Season 7 – 24 – 5 pm to 6 pm


Previously on 24: Dubaku started to rethink his subscription to the dating site “eTerrorist”; Chloe thought the FBI had been sabotaged when she found out someone had installed Vista on all their computers, and she was right; Olivia, the presidential daughter, went running back to her mother and father when she realized that if they died, her lobbyist career would take a real hit; Jack and Renee convinced Marika that acting as a decoy for Dubaku could in no way end up badly; Janis started messing with computers when Chloe was in the room, trying to save her phony baloney job, not realizing she just took her life into her own hands; Agent Aaron showed up, quite possibly because a certain ex-First Lady is driving him nuts; Sean was revealed as The Mole, and thought he was kicking off another great season at ABC, but unfortunately for him this is FOX, where Jack does all the kicking.

5:00 pm – Sean’s girlfriend Erika brings evidence of the warrant that stopped Jack at the police barricade last hour, and it turns out she’s in on Sean’s Evil Plot too. Sean tells her that he bugged the phone that Larry is using, and she flips her lid until she realizes he’s talking about surveillance equipment, not roaches.

5:01 pm – Jack and Renee continue to argue with the police that they really are the good guys and are chasing down terrorists. Unfortunately, this is the exact same excuse that hundreds of motorists in the DC area use every day, and the police aren’t buying it. After they get thrown in the police car, Renee points out that Marika is going to have a tough time dealing with Dubaku without Jack.

5:05 pm – Marika meets Dubaku, who gets really upset that she’s got a Palm Pre when he doesn’t. He tries to tell her that he’s completely misunderstood, and that he’s only a part-time psycho-killer from a fictional country. Marika realizes this all might be a silly mistake, goes along with Dubaku, and leaves with him in a car.

5:06 pm – The police release Jack and Renee, after getting word that Jack and Renee shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place. Renee is so excited that she asks for Sting’s autograph. Jack has to pull her aside to tell her that these police aren’t the police she’s thinking of.

She takes a phone call from Agent Larry who says he feels like a goofball, because Marika’s phone went dead about 3 minutes ago. Renee says that’s probably because it’s a first generation iPhone with one of those lousy batteries. Chloe gets onto her computers and they find Dubaku’s car via one of the traffic camera websites she subscribes to. After announcing they found the car, and fulfilling their product placement obligations with Jeep, they tell Jack where the car is heading.

5:07 pm – Marika looks remarkably calm for someone driving around with guy who likes blowing up planes. Dubaku continues to sweet talk her saying that he really wants to spend time with people he cares about, and with children who have machine guns, because he feels a lot more at ease in those sorts of situations. Marika does look a little worried still.

5:08 pm – Jack and Renee follow Dubaku’s car long enough and in enough traffic that jack finally snaps. He goes four wheeling in a downtown park. There’s a brief car chase until a traffic accident stops Jack’s car, which baffles Jack so much that he tells Renee to get on to of the car to see if that helps.

Marika finally realizes that things aren’t going to according to plan, and shows the driver the palm of her hand, in a very up close and personal way. This completely baffles the driver. He turns the wheel for a better look, and accidentally has an accident. The car flips several times. Jack gets so excited by this, that he runs towards the Jeep and shoots the driver to celebrate. Jack grabs Dubaku. The car’s on fire and Renee goes after Marika to save her… They argue briefly about the role of minor characters on “24” until Renee convinces Jack to help get Marika out of the car before it explodes. They get her out of the car just in time for the car to do its impression of a Pinto wagon, and they’re thrown to the ground. Jack and Renee are hurt, but Marika doesn’t feel a thing, because she’s already dead.

Commercial

5:16 pm – At the hospital, Ethan talks about various things that are going on around the world, while Mrs. President has a staring contest with a wall. She blames herself for what happened to Henry, since she didn’t believe what he was saying all this time about their son’s murder. She says she’ll have to rethink all those times he told her about the Illuminati.

Bill comes into the room to inform them that Dubaku has been captured, his subplot is ending. Bill also says the bigger subplot about the government conspiracy in her administration is going to be harder to figure out without Dubaku. Bill wants her to go someplace safer, telling the president she shouldn’t expose herself. Ethan starts to say that he wouldn’t mind seeing that, but is interrupted when Mrs. President tells Bill that she might expose herself even more at the White House. She finally agrees to leave the hospital, because Henry’s subplot isn’t due to go critical for a while longer.

