Tag: 24 Humor

Did you miss out on any of the episodes of season six of “24”? You can catch what happened during the season by taking a look at my Season Six Summaries.

OK…. Maybe things didn’t happen exactly that way, but you get the idea…

Previously on “24” – Jack: bit someone that wasn’t kosher right on the neck; shot his friend Curtis; strangled two people; watched a nuclear bomb go off; cried; shot a LOT of bad guys; got framed for killing his brother; ran up his long distance bill; disarmed a bomb; ran through sewers; got Audrey to say one word; took a phone call he shouldn’t have; finally heard someone admit that he was right; continued to save the world.

But most of all, Jack is still hoping that this season would get over so he could get a nice new plot for next year.

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

5:00 am – Out at the oil platform, the boat arrives with Josh, who to his credit starts arguing with Grandpa right away. Cheng comes downstairs and tells Grandpa that all their cargo ships are being watched after the last Bauer they got out of the country, so this time they’re going to have to take a submarine. Back on the beach, Jack is wearing a bullet-proof life vest.

5:01 am – Chloe is in the hospital, with Morris by her side. He’s really worried, and the doctor tells him that she passed out because the absolutely bizarre plot this season finally just made her brain overload. Chloe opens her eyes and tells Morris to get back to work. She was listening the whole time! He wants to stay with her, but she tells him that it would really make her happy if she could just use a computer to find Grandpa.

5:02 am – Nadia tells Morris that Jack was right AGAIN (surprise). This time it was the oil platform. They decide to use a satellite to see if they can figure out how many people are on that platform, and it turns out there are plenty of people there for Jack to shoot.

5:03 am – Nadia goes to call Lennox, and Morris calls the doctor to find out about Chloe. The doctor points out the obvious: it’s just been about two minutes since Morris was there! The doctor tells Morris to quit stalking Chloe, and that he won’t release any information without her permission.

5:04 am – Lennox tells Noah that Nadia called to let them know about the oil platform. Noah wants to send in a special tactical unit, but one of the cabinet officers has got a much more explosive idea: F-18 fighter jets! Explosions galore! The circuit board will likely just blow up too. Lennox points out that Josh is not explosion proof, so it’s likely
that there will be lots of Josh shark bait in the water, if they go through with the fighter jets. Noah points out that if the Russians attack, a lot of people are going to die anyway, so he orders the F-18 strike.

5:07 am – Mike apologizes to Jack for falling for the explosive circuit board trick, and Jack says that it is OK, since he fell for that a few times himself when he was a rookie. Nadia calls Jack and tells him that the White House has ordered an air strike in thirty minutes. She orders Jack and Bill back to CTU to be debriefed, and not in a good way.

5:09 am – Jack is pretty upset that Josh is being written off like this. Surprise! It turns out that Bill is a part time helicopter pilot! They take over the helicopter, which no one will notice because it’s loud, has blinking lights, and a HUGE spotlight. The people on the platform will never see it coming.

Commercial

5:14 am – The fighter jets are 22 minutes out, as Cabinet Guy tells Noah that Russian Troops are all in Flank Two Position near our military base! Lennox interrupts to let Noah talk to Suvarov. Noah explains the air strike plan to Suvarov. Suvarov tells Noah that they know there’s a Chinese submarine pretty close to the platform, and he’s pretty sure that it’s not going there for a fried rice delivery. Suvarov says that the oil platform needs to be completely destroyed in order to salvage what’s left of the plot, since explosions always help to do that.

5:15 am – Morris goes to tell Nadia that Jack and Bill are on their way to the oil platform with the CTU helicopter. Nadia tells Jack that she can’t authorize a suicide mission. Jack tells her that he’s already thought of that because Bill is with him, and Bill already had authorized a suicide mission today, so it all works out. Bill finally breaks in and tells Nadia that this is the right thing to do. Nadia stares off into space for a minute, remembering what it was like when Bill was in charge, and realizes she hasn’t seen the guys that said they were doing an immediate investigation during the 3:00 am to 4:00 am show. They must have run away from the plot. Morris sends the information about the bad guys on the platform. Bill is going to fly in to the platform now, just as the F-18s acquire the target.

5:19 am – Cheng, Grandpa and Josh have no idea what’s going on outside, so they’re not the least bit panicked. Josh asks to be let go, and Grandpa says he can’t do that because of all the water.

5:20 am – Outside, the Chinese guys outside see the helicopter, even though the helicopter is black, and it’s dark outside. Inside, Cheng GIVES BACK THE COMPONENT to Grandpa, and says they’ll meet at the boat. Why did he do that? Brain damage?

5:21 am – Bill uses the helicopter to sneak up on the Chinese guys, who knew about the helicopter, but STILL weren’t prepared. Jack does a lot of shooting, blows a few things up, and immediately finds Cheng. Cheng says they’re too late, because he’s fresh out of components and Josh. Jack goes off to find them, and Bill takes Cheng for a drag out to the helicopter.

Commercial

5:26 am – Josh won’t go with Grandpa, so he just stops on the way to their boat. Grandpa tells him to stop acting “like a child” (even though he IS a child). Josh tells him to stop acting like a “demented homicidal traitor”. Grandpa decides to enact some tough love and nearly chokes Josh to death, all the while telling him to control his emotions. He must think Josh is half-Vulcan.

5:27 am – Meanwhile, Jack goes around firing at people that still haven’t left the platform. The F-18 pilots are four minutes, 30 seconds away.

5:28 am – Grandpa tries to get the boat ready, and Josh takes a wrench, smacks Grandpa in the head, and grabs his gun! Grandpa tells Josh that Josh won’t shoot, and there he’d be wrong. Josh shoot Grandpa! Jack arrives just in time, and tells Josh, “I’ve been exactly where you are, and I know exactly how you feel”. Josh gives him a look that says, “You shot Grandpa once too??” Josh finally gives up his gun, and Jack tells him to get to the helicopter. Josh runs for it.

5:29 am – Grandpa wants Jack to finish it, and Jack says there’s still a half hour left, so he can’t do that yet. Jack says that Grandpa needs to be held accountable for what’s happened today. Grandpa points out that unless Jack has figured out a way to stop time, there won’t be enough time to carry him anywhere and still make it off the platform before the air strike. Jack tells his father, “You’re getting off easy”, and Grandpa responds he doesn’t need oven cleaner. Jack says, “off easy, not Easy Off”. Jack runs for the helicopter.

5:30 am – Bill is outside of the helicopter for some reason, probably trying to figure out where the tires are on the thing. Nadia tells him they only have ninety seconds to get off the platform before the air strike. Josh arrives, and Bill very brightly lets out a rope ladder.

5:31 am – Noah orders the air strike. Bill circles around to get Jack, just as the missiles fire, and Jack grabs the rope ladder at the last second just as the explosions go off! Yeah! That’s more action than we’ve seen in WEEKS!

5:32 am – Noah confirms with Suvarov that the oil platform is now the burning pile of rubble formerly known as “oil platform”. Suvarov orders the withdrawal of the troops from around the base. Suvarov and Noah make nice.

5:33 am – Jack’s hanging on to the rope ladder, and decides to go for a swim since all this action has made him really smelly. Jack swims to shore, signals Bill that he’s OK. Josh wants to go back for him. Bill tells Josh that Jack isn’t ready to come back yet.

Commercial

5:40 am – Noah goes back to the Oval Office, where he tells Cabinet Guy to have one of the US submarines to follow the Chinese submarine back to China. Lennox wants to get right on this whole Chinese thing, but Noah wisely decides to leave that for another day since there’s only twenty minutes left in the show. Lennox tells Noah that now would be a pretty good time to let Karen off the hook, since she did help get Jack involved, and besides a scandal right now wouldn’t work out very well. Noah agrees, and Lennox hands over the tape recording he made earlier.

5:42 am – At CTU, Morris goes to visit Chloe to let her know that everything is OK, since the Russians aren’t rushing, the Chinese aren’t china-ing, and they finally figured out a cure for Crazy Grandpa Bauer, who blew up. Morris tells Chloe he’s concerned, and after a short discussion about who loves who, Chloe tells Morris she’s pregnant. Morris asks, “With child?” Chloe says, “No, with a keyboard! Of course with a child!” Chloe says, “Let’s not ruin this moment by saying something stupid.” And then immediately says something stupid, “Let’s go back to work”.

5:44 am – Lennox comes in to tell Karen that she’s free to go, and that Bill is being pardoned too. Lennox tells her that she and Bill will be free to get on with their lives, at least until next January when the “24” season starts back up again.

5:46 am – Bill returns to CTU with Cheng in tow. Cheng looks like a V8 exploded all over his face. Josh runs for his mother, and Bill informs Cheng that he won’t be getting dim sum for a long time. Cheng tells Bill, “My people won’t abandon me the way you abandoned Jack Bauer”.

5:47 am – Bill congratulates Nadia on a job well done. Nadia wants to know where Jack went, Bill says “Jack won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be found”. Nadia looks at Bill as if he’s been hanging out in a fortune cookie factory too long. Bill says they have to let him go, and she realizes that he’s right.

5:50 am – Heller is on the phone with someone actually HAPPY that Audrey is still alive. Now THAT is acting, my friends. Anyway, he hangs up and hears something. He picks up the phone, and Jack shows up soaking wet, probably to make Heller feel more comfortable, since he likes diving into water too. Heller asks if Jack is there to kill him, and Jack says, “Depends”. Heller says he has a whole box of those, but that doesn’t answer his question. He tells Jack that he won’t let him see Audrey. You’d think Jack would be happy about that, but he goes nuts and pulls a gun. Turns out that Jack has father issues, but with Heller.

5:53 am – Jack is really mad that Heller told him he was cursed, because people like Heller ordered him on the various missions he’d been on, and never… not once, did they send a Christmas card or anything like that. Even when Jack had his “vacation” in China, not a birthday card, or a tactical extraction, or anything!

5:55 am – Jack says he wants his life back, and he wants Audrey back. He just wants to disappear, and if anyone goes after them both, he’ll kill them. Then, in the understatement of the whole season, Jack says, “I’m pretty good at that too”. Granted, not as much as last season, but still, you have to admire a guy that would get out of being held prisoner by biting someone’s neck, even though they hadn’t washed in a week. Heller says Jack won’t change, and he doesn’t want Audrey to pay the price the way Jack’s wife did. Jack says he wants to see Audrey.

5:57 am – They go into Audrey’s room, where she’s sleeping. He holds her hand, and tells her that he’s at a crossroads, and that he has to let her go. Audrey does some of her best acting ever, and doesn’t move a muscle. He tells her he loves her, and kisses her on the forehead without even wiping off his lips afterwards.

5:59 am – Jack gets up and leaves Heller’s house. He goes out to the terrace looks out on the ocean.

6:00 am – Time’s up!

