural fear of leaning back in chairs. Doyle makes a little speech about how he’s really tough now, and that he’s switched Rick back to Ricky in real life. He tells everyone that they need to “respect his authoritah”. After the little speech, Milo tells Doyle that Morris isn’t a pushover. Milo says “I thought I was a pain in the ass”, and everyone in the CTU situation room agrees.

6:12 pm – In the presidential bunker, Lennox meets with Noah. Lennox wants to be sure that Reed and the magic marker bomb guy gets what’s coming to them, which he hopes is one of the prisons they talked about in “Office Space”. Noah tells Lennox they’ll be punished but that he has a bigger goal. Noah says, “I just want to keep America United”. Lennox says that he wants to keep Delta Continental, but that this is no time to be talking about airline companies. Noah tells him that it’s really important that Lennox tell the ambassador that Assad planted the bomb that injuring President Wayne. Lennox isn’t too hip about this. Noah sweet talks Lennox into doing telling this and Lennox agrees… a little too soon. Lennox asks what Noah is going to tell the ambassador, and Noah says that he’s going to hold the ambassador’s country to blame for the nuclear weapons, the assassination attempt, Paris Hilton, global warming, squirrel terrorism, and anything else he can think of.

Commercial

6:20 pm – Fayed finally arrives with the bombs, and goes to admire Gredenko’s crazy hairdo.

6:21 pm – Bill and Noah are on the phone, and Bill fills Noah in on the Logan-Martha-Suvarov-plan, and then giggles under his breath because now that he says it out loud, it seems like a really silly plan. Noah agrees it’s pretty silly. Bill tells Noah about the seige on the consulate, and Noah is uncharacteristically unenthusiastic about the mayhem that would result. He probably never saw The Two Towers. He wants to know how long it will take to get a plan together, and Doyle says that they’re going to go with the “20-minute siege” plan. Bill tells Doyle to take a team, await Word about what to do, Excel and what they will do, and PowerPoint the pistols at the bad guys. Doyle says he’ll take his entourage and leave.

6:22 pm – It’s a beautiful day at the institution, and Secret Agent Aaron is carrying bag of groceries! He and Martha are a couple! Aaron brought magazines, raspberries and kiwi. The produce makes Martha very happy, and she feeds some to Aaron. Logan calls, and Aaron answers, “It’s a beautiful day in Martha Logan’s bungalow!” Martha doesn’t want to talk to him. Logan explains that he’s at CTU, and that it has to do with the nuclear attack. Aaron seems reluctant to let Logan talk to Martha, because it would just be like Logan to blame the whole thing on her. Logan says whatever Aaron thinks isn’t important. Aaron tells Logan that he doesn’t have to put up with any sarcasm anymore, which is interestingly weird, since that was more of a put-down, not sarcasm. Logan says, “Tell her it’s about the Suverovs”. Aaron does this, and Martha immediately grabs the phone. She seems pretty anxious to find out what’s going on, for someone she met for less than a couple of hours, but then again, it was a little bit of human contact during her marriage to Logan. Logan says there’s an international problem brewing, and Martha says that she’s not interested in beer, and won’t listen. Logan tells Aaron that he’s going to take a chopper to see them, and that Aaron should convince Martha to see him. Aaron looks anxious to see how silly Logan is going to look riding a motorcycle, so he agrees.

Commercial

6:31 pm – Disappointingly, Logan is flying over in a helicopter. Bill tells him that Martha better have the Suvarovs on speed dial, because the Russian consulate will be attacked pretty soon.

6:32 pm – Jack is still running around the consulate basement. It doesn’t appear that he’s shot anyone since the last time we saw him. He looks really anxious to shoot someone soon. He sneaks up on a couple of people with his gun drawn, tells them that he doesn’t want to hurt them but that he will kill them if they don’t cooperate. The man points out that, technically, killing someone is hurting them, but Jack ignores this. Jack asks if they both speak English, and they not only speak English, but they speak gun as well. Jack wants to make a phone call, and tells the guy to go upstairs and grab the satellite phone. The guy looks like he sure hopes it’s been charged up.

6:33 pm – Outside of Martha’s bungalow, the helicopter just landed, and we can tell it did because one of the film crew ran out there and spun the blade on the back of the helicopter just to prove it just landed. Logan tries to shake Aaron’s hand, but Aaron has the good sense not to get Logan cooties and declines. They go inside, and Aaron tells Logan that Martha doesn’t want to see her. Logan tells Aaron that it’s super-duper-pretty-please important that he talk to Martha. She finally comes out, saying “You’ve lost weight. So, this is the new improved Charles Logan. Reborn”. Well, for someone that thinks that Logan is one of the pod people, she seems remarkably calm. Logan tries to explain the twisted plot from the last twelve hours, but without the help from people on a certain blog, there’s no way he can explain it. Martha doesn’t like this, and he finally shows her the fancy Presidential Restraining bracelet he’s been wearing, saying he’s going back to prison. Martha points out that a 10,000 square foot house isn’t a prison, not unless they’re constantly running episodes of “The Apprentice”. Logan tells Martha that she’s the only person that has Anya Suvarov on speed dial, so the country really needs her help. She consults with Aaron, and she finally agrees.

Commercial

6:42 pm – Nadia talks with a CTU Swat guy in the back of the CTU UPS truck, and he says that after they deliver a few packages, they’ll be right over to storm the consulate.

6:43 pm – Noah brings the ambassador into his office, and starts lying all over the place. Noah says that Assad is responsible for the bombing, shaving a former Mouseketeer’s head, and entire plot line of the first half of the current season of “Lost”. The ambassador is surprised by this, but Lennox confirms it. Noah points out that the country the ambassador is from has got quite a few terrorists, and that he thinks the country is manufacturing them around the clock, like little terrorist beanie babies, only bigger. Noah starts using the “Whatever I Say Must Be True, Because I’m Saying It” tactic, and tells him that he’s got ships off the coast. He can unleash the military on the ambassador’s country. The ambassador seems pretty disturbed by this. He had no idea that the US kept their military personnel on leashes.

