Big Red Bow from BranitVFX on Vimeo.
Category: Television
24: Live Another Day – Hour 3 recap
PREVIOUSLY ON 24: Jack lead a bunch of CIA agents in a “Running of the Bauer” event through London; A cohort of Jack’s did some street demolition; Chloe, who might have gone Goth or Emo, or a combination of the two, was saved by Jack and is now helping him; Heller has become President, but keeps forgetting where he left Audrey; Audrey has been assigned to torture duty and got married to chief of staff Mark; Yates learned that people in blonde wigs who speak with Russian accents think ears are actually pencil sharpeners; Catelyn Stark is now Margo and has taken up amateur drone flying.
The following takes place between 1pm and 2pm:
1 pm – Jack and Chloe drive up to the only pub in London with nearly no one in it at lunchtime. Jack uncharacteristically runs into the Little Bauer Room, only to find Yates dead on the ground. Jack pulls his gun and threatens several bathroom stall doors, but they don’t tell him anything, despite being stomped.
Chloe doesn’t see anything on any cameras near the pub because the Blonde Ex-Russian left by the one exit in London not covered by cameras. Jack finds a wig, and realizes that it is very unlikely that a dumpster would be wearing a wig, especially a blonde one. It has to be the girl, so they decide to start looking for any woman not wearing a wig.
There’s a subway near there, and not the sandwich kind. Chloe finds the woman nearly instantly because of the silver suitcase she’s carrying. The subway train she’s headed out on is Waterloo, which is sure to excite not only Bill and Ted, but also Napolean – that is, if they can get back in time for their school report. Jack heads for the subway, just as we see the woman inside a subway car as it moves away.
Meanwhile, Kate is either interrogating the seven dwarves, or men on their knees. She shows a guy with a Bauer hickey a picture of Jack she’s got on probably the only black and white camera phone on earth. She tries to trick that guy into talking, but one of the others, probably Doc, speaks up. Kate realizes this guy is in charge, because extras don’t usually speak on shows like this.
Erik gets a phone call – it’s Steve (no relation). Steve’s upset because he’s gotten reports that Americans are running around shooting things, and the British know that, because that’s what Americans usually do when they’re in London. Steve tells Erik to get out of there, because they’re having a crisis. And he means more of a crisis than Americans running around shooting things. He finally tells Erik that Kate shouldn’t even be there.
Doc tells Kate to naughty-word off, since they’re not the real police. He can tell this because they don’t have those funny round hats and whistles. Erik tells Kate that Steve is really mad, and that everyone has to be let go. She starts to argue that she has a contract until the end of the show, until she realizes that Erik means the dwarven prisoners. The dwarves all look very relieved that they’ll soon be doing something safer – traveling to Smaug.
Kate doesn’t like this at all, and plays Duck, Duck, Solid Bar To The Back Of The Head with Doc, who promptly falls over, not face first, but back of the head first which is pretty impressive since he was instantly knocked out. Kate wants to take Doc with them. Erik complains that the police won’t like it they find CIA agents there, until he realizes HE’S a CIA agent, and he better get out of there soon. They carry Doc to the car.
Elsewhere, Jack does some typical American tourist thing, driving on the correct side of the road, which is the wrong side in London. They reach the subway station ahead of the subway train, because London has no traffic, just like LA.
The train arrives at stop 9 and 3 quarters, and Jack jumps on. Jack makes his way towards the woman who just happens to notice that Jack is wearing all black and has an ear piece. So, she does something unbelievable – she cuts her own fish net stockings! She’s so frazzled that she accidentally cuts her leg too. As she exits, she smears blood on her face, thinking a rouge disguise might throw him off the track, but Jack spots the ploy right away.
She yells for help, and instantly two guys try to stop Jack. They’ve never heard of Jack before, so they don’t realize how foolish this was to try until .3 seconds later when they’re down on the ground incapacitated.
This is long enough for the woman to get away, even tough she’s the only one with red hair in the whole place. The woman finds a open gate, and jumps down into another part of the subway system, losing Jack!
On the street, Chloe continues to look for the woman, but gets sidetracked because she sees a man, woman and child that look a heck of a lot like her ex-husband Morris, her son, and the way she looks. Well, if the husband was 20 pounds lighter, if the son was 4 years older, and if Chloe grew her hair out and actually dressed in colors.
While she’s distracted, the woman walks right by Chloe and gets into a taxi, which thinks nothing of people with blood on their face getting rides. The taxi drives off.
Jack can’t believe she’s gone. Jack says, “You missed her? How?” Chloe tells him that it is very insensitive to do Indian impressions, and besides she just wants to go back. She’s really upset and explains that Morris and her son are both dead because of a car accident. She thinks it is her fault because she should have been driving, and thinks that she was target because she knows what really happened the last day she saw Jack.
Jack tells her “You can’t bring back the ones you love”. Chloe tells him that’s not how that Spike Jones song goes, and he should listen to more Dr. Demento. Jack says he doesn’t want to make Chloe do anything (like that would work, even for Jack), but he needs her help.
Commercial
1:18 pm – Back in his office, Mark stares at his computer screen, pondering his next app purchase. There’s a knock and Mark uses his x-ray vision to invite Ron into the room.
Ron tells him he has a rendition order all ready to go. Ron says that they really can’t turn Jack over to the Russians because of all these “legal” things, and besides they’ll need the President’s signature. Mark says he’s pretty sure that all he’d have to do is tell Heller that he’s signing an autograph, and it’ll all be OK.
Suddenly, they are both scared to death by the entrance of … AUDREY. They both scoot away as she enters the room, cornering them. She wants to know what they’re talking about. Mark lies and tells her that they were talking about the soldier who is really bad at video games. Ron narrowly escapes as he eases past Audrey.
Audrey is out of her mind upset that Mark would actually try and prep her father for actual hard trivia questions that Parliament is likely to ask. She’s particularly upset about the double Jeopardy category and the fact that Alex Trebec wasn’t even there.
Mark says that Heller is in a compromised state and it would be foolish for him to try and get Parliament to go along with the lease extension. Audrey says this has nothing to do with Illinois, and she will not put up with having her father put on a leash, even with an extension.
Mark thinks they should go home, and try and work out things from there using “back channels”. Audrey asks if that means channels above 13 on the dial. Mark convinces Audrey that she should be the one that gets Heller to go along with this idea. Audrey leaves, leaving Mark unharmed. To celebrate, Mark decides to commit a federal offense and forge the President’s signature on the rendition order that Ron brought in.