5:18 pm – Back out at the accident scene, people are busy covering up bodies with yellow plastic wrap in the latest Cristo performance art piece. Jack yells at a couple of paramedics to wake up Dubaku, because he thinks Dubaku is faking a coma. They inject the drugs into Dubaku, who finally wakes up. Jack threatens Dubaku’s family unless he talks. Dubaku tells Jack that he has a “list”, that he checked it twice, and it turns out everyone on that list is naughty. Then he passes out, going into cardiac arrest. The paramedics zap Dubaku a couple of times, bringing him back, while finding a metal plate in his chest.

Jack takes great interest in the plate, and he gets the paramedics to open Dubaku’s chest up. They find an electronic storage device that Dubaku kept under his skin. This kept it safe, but made it extra hard to explain to airport security, and really inconvenient to read with a computer.

Jack gives the device to an Agent who is going to bring it to Larry. Jack gives strict instructions that only Larry should get that device.

5:23 pm – Sean hears this, panics and runs into the woman’s bathroom. He’s able to cover up for this by taking advantage of the fact that Erika happens to be in there washing her hands. Sean tells her that Jack found Dubaku’s database, and things aren’t completely under control. Erika completely freaks out, saying that she really doesn’t want to go to prison, because it’s “icky”. Sean tells her that all he has to do is install Windows 95 on all the computers when Chloe tries to read the Dubaku database, and that should keep anyone from reading it. Erika suggests they tie the main servers together. Sean tells her that it would be a lot easier if they logged into the computers to destroy them, and she agrees. They share an evil kiss, and leave the bathroom.

Commercial

5:30 pm – Jack, Renee and Dubaku are that the hospital. Renee either got a wound on the neck, or is now self-conscience about a Larry hickey – either way, she has a bandage on her neck. Jack informs her that Chloe now has the device, and as soon as she cleans off the Dubaku gunk on it, she’ll be able to find out what’s on it.

Renee takes this opportunity to point out that Marika is dead. Jack tries to explain that minor characters die on the show ALL THE TIME. Renee still isn’t used to this, and decides to give Jack a hard time about it. Jack completely ignores her taunting.

5:31 pm – Larry gives Chloe the storage device. She realizes that she doesn’t have any Norton Delete File Recovery tool on the system she’s on, since it’s a Macintosh. If the drive gets erased somehow, it’s going to be impossible to read through the inodes in the file system to recover it because they’re not using a journaling file system. Larry is baffled by this, but says “OK” anyway. Chloe starts the download of the data.

Meanwhile, Erika is in the server room plugging in a lot of cables that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Sean comes in and watches some of the security cameras that are all over the facility (EXCEPT in the server room) to make sure that Larry and Chloe don’t sneak up on them.

Sean gets a call on his cell phone. He tells Burnett that Dubaku has been captured, the FBI has the database, and that everything will be OK, despite appearances. Sean says he’ll take care of erasing the database, and all Evil Travel Agent has to do is kill Dubaku.

Sean hangs up after hearing Erika freak out about why the computer isn’t formatting. She solves this by “configuring parameters”, causing the screen to go green, which is the universal indication that the drives are being reformatted.

Chloe realizes this, and she and Larry go running off to the server room.

Sean takes this opportunity to shoot Erika in the stomach, and himself in the arm and he slides the gun over to Erika. Since Sean doesn’t do this every day, he doesn’t realize it’s going to be a little tough to explain how both he and Erika got shot when there’s only one gun, and Erika seems to be the one that had it.

Larry asks what’s going on, besides the obvious dead Erika on the floor. Sean tells him that “The Dead Erikas” would be a good name for a rock band, and then starts speaking in fancy computer jargon, which baffles Larry. Chloe doesn’t look as convinced. She is convinced that the computer has been completely reformatted, taking all of Dubaku’s files with it.

Commercial

5:40 pm – Sean and Larry are in the FBI infirmary where Larry tells Sean all the things that Jack told Larry not to tell anyone. Larry feels this is safe because there’s no way that what happened in the server room looks at all suspicious.

Larry gets a phone call from Chloe who tells him that she was able to recover all the files because she was running a very recent version of SVN, and everything has been saved. The files were being decrypted all during the last commercial break, and she has everything. She continues to work on this while Larry waits.