6:44 pm – Nadia tells Bill that Doyle will be ready in 15 minutes, which is the top of the hour, when all important plot twisting events happen on this show. Logan is on the phone with Chloe, and wants to know why they can’t get a hold of Anya yet. Chloe is already re-wiring her phone so that Logan can’t call her back, and while she’s doing this explains that it’s all “Russian politics”. He gets off the phone, and Martha starts needling Logan about Aaron being there, and starts cutting up food in the kitchen while she keeps talking to Logan. She must have special permission to use knives at this place. She really works herself into a frenzy before Aaron asks her to calm down. She looks very upset that her contract kept her on this show for another year. She’s so upset that she gets up to go to the kitchen, and then turns around and stabs Logan in the shoulder with her knife! President Tar-Tar! There go her knife privileges. Logan, who is remarkably calm about this turn of events, makes the classic Steve Irwin mistake which is when you’re stabbed with something that goes into an artery, do NOT pull it out yourself. Aaron yells for a medic. They sure have a problem keeping presidents and ex-presidents alive on this show.

Commercial

6:53 pm – Now Logan is getting Borg implants, and he’s wheeled out. Aaron is on the phone with Bill, who wants to know if Martha can make it through the phone call without stabbing anyone else. They finally get Anya on the line, and Martha starts to tell her about the shiny new handcuff jewelry she has on, but decides not to continue. They start talking about the consulate situation.

6:55 pm – Outside the wall at the consulate, the CTU guys and Doyle are filming clips for YouTube. Inside the consulate, Markov is on the phone with President Suvarov, who orders him to surrender to the Americans and to bring him some of those Fat Burgers when he comes back to Russia. Markov declines. President Suvarov tells Bill he didn’t like Markov’s tone of voice and that it’s just fine with him that the consulate gets stormed.

6:57 pm – The guy Jack sent for the phone comes back with it, and Jack tells him to use the unlock code. The door bursts open, and wouldn’t you know it, the guy who was entering the code gets shot. Who would have guessed that? Jack shoots the guy at the door, but there is a lot of shooting. Jack holds up his end of the shooting, but it’s not going well. Bill tells Doyle to go, and there’s a LOT of shooting outside. There’s more shooting than the last five episodes combined. Jack runs out of bullets, and just as he’s about to be caught, the guys on the outside throw a flash grenade into just that particular room, shoot the bad guys, and save Jack. Jack tries to make a phone call.

6:58 pm – Markov calls Gredenko, tells him that their evil plan isn’t working out as evilly as they hoped, and the they need to launch the bombs right away.

Doyle finds Jack downstairs, and Jack tells him to contact Bill with the information about where the bombs are.

Fayed tells Gredenko to arm the bomb!

6:59 pm – In the ambulance, Logan says, “Martha!” and dies. That makes about eleventy-seven people that died in one episode!

7:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: DRONE’S LAUNCH! MOLE AT CTU! THEY TRY AND FERRET IT OUT! I BLAME THE SQUIRRELS!

Previously on “24”: We found out: Security guards like coloring books; Yellow and Red don’t mix; President Logan doesn’t look any tougher in plaid and a beard; Expensive special effects at the beginning of a series lead to inexpensive special effects in the middle of the series – we expect at this rate the final scenes of the show will involve popcorn poppers.

The following summary takes place between 5 pm and 6 pm:

5:00 pm – President Wayne is going into surgery for some Borg implants.

5:00 pm – President Logan seems to bet getting all Leo Buscaglia with Jack, trying to have a tender moment with Jack, but Jack’s not buying it. Logan tries to explain being at his estate and being alone, and Jack doesn’t seem very sympathetic since he his own “estate” was a Chinese prison cell.

5:01 pm – Jack’s retro ringtone goes off on the JackPhone, and it is Bill calling. Bill tells Jack about the assassination attempt on President Wayne, and that they’re pretty sure that if they do the paperwork right away, they can blame everything on Assad. Bill does his best McCoy impression and says, “He’s dead, Jack”. Jack points out that this doesn’t make any sense, since Assad was there to HELP the president, and Bill seems disturbed that the paperwork won’t be nearly as easy Jack’s way. Logan looks hopeful that maybe he’ll get to be president again.

5:02 pm – In President Wayne’s operating room, (which no presidential bunker should be without) it looks they’re working on installing something on Wayne’s neck. They also have a machine that goes “ping!”, so the situation is pretty dire. Reed watches through the operating room window while this is going on, and goes to make a phone call just as a secret service agent walks up and completely freaks him out. He tells Reed that they want Lennox in the room where the vice president is being briefed.

5:03 pm – Safely away in the vice presidential airplane, vice-president Noah is getting briefed about President Wayne’s condition. He didn’t suffer any head wounds, which everyone considers a miracle, so that rules out going on a reality TV show. Secretary of Defense Kanin seems really anxious to make Noah the president.

5:05 pm – Kanin talks to Reed, and is surprised he doesn’t know where Lennox is. I think Kanin thinks Reed is a Lennox groupie. Kanin calls over an agent and tells him to sweep the bunker. After they’re done sweeping, they should find Lennox. The agent makes a phone call using his sleeve, which we all know is an important secret agent device since they upgraded from those shoe phones in the 1960s. Reed takes this opportunity to run/walk away to his electrical closet.

5:07 pm – The guy who screwed up and mixed the red markers and yellow markers instead of using the blue and green markers (which are much less prone to leaking) starts to argue with Reed because he’s seen the first half of the show and he REALLY wants to kill Lennox. Reed wants to be all high and mighty by saying that technically, they’re not murderers. They didn’t kill Wayne, only gave him a flesh wound, and Reed thinks he even heard him say that he’d like to go for a walk.