Thanks to Dave Barry for allowing me to post these on his blog every Monday, thanks to everyone who actually read through the “24” summaries I wrote this season, thanks to my friend John who read through these week after week before I posted them, and extra thanks to my wife and kids who let me commandeer the TV every week to do this!

Previously on “24” – We found out: You should never ask Jack for a choker necklace; It is much more dramatic to walk through sewer water than walk on cement right next to it; If you ever corner a Chinese diplomat on a cat walk, he’ll disappear into thin air if you turn your back on him; Jack’s dad was really trying to make a good impression on the Chinese for his visa application, but that fell through; Whenever anyone new arrives at CTU to “take over”, they act like jerks; If there’s one way to fool Jack Bauer, it’s to distract him with a phone call.

The following summary takes place between 4 am and 5 am:

4:00 am – A helicopter playing weird angel voices flies over the ocean, really freaking Josh out. Mike tells Josh that they’re going to hand him over to Grampa Bauer, but it’s OK because they have a tracking device and nothing bad happened to the last guy that happened to.

4:02 am – A CTU tactical guy places Jack “in custody”, which is likely to be a very temporary situation, since Jack always figures a way out. Jack calls Chloe who informs him that CTU has ordered him placed “in custody” while they figure out this whole Grandpa Bauer thing. Jack asks to speak to Karen.

4:04 am – At the White House, it has been a full day, and no one except Lisa has changed clothes, so it’s beginning to smell like day 39 on Survivor around there. Noah is on the phone with President Suvarov, because the big television screen special effect has been sent to another show. Noah tells him that he’s authorized an exchange for the component. During President Suvarov’s little speech, Karen gets the call from Jack. Jack points out that Grandpa Bauer has been lying this whole time, yet everyone at the White House believes he’ll go through with the plan, because they’re SURE that little thing with the nuclear weapons a few hours and plots ago was just a mistake. Jack tells her to stop it, and the music track for the show slows down, much like the plot.

4:07 am – Karen tells Lennox about Jack’s call, and points out that Jack has been right a lot more than anyone else. Lennox does the old CYA, and tells Karen that she can do what she wants, and if that’s letting Jack loose to finally stop this season from continuing, he’s fine with that.

4:08 am – The FBI is getting ready for a garage sale over at Bill’s apartment when he gets a phone call from Karen. She tells him about Grampa Bauer, and that CTU has Jack in custody, because someone wants this season to never end. Karen tells Bill to do whatever he can to stop the exchange of Josh for the circuit board.

4:11 am – The helicopter with Josh and Mike lands, and Mike tells Josh that whatever happens, don’t let anyone cut off his arm because they’ll never find him. Mike goes out to stalk a Port-o-Potty, and the coast is clear. He goes back to get Josh, but instead of taking him to the Port-o-Potty, he goes to a picnic table and calls CTU.

4:12 am – Surprise! Grandpa Bauer figured out a way to get into the impenetrable CTU computer network! Who would have thought? He wants the satellite uplink to point to something more interesting, so CTU turns it off. Grandpa is afraid of helicopters, so Mike orders that to go too. Mike tells Josh to act like this is a completely normal kidnapping, looks down at his cell phone, and is relieved that he had the cell on mute. Grandpa tells Josh that he wants to make him into a successful homicidal maniac, unlike his father who was an unsuccessful homicidal maniac.

Commercial

4:19 am – It is the worst BBQ ever at the picnic table. Mike’s still a rookie at this, so he asks Nadia for permission to shoot someone after they get the circuit board back. We all know Jack would never do something so fundamentally stupid as “asking for permission”. Nadia, of course, says “no”.

4:20 am – Phone call from Karen to Nadia. Karen wants to fill a little time during the show that could be used for some shooting, and just asks Nadia about how everything is going with the operation. Even Nadia thinks Karen should wait until some exciting plot development happens, but understands about Karen filling time. Karen wants to watch what’s happening with Jack, so she gets the security code from Nadia. The access code is ACN. No wonder CTU has such poor security – they use three letter codes!

4:21 am – Chloe tells Nadia that Marilyn has a security problem in a unsecured room in a very insecure portion of CTU, so Nadia leaves.

4:22 am – Marilyn argues with a security guard, who isn’t being paid enough to talk back, and wants to know where Josh is. Marilyn is freaking out, because Josh got to ride a helicopter and she didn’t. Nadia calls Morris, who she tells to call security, so they can come and take Marilyn away. That’s despite having a phone to call security herself, or better yet just having security right there in the room with her call, er, security.

4:23 am – Chloe isn’t very happy about the exchange they’re making with Josh, because she thinks that circuit board is a lot more interesting than Josh has been so far. Morris agrees, but says they’re under orders. Chloe and Morris argue a while, rehashing the plot so far. Nadia overhears this, and tells Chloe that if the signal in Josh’s arm goes down even a little, to call her. Nadia also says if it goes down a lot, like if someone cuts off his hand, Chloe should call her even more quickly.

4:24 am – Back at the picnic table, there’s finally a helicopter coming and it looks suspiciously like something they’re used previously in the show, so Mike calls Morris. Morris says it’s probably just a helicopter that’s being returned before the end of the show. He also tells Mike that he thinks that Mike is doing the absolutely right thing, and Mike tells him that if he wanted his opinion, he would have asked Morris to make him pass out in a choke hold like Jack did.

4:25 am – Jack and his CTU handlers are driving down the completely deserted streets of LA, when a driver from South Florida nearly runs them off the road honking their horn, because the CTU truck had the gall to actually be in their own lane. The CTU truck drives off the road, the driver stops, and it is Bill! I had no idea Bill learned to drive in South Florida. The driver of the CTU truck gets out and recognizes Bill, while back in the truck, Jack takes the opportunity to take away the other CTU guy’s gun. Bill walks down the hill with his hands in touchdown position. While Bill makes small talk with the driver, Jack takes the opportunity to hit someone! Finally! Someone gets hit, and it’s only about half an hour into the show. Jack gets out of the truck and knocks the driver out too. Jack and Bill run off to Bill’s pickup truck, and they drive off. Bill is very excited to be out on a CTU mission with Jack.

Commercial

4:31 am – Back at CTU, Chloe goes over and hugs Milo’s brother Stewart, who has just arrived. Stewart looks pretty upset that Milo isn’t leaving the building in the same condition he arrived in.

4:32 am – Karen’s laptop is on the fritz, so she calls Bill to say goodbye just before the RIAA comes to arrest her for those music downloads she did.

4:33 am – Nadia introduces herself to Stewart to let him know that she’s really sorry about Milo. Stewart points out that Milo was in love with her, and Nadia has a look on her face like “NOW they tell me”. Nadia leaves the room to take a phone call.

4:35 am – It’s Chloe. Chloe tells Nadia that their crack field agents are handcuffed to a car, and they’re still looking around for the candid camera. When Nadia returns to the room, Stewart is gone! Or he’s hiding in a locker. We can’t tell which.

4:36 am – Josh pleads with Mike to not let him go with Crazy Grandpa Bauer. Josh just doesn’t like watching the “Murder She Wrote” channel as much as Grandpa does, and he’s scared. Mike promises to find Josh, and that he’ll only have to watch a little “Murder She Wrote”, probably just long enough for the police on that show to realize that Angela Landsbury is always around when people are being killed.

4:37 am – Nadia calls Mike, and tells him that Jack is on the way with Bill. Mike is pretty upset because he really wants to be the New Jack. Josh is excited that Jack Classic is on the way.

Commercial

4:41 am – Noah goes to visit Karen, who is in detention. Noah explains the plot that just happens a few minutes ago. Noah wants to know what the heck she was thinking, and she starts to explain that her agent said it was going to be a good job. Noah tells Karen that’s not what she meant, but that Karen and Bill are in HUGE trouble about this whole Jack thing. Noah then goes on to say that if Jack doesn’t prevent this from happening, “Any blood that spills will be on you!” Karen says, “Yuck! I just got this dress”, and then realizes what Noah really meant.

4:43 am – Mike gets a call from Crazy Grandpa, who tells them to walk to the water. Chloe tracks Josh, since he still has his arm on, but she looks pretty tired. Even Morris notices.

4:44 am – A couple of guys in a boat drive up to shore. Mike and one of the guys point their guns at each other in a very menacing way, and argue about who should move first. Finally the guy from the boat drops a silver case on the ground, and Mike forgets the old “Silver Case That Explodes” trick. While Mike is rolling around on the ground, the boat guy grabs Josh. Just as they start to leave, Jack and Bill arrive. There’s a brief exchange of gunfire, which completely misses Jack because he hides behind a thin post.

4:45 am – On the boat, the boat guy calls Grandpa, who orders Josh to be scanned. Boat Guy says that Josh doesn’t have any UPC codes visible, but scans him anyway. They find the tag, and fortunately for Josh, they use a laser to short out the tracker in his arm. Gredenko probably would have loved to know about that little trick.

4:46 am – Chloe immediately sees that the tracker has been lost because instead of the little blip going away, her whole screen goes blank. Jack calls Nadia, and tells her about the explosion that hit Mike in the face. Mike looks like he won’t be recognizable at the Silver Spoons reunion show.

Commercial

4:53 am – Lennox comes in to let Noah know that nothing was found during the last commercial break. Noah points out that Karen was right and he was wrong. Noah finally realizes that Wayne had been right this whole time, and that sitting in the President’s chair is a lot harder than he thought. Lennox points out that making Karen a scapegoat wouldn’t be a good idea, because everyone will let the press know that Noah is pretty much a nutcase.

4:55 am – The medics have arrived to help Mike. Jack tells Nadia that Mike might be blind in one or both eyes, so he’s going to require a special CTU seeing-eye dog to go out on missions. Nadia tells Jack that she’s sorry that no one believed him, and you can just tell that Jack wants to tell her that no one EVER believes him. Chloe breaks in and tells Jack that’ll be next to be impossible to find that little boat, and Jack realizes it’s probably an oil rig their headed too. Jack’s pretty excited about this because he knows that oil is highly flammable.

4:56 am – At the oil platform, Cheng and Crazy Grandpa wait for Josh to arrive. Grandpa and Cheng argue a bit about whose fault all this is, and Cheng leaves. Grandpa makes a weird face while looking out over the ocean, almost as if he’s picking up signals from Jack. I can’t even explain that one.

4:59 am – Meanwhile, back at CTU, Chloe either needs her contact lens prescription filled or Morris is messing with the focus on her computer monitor. She gets up to talk to Morris, and she passes out!

5:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON 24: IS COMING UP NEXT!

Thanks to Remote Access for hosting the Carnival of Bauer this week!