Larry takes this opportunity to tell Sean that everything is fine, since Chloe saved the files. Sean takes this opportunity to leave the room as fast as possible, since he knows his name is going to be on that list.

5:43 pm – Sean works his way out of the building, and is accosted by Janis one last time. He looks just like anyone else would in this situation, very happy to get away from Janis.

He continues to try and leave the building, but is finally stopped by security. Larry slams him into the wall, briefly considers torturing him with Janis. Sean asks for a lawyer, and Larry backs down. Jack would never have backed down, but well Larry just has him hauled away to a holding cell.

Larry calls Bill.

5:45 pm – Marika’s sister, Rosa, finds Renee at the hospital, where Renee tells her “Marika didn’t make it. Marika is dead.” She says, “I don’t understand”. Renee explains what dead means, and hands Rosa Marika’s watch. This doesn’t go over as well as Renee hoped, because Rosa really doesn’t want that watch.

Jack calls Renee over to let her know they have the names of everyone involved in the conspiracy, and that they’re going to have a giant arrest party soon. Renee tells him that she’s very upset about Marika. She asks Jack if he’s human, if he feels anything, asks if he feels anything. She slaps him a couple of times. She tries a third time, but Jack stops her, which is a good thing, because otherwise he would have had to shoot her. Jack leaves.

Commercial

5:52 pm – Mrs. President walks into a room where Olivia is waiting and explains what happened with Henry. Olivia wants to go see her father, but Mrs. President grounds her, and doesn’t let her leave the White House. Olivia says something snotty, and the President leaves.

5:54 pm – Bill tells Mrs. President, “I have very good news”. She says, “You can save me money on my car insurance?”. Bill says, “No, but we did get a list of people involved in the Dubaku conspiracy.” Turns out there are over 100 people on the list, and they should be making arrests within the hour. Bill points out that Jack was instrumental to getting this list, and asks that Jack not have to testify at the congressional hearing. Mrs. President shows her gratitude by saying “I’ll think about it.”.

5:56 pm – Jack sits on some steps at the capital, enjoying the view when Tony comes by. Tony tells Jack there’s going to be another attack soon, and Dubaku’s boss, Juma, is behind this one and things are going to start happening at 7pm. Tony only knows it’s going to be “high volume, and high impact”. It seems that the same senator that has been giving Jack a hard time at the congressional hearing has someone on his staff that has been working with Juma! Boy, is he going to be surprised to find that out! Tony’s going to go after him.

Tony tells Jack that he needs Jack’s help.

5:59 pm – Senator Mayer (also known as Senator Red Foreman) gets called to the White House, and questions that timing of the situation. Mayer wants Burnett to come with him to the White House. After the Senator leaves, Burnett gets a text message saying “Units in place. Operation on schedule.” Something tells me Burnett doesn’t want to be anywhere near the White House. Probably the look on Burnett’s face. Well, that and the previews.

6:00 pm – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK YELLS! ATTACKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE! TWO HOURS! LOTS OF BLOGGING! WAITING AROUND EVEN LONGER THAN USUAL FOR STEVE TO GET THE SUMMARY FINISHED! BE HERE IN A WEEK TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS!

Season 7 – 24 – 4pm to 5 pm

Previously on 24, we found out that: People STILL don’t know Jack’s reputation so he has them “ask around” about it; Dubaku disliked Henry’s finger so much he asked to have it removed; Dubaku is good at bamboozling American women; Larry likes meeting people at the Forrest Gump Reflecting Pool; When people walk on set while Jack Bauer is working, people get killed; Renee is great at scaring little children; Jack has no regard for shooting innocent beer; Henry’s dream of a circus career catching bullets has taken a very serious turn.

The following takes place between 4:00pm and 5:00pm.

4:00pm – In some incredible driving, ambulances are already with Henry. Jack appears to be ready to operate on Henry when the drivers take their own lives in their hands by telling Jack to “get out of the way” which is usually code for “shoot me”. Jack lets them take over, so he can make a phone call to the Mrs. President. She is surprisingly unemotional about Henry getting shot, and lets Bill take over her security. He also manages to get Chloe a job as a “stay-at-home-mom-who-plays-with-computers-at-the-FBI”. Fortunately, she has that on her resume.