5:08 pm – Reed talks to Lennox. Reed tries to guilt Lennox into believing that Wayne was about to do the equivalent of sending the terrorists flowers. The only other option was to go with Lennox plan, which still involved flowers, but also many explosives and internment camps. Reed seems convinced that doing all this will prevent the nuclear weapons going off, which is typical Washington logic.

5:10 pm – Reed, Lennox and the incapable Red and Yellow Marker guy all walk out into the hallway, Reeds plan in place. All they have to do is tell the Secret Service agents that see them in the hallway everything is A-OK. Lennox decides that he’d end up with more screen time by telling the agents that Reed and Red and Yellow Marker guy were the ones that tried to kill Wayne! Reed looks a bit angry by this turn of events.

Commercial

5:16 pm – A woman named Lisa brings VP Noah a bunch of flashes that she wants him to look at. He tells her that he has no time to pick out camera equipment, because he’s about to be crowned king of the United States. He does want to talk to CTU though.

5:17 pm – Bill gets a call from VP Noah. Noah says that he heard that the White House flashed President Logan, which he considers highly unpresidential. Bill tells VP Noah, that Logan can meet with the consul, and that Jack is going to keep Logan on a short leash with very small collar so he won’t try and get away. Noah says that as soon as everything finishes up, he wants Logan sent back to his house, and to have Logan put under house arrest Noah hangs up before Bill can ask how to arrest a house.

5:18 pm – Outside the Russian consulate, Jack and Logan get out of the limo. Logan informs Jack that he wants to see Markov alone, since Markov owes him money. Jack looks pretty nervous about being in a consulate, which is probably justified considering what happened the last time Jack was in a consulate. Jack finally agrees to wait outside, but tells Logan that if he tries to escape through the bathroom window, he’ll know about it.

5:19 pm – Logan goes into to meet to with Markov. Markov doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Logan out of house arrest. Logan explains about the suitcase nuke saying that they’re pretty sure that Gredenko is behind it all, since they know he’s creeping around. Markov offers Logan a cigar. Logan says that he accidentally lit himself on fire once, and since he put it out, he doesn’t smoke anymore. Logan really presses the issue, and Markov admits that he and Gredenko were close (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Turns out that Logan has some incriminating phone conversations of Markov, and he’d be more than willing to send them to the Russian president. Markov still doesn’t give up, and Logan relents in his questioning.

5:23 pm – Logan tells Jack that since he’s an expert liar, he recognized that Markov has been lying about knowing Gredenko’s whereabouts.

5:23 pm – Sure enough, Markov makes a call to Gredenko. Markov tells him that the United States knows about him. Gredenko is mad about this, since Russia just exposed itself to everyone.

5:24 pm – Jack tells the driver to go through the gates out of the consulate, and pull over right away, since he hasn’t been to a bathroom in over twelve hours. Jack calls Chloe and tells her to pull the old “power outage at the Russian consulate trick”. Logan points out that consulates have not been a good thing for Jack.

Commercial

5:29 pm – Madam Haig does some product placement by showing her Sprint phone showing a little teeny tiny picture of a news guy talking about the special effect that went off earlier that day. She gets a phone call from Bill. After hearing what happened to President Wayne, she’s pretty sure that her resignation paperwork might have gotten blown up too, so she’s going to head back to the secret presidential bunker.

5:30 pm – Noah is really anxious to enact “The Lennox Plan”, as he gets on an elevator with his assistant Lisa. Lisa isn’t sure they should be considering installing air conditioners with everything that has happened today. Noah tells her “The OTHER Lennox” plan, the plan that Wayne DIDN’T want to use.

5:31 pm – Noah meets with Kanin, who was just waiting in the hall when the elevator doors open flanked by two army guys in camouflage. No one seems to think that this is the slightest bit odd. Noah wants to know about Wayne’s condition. Kanin tells him that he thinks its Humectress, at least it used to be, since he doesn’t have hair anymore. Kanin says, that’s not important now, since it’s too soon to find out what will happen to Wayne since he just blew up and they only now have him stabilized. Kanin mentions that Lennox remanded himself into custody. Noah gets a look on his face, thinking that this is a revolting development.

5:32 pm – Lennox is giving a statement to a secret service agent, regaling him with tales of his expert pole-dancing and his fancy footwork that sets pipe alarms off. Noah walks into the room, and tells everyone that he wants to talk to Lennox alone. Noah tries really hard to implicate Assad in the bombing, but it doesn’t make any sense to Lennox. Noah tries to find out what Lennox knows about “The Others” involved in the attack, and Lennox tells him that’s the wrong show, this is still “24”. Noah keeps saying that Assad was probably involved, and Lennox bursts out with a phrase that I think he’s been waiting to say since the show started: “That makes no sense whatsoever!” Lennox puts two and two together, and finally figures out that Noah wants to implement “The Lennox Plan”, but still isn’t sure about blaming Assad. Noah gives Lennox an ultimatum: Either he can stick with the “Assad is innocent” story, or he can be cleared of all charges and go along with “The Lennox Plan”. Lennox asks for door number 3, but Noah ignores him and leaves. After he leaves the room, VP Noah, who by now I think we can all agree is even scarier than VP Scary from last year, tells an agent that he wants to see Lennox’s statement before it goes to the Attorney General.

5:35 pm – Jack proves his versatility by climbing over a wall in coat and tie without getting it dirty, AND that he can speak Russian in a non-alarming “I’m not American” accent when a Russian agent sees him. Jack is able to divert the agent by telling him that he was ordered to count babushkas in the backyard. Chloe calls Jack that he has sixty seconds from the time things get turned off until the power gets turned back on.