Elsewhere, Jack and Chloe are doing the tourist thing and driving around London. Chloe spends her time looking up the woman, and discovers her real name is Simone Al-Harazi, which they both agree doesn’t sound very Russian. Jack realizes that Margot is her Mom. Margot is likely to be upset because her al-Qaida husband was beheaded in a drone attack when they were together. It turns out these drones are REALLY precise and Margot got away, even though she was right next to her husband at the time.
1:22 pm – Turns out that Margot has been doing pretty well for herself after the drone strike, because she’s got a nice house with a lot of flowers in the back. Margot notices Simone’s leg, and Simone assures her that she has no idea who the American who was follow her is, because she doesn’t read live blogs or watch American television. They give each other an awkward hug.
Simone goes inside and greets her brother, completing the terrorist family reunion. The brother says that Yates used a “non-standard” bus, and is very upset it’s not SCSI or even IEEE-488. Margot asks how long it’ll take, and he gives an engineer’s answer “about an hour, maybe more”. Margot gives a manager’s answer and says “Make it less”.
Simone notices the words on the video monitors with red background and that can only mean that the targeting is done! She’s so excited. Then she gets even more excited when someone that looks like a older version of Fez from That 70’s Show walks into the room. She starts speaking Arabic to him (Nadeen), because they haven’t done subtitles in a while. Margot looks none too pleased by their display of affection. In fact, either does Fez.
Margot sends out Simone to get a new pair of fishnet stockings. And to clean up the gash that has already stopped bleeding. Margot explains to Nadeen that sometimes even she had to do disgusting things, like be in this season of 24, and no one should hold that against Simone. Besides, it’s not like they were all invited to a wedding where people locked the doors behind them. Margot explains that she used to cut her fishnet stockings in the past too, but it was necessary because they’re all at war.
Commercial
1:30pm – Chloe and Jack arrive back at Nerd camp. Adrian asks why they’re back, and Jack explains that they need to carry out further plot points. Jack goes on to explain that Yates has taken 10 prototype Amazon drones, armed them with Hellfire missiles and Amazon Prime. That means that at the very least, the missiles will cause havoc all over London several days earlier than if they went through the normal delivery methods. Adrian tries to point out that if America hadn’t invented Amazon Prime than there wouldn’t be an issue. Chloe looks disgusted that these boys are arguing like that, and re-writes Windows 8 to be more stable while they carry on.
Adrian, Jack and Chloe discuss that what they really need is proof that Tanner’s drone was taken over, and they’ll need a flight plan. One of the up until now silent background nerds goes into a little speech about how the pilot’s name is Tanner and that it’s been all over the news. Chloe shoots him a look as if to say, “We just said his name, right over there! This is the second time I’ve been right next to someone and they can’t hear me!”. Other nerds in the room find out that Tanner is going to be handed over to the British embassy soon, so Jack and Chloe are going to need some help. Adrian agrees.
Kate is using Google Maps to continue to search for Pokemon from last April Fool’s day while she and Erik drive with Doc in the back of the car. Doc has fixed himself somehow with a gauze bandage. Doc will not shut up.
1:33 – Erik drives into a tunnel that just happens to be where a dangerous gang of thugs that Doc has previous experience with are standing around. You can tell they’re dangerous because there’s graffiti everywhere. Kate threatens Doc with an ejection seat unless he talks. He won’t talk, so Kate hits the button… which lets down the window a little. This completely freaks out Doc, and he says that Yates has been talking about Tanner, and several episodes of Breaking Bad. That makes Erik and Kate mad because they’re a season behind on Netflix. Fortunately for Doc, even though he’s freaking out and yelling, the thugs have extremely bad vision and can’t tell who’s in the car. They drive off before the thugs can even do a thing.
Meanwhile, at a very violent looking peace protest outside of the U.S. Embassy, Tanner arrives by limo. Everyone’s yelling at the limo like Lou is holding up a sign for Springsteen.
Commercial
1:39pm – Margot attempts to stitch up her fishnet stockings, accidentally stitching up Simone instead. Margot tells Simone that she should be careful, because the American, whomever he was, found her once, when he shouldn’t have at all. Margot finishes and leaves, while Simone looks mysteriously around the room.
In the Erik/Kate car, they’re STILL driving around, meaning that they’re taking the very long way around back to headquarters despite driving very quickly. Kate says that the DOD app on her iPad says that Tanner claims someone took over his video game, probably using screen sharing technology. Kate says, “There’s something that makes all these pieces fit together…what are we not seeing?” Erik says, “A Plot?” Erik goes on to point out, yet again, that even though Kate is pretty sharp, she was still the one that was married to an agent for the Chinese, and didn’t even know it! Also, “Neener-Neerer”.
Kate’s phone rings: It’s Steve (again, no relation). Turns out that Kate’s team tattled on her, and she shouldn’t be doing anything. That is until Kate tells him that they were able to get some info. Then Steve says, “Well, then that’s OK then.”
Heller watches TV which announces that the crowd outside has nearly tripled, which means there’s probably about 10 people out there now, but they’re making a lot of noises due to enhanced special effects. Oh, and he’s in his bathrobe.
Audrey enters the room, and while they watch TV, Heller says, “They want blood”, which gets Audrey very excited, until she realized he doesn’t mean that literally. They want justice for what Tanner did.
Audrey mutes the TV. Heller picks up the remote to mute Audrey, but it doesn’t work. She says that she wants to talk to him about his appearance and Parliament. He says he’s perfectly comfortable in a bathrobe, and will wear it if he wants to, despite what Mark is worried about.
Heller insists that the treaty is going to have to happen here and now. Audrey points out that would be silly because there’s no one else here, and Mark wouldn’t like that. She tells Heller that he should continue to get dressed because it turns out the robe he’s wearing is a lot shorter than she realized.
Meanwhile, outside the U.S. Embassy, the mob continues to carry on. So, logically, Jack is in the street headed right for it and easily walks through the crowd. Except for one guy who pushes Jack. Luckily for him, Jack is in a hurry, so Jack doesn’t shoot him. Jack walks up to the non-angry line outside the embassy.