4:06 – Dubaku finds his girlfriend at work, and gives her an unbelievable story about the INS actually shipping him out of the country. He appears to be the first one they’re going to test this “shipping out of the country” thing on. He asks Marika to NOT tell her sister, since she’s the one that came up with the INS scheme in the first place.

4:08 – Dubaku calls an evil travel agent to arrange a flight out of the country. Dubaku wants to meet at the Roosevelt Continental hotel, presumably because it has a lobby with no lights in it, since he’s used to hanging out in those places.

4:10 – Renee makes one attempt to boot one of the Evil Dubaku laptops, but gets scared off when it says, “Abort/Retry/Kill”, so she tells Jack the computer won’t boot. Unfortunately for Jack, Chloe isn’t there. She’d be able to LOOK at the disk and tell him what’s on it. Since Chloe isn’t there, they start looking through the dead bodies to see if any of them know anything about booting computers. Just as Renee is about to call Geek Squad, Larry calls, which is pretty much the same thing.

Larry tells Renee he’s heard from Bill, and knows what’s been going on. She brags about taking down six of Dubaku’s men and countless bottles of beer. Larry then takes the time to complain about Jack, and his tactics that got Renee scaring Mrs. Vosseler and her kid. Renee says she doesn’t like the fact that she had to scare the bejeebies out of Mrs. Vosseler, but the little kid really had it coming.

Jack overhears part of the conversation, whispers “rookies”, and then interrupts the phone call to mention that he found a couple of PDAs, cross-referenced them by downloading the “iCrossReference’ app from the Apple store, and found some banking transactions registered to an address. They’re heading to the apartment in hopes there are some things to shoot.

Commercial

4:16 pm – Marika arrives at her apartment, where her sister has fallen asleep from, coincidently, “24”. She goes to pack.

4:17 pm – Morris, Chloe and their CHILD participate briefly in a XM Genesis product placement. Chloe says she’s going in to work on the computers. She tells Morris to watch their son “Prescott” because with a name like that he’s already getting beaten up by other four year olds, and she doesn’t want to take any chances.

4:18 – Janis argues with Larry after realizing that getting through all the levels in Spider Solitaire might just be busy work he has her doing. Chloe arrives, and immediately gives Janis the evil eye. We’ve all missed Chloe.

In a separate room, Chloe gets to use Macintoshes, the universal “good guy” computer. She’s a little worried that people might figure out what she’s doing. Larry tells her not to worry, and explains how the computers are set up. Chloe tells him that whoever set things up doesn’t know a breakpoint from a hole in the ground, and it turns out LARRY has been dinking around with the computers in his spare time.

4:19 – Larry starts to try and get in some digs on Jack, and Chloe will have none of it – She points out that Larry should spend a little more time figuring out his mole problem, and a little less time envying Jack so much.

4:20 – Moments later, after Larry assured Chloe that she would be able to work without anyone catching on that she’s there, Shaun’s in-office girlfriend tells Janis all about Chloe, and wonders out loud what she’s doing there. Janis moves an eyebrow, which is apparently her way of acting suspicious… or maybe constipated.

4:21 – Dubaku meets with Evil Travel Agent at the hotel and immediately spots all of Evil Travel Agent’s cohorts scattered around the lobby. Dubaku says if anything bad happens, like an accident, an exploding plane, or an in-flight movie of “Home Alone 4: Not This Again”, he’s going to wire all the information he has to the Justice Department, and knowing them, they’ll be able to figure out what’s going on in a few months, so Evil Travel Agent could be in pretty big trouble. Dubaku leaves.

Evil Travel Agent calls someone to let them know Dubaku has figured everything out, and to cancel the in-flight movie. They need to get Dubaku out of the country.

4:22 – Marika’s sister, Rosa, wakes up, and uses her powers of deduction to figure out that Marika’s suitcase means she’s leaving. Rosa tells her that “Samuel” isn’t to be trusted, Marika doesn’t believe him and goes to leave – Just as Jack kicks the door open! They ask for Dubaku, and neither Rosa or Marika know who Jack is talking about. Jack shows them the screensaver on his phone, and Rosa realizes Samuel is this “Dubaku” Jack is looking for. Marika doesn’t take this very well, and Rosa looks completely vindicated, but still pretty scared at the strange man yelling at them.