Last time on “24” – We found out that: Bill picked the best time to resign from CTU; Cheng can’t afford to buy shirts with sleeves for his commandos; CTU is impenetrable, except for the wire grates that give easy access from the sewers; Marilyn couldn’t deploy her CTU defense couch in time to block the Chinese terrorists; Milo can’t do that bullet catching trick as well as he used to; CTU air vents double as child storage devices; Grampa Bauer plans on kidnapping Josh Bauer to turn him into a Graeme replacement, as soon as he can shave his head, find a Bluetooth headset, and wire glasses.

The following summary occurred between 3 am and 4 am:

3:00 am – Morris puts a black drape over Milo, who looks good in that color. The commandos take Josh away to the tunnel they created for easier access to CTU, and all the adults freak out. Marilyn goes crazy, because Josh still has her car keys. Nadia finally decides to do something, but smashing her face into someone’s gun doesn’t work. Jack gets punched for no apparent reason, but convinces Head Commando that he can keep Marilyn quiet. Head Commando says that they’re going move everyone to a secure room, which is an obvious lie because we already know that no room in CTU is secure.

3:03 am – The Chinese commandos with Josh give him a crash course in what it will be like to be in college and explore all the sewers underground, but he seems unimpressed.

3:04 am – Head Commando wants everyone split into two groups. The first group has people that aren’t on camera and have no lines, the second group has Marilyn, Morris, Jack, Nadia, and Chloe. Jack and Nadia make a quick plan, which Jack considers a long shot. This means that Jack has a 95 percent chance of succeeding. Chloe wants to know what’s going on, but since she doesn’t have her taser, Jack tells her to keep going. Everyone at CTU springs into action and starts beating up commandos. Jack, of course takes out the Head Commando. We find out he really earned that name “Head Commando” because Jack twists his head to kill him. Just as Nadia is about to be killed, Mike shows up and shoots the guy on Nadia.

3:06 am – Jack quickly explains to Mike that the Chinese guys must really be into kidnapping Bauers, but he doesn’t have an explanation why yet. Jack says he needs a tactical setup and a JackPhone – but Nadia points out that he’s still under arrest…. Everyone laughs at this, and Jack gets going. Chloe tells Nadia that what they did was brave, and seems a little bit upset that she didn’t get to kick anyone’s butt.

3:07 am – Jack, Mike and a bunch of CTU tactical guys are headed after Josh through the sewers, getting completely wet because they all forgot their CTU rubber pants.

Commercial

3:13 am – Jack and company continue to walk through the water instead of walking on the cement right next to the water, because it’s much more dramatic that way. Meanwhile, Josh and his new found Chinese friends pop up out of a new hole and Josh is convinced that they’ve arrived in China after seeing Cheng there. Cheng hands Josh a phone. It’s Grampa Bauer. Grampa Bauer explains that he’s really sorry about the whole “dramatic kidnapping” thing, and promises him a fun anti-patriotic renouncement of citizenship and a trip to China. Josh doesn’t want any part of this. Josh and all the Chinese jump into black cars and start to leave.

3:14 am – Jack still isn’t done with his Chinese take-out, and pops up through the hole in the floor just in time to shoot at the cars. One car is crippled by shooting out a side-view mirror, which confuses the driver causing the car to crash. By now Mike and more CTU agents are out and shooting. This is more shooting in one scene than we’ve seen for most of the whole season! Jack uses his bullet dodging powers and slides on the floor to shoot a couple more bad guys as he runs after Cheng and Josh, who, like Elvis, have left the building.

3:16 am – Jack continues to run after Cheng and Josh, taking out bad guys while on the run, and still finds time to tell everyone where he is and what he’s up to. Cheng throws open a door on the roof and invites Josh to go ahead of him. Josh finally gets the guts to ask “WWUJD?” (What Would Uncle Jack Do?), turns and kicks Cheng down the stairs! Cheng makes the very bad strategic move to get caught on a catwalk with two rails. He’s not going anywhere…. Until Josh accidentally slips from his hiding place underneath that catwalk. Jack looks at him for a moment, just long enough for Cheng to do his best Lo Pan impersonation and disappear! Jack grabs Josh and pulls him to safety. Jack phones Mike, and Mike promises to set up a Curtis memorial perimeter around the building.

3:19 am – Jack questions Josh about Cheng. Josh says that Cheng did this unspeakable act, and made him talk to Grampa Bauer. Josh correctly diagnoses Grampa as just a little bit crazy. Jack suddenly realizes that this attempted kidnapping is exactly the same sort of thing that Grampa Bauer used to make Jack and Graeme do as kids, only instead of Chinese, he used squirrels. Mike arrives, and Jack tells him that he’s going to go find Grampa Bauer and ask about this very elaborate trick he just pulled.

Commercial

3:25 am – At the White House, Karen goes to see Noah. Karen says that the Russians have moved two mechanized divisions into the central Asian theatre. Noah thinks he can counter this by moving two Transformer divisions into Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, but Karen says that won’t work. The troops are double high, super duper, extra red level alert. Karen says that she hasn’t seen Tom Lennox weaseling around the White House in the last thirty minutes, so she’s getting really suspicious that something might going on. Noah confirms that Lennox is out shooting a new public service announcement YouTube video with Lisa as the main star. He adds that Lisa hasn’t been paying attention to who she dates from the Internet, since she’s dating someone from Russia, which should have been the first tip off. Noah explains the whole situation to Karen, and then apologizes for keeping her out of the loop, because he knows she doesn’t look good in loops. Noah confesses that he’s been dating Lisa, only in a secret pact known only to them, and their entourage of Secret Service agents. Noah’s a little upset none of those Secret Service guys didn’t say anything about Lisa sneaking around, but he’ll deal with that later. That and the whole Russian War thing that’s about to happen.

3:28 am – Lennox is getting the typical YouTube video quality that he expected, still directing the video from a remote van. Lisa and Evil Mark finish interrogating each other, and Lisa goes into another room. Evil Mark goes into the room with Lisa’s purse and hooks her PDA up to his secret device. He looks at it for about thirty seconds right in front of Lisa’s Camera Purse. Mark suddenly realizes he’s on Federal Candid Camera, and puts the PDA away! He must have heard the two way microphone in that purse. Mark goes to get some wine for Lisa, hands it to her and then accuses her of not being as evil as she usually is. Lisa corrects that mistake by smashing a bottle over his head! They fight until Mark pins Lisa to the floor using his hand and her neck. Lennox and the Secret Service break into the room just in time to save Lisa and arrest Mark for being a bad Russian monkey.

3:33 am – Lennox goes to talk to Mark, and lays out the situation to Mark: He’s supposed to upload the information about the e-mails, the chip being destroyed, and the secret plot to have Paris Hilton arrested.

3:34 am – Cheng calls Grampa Bauer to let him know that Jack has Josh. Grampa Bauer tells Cheng that since he lost Josh, the Chinese won’t get the circuit board back. Cheng promises severe consequences if Grampa doesn’t return the circuit board: no English translations to any Chinese menus, quadruple starch in his underwear sent to Chinese laundries, and the possible return of Audrey’s speech. Even that last one doesn’t scare Grampa, and he tells Cheng that there will be severe consequences too, namely: No more MSG shipments to China, no more free black Hummers to drive in, and a possible return in next season’s “24”. They both get really mad at each other and hang up.

Commercial

3:39 am – Chloe is still trying to get her techs to get the bullets out of the computers when Nadia gets a visit from “Ben” from Division. Nadia says that she hadn’t gotten the memo, doesn’t think that Ben should talk to anyone, and that she thinks “multiplication” is better than “division”. Ben says he doesn’t really care what Nadia thinks, “so nah, nah, nah”. He tries to blame the security protocols that the Chinese used to break into CTU, the very same CTU protocols they’ve been using since the late 1950s, are all Nadia’s fault.

3:41 am – Ben says he really wants to start a progress impeding investigation right away, and Nadia points him at Bill’s favorite old conference room. Morris tells Nadia that she’s not at fault for any of this, but Nadia won’t listen. She’s still very upset about what happened to Yau-man, and if she hadn’t been distracted by that, none of this wouldn’t have happened.

3:43 am – Tom Lennox calls Noah to let him know that they were able to send the Russians the fake messages. Tom suggests calling the Russian President with this information, and that sending flowers probably wouldn’t hurt either. Tom says that he does have some bad news: Lisa was hurt during the operation. Noah asks what in the world was she doing being operated on, but then realizes Tom meant the whole “pass the Russian’s fake information thing”, and gets nostalgic for the 1980s. Tom snaps him out of that and tells him that the lack of oxygen to Lisa’s brain might make her turn out like Audrey. Noah isn’t happy about the implications of having two people like Audrey on the show.

3:44 am – Karen says they really have to call Suvarov and get that candy gram to him as soon as possible.

3:45 am – Mike tells Jack that Cheng got away, there’s no circuit board to be found and that kneeling in front of a hole in the floor isn’t going to make it go away. Jack calls Marilyn and tells her about the Chinese plans that Grampa has. Marilyn asks to speak with Josh. Josh says that his Uncle Jack kicks butt, and Marilyn says she knows that, plus he has a great show too.

3:46 am – Back at the White House, the Cisco-branded tele-presence stations, which look like a bunch of widescreen televisions, are all set to go and ready for Noah to start lying. Noah starts lying, and since it’s his first day on the job as acting President, he does a very bad job of it, because Suvarov sees right through the lie that Noah is telling him. He tells Noah that he had Boris and Natasha watching Evil Mike’s building, so he knows exactly what’s going on. Noah says that he doesn’t like to be threatened, and Suvarov tells him that’s too darn bad. Suvarov says he’ll advance his troops within two hours, or by the end of the show, whichever come first, and hangs up. Noah tells Karen that they’re about to go to war over a piece of circuitry, and Karen just about points out Noah was about to go to war over some bigger pieces of circuitry a little while ago when it looked like he could scare them, but decides not to.

Commercial

3:54 am – Lennox is back at the White House, and he gets a phone call as he’s walking to Noah’s briefing with the military. Noah is in the Oval Office telling everyone what everyone at home already knows: The slick plan to make the Russians think that everything is OK wasn’t as slick as they had hoped. Tom interrupts and says that he needs Noah and Karen alone. Noah says he’s flattered, but then realizes that Tom doesn’t mean that and tells the generals in the room to leave.

3:55 am – Tom says that Grampa Bauer is on the phone, and wants to speak with Noah. Grampa says that all he wants to have are Josh, free passage to a country of his choice, and to get off of this stupid show. Noah is surprised to hear that Grampa was working with the Chinese, and wants to know if Grampa is bluffing. Grampa reads the serial number off of the circuit board, 3PTL3, gives his demands and hangs up.

3:57 am – Karen asks how Noah can even entertain the idea of giving Grampa what he wants, especially after everything else he was involved with today. Noah points out that they all accepted roles on this show, so it’s everyone’s fault for not stopping this ridiculous plot. Karen says that’s not what she meant, and says she meant the bombs. Besides, Grampa is a sociopath! Noah asks Tom’s advice, and Tom agrees that Grampa is a sociopath, but he thinks that entertainment is the only option.