Back at Nerd Camp, Adrian changes the fake id code that Jack is going to try to use to get into the embassy with 8675309. The Nerd girl points out that not only is his name not Jenny, but it will also get Jack flagged by security.
Commercial
1:51 – Nadeen is still trying to come to terms with Simone being with another guy and takes a drink of alcohol, which would make Margot furious, not only because it’s against her religion, but also because it’s her super expensive stash. Simone is concerned that Nadeen still hasn’t come to terms with what she had to do, to get the drone controller. Simone says that she HAD to kiss the nerd, but she swears he tasted terrible.
It turns out that Nadeen is having second thoughts about this whole “killing” thing. And “victims” and “blood”, and “nightmares”. This just isn’t working out the way it always does in the video games he plays, so he’s disillusioned. Simone says all the killing is perfectly AOK, because that’s what psychotic people do. She starts to kiss him while Margot watches on the ultra-creepy cam.
1:54 pm – The Prime Minister greets the President when he arrives, strangely out of site of any protestors. The PM suggests the President not address the Parliament, mainly because they’re not an envelope, but also because they are a really surly bunch like a pack of rabid congresspeople. Heller says he’s “with Churchill on this one”, forgetting that Churchill has been dead for quite some time but walks off before the PM can point this out.
Meanwhile Mark and Audrey argue about Heller, until she reveals that Mark keeps her in a box like a fragile keepsake. Mark points out that he only does this for his safety and the safety of all those around him, and that he has a key for that box.
The PM enters Parliament and introduces Heller, who’s going to speak to them. He gets out the words “Ladies and Gentlemen” and people start yelling, really confusing Heller, at least for now.
There’s a whole montage of scenes, which is mainly in place to waste a bit of time until the last scene.
Erik and Kate arrive where they were headed to so fast: The U.S. Embassy, which Jack arrived at long, long ago.
Jack, meanwhile, finally gets to the front of the line. The guard asks why Jack is there, and he says “To kick ass and take names. And visa versa”. The ID tag doesn’t match! There’s a tense moment back at Nerd Camp, and Chloe realizes Jack is in deep trouble. Jack walks away, beats up a policeman, grabs his gun and thigh shoots the guy that pushed him before! And someone else for good measure, causing mass panic. Jack runs into along with the crowd into the embassy with Kate and Erik hot in pursuit. Kate yells “Bauer” a couple of times, thinking that might stop Jack.
NEXT TIME: Elbow hits! Jack talks to Tanner! Hostages! Exploding doors!
24: Live Another Day – Hour 1 and 2 Recap
Many of you know that I wrote recaps for 24 over on Dave Barry’s Blog when the show was running. The show ended four years ago.
Well, it was back last night, and the tradition continues. Here’s my recap of hours 1 and 2 of Live Another Day:
LAST TIME ON “24”:
Madam President used her phone a friend to stop her agents from trying to kill Jack Bauer, which was a good thing because she would have ended up with a bunch of dead agents; Jack was warned by Madam President that the US and Russians were going to be after him, and not because they wanted his autograph; Chloe made a promise to Jack to watch after Jack’s daughter Kim and her family and sensed an opportunity to start “Chloe’s CTU Day Care”.
Chloe’s last words on the show where “Shut it down”, but after several seconds of careful scientific analysis of the video, I’ve found out that she follows that by mumbling “…but Jack will be back!”
24 Fans, we gather together here, on this blog, to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Jack Bauer!
LET’S GO!
No boop noises, so you know something weird is going on…
Several very short-haired guys looking around a London market for bargains, and they seem to be disturbed that even this place can’t beat Walmart.
At some place that looks remarkably like CTU, Steve (no relation) Navarro asks where they are on satellite tracking, at which point everyone breaks out their iPhones and brings up Google Maps.
A blonde woman quietly packs up her office, which she’s doing a remarkably good job of because she’s even packed some of the walls. This woman’s name is Kate. Someone named Marianna asks for Kate’s encryption keys and passcodes. These need to be handed in because no one at this place has figured out that can just change each of those, and because they’ve been told by their upper managers that all encryption keys and passcodes need to be reused to save money.
Kate asks what’s going on out there, and Marianna tells her they have a high value target that they’re trying to track in London. Kate says, “Barry Manilow?” Marianna says, “No, I said HIGH value target.” They both laugh. Kate asks, “Is it connected to the President being here?” Marianna tells her no, the President doesn’t have anything chained to him, because he’s like…the President.
Meanwhile, back at the market, the three guys meet up with two more, plus a homeless guy and get their guns ready to break into the back of a warehouse. The homeless guy cracks open a hole in the side of the wall and throws his prized robot into the room where they find someone sleeping. They break into the warehouse and find a stock pile of homeless people that haven’t been put out on the Walmart shelves yet. After throwing some Dollar General smoke bombs into the room, they try to find who they’re looking for.
The person they’re looking for isn’t there, but he is on the run. One of the guys who broke into the warehouse runs to try to find him, and runs right into a fist. Several times. The people back at makeshift CTU are watching this on a camera the guy was wearing, and it’s…. JACK BAUER! Jack looks just like Jack used to, except now he’s in a hoodie, which is what all the cool ex-CTU agents are wearing these days.
Jack beats up several other agents, all without firing a shot. He even uses a gate to take one of the agents out. Finally, one of the agents decides to shoot at Jack which is always a bad idea. Jack shoots back, but strangely, doesn’t hit a thing. Jack is out of practice.
Meanwhile, back at CTU, Kate starts giving Jack advice about how to escape, not realizing Jack can’t hear her. Jack runs outside, hits several people, beats up a few empty crates, and heads to the river. Jack jumps over the railing and… GETS CAPTURED. He just looks really mad. So mad, that he sets the boop machine off.
11:06 am – President William Devane, in disguise as President James Heller immediately violates the first rule of being a President on “24”: Never stand in front of a window. After President All State, you’d think he would know that. Anyway, he’s in town for a drone convention, and to explain why Amazon is using them to deliver assassinations to terrorists, which is much quicker than using Amazon Prime. He’s also in town trying to convince England to keep an American base. He’s informed that no other country is comfortable with even going to first base with America, let alone second or third.
The Chinese are ticked off about this whole thing, and the Navy are holding a “friendship tour”, which coincidentally Jack Bauer participated in several seasons ago. The President takes the time to hold an impromptu history lesson about Roosevelt, which the whole staff appears to be worried about . Heller says that he has to go work on his speech, and needs to “go to the sandbox” because he drank too much each. Everyone leaves.