Commercial

4:30 pm – Mrs. President arrives with a secret detail of guys dressed up in complete Army gear. She meets with a doctor who tells her all kinds of scary medical stuff he learned by watching House, and that Henry is in very serious condition. He then excuses himself, saying he has to wash his hands, which is doctor code for “I didn’t vote for you”.

She sees Henry being rolled down the hallway to surgery, and tells Henry that he was right about their son all along. She then goes to watch the surgery through a window, because she’s a big fan of House too. She asks Bill to get her daughter Olivia, but to only use someone Bill trusts, and who hasn’t made a cameo yet this season.

4:35 pm – Back at Marika’s apartment, Renee goes through all her picture phone photos of Dubaku, and the one with Dubaku dressed up as an evil clown is the one that finally convinces her. She was going to meet Dubaku to leave the country, so Jack wants her to talk to him. She’s really freaked out about this, because Dubaku might be dressed up like that clown again. She takes the call, and lies to Dubaku that Rosa understands everything. Dubaku is sending a car with a driver to pick up Marika. She’s relieved to get off the phone, and Jack asks for a “favor”, of going to Dubaku so they can try and grab him. She agrees. Jack asks for her phone, installs some cool “iTrackYou” software, and they’re all set. Rosa doesn’t like this and hugs Marika through an entire phone call Jack makes to Chloe. Chloe tells him that she can set up the tracking, but Larry installed Windows 3.1 on all the rest of the computers in her office, so instead of a couple of seconds, it’s going to take her a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, Janis tries to break in to see what Chloe is trying to do. She again looks frustrated, or at least what passes for her acting frustrated.

Commercial

4:44 pm – Presidential daughter Olivia turns out to be a lobbyist, but since they have a contract, she’s not really a lobbyist. The person picking up Olivia is….Secret Service Agent Aaron, the most trusted Secret Service Agent on 24! She gives him a hard time until he tells her that her father is in surgery, and that she’s acting like a spoiled brat.

4:46 pm – Janis asks Shaun for the “digital data key”, because she’s paranoid about Chloe. Shaun is hesitant about this until Janis tells him that she’ll show him “The Difference Between Cats and Dogs”, and he agrees, after calling her a naughty word.

Chloe calls Jack and says they’re all set to go.

4:48 pm – They go to leave, and Rosa tells Renee to keep Marika safe. Renee starts to give Marika instructions to keep her safe, and Jack stops her. Jack says that’s the “sissy” way of covert operations. Renee says she’s not comfortable about letting Marika out there “naked”. Jack asks if she’s wearing X-Ray specs, because it sure looks to him like she’s wearing clothes. The car arrives, Marika gets in, and it drives off.

Since Renee has an old piece of equipment from several months ago, Chloe says it’s too old to use and decides to talk Jack trough the whole surveillance.

Janis goes into the computer room, gets access to the high score list for Bejeweled for the office computers, and finds out what Chloe is working on.

Commercial

4:55 – Wort on Forehead Thug drives Marika, while Jack and Renee follow, while Janis watches – Janis does something and it breaks Chloe’s screen. It comes back, and Chloe nearly instantly realizes her terminal is being spied on. Larry is baffled about what might be happening.

Suddenly, Jack’s car is surrounded by a lot of police cars, but not so many it would make an excellent car chase, so he lets them stop him. Larry gets on the phone and tells the police to let Jack go before he starts shooting people in the thigh. Chloe finds a warrant for Jack and Renee’s arrest, which says they’re armed, dangerous, and very, very covert. Larry argues some more with the police.

Janis brings back her “data key” to Shawn and spills her guts about what she saw. Shawn seems slightly surprised about this, and Janis says she doesn’t like what’s happening.

Shawn must be auditioning for a contestant spot on “The Mole”, because he calls Evil Travel Agent, and lets him know what’s happening. Shawn seems very upset that Dubaku is still alive, and is even more upset that his name is in an actual database! He’s going to be really freaked out when he finds out what they do with e-mail lists on the Internet. As much as we all hate Janis, it turns out she’s merely stupid, and not The Mole Of The Day So Far.

4:59 – Evil Travel Agent calls Dubaku and lets him know Marika is helping Jack. Dubaku looks really upset about this news, and says he’ll “take care of” Marika.

Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON 24: DUBAKU PUSHES MARIKA! MARIKA SLAMS DUBAKU! A SUV FLIPS! DATA IS ERASED! JACK GETS SLAPPED TWICE, BUT NOT THREE TIMES!
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!

24 – Season 7 – 3pm to 4pm

Previously on 24: Dubaku tried to cover the insecticide market by trying to destroy the world famous Kidron, OH insecticide plant (Motto: “We hate bugs more than anyone!”); Janis tried to discover if she misread the memo that said “save” the plant manager, not “kill” the plant manager; Presidential First Laddy Henry tried to recover from muscle relaxant which didn’t turn out to be nearly as relaxing as he thought it would be; Jack tried to uncover who might be behind this whole crazy plot.

3 pm – The bad guys unpack their brand new Presidential First Husband from a trunk of a car, and go to install him in their hideout. Meanwhile, Dubaku stops by a street vendor that has an incredible cart that can supply everything, even television sets, where he hears Madam President telling everyone that Juma’s regime will be gone soon.

Dubaku walks into a secret hideout that’s got a storefront, just in case they want some snacks, and goes to see the Presidential First Husband. Vossler says he has to get to work, or he’s going to be in BIG trouble… not “kidnapping the president’s husband” trouble… Something really big! He leaves.

3:03 – Dubaku and Henry have a conversation that goes something like: Henry -“You killed my son!”; Dubaku -“He was poking his nose where it didn’t belong!”; Henry – “Ewwww!”. Henry tries the “Hey! I’m more important than I look! People are going to come looking for me!” Dubaku tells Henry that the President better call off the invasion, or Henry might be an Ex-First Husband soon.

3:05 – Meanwhile, Madame President is still talking, while Jack and company just waltz right in through the White House basement and it’s crack security. The President is a little surprised that Jack of all people is there. Jack, of course, can just walk right into the Oval office with no problems, because… well, because he’s Jack.

3:06 – Matobo tells the president that he’s happy she’s going to have troops invade, and that Jack, Bill and Renee can explain what’s happened in the plot of the show up until now. Jack tells her that: 1) She’s got rat problems, and 2) These are giant, look-like-a-human rats, in her administration – some of them might even be armed, and trying to undermine what’s happening in Sangala.

She asks Bill what the heck has been going on, and he tells her that Tony used the CIP device as bait to get Dubaku. He acknowledges that a fresh, fictional, foreign country to take over would have been better bait, but they had to go with what they had. She points out that some people died on those planes, and Renee says that it was a necessary plot device, and they were just unpaid extras anyway.

Jack wants to “fly under the radar” and uses other cliché phrases to not involve the FBI, which Ethan, who was hiding behind a bust of Abraham Lincoln, finds surprising.

An agent comes in to tell the President that she has to interrupt her super-important secret meeting for a super-important secret phone call. She takes that call – it’s from Dubaku! He tells her that he has Henry, and he can demonstrate! Henry starts to demonstrate what’s behind curtain number three. President Taylor says that only Henry could make a reference that old, so it has to be him. Henry says he’s really sorry. Dubaku tells President Taylor that he wants the forces out of Sanagla, he wants Matobo, and a large bag of cheetos – baked, not fried – all by 4:00pm. If he doesn’t get this, he tells her that he’ll kill Henry. She says, “You wouldn’t dare!”

Dubaku says, “Cut off his finger!” President Taylor apparently doesn’t like that particular finger on Henry, because she doesn’t say a single thing over the telephone. Henry realizes he’s going to have relearn everything in base 9, just as President Taylor FINALLY tells him to stop. Dubaku tells her that she has to meet his demands, or he’ll send him back one piece at a time. Knowing how that old Johnny Cash song ended up, she finally agrees.

Ethan informs her that he has a fake plausible reason how Henry might have been kidnapped, and that she better call off the invasion.

Jack tells her that he can probably find Henry before the 4:00 deadline, and that he can probably do it in a very exciting, shooting and explosion packed way. She asks where his loyalties really lie, and Jack says something that will go down in “24” history: “With all due respect, Madame President, ask around”.

Jack tells her to go along with Dubaku’s demands, especially the cheetos, while Jack works on getting her husband back.