5:36 pm – The Russian agents instead seem completely freaked out about the whole electricity thing, not understanding how things like “power outages” can happen in the US, since they thought that was just a Russian problem. While they’re distracted Jack sneaks into Markov’s office, proudly holding his gun out in front of him. Markov says, “What is this?” Jack points out that it’s a gun, and that he’s pretty sure they have those in Russia too. What he really wants to talk about is Gredenko.

5:37 pm – The power goes back on long enough for Markov to hit his Big Red Easy Button, but it only goes off for a very short time. The Russian agents knock on the door, and Jack knocks Markov out with one punch! (Go Jack!) Jack tells the agents that if they come through the door, he’ll kill Markov. Jack calls Bill and tells him that he’s in another consulate again, and he’s doing illegal stuff AGAIN. Bill looks pretty disappointed Jack didn’t learn his Chinese consulate lesson. Jack says that he just wants the White House advised of what’s going on, and that he’s NOT showing off for VP Noah by doing something like this. He’s just trying to get information from Markov about Gredenko.

Commercial

5:43 pm – VP Noah walks around the president’s desk while listening some really bad “I’m about to become president” music. Lisa walks in and tells him the press conference is going to start in about 10 minutes. She says they’ve checked and nobody with explosive magic markers has entered the building since the last guy, so she thinks things will be OK. Lisa says that Madam Haig is going to try and come back and pretend that whole “resignation” thing didn’t happen, and that Haig was against the Lennox plan.

5:45 pm – Bill calls VP Noah to tell him that Jack decided to hold Markov hostage, since things have been REALLY boring for the last couple of hours. President Suvarov calls Lisa on her phone (which begs the question of how he has HER number), and Noah takes the call. Suvarov is very mad, wants Jack to stop what he’s doing, and threatens to use “forceful diplomatic measures”, which is so funny that even Noah has to smile at that. Suvarov wants everything to go through “proper diplomatic channels”, after Jack surrenders.

5:46 pm – Jack surrenders one of his punches right into Markov’s nose, and yells a lot. Markov makes the mistake of telling Jack that he hasn’t spoken with Gredenko since Gredenko arrived in the US, and Jack never said a thing about Gredenko being in the US. Jack threatens Markov with a cigar cutter, and when Markov doesn’t say anything, Jack starts playing a really gruesome game of “This Little Piggy”.

5:47 pm – Outside of Markov’s office, the Russian agents watch “24” on a Dell PDA, and it happens to be the very same show they’re in right now! This kind of freaks them out a little, but they plan on breaking down the door soon.

5:48 pm – Jack tells Markov that Markov has to give him the information he wants, or Jack will shoot him, make sure Gredenko finds out, and then he’ll make sure that Paris Hilton will be exported to Russia. This proves too much for Markov, who finally says that Gredenko is in the Mojave Desert, in the Shadow Valley. Markov tells him that Gredenko is there sending off nuclear-weapon-equipped drones, which really makes Jack mad. He punches Markov again, and goes to leave.

5:49 pm – Tactical error on Jack’s part: Never try and exit through the front door. The door to Markov’s office blows up, knocking Jack backwards. Russian agents are all over the place! Markov gets up, gets a tissue for this finger, and punches Jack! They grab Jack and take him away!

Commercial

5:54 pm – Noah is making a speech on TV. He says he regrets to inform everyone that he’s now in charge. Noah says that he’s been really anxious to implement all kinds of repressive stuff.

5:54 pm – Nadia goes to talk to Chloe and Morris, and Morris thinks he can get messages that Jack might have been trying to send out of the consulate through a Windows PC that doesn’t have Service Pack 2 on it yet. Morris, who happens to read Russian, finds information that an American Agent is in custody and that they take this threat very seriously since he threatened them with Paris Hilton. Nadia tells Bill about Jack being held prisoner, which is exactly where Jack was 12 hours ago. Bill takes a play from the Jack Bauer Plan Of Action Playbook and orders special ops to draw up plans to take over the Russian consulate to get Jack back!

5:56 pm – A Russian agent comes into the room to watch Jack, and Jack tries to convince him that Markov is in on the whole Gredenko plot. The agent can’t believe Markov is involved, is about to leave, and Jack finally tells him, “I know you believe me”. This stops the agent cold, and he says “Was it in my eyes?” Jack ignores this, and asks for the agent’s help. Jack wants him to call CTU at 310-597-3781, make a vote for “Jack Bauer” on American Idol, and tell Bill Buchanan about Gredenko in the Shadow Valley.

5:59 pm – The Friendly Russian agent leaves to go to another room and calls CTU. One of the other agents comes into the room and shoots Friendly! The other agent turns off the phone! He just left Bill hanging there!

6:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK SHOOTS PEOPLE! MARTHA LOGAN SITS ON A COUCH WITH SECRET AGENT AARON YELLING AT PRESIDENT LOGAN! NOAH THREATENS TO BLOW STUFF UP! BILL CALLS FOR THE CONSULATE TO BE STORMED!

Be sure and catch all of Steve’s summaries of Season 6 of “24”!

Note I post these on Dave Barry’s Blog each week, and rehost them here on my own blog. You can read all the live blog comments on Dave’s blog. Join in! It’s fun! (And yes, I’m the “Steve”, they’re referring to).

PREVIOUSLY ON “24” – We found out that: Jack’s dad has really strict rules about letting his grandson out to get soft drinks; Lennox’s assistant Reed is still trying really hard to get out of his electrical closet and get an office upgrade; after she forgot how to run away earlier, Jack needed to tell Marilyn to “point and shoot” her gun, in case she messed up and accidentally “shot and pointed”; Jack’s dad doesn’t like heartfelt speeches, because he ran away instead of listening to Jack; President Manilow is trying to look more manly now, but it hasn’t helped.