Before he leaves, Mark decides to tell Heller that he really doesn’t know trivia, and corrects him. Instead of doing what he would have done as a previous Secretary of Defense (and kill him), Heller laughs it off and tells him the he’d make a good Pat Sayjak on The Price Is Right.
Steve calls Mark and says that he has Jack Bauer. Mark asks “Are you sure?” Steve says, “No, I’m Steve, but thanks for asking. Oh, and it is really Jack Bauer. It’s tattooed on the back of his neck.” Both of them think that Jack being in London is no coincidence. Mark seems really angry about this, so angry that he wants Jack transfer to “extra naughty, naughty” custody. He hangs up and tells a minion that overheard this that no one should hear about this. The minion doesn’t point out that it’s too late, because HE’S already heard it.
Back at CTU, Kate is doing some extracurricular spying, trying to figure out why Jack didn’t try and get away on rooftops, considering Jack’s affinity for Parkour. She tells Steve that Jack is up to something, because Jack wouldn’t be this careless after being off the grid for four years. Steve thinks Jack just misses driving around in black cars.
COMMERCIAL
11:15 am – At a US Air Force Base, a guy playing a black and white video game hands over the game to a new guy who just ran into the room. The new guy phones General Sheperd in order to get a reprimand from, and get grounded for not flying his drones properly.
11:17 am – Steve decides he wants to interrogate Jack himself before the Extra Naughty, Naughty Squad gets there.
11:18 am – Kate talks to Erik, who also thinks that Jack should have tried to escape via the roof. Erik won’t give any information to Kate, even though she asks for it. She has enough clearance to still be there in CTU playing with computers, but not enough clearance for that information. A guy in a beard helpfully points out that Jack is being streamed on Google Hangouts on a monitor right in the open. The monitor apparently DOES have clearance, but only clearance in black and white, not color.
11:19 am – Erik tattletales to Steve on Kate for asking about Jack. We find out that Kate’s husband was selling Ancient Chinese Secrets, and she’s getting kicked out of there because of it.
Beard guy (Jordan) says that he has the information for Kate, but since it’s so important, he waits to tell her that she should fight the transfer. Kate points out that fighting the transfer will do no good, because it’s people that will make that decision, not a piece of paper.
Kate reads that the Prague Police had a tip about Jack. It says “Doo doo doo doo, dah dah dah dah”. It also has a timestamp that’s out of sequence, which proves that the message from Prague is fake, planted by someone.
Down in the interrogation, the agent watching Jack is pretty impressed with Jack’s vital signs, which are steady as a rock, as if Jack is either a killing machine, a robot, or not worried about anything in particular. Or that maybe the sensors they attached to him don’t have a good connection. Maybe all of the above.
Steve walks in to talk to Jack. He goes into a monologue about how Jack is considered a criminal. Jack just gives him a Jack Stare, but it could well be that he’s just asleep.
Further downstairs in an even MORE secret dungeon, an agent announces that Jack is going to be down in a few minutes. The special agent in charge of naughty, naughty interrogation walks into a room where CHLOE is strapped down on a table. It appears they’ve been doing psychotic grunge makeup experiments on her. The agent injects something into Chloe, and from her screams, we can only imagine it induces her to think of Justin Bieber.
COMMERCIAL
11:28 – Mark is in his office, looking at Jack’s VERY impressive Game Center kill list when he’s interrupted by a high pitched screech from someone saying “I’m almost ready”. It’s AUDREY! That can only mean that Mark must have lost some kind of bet. He tries to convince her to not go the reception, mainly because he doesn’t want to be seen with her. They discuss President Heller’s condition, which is undoubtedly caused by having Audrey as a daughter.
Mark’s minion, who is trying to impersonate Batman’s voice, says that he has an update about Jack.
11:30 – The minion tells Mark that Jack is about to go to the Naughty, Naughty room, and that he’ll probably go to trial afterwords. Mark doesn’t think that’s the best course of action after Jack is interrogated. Mark says, “He could disappear.” The minion says that he doesn’t believe Jack has the power of invisibility, but anything is possible. Mark wants Jack handed over to the Russians. Mark is really mad about Jack and what he did to the Heller family. He says that Audrey was lifeless, unresponsive, under psychiatric care, not expected to recover… Which is all normal operating mode for Audrey AND he married her like that anyway. And he just stood by her for three years. The minion thinks that’s a very long time to stand next to someone, but doesn’t say anything. Mark swears, “As long as she lives, she’ll never hear the name Jack Bauer”. The minion takes this as a sign to kill Audrey, but then realizes that Mark only meant that Audrey has earplugs now.
President Heller and Audrey exit the building with Mark, to see a big crowd protesting Audrey’s return to the show. They even have “No Drones” signs to reinforce this point.
Steve asks Jack if he can call him “Jack”, which is kinda weird because I’m not sure what else he would be called, unless they started calling him “Jack Jack”. Steve informs Jack that he could arrange it so he could talk to his daughter Kim, who had another baby, and they know what causes that now.
Jordan tells Kate that they figured out where that mis-timestamped message came from. It was just three blocks from where Jack was captured. Kate thinks this is really weird, and thinks Jack planted the message.
Kate tells Steve that Jack wanted to get captured, and in true CTU form, Steve doesn’t take this seriously. Marianna comes down to tell them both that the orders came through, and Jack is being transferred. Possibly for a CTU agent to be named later. Kate runs back into the room and locks it. She tells Jack she knows he planted the message and that he’s after someone. After seeing Kate, Jack’s pulse skips a beat, but goes back to normal. Steve gets back into the room and tells her to leave. Fortunately for Jack, Steve continues to ignore Kate, and gets her escorted out of the building. He even takes away her CTU grocery rewards card.
COMMERCIAL
11:40 – Just three people are escorting Jack out of interrogation, which is a huge mistake. Just one person is escorting Kate out of the building, which is an even bigger mistake because she grabs a taser and tests it. It works! Flappy guard all over the floor, didn’t make it past the first set of poles. She hides the guard in a server room, and calls Jordan. She asks if Jack has a prior history with anyone in the building. Jordan asks if she has a crush on Jack. Kate calls him a big silly and to shut up, and he says he’ll call back once he finds out anything.