3:14 – Jack and Renee are escorted, by Ethan, into another room where they discuss their plans: Renee thinks she can bring Larry in on accessing the First Family security detail phone logs, and he’ll probably be so happy to hear from her that he’ll not worry about the whole “security” thing.

3:15 – Agent Larry is VERY surprised to hear from Renee, and is finally convinced that she’s not making a phone call from the afterlife. He goes into a secure corridor to take her phone call, and she explains the plot from the last 15 minutes. He finally agrees to help her get Gedge’s phone logs, but he has to see her at the Capitol reflecting pool first where he hopes they can reenact a scene from Forrest Gump.

Commercial

3:21 – At the FBI, everyone has stopped to watch previews of American Idol and to watch the news about what the president said. Sean talks to his office girl friend, while Janis puts two and two together, and confronts him about his affair. She appears to be jealous she wasn’t involved.

3:23 – Renee and Jack meet with Larry at the reflecting pool, where he tells them Vossler was on the phone with Gedge quite a bit, and they probably weren’t exchanging baking recipes.

Turns out that Vossler was once in special forces and stationed in Sangala. Jack asks if Vossler has family. Renee says that he has a wife and 11-month old child. She’s pretty sure that the wife wasn’t in special forces, but she’s not so sure about the 11-month old kid. Jack says that while he’d love to interrogate someone right now, he thinks he better go after Vossler while Renee goes after the wife and kid. When Renee starts backing off from this, saying that she only tries to torture people she’s pretty sure are guilty. Jack says that terrorists don’t really have to follow any rules, and points out they drive like complete maniacs. Larry starts to point out that a lot of Americans drive like complete maniacs. Jack finally gets her to agree, and she leaves.

Larry tries to confront Jack about what he’s doing, but Jack gives him his “Mad Jack” face and gets Larry’s keys.

3:26 – Back in Dubaku’s new hideout, the impromptu surgery on Henry’s finger didn’t go quite as planned, and Henry keeps bleeding all over the carpet. Dubaku is considerate enough to tell one of his men that a rag stuffed into Henry’s mouth will keep Henry from biting his tongue while they use the preferred Sangalian blowtorch surgery too to cauterize the wound. Before his men can tell him that burning Henry flesh is really going to stink up the place, not to mention revoke the security deposit they have on the hideout, Dubaku gets a phone call from his clueless girlfriend, Marika. They make ironic small talk for a while.

3:28 – Marika’s sister argues with her after she gets off the phone, saying this “Samuel” isn’t a nice guy, and that he has a funny accent for somebody from Brooklyn.

3:29 – At the White House, Ethan suggests they move the American fleet away from Sangala to buy more time, and then launch the attack from further out at sea. They decide that they can get someone to impersonate Matobo, and they’re pretty sure that Ed McMahon and MC Hammer are available. After a brief discussion on the pros and cons, they decide on Ed. A quick phone call later, and inexplicably Ed is busy, so they go with Hammer instead.

3:30 – Larry calls Jack, who’s driving at top speed. Larry says that Vossler goes on duty at 4:00, and that he’s going to be at the Air Force base. Jack displays an unusual grasp of the roadways of Washington DC, and explains where he can probably head off Vossler.

3:31 – Renee goes to Vossler’s house and acts scary when Mrs. Vossler and the suspected special forces baby answer the door.

Commercial

3:35 – Renee and Mrs. Vossler argue about child rearing skills for a while to bide some time while Jack heads off Mr. Vossler.

3:36 – Jack works on heading off Vossler, making some really dangerous driving moves, like driving the wrong way on a one way street. Hardly anyone notices.

3:37 – Jack rams a car, and fortunately, it’s Vossler’s! Jack helps Vossler out of the car by hitting him in the face and dragging him out. Good thing they’re on a deserted street, because no other traffic or pedestrians walk by while Jack drags Vossler into an interrogation store, which happened to be right on that very street.

Vossler won’t talk at first, so Jack uses his phone a friend to call Renee and up the stakes. Vossler talks to his wife, who says Renee has a gun on her. Vossler must not be at home very much, because he actually asks why their son is crying, not realizing that holding a gun on someone’s mom would make anyone upset – even a special forces baby. That finally breaks Vossler, and he tells Jack where Henry is being held. Everything’s going fine until a director of photography for “24” walks through the scene and distracts Jack. Vossler makes his move and he and Jack start to fight for a short time, long enough for some exciting action. Jack finally decides he’s done screwing around and kills Vossler.