The following summary took place between 4 pm and 5 pm:

4:00 pm – Fayed is driving in the back of a disguised Best Buy delivery truck talking to Gredenko about a shipment from Nevada. Fayed is really anxious to get things set up. Gredenko says it’s going to be a few more shows until the advanced pinball machine technology they’re using will be ready to set up. Gredenko tells his thug that Fayed is living in the dark ages, and from what the lighting inside of that van looked like, I think he was right.

4:01 pm – Either President Wayne is extremely tall, or a munchkin just came in and told him that “The Ambassador” is ready to meet him. “The Ambassador” tells Wayne that he’s just SHOCKED about the things that have happened today, and that he looks a lot more Indian than Arabic. Assad and “The Ambassador” exchange words, none of them very nice, but they do fall short of the four letter variety. Assad does call “The Ambassador” by the name “Your Excellency”, but looks like he really wanted to settle for “The Mildly Impressive”. Assad excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Wayne tells “The Ambassador” that he’s arranged for some airtime on national TV for Assad, and that he wants their Prime Minister to back him up. If he doesn’t, he’s got a aircraft carrier that’ll bomb them back to the stone age, which “The Ambassador” says will be a step up.

4:06 pm – At CTU, Nadia gives the status on Gredenko’s house for which there is no status. Morris can’t even give decent status because he’s become horribly confused about the whole “telephone” thing, and needs more time. Fortunately, we’re saved from these non-events by Jack calling Bill.

4:07 pm – Jack gives in to his fear of elevators by going down about 20 flights of stairs while simultaneously telling Bill to set up a FIVE BLOCK perimeter around the hotel to try and catch his father, who is apparently not perimeter-ready. Jack tells Bill that former President Manilow has information about Gredenko. Jack says he’ll need a helicopter, preferably not one that’s recently fallen off a building. Bill tells Jack that President Manilow screamed like a baby and after the other prisoners complained, he brokered a deal to get out of prison and is at a retreat. The retreat is conveniently nearby, and so is the helicopter they’re sending for Jack.

4:09 pm – Marilyn asked Jack what happened, amazed at the total lack of bullet holes in her son Josh or in Jack. Jack says tells Josh that he’ll explain what happened to him later, and since Josh has played a lot of Halo 2 and Unreal Tournament, he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary about what happened and agrees. Jack tells a Curtis replacement to take Josh and Marilyn back to CTU, where nothing ever happens.

4:11 pm – Downstairs in the presidential bunker, a well dressed man passes a briefcase to a guard in plain sight of all the other guards, walks through a metal detector, without taking off his shoes or putting anything in clear plastic bags… and no one seems suspicious about this in the least. He finally passes the briefcase to another guard who proceeds to go through the briefcase and finds a yellow marker. The guard proceeds to start coloring in his coloring book, and when he’s satisfied with the results, puts the marker away again. The well dressed man’s name is “Mr. Carson”, who says he’s a “policy analyst” who is there for “civil defense policies”, neglecting to mention he’s going to try and test out those civil defense policies in a very uncivil way pretty soon. The guard gives Carson a keepsake of his voice to remember him by and then lets Reed and Carson through.

4:12 pm – Reed tells Carson about Lennox, and about his plan to take over Lennox’s office once President Wayne is dead. They go in to see Lennox, who appears to be trying to pole dance on a steam pipe. Carson doesn’t like this one bit because that was going to be HIS pole, so they move Lennox into a chair. It’s good to see the presidential bunker has tons of duct tape available, probably from the duct tape and plastic sheet terrorist directives from a few years ago. Anyway, Carson really lobbies to have Lennox killed, but Reed says that Lennox is just the sort of sleazy weasel they could use later. Carson says he doesn’t want to risk himself counting on Lennox following along with the plan, and Reed steps up and says that that’s a risk HE’S willing to take. Carson doesn’t see the flaw in this logic. Reed says that they’re not THAT kind of cold-blooded killers anyway, they’re more the “Really High Profile” cold-blooded killer types. They plan on getting President Wayne and Assad bombed within the next half an hour or so… the “fall down and go boom” kind, with emphasis on the “boom”.

Commercial

4:17 pm – Reed uses his evil e-mail abilities to send a message from Lennox’s computer to Melinda, the munchkin that talked to Wayne earlier.

4:18 pm – Morris and Chloe exchange nonsense technical jargon for a few minutes, and then argue about Morris’ drinking habits, which, I think would be justified had he not just been tortured by a large drill a few hours earlier. Chloe really presses it, and Morris finally babbles a bit more technical jargon and leaves. Chloe grabs his PocketPC handheld, which is running videos using TCPMP, and magically checks his phone log through it. Nadia comes over and asks Chloe where Morris is. Chloe says that they’re short handed, and that Morris’s juggling will suffer because of it, but they’re trying to help him out. She leaves Nadia with a look on her face that says someone didn’t invite her to the juggling show later, and says she’s going to watch Morris pretty carefully. Chloe tries to call Morris’ AA-sponsor, but gets her voice mail. Chloe says to call her back at (310) 597-3781. Bill tells Nadia that Jack is America’s last best hope.

4:20 pm – Jack lands at ex-President Manilow’s house, who seems remarkably informed about everything that’s been happening today even though he is still trapped in his house from last season. Manilow is wearing his checked flannel shirt to make himself look manlier. Manilow says he wants to help, with no conditions. He tries to convince Jack not to use official channels to find out about Gredenko. (Has Jack ever hesitated NOT to use official channels?) Manilow says that if Jack tries to confirm with Markov at the Russian consulate, he’s going to end up in a maze of twisty passages, all alike, or worse. Manilow says that Jack has to go through “back channels”, and Jack tells him he’s seen Brokeback Mountain, and he’s not interested. Manilow says that’s not what he means; what he really wants to do is call on Markov at the consulate and get the information himself. Jack says he doesn’t trust Manilow, and instead of saying “Duh!”, Manilow says he should start learning to trust more.