Outside, a really angry looking service worker (but I’m being redundant) hooks up some wires to a junction box of some kind.
Meanwhile, Erik starts insulting Jack about the way he used to be this big top dog CTU guy, but not anymore. Erik asks to be let into the Naughty, Naughty interrogation room.
Turns out that Jack really might be a robot, because he presses a button under his skin, sending a signal to the service worker, who triggers an outage. Jack proceeds to show Erik and his cohorts why Jack Bauer is still the top dog by beating them all up with both hands handcuffed behind his back. Jack even takes the time to rub it in by sitting on Erik and un-handcuffing himself.
The naughty, naughty interrogation agent opens the door and Jack says hello the way only way Jack knows how, with a gun to the face. He asks to be taken to “her”, warning the guy that if he tries anything funny, he’ll blow his head off. They get into the room and he sees that Chloe is hooked up to an IV, and is unconscious. Jack is really mad that this guy did this to Chloe, and knocks him out.
Jack roots around and finds a huge USB stick and drives it right into Chloe’s chest, rebooting her.
Jack came to save Chloe. Damn right!
Jordan calls Kate to say he’s found a connection. Chloe has changed her named Snowden, and has released a whole bunch of information about House of Representatives spending habits, the fact that the White House pays women less, and the fact that guy who is the head of the Senate likes to dress in women’s clothing, and they’re all really mad at her. Kate correctly assumes that Jack is breaking out Chloe. She finds Erik and one of the guards, and is so mad she shoots an innocent door before heading through it.
Jack tells Chloe to run for cover because he’s going to have some fun. He knocks the knobs off of two gas lines, just as Kate appears. Kate realizes that someone let out some gas, and it wasn’t anything she had for lunch, so she wisely runs for cover as Jack shoots at the gas. Big explosion, large fireball. Doors all the way two floors up inexplicably blow off their hinges.
Outside, the service worker goes to a tool chest and pulls out his standard issue rocket launcher gun, which they issue for these kinds of neighborhoods.
Kate reappears and pulls a gun on Jack. He turns around, makes a mean face.
Again, outside, the service worker shoots the pavement with the launcher, causing a huge explosion right where Kate, Jack and Chloe are. The worker sends down a ladder, and much to his surprise, out pops Jack and Chloe! It’s like this was all planned or something. He takes the ladder so Kate can’t follow. She runs off and the truck drives off. Kate tries to shoot the gate she’s behind out of frustration.
11:53am – Audrey and Heller are riding in the limo. Heller talks about feeling history, which Audrey interprets as an uncomfortable discussion about Heller’s dating Eleanor Roosevelt. She quickly changes the subject to the history lesson where Heller made a mistake, and tells him she’s worried. He just makes a funny face at her, and tells her that he’s terrified he’ll end up like her soon.
11:54 – Back at CTU, there’s a lot of Jack destruction everyone is shifting through. PERIMETER called! Kate says that they should go after Chloe, because she’s been in town longer than Jack has. Steve is unconvinced, and says that he’s under a microscope and can’t do anything. They both look up, don’t see a microscope, and continue to talk. Kate says that beside the fact the she had NO idea that her husband was a traitor, she’s the right person for the job, and proceeds to prove it by trying to blackmail Steve (again, no relation). Steve looks thoughtfully into the distance.
11:56 – Chloe tries to fix her makeup and the car stops. Jack tells her to get somewhere safe. She leaves, and Jack admits he bugged the phone because he’s not sure she would have said “yes” to helping him. And that he doesn’t have friends. And that he can still make a sad face.
Meanwhile, a triangle shaped drone goes flying through the air under the control of the lieutenant who was playing the video game earlier. There was a very bad bug in the software, because the drone launches a missile killing Shepard. The lieutenant is horrified, even though it’s pretty likely he’s not going to be grounded anymore.
12:00 – COMMERCIAL
HOUR 2
Last time on 24: It just happened! What’s wrong with you?
12:00 pm – Chloe’s walking down the street, which apparently is a safe secret place to hide, in London.
At CTU, Kate discovers Chloe’s phone, which Chloe got for a very good price, free, from a stolen shipment. The naughty, naughty interrogation agent wimps out and says they usually get the local police to supply them with free phones.
Kate calls Ken who she convinces to check out the stolen cell phone number from Chloe’s phone. Ken’s been working for CTU, but must be retired because he looks really exasperated that people still keep calling him for info.
Steve tells Erik that Kate’s back on the payroll again, at least for now. Steve tells Erik that he’ll be working with Kate. In case we didn’t hear it the first fifty times, Erik points out that Kate missed the fact that she was married to a SPY selling secrets to the Chinese. Steve points out that in all fairness, Kate’s husband was married to a spy too. Erik’s pretty mad about that.
12:02 pm – Out on the street, Chloe goes to an abandoned building site, which appears completely secure, except for the hole behind a sign, and the twelve jillion graffiti tags all over the place. She goes into the building and buzzes herself in. A bunch of people who look like they’re off versions of the IT Crowd greet her. They even have a completely silent pinball machine, that one of them was playing.
The head of their group, which you can tell because he looks a LOT older than the rest of them, greets her, and asks where she’s been. She sheepishly admits she’s been in a CIA black site, which immediately arouses suspicions because none of them have ever had that happen before. The guy asked if they’ve been compromised, and she tells him that “someone I used to work with broke me out”. The guy says, “That’s impossible.” Her response: “Not for him. It’s Jack Bauer.” They guy pees his pants, just a little, and yells, “Shut it down! We have to move!”
Chloe tries to reassure the guy, but that lasts all of about two seconds because Jack breaks down the door and enters, with the guy I’m beginning to suspect isn’t really a service worker.
Jack calls the guy Chloe has been talking to “Adrian Cross”, and begins yelling for Derrik Yates. Now it’s the rest of the nerds turns to pee their pants.
Adrian says that Yates doesn’t work with them anymore because they had a clash of styles, plaid and stripes. Adrian refuses. Jack responds by showing why people shouldn’t disagree with people named Bauer.
Chloe asks Jack why he’s looking for Yates. Jack says that he intercepted some intel that mentioned an assassination attempt in London that was linked to Yates and Chloe’s organization. More maybe Gates. Or Mr. Bates. Definitely something that ended in “ates”.
Adrian says that Yates started selling intel on a new system from Ebay, “Intel-bay”. He says that Yates didn’t follow the protocol of only posting information, not selling it.