3:58 am – Noah says, “None of this makes any sense”, and millions of people at home nod their heads up and down. Karen and Tom don’t realize what he really means, and point out that Suvarov might be having problems of his own, such as the military pressing for more action, more generals that want to blow things up, and possibly, quite possibly, a Russian version of the plot from this season of “24”. Noah says there’s no choice, they have to get this show to end as soon as possible and asks to talk to CTU.

3:59 am – Jack takes Josh to a car and tells him that everything is going to be OK, which is a clear sign that everything is about NOT to be OK. Someone tells Jack that he has a call for Jack. Jack goes to take the phone call, and Mike grabs Josh and drags him into a helicopter! Mike is taking Josh! Jack yells a lot, but his voice isn’t enough to bring down the helicopter. The helicopter takes off!

4:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: BILL IS BACK! PLANES! HELICOPTERS! CHLOE LOOKS HURT! CHENG DOWN! EXPLOSIONS! SEASON FINALE! TWO HOUR BLOGGING SESSION! NO MORE “24” SUMMARIES UNTIL NEXT JANUARY!

I post these on Dave Barry’s Blog right after I get done writing them, which is usually about an hour to an hour and a half after the show is over. I say “usually”, because tonight the software bot from Typepad didn’t like the word “chat”, and it took me quite a while to find it, so I posted late after making a lot of edits to the text to try and figure out what was wrong.

Anyway, here’s the full version, without all the edits I did in the one I posted on Dave’s blog. Hope you like it!

Previously on “24”: We found out that: Audrey can’t converse; Things between Chloe and Morris got worse; Mark Bishop searched Evil Lisa’s purse; President Wayne still needs a nurse; Jack is under a curse; The whole cast hopes to find a new plot to rehearse.

The following summary occurred between 2 am and 3 am:

2:00 am – Jack is in a room alone having a staring contest against himself, when Nadia comes in and tells him that Heller is filing a restraining order against Jack so that Audrey won’t have to be seen on the show anymore. Nadia tells Jack that they’ve found copper particles on Audrey, which either means they’ve been throwing pennies at her, or they’ve been keeping her in an old abandoned copper mine, which Los Angeles is so well known for. Jack really wants to go get Cheng, but Nadia won’t let him. It sure looks like Jack thinks he can take the guards out (and not for lunch). Nadia informs Jack that’s it’s nearly been two hours since she’s been put in charge, so it’s time for a new replacement, who will arrive shortly.

2:04 am – Milo goes to find out about the Bloomfield mine, and Morris makes the astute observation that the place is “big”, not one of those small copper mining companies that they use to make American Girl doll accessories. Milo asks Chloe a question and she snaps at him, which isn’t really unusual Chloe behavior, but she won’t say what’s wrong. Morris tells Milo he should just stay out of it, probably sensing that Chloe was just about to go for her taser.

2:05 am – Mike and a bunch of CTU tactical guys, who haven’t been named because they’re going to be the professional bullet catchers this episode, are getting dressed all in black to go to a formal shootout. Nadia comes in and tells everyone exactly what they probably know already: They’re going to get some Chinese, and that doesn’t mean they’re headed for some dim sum; they’re going to try and get the chip back, without the assistance of Jack Bauer (you can tell this makes some of them very nervous). Nadia tells them, “There is no room for error”, since they’re not allowed to use horseshoes or hand grenades. Mike points out they’re going to put every available agent out in the field, and that there’s no way this could ever possibly be a problem. Nadia tells him it would be better to go get Cheng.

2:08 am – Cheng arrives at his secret hideout. He tells his tech support guy to upload the data to his men, using USB ports that Cheng previously installed in them. Cheng and his tech support guy’s captions on the bottom of the screen make it look like they’re arguing about whether the men they’re going to use for this mission are capable or not. A quick check with Babelfish tells us they’re just arguing about what’s going to happen in the season finale of Lost. The guys Cheng picked bought expensive Bluetooth headsets and now they can’t afford shirt sleeves, and they look pretty mad about it. Cheng tells them they have to attack “the target” in 15 minutes.

Commercial

2:13 am – Marilyn and Josh talk about how Graem was part of the whole plot that ended up with a nuke going off, and Josh says he wishes he never signed up to be on the show, but corrects himself and says “to be part of this sick family”.

2:15 am – Chloe goes to see Marilyn, and tells her that Audrey is still alive. Marilyn seems completely surprised, as if she hatched the whole plot to get Audrey to go to China after Jack, but that would be a plot twist too silly even for “24”.

2:16 am – Evil Mark gets a call from Evil Lisa, and they make small talk while everyone in the White House, including some of the cleaning staff listen in, in hopes of Mark and Lisa saying something naughty to each other, but it doesn’t happen. Lisa does casually mention that the Chinese “crisis” has been averted, and Mark seems to take that well, and doesn’t blurt out any swear words in Russian.

2:17 am – Lennox hands Lisa her PDA and tells her to go back to Mark. She’s supposed to act completely casual, and immediately excuse herself to go to the bathroom to throw up so Mark can access some fake files that say: “The Chinese guy who was headed out of the country was killed and the Russian chip was destroyed. The Russian chip is definitely NOT still in Chinese hands and they’re NOT still trying to get it back. Nope. Nuh-uh”. They’re hoping that will convince the Russians. Lisa is nervous about this whole “acting” thing in front of Mark, and everyone else in the cast can sympathize because “acting is hard”.

2:18 am – Jack is either trying to have a staring contest with the table, or he’s trying to use his heat vision to burn a whole in it, when Chloe comes in with Marilyn. Jack says he’ll be fine and shooting in no time, but Marilyn just wants to talk about Audrey. Jack just doesn’t want to talk about it. (THANK YOU, JACK!) Marilyn tells Jack that after all this is over, she’s up for dating Jack. She leaves. Chloe tells Jack that Mike is going after Cheng.

2:19 am – Back at Cheng’s headquarters, one of his men brings over a PDA with a maze game that he can’t quite figure out without Cheng’s help. Cheng says they’re going to be in optimal position for a surgical strike! They’re going to attack an operating room!

2:20 am – Mike arrives at the front entrance to Bloomfield, throwing everyone off because no one EVER goes in the front entrance. That’s executive thinking.

The guy Cheng has been talking to is slowly catching on to what Cheng is planning, and realizes that people “are going to die, and stuff”. This guy must be from the Valley.

CTU outside cuts through the high security chain link fence with some Jack Bauer toe tail clippers (that’s a bolt cutter, to you and me).

Cheng tells his nervous Valley guy that their objective is to “get the package”.

Finally! One of the CTU tactical guys puts a bomb on the door to the entrance! It goes off…. Like a sparkler! Pfft! Jack would have used something that would have taken out the whole wall. Mike and the CTU guys rush in! They’re doing a great job securing a completely empty warehouse so far, and they continue.

It looks like Cheng is not going to get back his rental deposit on this secret hideout, because there’s huge hole in the floor straight with a rope going into it down to the sewers . This is NOT the kind of thing you can cover up with a nice Chinese rug either. The guys plan on heading 180 meters to the target. Cheng says, “Don’t let me down”, so I don’t think Cheng intends to go down the hole with them.

2:22 am – CTU tactical tells Mike that the empty building put up a struggle, but now it’s completely secured. The guy takes Mike over to a large pile of empty weapons boxes, and it’s either Jack’s pile of recyclables, or they just found that the Chinese have a lot of weapons right now. There still seems to be a complete absence of any Chinese guys there. Mike calls Nadia and tells her to be on the look out for a couple of guys carrying a LOT of weapons, or a bunch of guys carrying a few weapons each. Since this is Los Angeles, that might be a tall order. Neither of them have any idea what the Chinese are planning.

2:23 am – The Chinese guys are all in the sewers now, some of them rethinking their career choices. The head commando guy calls Cheng, and asks for directions because GPS units don’t work very well underground. Cheng tells them where to go, and when they get there, they’ll be all set to break into CTU!

Commercial

2:28 am – Morris asks Chloe for some help on some images, and then they launch into a whole discussion of why they broke up. I expect to see Dr. Phil walk in at any moment.

2:30 am – Lennox is outside of the building with Lisa. Lisa says she’s frightened about doing this. Lennox tries to reassure her by telling her that she should be frightened because she could be facing treason charges. (He was never really good a reassuring people). They give Lisa a HUGE purse with a non-descript camera lens in the side to film the whole thing, and she heads into the secret apartment. Lennox calls to tell Noah what is going on.

2:31 am – Just as Evil Lisa comes to the door, Mark opens it. They kiss, but Mark thinks that something is wrong because Lisa doesn’t taste as Evil as she usually is. Lisa tries to leave, but Mark won’t let her. Lennox and the surveillance crew watch this from the camera in the bag. Lennox forgets that he didn’t give Lisa an earpiece but continues to try and give her instructions anyway. Lisa tries to go “freshen up again”, but Mark convinces her that they need to debrief each other some more.

Commercial

2:39 am – The Chinese commandos arrive at a grate with a light above it just under CTU, and it gives them access to the security system! You would think that something like that would have been looked into after last year’s attack on CTU. They’ll have everything shut down in two minutes! CTU’s first clue will probably be when the computers stop working.

2:40 am – Milo goes to talk to Nadia with information, but she’s a lot more interested in letting him know that she and Mike are “just friends” and not “shooting buddies”. Chloe interrupts to tell them both she’s figured out that the Chinese guys did in fact get into cars and drive away from where Mike is, sometime before Mike got there. Glad someone cleared THAT up.

2:41 am – One of the Chinese commandos gets mad at the grate, and decides he’s going to cut through it. He warns everyone.

2:42 am – Nadia tries to call Doyle, but can’t get a hold of him because she has her cell phone on CTU cell towers, and not on roaming (because of the high charges)! No one can get an outside line, but strangely they can call each other on the inside, because Milo gets a phone call.

Chinese commando are on their way up through where the grate used to be, but they’re going to have a hard time sneaking around upstairs without smelling their sewer water drenched clothes from a mile away.

Morris can’t figure out why his computer can’t reach any of the servers, yet Milo got a phone call just a minute before. Chloe, meanwhile doesn’t seem to have a problem with her computer (well, this is Chloe we’re talking about, after all), and says she knows where Cheng was headed. Milo proves why he’s not in charge when he tells Nadia that he thinks it is kinda weird that all the cameras are out all over CTU. Nadia realizes that what’s going on isn’t going to look very good on her resume as she tells Chloe to do a “Code Red Emergency Lockdown”.

2:43 am – Just in case someone can’t hear the emergency buzzer going off all over CTU, they put a large red circle over the big displays in the room just to make them harder to read. The Chinese commandos are in CTU, and they start shooting random security guys. Nadia tells everyone to go to their happy places, and everyone scatters. Marilyn and Josh hear all this going on, and don’t know what to make of it. Jack hears it too, and looks mad that he doesn’t have a gun to join in on the fun, when the guard won’t let him out.