Commercial

4:28 pm – Jack calls President Wayne to break the news that he’s been talking to President Manilow, and urges him not to be jealous of that. Instead, Jack tells him that Manilow needs a furlough by executive order to go see Markov. President Wayne asks Jack if he realizes what that means. You’d think that Wayne would jump at this chance, considering Jack track records with passengers lately. Wayne thinks that Manilow might try and get away. Jack says that it’ll be ok because he’ll be on the security detail that goes into the consulate, and besides, Manilow runs like a girl anyway. Jack says that this is the only way that they’ll find Gredenko and the bombs. Wayne points out that “Gredenko and The Bombs” would be a good name for a rock band, and asks to speak with Manilow.

4:29 pm – Manilow tells Wayne that he has “a past” with Markov, and that he’s the best one for the job. Wayne says that if Manilow tries to make a run for it, they’ll tape the whole thing and put it on America’s Funniest Presidential Arrests. Manilow points out that several years ago, Wayne’s brother, President All-State, helped Manilow out and all he wants to do is help Wayne out now. Wayne doesn’t look too excited about this considering what happened to his brother, but finally agrees. Manilow tells Jack that he might not be the same man that Jack hated for so long. Jack says that if he’s got an evil twin that’s running around named Lore, that would completely fit into the whole “Star Trek” theme this season.

4:31 pm – A truck arrives and Gredenko opens the side to find a military drone, which he says that the American taxpayer has purchased, which means that it costs millions of dollars, and could be found for $1.89 on the Internet.

4:32 pm – At CTU, Bill is having yet another meeting, because he hasn’t had one in a while and was getting lonely. Bill gives a recap for anyone that hasn’t been watching for the last half hour. Bill tells Morris to hand over his work, and Morris stands up to give a speech about how he’s sorry for the whole “giving a trigger to the terrorists”. Bill agrees to give Morris his work back, over Nadia’s objections. I think she’s still upset about not getting that invitation to the juggling show Chloe told her about.

4:33 pm –Reed enters the electrical room again, under the not-so watchful eye of the Secret Service who don’t seem to be the least bit concerned with that room in the bunker.

Commercial

4:39 pm – Nadia can just not give Morris any slack, and goes to ask Chloe about “missing vectors”. Chloe covers for him and goes to talk to Morris. Morris says the vectors will be in his final report and tells her that “part me wants to go home, crawl into bed and forget this day ever happened”. I think we can all agree with that.

4:40 pm – Back at Manilow’s house, we see his television has been downgraded. He goes out to get his Presidential dress-up clothes. He quotes from Psalm 40, and somewhere a voice says “They’re so depressing”.

4:41 pm – We see that Jack, in addition to everything else he can do, is a quick change artist, because he’s now in a suit. He doesn’t look at all comfortable in it, because it’s probably (yeeech) one of Manilow’s suits. Jack is on the phone with Bill getting information on Markov, who Jack will probably be shooting really soon now. Bill calls Chloe to tell her to get everything arranged.

4:42 pm – Chloe takes a phone call from his AA-sponsor, and it turns out that she left several years earlier. Morris has been lying! Imagine that. I’m shocked. Really. Someone on the show staff is, I’m sure, because they play some really dramatic “Morris was lying music”. Chloe goes all over looking for him.

4:44 pm – Chloe runs into the men’s room to find out something that’s been on women’s minds everywhere: What does the inside of a men’s room really look like? Morris looks completely horrified that Chloe is in the room, and tells her that he has a NEW sponsor. Some guy tries to enter the bathroom, and Chloe tells him to hold it. She watches to make sure Morris washes his hands, and leaves. Morris pulls out a bottle of fake television whiskey and pours it out.

4:46 pm – The Presidential Munchkin hands Wayne the executive order to authorize Manilow’s release, and tells him that they’re actually going to rehearse for Assad’s speech. Wayne tells her to make sure that Lennox is there because he always does something good for the blooper reel.

4:47 pm – Back in Reed’s electrical closet, Lennox coughs through his duct tape. He looks disgusted that what he just coughed up is now stuck to the tape. Reed tries to make nice, and Lennox tries to tell him he’s just like Fayed. This doesn’t make Reed too happy. It turns out that the yellow and red markers that guard checked are actually EXPLOSIVE markers, and the tape recorder is a bomb too! That guard better not crumble up that paper, or they’ll get the idea something funny is going on when it explodes. Carson gives Reed instructions on how to set the bomb off remotely by entering numbers into a PDA.

Commercial

4:53 pm – To fill time until the top of the hour, Reed takes the long way around to the studio where Wayne and Assad are going to be practicing. Reed puts the explosive recorder at the podium as Wayne and Assad enter the room. They take a bit of time and exchange a bit of ironic banter about “taking risks”, and then launch into a bit of political speech. As Assad goes to the podium, Wayne seems to think the fact that Lennox, who is usually never more than five feet away, isn’t around is a bit weird.

4:57 pm – Back in the electrical room, Lennox sees a lever, hits it with his foot, and sends the pipe into the red zone. Carson notices and turns it off, and gives Lennox some extra duct tape.

4:59 pm – Reed enters the numbers into the device, which triggers the device to release some of the red liquid inside of it. Assad notices the red liquid, and since he’s done about a thousand of these bombs before, yells “Bomb”, dives for President Wayne and the podium blows up in a kind of spectacular fiberboard explosion. Lots of secret service guys go into the room. They find President Wayne! He’s got Presidential blood all over him!

5:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: PRESIDENT WAYNE HAS BORG TUBES IN HIM! VICE-PRESIDENT NOAH IS GOING TO TAKE OVER! REED TRIES TO PROTECT LENNOX! MANILOW DOESN’T GET SQUAT OUT OF MARKOV! JACK IS IN AN EMBASSY WITH A GUN! WE ALL REMEMBER HOW THINGS ENDED UP LAST TIME HE DID SOMETHING LIKE THAT! JACK THREATENS MARKOV WITH A CIGAR CUTTER!