12:06 – Chloe uses her Chloe powers to convince everyone standing around to help her look for Yates, which they immediately do, because they know that Chloe wouldn’t like it very much if they didn’t.
Chloe’s very mad at Jack, for not just asking for her help in the first place. Jack tries to point out that if he had tried to ask in the first place, she would have just had her tongue hanging out drooling because she was unconscious at the time.
Back on the street, the camera person must not be paying attention because it moves all over the place looking for someone.
Cut to the inside of an apartment building with no doors, where a guy with a black knit cap is walking down the hall. Knit cap goes into a room where big scary guys are openly packing up drugs and counting money. We can barely understand Knit Cap says because he’s speaking English. Like from England English. He’s complaining about another guy at a computer, and his girlfriend.
The girl is Russian, because she has a thick Russian accent and skips words in her sentences. The guy, who we assume is Yates, tells her he’s working, and she should behave or go in the other room. She understandably doesn’t want to, because there are big scary guys in the other room. Yates gets a phone call from someone he considers even scarier, which is reinforced because we can only see her in dark shadows AND she speaks in foreign accent. Yates tells her that the Americans will have no idea he took over the video game, because he pinned the whole thing on someone else. The Dark Shadows lady tells him that blaming it on someone else would have been better than using a pin. Even a staple gun would have been better. He assures her they’re still on schedule, even with the modifications, and with the Russian woman acting frisky. The Dark Shadows lady is pretty suspicious that something is going on, but appears to be dumb enough to fall for the “it was just the TV” excuse, at least for now.
COMMERCIAL
12:15 pm – Back at an army base, the lieutenant is getting interrogated about the drone incident. They’re suspicious of him because he just had a weekend pass revoked, which tells us one thing: The army needs to hand out a LOT more weekend passes if this is how they think people will react to having one revoked.
Tanner (the lieutenant) says just to check the flight key, and to check the logged keystrokes and date. The thing is definitely army issued, because it is HUGE. You could probably log all the keystrokes in America on that thing. Tanner is informed that not only was it checked and cross checked, but it was cross-cross checked, triple cross double checked, and quintuple by-pass double scotcherooed checked. It shows that all the keystrokes came from his console. Tanner looks very worried and he insists that the flight key has something on it that will prove he’s innocent. Plus he still has his family photos on that thing, and he’d really like it back.
At a party, Heller tells the Prime Minister, Alister Davies, “I can not tell you how much I appreciate your support on this, Alister”. Davies looks perplexed, and says, “But you just did!” Heller tries to scare Davies by introducing him to Audrey, and then leaves her with him after Audrey says Heller is needed. Davies doesn’t look nearly as worried as he should be.
Heller goes to talk with Mark and the Advisors (which would be a good name for a really dorky rock band). The general informs Heller that a drone might have, kind of, accidentally, whoopsies… killed four guys, two from our side and two from England.
Heller tells the advisors that it’s important that Davies hears this news from himself, because he wants to see the expression on Davies’ face when he tells him. As he turns to tell Davies, we see two British officers are already there, likely to protect the prime minister from Audrey. Audrey leaves and either she farted, or Davies just received the bad news, because he walks off in disgust before Heller can get to him.
Mark receives a call from Steve and is informed that Jack escaped. This surprises Mark, because he’s obviously not as familiar with Jack as he thought. Steve says that he broke out an ex-colleague of his. Mark asks, “So he has no designs on President Heller?” Steve says that Jack doesn’t even have a doodle on President Heller. Steve thinks it’s very doubtful that Jack wanted the president to be killed. Mark does not like this one bit, and tells Steve that unless he gets Jack back, he can kiss his career and frequent flier miles goodbye.
Chloe continues to do her work, but gives Jack’s service worker the evil eye. She says that the tattoo he has means he’s been a very, very bad service worker. All the marks on his arm show how many murders he’s committed, and the marks on the other arm show how many DVDs he “forgot” to return to Red Box. She asks what Jack has been up to for the last four years, and she goes into snark mode. She wants to know why he’s doing this. She finally figures it out that he’s doing this for Audrey! She, and the rest of Earth, throws up a little. Chloe says she’s convinced that what all intelligence agencies do is criminal. He responds that she’s just talking like Adrian Cross, which, for the first time that I can recall, leaves her speechless. She tells him that he’s not Judge Judy or even Judge Reinhold, and that he can’t judge her.
One of the nerds sees video showing the aftermath of the Afghanistan attack, and Jack quickly comes to the conclusion that Yates has been a very naughty information dispenser. Adrian says that he found out where Yates has been hiding, but it’s in a place with drug dealers, and someone who is a “nasty piece of work”. It looks like Jack is going to work. Jack goes to leave, and Chloe volunteers to go with. Jack leaves, and Chloe orders everyone to put down their video games and help her give Jack some communications backup.
COMMERCIAL
12:29pm – Heller tells Mark and the General (which would be a good name for a terrible TV show) that he wants to phone the Prime Minister and talk to Parliament while it’s in session. Mark points out that if he does it while Parliament is out of session, it wouldn’t have the same impact anyway. It’s pointed out that people are already saying the incident has been white-washed, which is probably a land-speed record from the time it occurred until now for people to have come to that conclusion. Anyway, Heller decides he wants to get Chris Tanner, the drone pilot, here, and for the General to make the arrangements. The General doesn’t understand what flowers have to do with this, but he’ll follow the orders, even though flowers are against the U.N. florist convention.
Mark is worried that Heller won’t be able to handle Parliament because he’s not on the “top of his game”, and puts on his sad eyes as he says it. Heller smiles like a crazy uncle, and says that Mark didn’t think he was up to it when he spoke at a town meeting in Ohio. From the look on Mark’s face, you could tell that he didn’t have the heart to tell Heller that meeting was a bunch of dogs out for a walk with their owners at a park in Washington.
Audrey says that she just passed the General, and he looked really upset. Mark doesn’t want to tell her that the General was upset just because Audrey walked by, so he tells her about her father’s plan to talk to Parliament. Mark is completely against it, but Audrey wants to help her father prep for the speech. She reminds Mark he did pretty well against those dogs at the park.