2:44 am – The head commando is really mad at the ceiling because he shoots it without even looking at it as he enters the main CTU control area and tells everyone to get down. A couple of people start dancing disco until they realize he meant to drop to the floor. The guard at Jack’s door finally opens it up, gets some instructions from Jack, and promptly gets shot before he can do anything. Jack makes a face like “this ALWAYS happens”. Fortunately the guy who shot the guard isn’t too bright because he decides to kick in another door, and completely ignore who the guard was talking to.

Jack dives for a gun and shoots a couple of bad guys and some bad looking CTU glass.

The head commando asks to have everyone’s cell phones, because he’s trying to pick a new one and needs to look at the latest and greatest. He tells one of his men to filter all communication and to turn off the alarm because it’s annoying and no one outside of CTU can hear it anyway.

Jack makes up for not shooting anyone for a while by shooting a couple of more people, some more glass, and upgrades to a submachine gun when his pistol runs out of bullets.

2:45 am – Head Commando asks who’s in command, and just as Nadia starts to get up, Milo gets up instead. Head Commando fires Milo, making that the briefest CTU command in history.

Commercial

2:50 am – Jack is up on the second level of CTU and can see that everyone else is being rushed off into another room, reminding themselves to never volunteer that they’re in charge of CTU if anyone ever asks that question.

Marilyn is still in another room and can’t figure out why, even with alarms and guns going off, that the phone is dead. She sees two guys with guns down the hallway! Marilyn gets Josh to help her move a couch in front of the glass door, because using her powerful reasoning skills she can just tell that there would be no way that two grown men could figure out how to get around THAT. Or even get through the solid glass walls surrounding the room. That plan is foiled when the two guys push their way in, and tell Head Commando and Cheng they found Josh! It was Josh they were after! They start to leave, but Uncle Jack arrives and gives each of the Chinese commandos a couple of bullets a piece, as a gift. They don’t take them very well, and hit the ground. Marilyn seems pretty freaked out that they wanted Josh, as she tells Jack. Jack seems pretty impressed because he was 18 before any commandos wanted to take him hostage. Jack, Marilyn and Josh sneak through CTU while some more Chinese Commandos sneak around after them.

2:52 am – They all enter the Fizzy Lifting Drink room. Jack jams his gun into the fan, and tells Josh to go up the air duct, which doesn’t thrill him very much because he knows Mr. Wonka won’t like him messing up his air duct. Josh climbs up the air duct. Marilyn starts to as well, and the Chinese commandos break in, taking both Jack and Marilyn hostage. One of them calls Head Commando and explains the situation. Head Commando wants to see Jack and Marilyn

2:53 am – They have cameras everywhere at CTU…. Even the air ducts, because we can see Josh crawling around in them.

Head Commando tells Cheng, who isn’t too happy because he really wanted a young white American kid to take hostage.

One of the tech support commandos tells Head Commando that Mike is calling in to chat with Nadia. Head Commando says “Nadia Yassir, stand up!” Morris briefly looks like he’s going to stand up to take her place, but realizes at the last second he probably couldn’t pull off a Nadia impersonation. Nadia stands up, but looks a little freaked out because she remembers the last time Head Commando said “Come here”. Head Commando figured out that Nadia is really in charge because he used technology called “a roster”. He warns Nadia to not let Mike know what’s going on. She talks to Mike to let him know everything is just peachy at CTU.

2:57 am – Jack and Marilyn arrive. Head Commando uses the PA system, which is even installed in the air ducts at CTU (they think of everything), and tries to convince Josh to come down or Marilyn is going to die. Head Commando starts counting, and they get Josh out just before Marilyn is shot. Head Commando tells Cheng they have Josh.

2:59 am – Cheng calls Grampa Bauer to let him know they have Josh, and to thank him for providing the security codes to CTU. Now, how in the heck does Jack’s father know the security codes to CTU? You know how? Internet. You can find anything there. Jack’s dad also has a guy that can read Russian service manuals and work on Russian chips, and Cheng will exchange Josh for the chip.

3:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY! HEAD SLAMS! JACK’S DAD WANTS TO GO TO CHINA WITH JOSH! SLIDING AROUND AND SHOOTING! EVIL MARK MAKES A MAD FACE! NOAH GETS EXCITED! MAYBE WAR!

Previously on “24”, we saw that – Jack was able to confuse CTU by driving under some power lines; Mike has been going to psychic classes and knew exactly where to go to find Jack; Bill was put on his annual “You’re not the head of CTU anymore” vacation; Audrey has taken some Chinese language lessons a little too seriously and has completely forgotten how to speak English, because her head can only hold one language at a time.

The following summary occurred between 1 am and 2 am:

1:00 am – While he was waiting for everyone to show up, Jack took the time to clean the whole building so there would be a nice clean explosion. He tells one of the CTU field agents that, yes, that was the only plastic explosive he had time to rig.

1:01 am – Mike goes to talk to Audrey, but she’s still very upset about Silver Spoons being cancelled so all she says to him is “Help me Jack! Please don’t let them do this to me!”, and several million viewers make the same plea to the writers about the rest of the episode.

1:02 am – Nadia has jumped right into CTU command, setting up perimeters and everything. She starts cutting off people while they explain what she just asked them to explain. This is going to be very endearing. At this rate, the people in the office will be rigging her chair to explode any time now.

1:04 am – Morris goes to see Nadia, and she denies his request to be reassigned, making her even more popular. Morris is pretty insistent, but Nadia doesn’t want to hear about it. Morris looks at her office chair, sizing it up it up for just the right kind of office explosives.

1:05 am – Nadia gets a call from Mike, who wants to know if they have a lead on Cheng yet, besides the three huge black Hummers that they just drove off in. It sounds like Mike has lost his amazing powers of deduction that he used to find Jack. Nadia asks about Audrey. Mike says that Audrey is completely non-responsive, and that the Chinese must have done a little take-out on her brain, because she’s acting weirder than normal. Nadia insists that Audrey be brought back to CTU, because there are going to be a lot of people that are going to want to make fun of her there. Nadia asks if Mike has enough psychic energy left to know what Jack was thinking, and he tells her all about Jack’s plan to blow up the building and sacrifice himself. Despite this, Nadia is still mad that Jack let the secret chip get away. Jack tries to get Mike to let him talk to Audrey, because they used the same Britney Spears videos when they tortured him, but Mike refuses. Mike takes Jack and Audrey separately back to CTU.

1:06 am – Karen briefs Acting President Noah about Cheng’s escape, and Noah looks like he doesn’t like sitting in The Big Seat as much as he had previously hoped. He asks about Bill and how it went when Karen fired him, hoping that she at least had SOME fun with it, because Noah sure would have. Noah gives a little speech to Karen that he gave to Lennox to make sure that she is on board too. Lennox interrupts to let Noah know that the Russian President is on the video phone. Since they get “24” on iTunes, the President probably already knows about Cheng having the chip.

1:07 am – Off in her evil secret lair, Evil Lisa locks a secret evil door, and surprise! Gets jumped by an evil lobbyist. They immediately start negotiating the clothes off each other.

1:08 am – Back at the White House, Noah is on the phone with the Russian President, who points out that Russia is still doing better than America in the President count, since America has already had four during the time he’s been in power. As expected, Sukarov already knows everything about what has been going on. Noah makes a pun and says that he won’t let Sukarov “dictate” to him. (Ha! Soviet humor). Noah tries to play up the “Hey! You guys let an ex-Russian General in OUR country!” angle, but Sukarov isn’t deterred. Sukarov threatens to let his Russian generals have an “appropriate response”, and hangs up.

1:09 am – Noah is freaked out about the Russians already knowing that’s going on and wants all White House blogging to stop immediately. Lennox points out that it probably wasn’t the blogs that did it, but it was more than likely a spy at the White House or CTU!
Noah tells Lennox and Karen that CTU can get whatever they need to find Cheng.

1:10 am – We finally have an answer about how Cheng was able to get away: They used their lo-beam headlights so no one would see them! Even more surprising, Cheng has the exact interface he needs to connect the chip and upload its information to his technical support guy, who is less than an hour away. Oops! They must be running windows, because the tech support guy says they need a special access code to get at the chip, and their computers don’t have Windows Genuine Advantage software installed. The tech support guy says they’re going to need someone to figure this out for them, and since their phone calls to India are likely to be monitored, they’ll need to find someone. This would be a really bad time for Morris to go to the 7-11.

Commercial

1:17 am – It’s been ten minutes, so of course Evil Lisa is done “debriefing” the guy in her secret evil hideaway. She goes off to take a shower, and of course, he goes into her purse to download something evil from her evil phone. Evil Lisa’s Evil Guy makes a quick phone call to another VERY evil looking guy, who confirms that Evil Lisa has no evil idea about any of this new evil stuff.

1:18 am – Chloe asks Morris what he was talking to Nadia about, and he explains his transfer was denied. Chloe apologizes to Morris for that “You armed a nuclear weapon today” crack. Morris tells her that they are “over”. (We didn’t even know they were really “started” again. We should pay better attention). Chloe seems to be pretty upset, since her chances with any of the other CTU guys are pretty slim, since she has no other technical equal there. She hides her face in the wall and tries to blow her nose while she cries, but cement isn’t very good for that.

1:19 am – Karen tells Nadia the good news about the Russians wanting to blow something up, and that Nadia can have some more resources. A team of experts has arrived to see Audrey too, but they haven’t looked at her yet. Nadia, realizing she’s now in WAY over her head, and that she’s already ticked off a bunch of the remaining CTU staff, asks Karen to have Bill back in charge. Karen won’t tell Nadia what happened.

1:20 am – Nadia tells Dr. Bradley, the doctor who will look at Audrey, that she wants to hear his impressions immediately. Dr. Bradley says that he does a great Christopher Walken, but there will be time for that after he’s looked at Audrey.

1:21 am – Milo tells Nadia that Mike and Jack have just landed. Nadia wants Jack secured (HA!), and wants to see Mike right away.

1:22 am – Dr. Miracle Max Bradley goes to see Audrey, who is doing some of her best acting ever by not saying a thing. They find little black marks on her arm, which are, technically, bruises.

1:23 am – Mike drops off Jack in a CTU interrogation cell, and Jack continues to beg to see Audrey. Jack tells Mike to “Take care of Audrey”, but he doesn’t really mean what the rest of us hope that really means.