Be sure and catch all of Steve’s summaries of Season 6 of “24”!

I finally got around to collecting all the links so far for my summaries of season six of “24”.

You can see the “24” Season Six summary page here.

Last time on “24”: We found out that: Jack’s father, Philip, asked Marilyn to call him Susan, which is bound to surprise the whole family; Susan is working to simplify the inheritance math by plotting to kill his grandson Josh; Josh has no idea his grandfather might now want to be called Grandmother; putting Reid in a basement office really made him mad; resigning during a big crisis seems to be standard operating procedure in President Wayne’s White house; the scary special effect the blew up a few episodes ago is getting a lot more mileage by being shown onscreen more than Kumar did, probably because it has a better agent; Gredenko spelled sideways is Tancredo.

The following summary occurred between 3 pm and 4 pm:

3:00 pm – Jack excitedly runs up to a burning UPS truck, only to realize it’s a CTU van disguised as a UPS truck. He immediately calls Bill to let them know that Federal Express seems to be at work here. Jack tells Bill that Milo and Marilyn are being pursued by “hostiles”, which is Jack Code for “soon to be dead guys”

3:03 pm – Milo runs with Marilyn and disguises them both as a dumpster, which completely baffles the thugs that were chasing them. One of the thugs makes a phone call to Jack’s dad, and informs him that Jack is dead, and that Marilyn escaped. He tries to draw Milo out by saying that Milo doesn’t look like a field agent. Milo nearly yells that he’s better than Edgar, but stops himself.

3:05 pm – The dumpster disguise isn’t as good as they thought. Milo devises a plan where he’ll shoot and Marilyn runs. Milo remembers his part, and Marilyn forgets hers, yelling “line!” to someone off camera. It appears that the whole terrorist plan is to disable CTU by hurting all the analysts in their typing arms, because the thugs shoot Milo in his right forearm. Just as Milo is about to be shot in a very painful way, Jack shoots two of the bad guys in a very painful way first. The last remaining thug improvises a Marilyn shield to keep Jack away. When Jack says he’ll shoot, the thug decides that lead poisoning is a bad way to die and gives up.

3:06 pm – Jack does a quick field analysis, decides that Milo will be OK, and goes over to hold Marilyn against the wall by her throat. Marilyn lets Jack know it was his father’s men that were after them and that Josh would have been killed. Jack is shocked. He realizes that Marilyn called his father “Susan” on the phone, and he’s not prepared for that. He recovers quickly, and gets the information from Marilyn about where Gredenko’s house is. Jack calls Bill to tell him that he’ll need a full tactical kit, Milo is whimpering about one little bullet hole in his arm, to send a team to get Gredenko, and that he’s going to take a little personal time.

Commercial

3:14 pm – Chloe goes to talk to Morris, and suggests that he talk to a shrink or to his sponsor, but Morris refuses. Nadia informs them both that Milo was shot and he’s up for a medal. Morris points out that he had a 3/8” DRILL in his arm, and now he’s mad.

3:16 pm – Jack asks Marilyn to call Philip, and she’s a little apprehensive that Josh might be killed. Jack says that “he’ll do everything in his power” to get Josh back, which is not a good sign for Josh.

3:17 pm – Philip starts to try and talk to Josh about what a great evil mastermind Gray was last season, but Josh doesn’t want to hear about it. Josh goes back to watching the local perky news team explain what nuclear fallout might do to those picnic dinners people have planned for the weekend.

3:18 pm – The bad guy that Jack captured calls Jack’s father and explains everything, except the part that he’s captured. Philip asks to talk to Marilyn. At first Philip is upset that Marilyn didn’t call him “Susan”, but they get past that. She tells him that she wants to see Josh, and they argue on the phone. During a commercial, Josh gets up to listen to what his grandfather is saying on the phone. Philip tells Susan that he can’t see the future for her or Josh. Marilyn seems really astonished now, since first Philip wanted to be called “Susan”, and how he claims he can see the future. Josh picks up on the whole “I’m going to kill Josh” theme, and seems pretty sure that “kill Josh” doesn’t mean “go get some lunch at Burger King later”. Marilyn hands the phone back to the thug. Philip tells the thug to bring Marilyn to where he’s staying.

3:20 pm – Josh asks to go get a soft drink from a vending machine, and goes to leave. Philip pulls a gun on him, letting him know about his strict “always order from room service” rule. Philip says, “No one’s life is worth the destruction of everything I’ve built”, which is coincidently Microsoft’s secret company motto.

Commercial

3:25 pm – Back in the electrical closet that Reed calls an office, Lennox returns with a TPS report with President Wayne’s schedule. Reed tells Lennox that all he needs to do is to let someone in the back way, and that person will “carry the ball”. Lennox quickly translates this from Reed’s native Weasel to English, and realizes this means “kill President Wayne”. Reed tells Lennox that they’ve got a “security specialist” (Weasel speak for “hired killer”) coming, and they’re going to blame the whole thing on Assad, and no one will be the wiser. Except briefly, for Wayne… and probably Assad.

3:27 pm – Lennox goes to talk to President Wayne, who’s putting the finishing touches on Assad’s speech. Nice to know that on a day like today, Wayne has time to write speeches for other people. Must be a hobby. Anyway, Lennox decides that he’ll be snotty to the president one last time, and Wayne tries to apologize. Doesn’t seem a good enough of an apology to Lennox, because he doesn’t tell Wayne about his impending doom. They sit down to read Wayne’s speech which has magically gone from the computer screen to written form in Wayne’s notebook.