The Russian girlfriend back at Hotel Hell, sees news coverage of the aftermath of the strike, which is somehow already on network TV, despite the strike being in the middle of Afghanistan. She asks if Yates did this, and he admits to it. She asks if he doesn’t feel a teeny tiny bit bad, and Yates says, “They were already dead. They just didn’t know it.” She asks if he means like in that old Michael J. Fox movie, and he says, “yes”. He tells her that the President is going to die on foreign soil, which is sure to trigger a huge war. His plan is to wait it out in Greenland, which is a bad plan because Greenland is the icy one, and Iceland is the green one. Anyway, that’s his plan, but he has to get something done within 28 minutes, or the Dark Shadows lady is going to be very upset.
12:33 – At makeshift CTU, Jordan announces they haven’t found anything. Kate enters and says two phones from the stolen shipment are at a housing project. Everyone looks shocked, SHOCKED that’s where they could be. They decide to follow the lead, but someone will be in big trouble if they find teenagers with those phones.
Jack and Chloe arrive at the housing project where Yates is, and decide to do a communications check. Jack says, “Testing, 1, 2, 3,” and Chloe looks at him like he’s stupid. “I’m sitting RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!”. She looks worried that Jack’s years alone in the field might have affected him. Jack leaves and Chloe goes to try and hook up to the closed circuit cameras in the run down housing projects. Because that’s where you keep closed circuit cameras: in run down housing projects.
Commercial
12:39 pm – Tanner is getting more of an armed escort than Jack did. They enter a truck, probably headed for the President.
Mark and Audrey stage a mock parliament speech with Heller that goes well, all the way up until the point where Heller starts speaking. Mark asks him a series of increasingly tough questions, eventually going to the literature category in Trivial Pursuit before switching back to the dead soldiers, of which Heller said there were three (when there were really four). This throws Heller for a loop, and he looks stage left and mumbles “LINE!” under his breath. He leaves, remembering the soldier’s name he forgot, as he walks away. Audrey storms out because Mark yelled at her daddy.
Jack scouts out the housing complex, and asks Chloe where are the people they’re looking for. Chloe, of course, has video feeds running on all the cameras in the complex already. Jack asks her to turn off the camera he’s looking at, which, because of the Jack/Chloe telepathy thing, she’s able to do without asking any further questions.
Bashir, the guy counting the money in the drug apartment, tells Knit Cap guy to check the camera that went out. Knit Cap guy, who had been playing a game on his handheld device, a broken piece of TV remote control, presses control-alt-delete a few times and brings up a picture of one of their colleagues hanging by the end of a rope.
With Chloe’s help, Jack navigates past some bad guys right to the door where Yates is, and grabs Knit Cap guy as he steps out into the hallway.
Jack gives Knit Cap a Jack hug around the throat and escorts him back into the room with Bashir. Jack assures everyone, even the people with guns, that all he wants is Yates, and it would be a very bad idea to think that Jack couldn’t hurt every one of them very badly because he’s the star of the show, and they’re just mostly extras. They don’t believe him, and Jack proves he was right by killing a couple of them immediately, knifing Bashir in the throat.
While this is going on, Yates packs his things to leave. He dodges machine gun fire from Jack’s fight, breaks through a window and escapes with his Russian girlfriend.
Jack follows, after picking up something in the apartment. He tries to shoot Yates like one of those ducks at the carnival from another catwalk, but misses.
Meanwhile, Chloe gets a phone call from Adrian, who tells her that unless she ordered food to be delivered, some agents are headed her way. She looks really worried. She did order food, but it couldn’t be here that quickly.
The cars drive up to the van. Agents yell for Chloe to come out, and then open the door. The only thing left is a smoking computer, on which Chloe had quickly installed Windows 7, destroying it completely.
Kate and Erik run up to the building, and see Yates and his girlfriend. Yates calmly explains that there’s a guy upstairs with a gun as he passes. Jack comes barreling down the stairs, gun his drawn and yells for Yates to stop. Jack pleads with Kate and Erik to stop Yates and his girlfriend, which of course, they don’t do. He finally gets on his knees, sets down his gun when he’s shot. It’s Bashir, who, despite having a knife neck wound, is able to shoot Jack from over 200 yards away. The trained agents, with machine guns, can’t hit Bashir, even though he remains in the relative open before ducking behind a post. Jack escapes, going after Yates. Kate and Erik follow.
COMMERCIAL
12:53pm – In an underground garage, the agents play the quiet game, not letting on where they are, except for the bright flashlights they’re all holding. Jack catches Kate, and tells her that she’s chasing the wrong guy and he’s trying to prevent an attack on Heller. A light flashes by and Kate makes what Jack thinks is a wrong move, so he gives her an autographed head butt to the face, knocking her out.
Jack sees a light above him, knocks out a board and escapes. A car drives up; it’s Chloe! Despite all the noise, the rest of the agents in the garage only arrive after Jack’s gone. Erik yells they have a man down, forgetting that Kate is not a man. Jack drives the car away.
Chloe is concerned that Jack is bleeding, he tells her it’s OK because he’s only been shot. He gives her a USB stick that he recovered from the apartment, and it turns out to be a drone commandeering system, which can control up to ten drones! Unfortunately, it starts deleting itself. It could have been a self-deleting program, or again, it could have been Windows 7. Either one.
In a bar, Yates explains to his girlfriend that Margo is likely the one that sent Jack to kill him. He wants to sell the device to someone else. He goes off to the bathroom, and the girlfriend follows into the same one, because she can’t read English.
We soon see, it was something completely different. She pulls out a pick and drills it right into Yates’ ear, which had to really, really hurt. And caused death. She grabs the case and leaves. It turns out that she’s not Russian at all, she’s working with her mother, Margo! It’s Catelyn Stark in disguise!
NEXT TIME: JACK BAUER IS COMING!
Breaking Bad Remix
NSFW – Language:
Game of Thrones Season 3
No spoilers ahead!
We’ve been watching A Game of Thrones Season 3
I’ve been very impressed with the packaging. It contains the Blu-Ray discs, regular DVDs, AND a coupon for iTunes downloads. So, we’re completely covered, no matter where we want to watch it in the house.
I’m actually seriously considering subscribing to HBO for a few months to see Season 4 while it plays live. That promises to be a very wild ride.
Hacking the System: Hack Your Car
Brian Brushwood’s new TV show, Hacking the System, is a lot of fun. The latest episode is: Hack Your Car.
Jack Bauer is Back! See the 24 Superbowl trailer!