1:24 am – Back in Audrey’s room, Dr. Bradley keeps saying “look at this!”, like this is first day on the job. He comes out to explain what everyone already knows: Audrey isn’t saying anything. It turns out that she either got repeatedly attacked with porcupines or that the Chinese gave her over 100 injections. Dr. Bradley seems to think the best course of action is to give Audrey even MORE drugs that will help her snap out of it. Mike is against this, and Dr. Bradley points out these are good American drugs, not the cheap Chinese stuff. Nadia asks what the downsides are, and Dr. Bradley says that it could cause vascular damage, neurological damage, and even death. Nadia says that she’s aware of the upside to all this, but wants to know what the downside is. Dr. Bradley says this is the only thing that will work. If only they had a Jack Bauer! Then they could do something! Mike says they do have a Jack Bauer! Dr. Bradley thinks a second and says that Jack might just upset Audrey more. Mike points out that at least Jack wouldn’t kill her, and Nadia points out there’s a downside for everything. Dr. Bradley says that he’s in charge, and since he has a lot of needles ready to go, he’s more comfortable about attempting something that might kill Audrey. He leaves.

1:25 am – Mike tries to convince Nadia to let Jack try to talk to Audrey, because it is what “Bill would have done”. Nadia gets a little miffed about this.

Commercial

1:30 am – Acting President Noah calls Evil Lisa and wants to know where she is, and that she needs to get to work right away. Noah says “I need you”. Evil Lisa says “I need you too”, but I doubt they’re talking about the same thing. Evil Guy and Evil Lisa kiss, and she leaves. Evil Guy calls Really Evil Guy, but we don’t hear what they say.

1:31 am – Lennox arrives in Noah’s office, and beats around the bush for a while about the CIA report he’s holding, outlining that someone at the White House is talking to Evil Guy, whose name is Mark Bishop. Lennox finally tells Noah that Evil Lisa is involved, and Noah seems really surprised. Noah had been thinking he was the only one she’s been evil with. Lennox points out that they have lots of evidence that Evil Lisa and Evil Mark have been evilly meeting for lots of evil naughty time. Noah says this is a pretty big problem because he’s been playing Evil Noah with Evil Lisa and they’ve been having evil naughty time together too. Lennox gets a look on his face as if to ask why HE wasn’t getting any evil naughty time, but doesn’t say anything. Noah tries to explain how he and Evil Lisa get involved while Lennox makes a lot of disgusted expressions. Lennox finally tells Noah that they might be able to turn this whole situation to their advantage.

1:35 am – Mike goes to see Jack, and tells Jack about Dr. Bradley’s evil plan…. While he uncuffs Jack!!! He tells Jack to “Make it look good”, and turns his back! Jack jumps Mike and makes him pass out. Jack gets out of the cell, grabs a gun from a guard, and goes after Audrey!

1:36 am – Dr. Bradley gets everything set up so he can try and kill, er, I mean, “help” Audrey, and Jack bursts into the room! He grabs Dr. Bradley throws him against the wall, and takes Audrey. After they leave, Dr. Bradley pulls the “Jack Bauer Has Audrey” alarm, and everyone at CTU knows that Jack has Audrey. Nobody except Nadia seems to be the slightest bit surprised.

Commercial

1:41 am – Morris tells Nadia that they still haven’t found Jack. Morris says it’s going to take a little bit of time, and Nadia offers the helpful manager advice of “make it take LESS time”. I’m sure Morris never thought of THAT. Good thing Nadia is on the job. Nadia looks up to not see Chloe, because Chloe is either invisible or not in her seat, and Morris doesn’t know where Chloe is.

1:42 am – Mike shows up on the CTU show floor, and Nadia confronts him about Jack. She’s not buying the whole “Jack overpowered me” thing, and Mike says he thought the plot needed a little spicing up, so he did what he thought was best.

1:43 am – Morris spots Jack! Nadia, acting like only a Star Trek captain could, decides to go get Jack herself, telling Morris to have others follow her.

1:44 am – Jack locks himself in a room with Audrey, and tries to talk to her. Jack starts telling Audrey her life story but she doesn’t seem to register anything. Thankfully, Audrey doesn’t say a word. Jack tells Audrey he loves her, and she grabs his hand, just as Nadia and gang use a CTU arc-welder to get through the door. There’s a brief drawing of guns, and Audrey blurts out “Bloomingdales!”, which everyone interprets as “Bloomfield”. Nadia tells Dr. Bradley to go to her office and some other CTU agents take Audrey away. Nadia promises Jack that she’ll make sure Dr. Bradley doesn’t touch Audrey.

Commercial

1:52 am – At the White House, Lennox tells Noah that there are large numbers of Russian troops entering the Asian theatre, and they’re going to be mad there’s no popcorn and no show being played. Lennox says they’re going to be so mad, they’ll be able to get to an American base within the hour.

1:53 am – Evil Lisa arrives back in Noah’s office acting like she didn’t just do something evil with someone else. Noah tells Evil Lisa that the Russian’s know what’s going on. Evil Lisa tries to act like Innocent Lisa when Noah asks about Evil Mark, but Noah won’t have it. He reminds Evil Lisa that cavorting with the enemy is Treason, and tells her to go back to Evil Mark. She tries to protest, but Noah threatens her with another non-spot no-action filled season of “24”, and won’t hear of it.

1:58 am – Ex-Secretary of Defense Heller goes to talk with Audrey, promising to take her away. Audrey looks scared that he might drive off a cliff on the way home, like last year. Heller goes to ask Nadia if he can talk to Jack.

1:59 am – Heller goes to Jack. Jack promises to take care of Audrey. Heller threatens Jack and tells Jack to stay away from Audrey. Heller says, “You’re cursed, Jack! Everything you touch, one way or another, ends up dead!” I had no idea Heller was part Gypsy, but I stand corrected.

2:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK WANTS TO CLEAN UP! JACK WITH A GUN! ASSAULT BY THE CHINESE! EXPLOSIONS IN A SEWER!

I post as Steve (The 24 Guy) over on Dave Barry’s live blogging of “24” each week, and write a summary of the show each week, in the same spirit as the rest of the blog.

You can read the rest of my Season Six of “24” summaries on that page, if you need to catch up.

Here’s this week’s episode:

Previously on “24”, we found out: Audrey regrets going for Chinese take out; Wayne regrets forgetting about VP Noah’s Jedi mind tricks; Karen regrets not picking up Noah’s resignation earlier than the press conference; Evil Lisa regrets getting involved with VP Noah; Bill regrets not paying attention to Chloe during meetings; Chloe regrets not being sneakier when uploading things to Jack’s phone; Mike regrets not letting Jack drive; Jack does not regret going to take out some Chinese.

The following summary occurred between 12 am and 1 am:

12:02 am – Mike forgot to go to “How to Commandeer a Car” class, and jumps right out in front of traffic to grab a car after Jack left him behind, nearly getting killed. He finally flags someone down, and throws the driver to the ground in the middle of traffic, which was especially thoughtful. Mike calls to tell Bill that Jack “got the drop on him”, he avoided getting “slipped a Mickey”, and intends to find “that dirty rat”. Bill holds a very short impromptu meeting, in which he summarizes what’s left of the plot so far, just in case anyone at CTU wasn’t paying attention. Chloe, who has been playing Desktop Tower Defense on the hardest setting (and winning), gets interrupted by Bill who wants her back on the job to find Jack.

12:02 am – Jack drives to his favorite burger joint, only to find that land developers have put up power lines there. He uses the opportunity to disable the tracker. Chloe and Morris argue, and Milo takes the opportunity to spread some gossip about Audrey. Bill, Morris, Mike, Chloe and Milo are all afraid that Audrey might come out of this alive.

12:05 am – Meanwhile, at the White House briefing room, a spokeswoman gives fair warning to everyone that VP Noah might take over the country and to hide the children.

12:06 am – After dismissing everyone from the Oval Office, Noah asks everyone to leave except Lennox. Noah asks what Lennox’s intentions are, and Lennox says he’s flattered, but not interested. Noah explains that he’s worried that Lennox won’t like how he looks sitting in the President’s chair. Lennox repeats that he’s flattered but not interested, and then realizes what Noah really means. Lennox says that he just made the tape to protect himself, and now realizes that a bulletproof vest for bullets and a lead hat to prevent Jedi mind tricks would be better. He also says that he doesn’t intend to use the recording he made earlier. Lennox tells Noah, “You have my support”. Noah says, “Support can be beautiful”, and Lennox says for the third time he’s not interested, and also that slogan is for a competitor of one of their sponsors. Noah switches subjects and wants to know if Karen Hayes is going to slow them down, and Lennox says only as a speed bump. They decide to keep Karen on staff for now.

12:08 am – Jack calls Cheng, who still has a really tacky ringtone. Cheng tells Jack that Audrey’s life means nothing to him with Audrey sitting right there, and she must feel so appreciated. Jack tells Cheng that since he’s being chased by CTU, they need to alter the plans. Jack tells Cheng to meet him at an abandoned hotel. Cheng says he’s very flattered, but not interested. Jack says that he just wants to meet there for the exchange of the chip for Audrey. Cheng agrees, forgetting that Jack has been out of the country for the last couple of years and that the abandoned motel might just be a new shopping center by now.

Commercial

12:14 am – Karen tries to explain they have their TOP people at CTU trying to find Jack, but Noah won’t hear about it. Lennox suggests they send other agencies, like the FBI, the CIA and the Men in Black, after Jack. Noah agrees, and Lennox and Karen leave.

12:15 am – Aaaaah! Noah and Evil Lisa are kissing each other right next to the Lewinsky memorial couch, temporarily blinding millions of viewers.

12:16 am – Mike continues to drive around aimlessly looking for Jack, while on the phone with Nadia and Bill. Fortunately all the streets are completely empty because everyone in Los Angeles has gone to sleep. Mike drives up to the exact spot where Jack parked under what have to be the only set of power lines in L.A., and uses his boy scout training to confirm that he did in fact find tire tracks. Somehow, he’s even able to determine the direction Jack headed, presumably because all CTU truck tires are installed with the treads in a certain direction. Apparently, the power lines don’t block cell phone signals, just circuit board trackers. Mike asks what roads are up ahead. Nadia tells him, and within ten seconds justifies the direction that he thinks Jack might be heading, and that Jack might have grabbed one of the terrorist cell phones that can be used to trace where he’s going. (Reminder: “might” in 24-speak means “for sure”).

12:17 am – Milo can’t even believe Mike’s amazing power of deduction. Morris tries to pick a fight with Chloe when Morris gets upset that Chloe sent over some actual work that replaced the minesweeper game he was playing. Chloe asks Milo if he can defrag Huffman keys, and Milo says, “Can a packet sniffer decode Ethernet headers? Sure!”, so Chloe sends the file to Milo instead. Morris and Chloe argue a bit more about who’s encryption schemes are better until Chloe goes too far and tells Morris not to arm any more nuclear weapons for terrorists, which hurts Morris’ feelings and he stomps off. Chloe makes a sad face.