3:28 pm – At Gredenko’s hideout, they’re STILL working on getting a new pattern programmed for the remaining nukes. I think this would have taken Chloe no time at all to do, so Gredenko must be working with a rank amateur.

3:29 pm – Morris is either at the CTU liquor store, or he’s gone out to buy a pack of cigarettes and a Red Bull. If he did go outside, he must have gotten over his fear of kidnapping and power drills, or he’s read ahead a little in the script. He also buys a scotch whiskey, which must be “Scotch” as in “McDonald’s”, because he throws up right away. He starts to cry, Chloe calls him to come back, he stops crying, and as soon as he’s off the phone, he starts crying again, but takes a breath mint to calm himself down. That arm must still really hurt a lot.

3:30 pm – Jack arrives at the garage of the hotel, and tells Marilyn to get dressed in a slinky bulletproof vest. Jack doesn’t wear one because…. Well, because he’s Jack. He gets the thug they had stored in the back seat, and they head upstairs.

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3:36 pm – Morris heads back into CTU, noticing that Milo is back. He asks Milo how he’s doing, nearly decides to compare scars, but decides not to. Morris goes back to work.

3:37 pm – Wayne butters up Lennox some more, telling him that his suggestions for Assad’s speech are pretty good, especially all the deletions of “death to the infidels”. Lennox leaves to talk to Reed back in Reed’s electrical closest. Reed really presses for the clearance for this “security specialist”, which Lennox says he’ll do. Reed leaves, and Lennox makes a phone call to the head Secret Service agent at the bunker! He’s going to try and help Wayne! Lennox tells the agent that he’s going to go see him. As he opens the door, we find out that Reed is not only the sort of guy that would try and get President Wayne killed, but he also listens through doors to people’s private phone conversations! This guy has no shame. He barrels through the door and knocks Lennox to the ground, they argue briefly, and Reed knocks him out. Reed steals Lennox’s phone, calls someone to let them know that Lennox doesn’t need to meet with the head Secret Service agent. Reed has sunk to a new low…. Now he’s stealing other people’s airtime minutes.

3:39 pm – At CTU, they’re having another meeting to find out why they’re always having meetings. They also discuss the house where Gredenko is probably hiding. Chloe and Morris go to reset a backup module, which is needed for an operation that’s about to take place in two minutes. “Reset a backup module” is Chloe talk meaning “I smelled alcohol on Morris’ breath.” and now she’s going to tell Bill. Morris convinces her not to tell on him.

3:42 pm – The operation is about to start, and the tactical CTU guys are all ready to go. No sign of Jack, which does not bode well for the tactical CTU guys. They go through the house, not finding anything.

3:43 pm – Jack is headed up the staircase to the hotel room, and gets a message from CTU about Gredenko not being at the house. They go into the room, only to find it open, and not in the least bit suspicious. No sign of Philip or Josh. The phone rings, and its Jack’s dad. It turns out that Philip is across the street in other building! He’s got Josh on the roof for some fresh air, at gunpoint. Josh must really not like fresh air.

3:44 pm – Jack and Philip argue. Jack tries to convince Philip to give himself up because, hey, just maybe the government will overlook the whole “a nuclear weapon went off today” thing. Jack finally convinces him to let Josh go by exchanging himself as the hostage.

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3:51 pm – Milo tries to get some sympathy from Chloe, but it doesn’t work. Milo asks about the whiskey on Morris’ breath. Chloe says that Morris didn’t “metabolize” the alcohol yet. Milo REALLY wants to tell Bill, but Chloe gives him a look at that says she’ll metabolize a taser on Milo if Bill finds out, and convinces him she’ll say something if Morris isn’t really OK.

3:52 pm – Jack and Marilyn discuss their plan in a stairwell that I’m sure is heavily soundproofed so Jack’s dad can’t hear a thing. Jack gives Marilyn a gun saying it’s just like a mouse, but instead of “point and click”, she can “point and shoot”. Jack tells her NOT to call CTU.

3:53 pm – Jack goes up the staircase and yells that he’s unarmed, when clearly he’s got two under each shoulder. He finds his dad in another room on the roof. Philip tells Jack to put one foot in, while Josh puts one foot out and to keep doing that until Josh leaves, or they both finish doing to Hokey Pokey.

3:54 pm – Josh runs to his mother, and they both run downstairs.

3:55 pm – Philip says that Gredenko blackmailed him by watching last season and figuring out that he was involved in President Palmer’s death. Gredenko told Philip that he wanted to keep around some of the bombs for special occasions like weddings and tail gate parties. Philip gave him the bombs that were supposed to be destroyed. Jack points out that his father wouldn’t be in the trouble he’s in, if he didn’t try to cover it up. Philip tells Jack that if he just would have turned to the dark side, everything would have been OK. Then he calls Jack a “civil servant”! Jack starts to point out that he’s a “civil servant with a license to kill”, but stops himself.

3:57 pm – Philip tells Jack to get on his knees. Jack makes a really heartfelt speech about how he had to go his own way, how he never meant to turn his back on the family, and that he was sorry. Jack waits a little while, starts to yell, and then realizes he just apologized to an empty room. He runs outside to look for his father and finds a phone on the ledge! The phone number listed is (310) 597-3781. (I called it; it’s some kind of “24” hotline). It’s hard to tell if Jack’s upset about making the speech to thin air, or happy about finding the phone.

3:59 pm – Jack calls the phone number, and he’s talking with PRESIDENT MANILOW! He’s butched up! A beard and everything! He tells Jack to meet him alone! As soon as possible!

4:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: JACK STARES DOWN MANILOW! DUCT TAPE FINALLY SHUTS UP LENNOX! IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’RE GOING TO INJECT WAYNE WITH PEPSI! HE’S A COCA-COLA MAN! THEY’RE GOING TO BOMB WAYNE!

Be sure and catch all of Steve’s summaries of Season 6 of “24”!