Jack is back, May 5, 2014!
Form a perimeter! Thigh shots! Crazy Blogging with Dave Barry!
Meanwhile, watch the trailer
Sherlock – His Last Vow
SPOILERS AHEAD
Well, that was an interesting episode!
The “bad guy” all season was revealed to be Charles Magnussen, an media tycoon who had a “mind palace”, in the same way that Sherlock does. Kept all his information there.
But was that really who was in charge of all this?
It was never directly shown, but I suspect that he had some connection with Moriarty. We saw at the very end that Moriarty is apparently still alive. If you recall at the end of season two, we saw Moriarty shoot himself, but the thing we did NOT see was blood. There was no blood pouring out of his head the way it should have been. Never saw his body taken away either, although that was implied.
It’s all sort of double reverse. Holmes was setting Moriarty up in Season 2, but Moriarty knew about it, went along with it and staged his death so he could turn the tables on Holmes later.
So.
Since Moriarty faked his own death, he would have stayed low, and found out pretty quickly that Sherlock was still alive. At this point Moriarty would need to “regroup”. He would let Sherlock dismantle all of his operations, since doing anything to prevent it would alert Holmes he was still alive.
While this was going on, he would stage a come back, planning revenge on Holmes. Perhaps even using Magnussen as an accomplice of sorts. Magnussen very nearly would have had both Watson and Holmes sent to jail, because he didn’t think Holmes would kill him. Probably wouldn’t have mattered to Moriarty either way, since either way, whether Magnussen lived or died, Holmes would be in jail.
Glad to see that Moriarty is back though. Definitely creepy character. Now all we have to do is wait for Series 4 of Sherlock! It can’t come soon enough.
Sherlock: Season Three
About that Breaking Bad Finale….
SPOILERS AHEAD
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE ENTIRE SERIES OF BREAKING BAD
Kudos to my friend John for theorizing correctly that the Schwartz’ would be the ones to launder Walt’s money for him. That was spot on, and I have to hand it to Vince Gilligan and the rest of the writer’s of the show for making Skinny Pete and Badger the “hit men”. When the lasers came up, that was a great surprise.
I liked the finale a lot. I think it was one long goodbye to Walter, and he was able to resolve things as best as he could with all the people involved. I thought it was particularly good that he ended up saving Jesse at the end. Despite his intention to kill him, seeing what happened to Jesse after the parted ways in the desert, Walter realized he couldn’t go through with it.
Lydia… man oh man, she was worried about everything all the time, and Walter sure gave her something to worry about in her last hours. I caught on that the ricin was in the Stevia packet before they practically displayed the words on the screen by emphasizing the tea cup at the end of that scene.
Todd – man, that kid was ca-reep-eee. I’m glad he was taken out, and it was probably fulfilling for Jesse to be the one to do it. Even in the end, I had a soft spot in my heart for Jesse, and didn’t like to see him hurting anyone else. He’d done enough of that throughout the show.
Did it appear to anyone else that Walter’s bloody hand print at the end was in the shape of a “W”?
Tonight, my buddy Ralff (pseudonym used to protect the guilty) pointed out a couple of postings here and here.
The basic upshot of the theory is that Walt died in that car, and we’re only watching the fantasy that played out in his head. The evidence that’s cited is the red keychain that wouldn’t have been in a car like that, the fact that Walt was able to move around with relative ease despite the police looking for him, and more. Go read the article to see the rest.
While I really like the theory, I have to disagree with it. It just doesn’t fit the style of the show. If this had been LOST, then I’d agree with the theory 100%, because a lot of weird stuff happened on that show.
One thing I’d like to point out about that theory is that taken to the extreme, the whole series could have been in Walt’s head, starting from the point where he found out he had cancer. Unbelievable situations that he was able to get out of, dead men walking around with half their faces blown off, walking naked in grocery stores, people choking on their own vomit or having their skull crushed by an ATM (talk about nightmares… woooo…). The feeling of being helpless in real-life and wanting to be powerful. You could make a good case for saying the entire series was all in his head.
Like I said, I don’t believe the writers were doing anything like that. It just doesn’t fit the style of the series. Fun theory though.
Wild Guesses Before The Final Breaking Bad Episode
SPOILERS AHEAD
Breaking Bad is coming to an end and there’s going to be a reckoning for a lot of folks. Just about everyone on this show, with the exception of Walt Jr. and Holly have done a variety of bad things, ranging from minor (Marie’s kleptomania) to really bad (just about everything Walt and Jesse have done). This won’t end up well for just about everyone, with the exceptions of Marie, Walt Jr. and Holly. At least that’s my guess. Beside being major drug dealers that have ruined many lives, Jesse and Walt have killed quite a few people. Skyler worked on laundering money not only for Walt, but cooked the books for Ted too. Todd….well, Todd…eech. Uncle Jack flat out killed Hank and Steve, along with his crew, not to mention they’re major dealers right now too.
The whole story will come full circle. Walt originally tried to figure out a way to make money to give to his kids when he died. He would have had the money in the first place, had he not been cut out of the company Gray Matter. He would have made millions. He ends up building a drug empire, again worth millions, only to be cut out of it again. He’s going back to arrange what he originally wanted: to get money to his kids. He’s going to make Gretchen and Elliott admit that they wouldn’t have the company if it wasn’t for his work.
He’s also going to make sure that the empire that he built, and that Uncle Jack and Todd (with the unwilling help of Jesse) are continuing, will go down in flames. He’s going to be sure that no one will benefit from his hard work and cut him out of it. That happened with Gray matter, and it happened again with his drug formula. No one will be left to carry on Heisenberg’s legacy.
Here are some guesses about what’s going to happen in the final episode.
1) Lydia get nervous and will kill Skyler because Skyler knows what she looks like. Walt will end up killing Lydia for that. Todd will in turn try and kill Walt.
2) Jesse will kill Todd. Jesse will end up getting killed by Uncle Jack.
3) Walt will kill Uncle Jack and the rest of his crew.
4) Walt will arrange it so that his money will go to his kids through Gretchen and Elliott. They’ll explain it away by saying it was Walt’s share of the company. (Credit to my friend John for this idea).
5) Marie will end up as guardian for Walt Jr. and Holly.
The one I think will have the best chance of being true is #4. The rest are just wild guesses.
I’m going to miss this show.