12:19 am – Karen gets a phone call while talking to Lennox, and gets a visit from a new guy named Peter. Peter has a YouTube video that Karen just HAS to see. Karen rightfully points out that Reid is a weasel, which he goes on to confirm later on in the video: Bill had Fayed in custody, and let him go! (Reid makes a surprised face!) Karen knew about it! (Another surprised face!) Karen is in a cover-up! Karen admits that while the “facts” were true, Fayed entered the country illegally, so of course they let him continue to wander around without supervision. They had NO idea that Fayed would go nuclear. They were surprised as anyone. She continues with a little speech until Peter interrupts and asks about Karen’s attempted resignation. Peter wants to make sure that Bill or Karen gets in trouble for letting Fayed go.

Commercial

12:28 am – Jack drives up to the old motel, which looks like summer camp in a slasher movie, except with less screaming and dead bodies (so far), and goes inside one of the (ahem) bungalows.

12:29 am – Nadia calls Mike to let him know they found Jack’s call to Cheng, and it shows (surprise!) Mike was right about where Jack was headed. Mike asks if there’s anything between him and Santa Maria, and Nadia says she didn’t even know he was Catholic. Mike says he meant the town, and Nadia tells him that some towns are up ahead.

12:30 am – Bill gets a phone call from Karen, and she asks if he has a minute. Bill says that he doesn’t, and Karen says she’ll call back, not letting on about the BIG trouble they’re both in. Bill hangs up and looks worried that he’s going to be asked to pick out drapes soon.

12:31 am – Nadia tells Bill where they think they might be able to stop Jack. Bill rolls his eyes because he’s sure it won’t work, but doesn’t let on.

12:32 am – Karen goes to Lennox’s office and asks if he remembers threatening to completely destroy her career and Bill’s career. Lennox says, “Sure!”, but apologizes. Karen explains about Reid, Peter’s deep need to indict someone as soon as possible, and the fact that someone in the Justice department is up at midnight. Lennox points out that the choice is easy, since Bill can take the fall, forgetting that Karen is married to the guy. Karen doesn’t want to hear about it. Lennox doesn’t seem very sympathetic, but has tons of advice about how to be a sleazy weasel and throw Bill to the sharks.

12:33 am – At the motel, Jack has been able to use some bed springs, a bed vibrating mechanism, and some old soap to create a plastic explosive and detonator which he installs in the room. Jack calls Bill and for the first time in the history of “24”, does NOT get Bill on the phone. I can only guess that Bill has taken this opportunity to go to the bathroom, and forgot his phone. Jack explains that he set up an explosive in the motel room, that he intends to blow himself up along with the nuclear weapon component, and that he thought it would be cool if Bill got the message after he blew himself up.

Commercial

12:38 am – Morris goes to talk to Bill, and asks for a transfer to anywhere else but near Chloe. Bill points out that Morris’ timing is really awful, but agrees.

12:39 am – Bill calls Karen, who lets him know that because of no fault of his own when he and Homeland Security let Fayed go, she has to fire him as the head of CTU. Bill points out that she did that last season, but she says that it’s different this time, and she really means it. Bill points out that his job is kind of important, and that he’s going to look pretty guilty even though he’s not. Karen says that it’s pretty important that she keep her job too, since it’s only been her second season on the show and she’s close to the president. Bill doesn’t see Karen’s side of things and hangs up on her.

12:41 am – Mike calls Nadia, and wants to know more about Jack, but she has nothing because Jack used double secret probation codes to encrypt the phone call.

12:42 am – Jack calls someone, just as Mike drives up to the motel where Jack is hiding with his bomb. Mike was able to find Jack with almost no help from Nadia, which I’m sure will be in Mike’s report at the end of the season, if he lives that long.

12:43 am – Bill calls Nadia in, and says he’s going to resign. Nadia thinks this is all pretty weird and Bill confesses that he didn’t so much “resign” as “got fired”.

12:44 am – Some CTU rent-an-agents come to escort Bill out of the building, and Bill tells Nadia that she’s in charge until they send a replacement. Bill starts to point out that the last replacement ended up marrying him, so Nadia might just be meeting her new husband soon, but he has to leave and doesn’t get the chance.

12:45 am – As Bill leaves, Morris runs to him to let him know that Mike found Jack’s truck, and Bill says “That’s good news” and leaves with the guards. Morris turns to Nadia to tell her that he had no idea that security was that strict around CTU, especially with everything else that has already happened today. Nadia tells him that she’s now in charge of CTU, and Morris looks like he’s going to bust out laughing.

12:46 am – Nadia immediately holds an impromptu meeting. Bill would have been proud because she immediately tells everyone to do exactly what they’re doing already.

Commercial

12:51 am – Mike breaks into Jack’s car, pulls out a gun and calls CTU to let them know that he’s arrived at what looks like the Bates Motel, so he’s going to check all the showers looking for Jack. They start using all the satellites they have to find Jack, but Mike stops them. Mike says that perhaps, just perhaps, the long stretch limousine that just pulled up might be something important, so he’s going to surveil it with some surveillance, and asks for a massive amount of backup.

12:53 am – Cheng gets out of the car, and goes to the exact bungalow that Jack is hiding in. Jack says he won’t do a thing unless he sees that Audrey is safe. Cheng calls someone in the limo. Audrey gets out and starts to head for the room. She’s got a gag in her mouth. Cheng explains they were so freaked out about Audrey’s crying all the time that they finally had to do something about it. Jack scribbles this down on his hand for later, in case he makes it out of this alive. Jack takes the gag out of Audrey’s mouth, and she seems to be pretty freaked out and unsure of Jack. There’s a pretty good chance that Cheng kidnapped a woman from a Chinese laundry and disguised her as Audrey, because Audrey would never wear the kind of clothes she’s got on right now voluntarily. Jack tells Cheng that Audrey needs to leave the building WITHOUT the gag, out of the range of the sniper Cheng has set up, so he knows she’s safe. Jack tells Audrey to leave to go to a gas station to pick up some Skittles. She leaves.

12:56 am – Just as Jack tosses the component to Cheng, Mike shoots the sniper. There’s lots of shooting and Jack is shot! Someone launches a missile at a helicopter! Cheng is getting away! This never would have happened with Bill in charge!

12:57 am – Some of the Chinese guys who missed the “let’s go now” signal from Cheng get shot by Jack. Fortunately, Jack was wearing a bullet proof cummerbund. A bunch of agents enter the building, and Jack demands to talk to the person in charge. Mike walks in and Jack explains that he had a spectacular special effect all ready to go off, and Mike ruined the whole thing. Mike also helpfully points out that he let Cheng get away too. Mike calls Nadia, who orders that Jack be placed under arrest.

12:59 am – They bring Audrey inside, and that Chinese laundry lady theory is looking a lot more plausible because Audrey doesn’t recognize Jack! She’s acting weird! Even weirder than usual!

1:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: AUDREY BABBLES! NOAH’S WORRIED! A SPY! KISSING! (NOT AUDREY AND JACK!) FOUR MORE EPISODES TO GO! (TWO HOUR FINALE!)

Previously on “24” – We found out that: Fake nuclear weapons are very effective against fake unnamed countries; CTU has some great stunt drivers who double as fake terrorists; Jack really impressed Mike with his chain letter to Fayed; If you’ve got a plot you don’t know what to do with, it’s ok to end everything in the middle of a show and start a new plot with something REALLY scary instead.

The following summary occurred between 11 pm and 12 am:

11:00 pm – Jack gets a shot from a CTU medical, who tells him that it will help with the pain of hearing that Audrey is still alive. Or maybe the pain in his side. It’s hard to tell which. Mike tells Jack that the military is about to swoop in and take the fun job of securing the nuclear weapons and bringing them back. Jack had really counted on those things for a really excellent prank he was going to pull later.

11:01 pm – Mike thanks Jack for all the great shooting and killing he did, and says that things could have ended a lot worse – namely, there could have been a lot less great shooting and killing today. Mike looks like he wants to ask for Jack’s autograph, but doesn’t get a chance because Jack goes off down an alley to make a phone call.

11:02 pm – The Chinese guy, Cheng, needs a new chime for his phone because the beeps in his phone are so 1980’s. He picks it up, it’s Jack, and he wants to talk to Audrey. Cheng tells Jack that although everyone else in the world gave up on Jack since the show ended last year, Audrey was still trying to find him, except for that little show “The Nine”, which would have kept Audrey out of the picture for good had it actually been successful. Anyway, Cheng thought that since Audrey was out of a job, she might make a good plot twist, and now he’s going to use it.

11:03 pm – Jack says he’ll give himself up, but Cheng says that wouldn’t be any fun because Jack doesn’t talk a lot when he’s in prison. Instead, wants the nuclear weapons! For a second Jack wonders if this whole “China has nuclear weapons” thing has been just an incredibly great prank by the Chinese this whole time. But then Cheng says the reason he wants the nukes is for the trigger mechanism, because he really wants to learn all the Russian defense codes, since the mechanism uses ROT13 for encryption. Cheng threatens to kill Audrey if Jack doesn’t hand over the mechanism, and Jack somehow misses this gracious offer by telling Cheng that the Russians are pretty good at logic and eventually would figure out that the US supplied the mechanism, and start World War III.

11:05 pm – Jack asks to speak with Audrey. She apologizes for running off to a different network, and Jack promises he’ll do anything he can do to save her. Jack must be pretty tired to be talking this way. Cheng grabs back the phone and says that Jack has one hour to call back. After hanging up, Jack immediately begins stalking the van with the nuclear weapons.

11:06 pm – Lennox comes in to see President Wayne. Lennox says that Wayne really should take better care of himself, because Lennox and Dr. Welton are both pretty worried that Wayne needs medical attention, since he keeps making very convincing wincing expressions. Wayne is also worried that VP Noah might try to sneak off with the country, if he as much as goes off to the bathroom, so he says he’s not going anywhere. Lennox assures Wayne that VP Noah won’t be trying anything funny, mainly because of his previous attempt at stand-up that failed. Wayne wants to know the real reason, and Lennox finally tells him he has “The Truth”. Wayne tells him that Dr. Welton might have something to cure that kind of condition. Lennox says he doesn’t mean that, and Wayne says he wants to know what “The Truth” really is. Lennox says that he has a blooper audio recording of VP Noah conspiring with Evil Lisa to commit perjury, and he had been hoping to save it for the Christmas office party. Wayne says he can’t wait to hear the recording.

11:07 pm – Before Lennox can answer, Karen comes running in, saying she has good news. Wayne starts to ask “You saved a lot of money on your car insurance?”, but Karen continues before he can get all the words out. She tells them that CTU (which we know is code for “Jack”) has recovered the nukes. Lennox asks about Fayed, and Karen says that he and his men were killed during the assault (which is also code for “Jack”). Lennox does what anyone in his position as a toady would do: He congratulates his boss for a job well done! Wayne is so thrilled that he just can’t wait to get out of the bunker and tell The American People that they’re no longer under the threat of nuclear attack. I would bet that The American People’s response to this would be “Oh, that’s …. Wait… What???”, if they were actually awake at this hour, since it’s about 2 am on the East Coast right now. Wayne’s so excited about telling everyone about this, I bet he’ll set off all the civil defense sirens just to wake everyone up so he can tell them.

11:08 pm – Bill’s response to this entire situation is what you’d expect: He throws a meeting! Given everything that’s happened, he wants everyone’s briefs right away. One of the people in the back of the room says that he’s pleased about this, because after he heard about the nuclear weapon attacks, he’s going to need new briefs. Bill goes on to bore them some more, when Chloe is saved by a phone call from Jack.

11:09 pm – Jack gives Chloe the bad news: Audrey is alive. Chloe seems very disappointed by this, and tries to deny it, but Jack finally convinces her it’s the truth. Jack also informs her that he needs her help in retrieving one of the circuit boards, and a real one, not something from a Commodore PET, because they’d recognize the fake immediately. Chloe doesn’t seem too thrilled about this, but finally agrees to look at Morris’ terminal to see if she can find a copy of the schematics from a report Morris was working on. Jack says he wants the information sent to his JackPhone.

11:10 pm – Chloe goes to work on Morris’ terminal, and after getting past all the pop-ups, accesses the file. Chloe tells Jack that she’s sending it to his screen. Jack says, “Copy that”, and Chloe tells him that’s what she’s already doing. The file gets uploaded to Jack just as Bill’s meeting breaks up.

Commercial

11:15 pm – The phone rings as Wayne looks at an old picture of President All-State. Wayne’s secretary announces that VP Noah is here. Wayne thanks Noah for that really great idea about the nuclear weapons, but Noah looks pretty disappointed that Wayne used fake nuclear weapons. Wayne tells Noah that their whole relationship has been a marriage of convenience, (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and that they really need to break up. Noah seems pretty stunned by this, since it’s likely he’ll end up with Lennox in a custody battle, and he’s not ready for that. Noah says that he refuses, and starts to walk out until Wayne mentions the little recording that Lennox made. Wayne seems really happy to tell Noah this. Despite his best efforts to laser beam Wayne with his eyes, Noah can’t do it, and leaves.

11:18 pm – Morris is one bright dude. He set up a keylogger on his own system to make sure that no one accessed his World of Warcraft account, and he realized that someone accessed his system. Just as he reaches to call technical support, he realizes HE is technical support and decides to call security instead. Chloe stops him, tells him that she’s the one that broke in, and then tries to walk away. Morris asks why, and Chloe tells him the whole story about Audrey and the circuit board. Morris seems pretty skeptical about the whole situation, but Chloe reminds him that it’s Jack we’re talking about, so everything will be OK. Morris says he’s going to go tattle to Bill, and after a brief staring contest, Chloe says she’ll do it.

11:22 pm – Up in Bill’s office, Bill paces back and forth practicing making phone calls, as Chloe arrives and tells Bill that there is something he needs to know.

11:25 pm – Jack has an irresistible urge to climb on things, so he starts climbing around on pipes on the outside of the building, and continues to stalk the suitcase nukes. Jack finally realizes he can walk over, announce who he is and uses his Jack Powers to scare the guards into letting him get to the suitcase nukes. It works! Jack even invites them to stand guard while he steals the circuit board. Man, that’s going to be hard to explain at their court marshals! Jack gets to work on getting the circuit board. He finds the right one, just in time for Mike to show up and ruin everything. One of the guards hits Jack and he goes down like a Gredenko without an arm.

Commercial

11:29 pm – Jack wakes up and boy, he’s embarrassed. Mike has Bill on the phone. Jack swears up and down that all he wanted to do is save Audrey. Bill looks like he wants to tell Jack that is the reason he can’t let him do it, but he makes up something about not wanting the Chinese to get their hands on the mechanism. Bill says he’s going to do everything in his power to help get Audrey back. Jack has to remind Bill that just because Bill has a spandex suit in his office, it doesn’t mean he has superpowers, so whatever he has planned isn’t going to work. Jack asks if he can call President Wayne. Bill says he’ll see what he can do.

11:31 pm – Back in the Oval Office, Wayne watches the news about what a great guy he is, and gets that phone call from Jack. Jack wants Wayne to authorize a field operation to get Audrey back, and Wayne’s initial reaction is exactly what everyone else’s has been: revulsion. (He disguises it as surprise). Jack says that all he needs is a little FB circuit board to give to the Chinese. Unfortunately, it turns out that Wayne must have had a class on obsolete Russian nuclear weapons when he was in President school, because he knows exactly what the circuit board is for. Jack swears up and down that he’ll make sure that the Chinese won’t get their hands on the component, but Wayne says he won’t do it without knowing Jack’s plan. Jack says this is his plan: 1) Get the circuit board; 2) Conceal some C-4 explosive somewhere; 3) Blow up the C-4 if he needs to. Wayne says he’s not a rocket scientist, but does know that if any C-4 explodes, that Jack is going to die. Jack says that is one of the parts of the plan that he’s still trying to work out. Wayne authorizes Jack for the field operation, and says that he’ll get Bill to help Jack.

Commercial

11:38 pm – Mike releases Jack. Jack says he wants Mike to help him, and Mike asks what the plan is. Jack says that there’s going to be some circuit board destructin’, and some Cheng shootin’.

11:39 pm – Back at CTU, Chloe gets back and Morris wants to know what’s going on. Chloe tells him everything, and then points out that she was right about Morris wanting to tattle-tail. They start having a nerd fight, and I swear one of them called the other a spyware coder, which is clearly a low blow. Chloe says she’s going to hold this over Morris’ head for a long time.

11:40 pm – Milo calls over to Nadia that Mike is on the phone, and Mike gives her the information about the amazing electronic field work they were able to do, to get new tracking electronics embedded in that little tiny circuit board.

11:41 pm – Jack calls Cheng. Cheng gives Jack instructions about where to go next. Cheng tells Jack that he shouldn’t be late because Audrey might die. Jack stops for a moment and starts to say something about this plot being vaguely like the one in that new show “Drive”, but Cheng hangs up.

11:42 pm – Jack and Mike start to leave, and Mike tries to remind Jack that mixing work with pleasure didn’t work for Tim and Nichole on “The Apprentice”, and it won’t work here. Jack doesn’t want to hear about that, and tells Mike that they owe Audrey for the service she did for the country: She was basically not seen on the show for nearly 17 hours. They leave.

11:43 pm – Back at the White House, Evil Lisa goes to see VP Noah. Noah explains to Evil Lisa that he plans to resign, much to her surprise. Noah explains about the recording that Lennox made. Lisa points out that if she hadn’t asked Noah to lie about Karen, none of what was happening now would be happening at all. Noah doesn’t look very comforted by this. They start holding evil hands together! Noah says that at least he and Lisa will be able to spend more time with each other, and you can just tell that this is NOT part of Lisa’s evil plan. Noah signs the resignation letter, and tells her that he wants Wayne to have it before Wayne’s press conference ends.

11:44 pm – Wayne has the press corps especially well-trained, because they all sit when he tells them too. Noah and Evil Lisa are in the back of the room watching, trying to use Jedi mind powers or anything like that to keep Noah from having to resign. Noah’s even holding his resignation letter, so he seems pretty sure nothing is going to work out the way he wants.

11:45 – Wayne gives a speech about how Fayed is off the show now, and that everything is going to be AOK, because NOTHING dramatic is going to happen from now on. Wayne takes a couple of questions. The first guy wants to know if Wayne is SUPER-DUPER sure that everything is OK. Wayne says that he’s super-duper with sugar on it sure. Wayne asks another reporter to ask a question, and mispronounces “Robin” as “Andrea”. She asks about the detention centers, and this completely confuses Wayne so much so that he starts to stutter, and keels over! Noah or Evil Lisa must really have Jedi mind powers now! Noah puts away his resignation letter.

11:52 pm – Dr. Welton comes in and tells everyone that for some mysterious reason, Wayne had a brain hemorrhage, and that he can’t completely rule out that someone used some Jedi mind powers Wayne. Noah goes into “well, he shouldn’t have been brought out of a coma” mode, acts all “I told you so!”, and tries to blame this on Karen. Everyone argues briefly, until Evil Lisa points out that there is no way that Wayne will be able to recover from this anytime soon. Noah picks up on this and gives a very insincere speech about how everyone liked Wayne, and that it’s a real tragedy about his brain hemorrhage and everything, but WOO HOO! He’s president now!

11:53 pm – Evil Lisa finds a memo that tells about Jack trying to use the circuit board to get Audrey back, but is a bit unclear about the whole thing because the way she says it, it sounds like Jack is going to hand over technology to the Chinese. There doesn’t seem to be anything in there about Jack blowing himself up. Karen tries to explain this, and Noah gets all huffy with Karen about her explanation. Noah foolishly believes that Jack won’t be able to pull of the operation and is suddenly very concerned about getting in trouble with the Russians, forgetting the nuclear weapon he wanted to send to Unnamed Country. We can only assume that since the Russians have nuclear weapons too, that must be the problem. Noah tells Karen to get CTU to make Jack stop everything now.

11:55 pm – Out in the hallway, Karen and Lennox just can’t believe what a big bonehead Noah is being. Lennox goes to the hospital, Karen calls Bill.

11:56 pm – Karen tells Bill about Wayne’s condition, and that Noah is being a bonehead about Jack’s operation. Bill looks pretty scared when he realizes that he might actually have to get in the way of Jack shooting a lot of people, which is bound to make Jack pretty angry.

11:57 pm – Bill talks really loudly to everyone at CTU, and tells them they’re about to stop Jack’s operation. Oooo! He tells Chloe that she can’t work on this anymore because she’s proven that she can’t be trusted! (I’m guessing that’s not going to go over well with Chloe in the long run).

11:58 pm – Bill calls Mike and tells him that they’re going to try and take Jack back to CTU, and they’ve set up one (ONE!) tiny roadblock nearby to do this. Curtis would have set up a whole perimeter! Mike explains the change of plans after he gets off the phone, and after the explanation, Jack does EXACTLY what Jack always does, and pulls out his gun and points it at Mike. Jack explains that since he’s already proven that he’ll even shoot his own partner, Mike really should consider stopping the car. Mike does, and Jack drives away without him.

12:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK GOES ROGUE! BILL THINKS THE CIRCUIT BOARD GOES TO A SUBMARINE! BILL AND/OR KAREN ARE IN BIG TROUBLE! NOW THAT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH WAYNE IS ON THE ROCKS, NOAH WANTS TO KNOW WHAT LENNOX’S INTENTIONS ARE! LOTS OF SHOOTING! SOMEONE HAS A RIFLE SIGHT ON AUDREY!!!!!