Jack goes back out to his car, which is already starting to get stripped down by passersby. He scares them away. He looks at the car and decides he doesn’t want to drive in a car that’s been in an accident. He then flags down a passing car by using his gun, which is very effective.

Commercial

3:45 – Bill briefs everyone about Operation Fake Matobo. He tells MC Hammer (who is now in makeup) and his driver that if by a teensy weensy chance something bad happens, they should get the heck out of there as fast as they can.

Jack calls Renee with Henry’s address. He gives her the info, telling her about the gunmen Dubaku has guarding the store from anyone trying to get in, whether they have coupons or not.

Renee asks how Vossler is, and Jack explains that he’s going to make some patch of ground some REALLY excellent fertilizer. Jack is surprised when Renee takes Vossler’s death a little hard, even after he explains that Vossler got killed by accident. Jack tells her that she can stop helping him if she wants, but she decides that the pay is just too good to leave at this point in the show.

3:46 – The Fake Matobo heads off to the power plant, where the exchange will take place, while Bill delivers the information that Jack might have found where Henry is being held.

Sean confronts Larry with the news that Homeland Security is going to lower the threat level from Bert Yellow down to Ernie Orange, or perhaps visa versa. Larry says he’ll check on it, and gets a phone call from Renee. Larry gets pretty upset that Renee is out and about with Jack, saving the world.

3:48 – One of his thugs tells Dubaku that everything is going according to plan, as far as they know. Dubaku gets a phone call from Marika’s sister, who knows that Dubaku has been lying about being named “Samuel Aboa” because she has proof from the immigration service. She threatens him that the immigration service could get around to throwing him out of the country for being here illegally within at least the next forty to fifty years. She tells him that nobody at all knows about the letter, she’s not going to tell anyone, and she promises that she’ll keep it a secret. She hangs up, so of course, Dubaku leaves, probably to go kill her.

Commercial

3:55 – Renee pulls up outside of the store, and Jack’s nearly there. Bill calls him with the news that Fake Matobo is nearly at the drop off point.

3:56 – Fake Matobo’s driver calls to let Bill know they’ve arrived. Dubaku’s thugs are waiting for them at the plant, and tell them to get out of the car. When they don’t, one of them calls Dubaku, who tells them to kill ’em. At the same time, the President orders a retreat, and just as they’re about to get out of there, a fuzzy special effect explosion tells everyone that Fake Matobo and his driver won’t be making further appearances in this season.

3:57 – Jack and Renee storm the store, take the cashier hostage, and get into the back room by using the old “Have the cashier ask if they want food” ploy. Jack plays Charades with Renee for a minute, and she moves into position. Dubaku calls his men to have Henry killed, now that he realizes that the President was “kidding”.

3:59 – There’s a shockingly horrific fight where many innocent cases of beer give their all for the show, but can’t be saved. Jack and Renee kill everyone except one guy who manages to shoot Henry in the gut. Jack goes to save Henry, but things don’t look good.

4:00 – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: LARRY TALKS ABOUT JACK’S PLAY BOOK! PRESIDENT TAYLOR SAYS SHE WON’T BE HELD PRISONER! HENRY MAKES IT TO A HOSPITIAL! MARIKA AND HER SISTER GET A SPECIAL HEARTWARMING VISIT FROM JACK AND RENEE! WE SEE THAT DUBAKU MIGHT HOLD THE GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORD FOR “WORST SMILE IN A PHOTO” ! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

24 – Season 7 – 12 pm to 1 pm

Previously on 24, we found out that: Chloe, Bill and Tony miss CTU so much that they’re doing CTU pro bono work; Chloe can probably use a toaster to break into a computer system if she really wanted to; Thugs should never tell their boss “It’s either me or him”; If you’re on the bad guys team, they issue you a standard set of dark clothes; Jack’s golf game has a mean slice, even when trying to break through dry wall.

12:00 pm – Agent Larry talks with a SWAT commander who says he’s afraid of exposing his men when they go try and get the Prime Minister. Larry tells them to wear coats, and to watch out for bullets from Tony and Jack’s new BFFs.

Over at the prime minster’s place, Emerson can’t get into the room, so he decides to punch one of the body guards who looks like Yemi from Lost. They don’t appear to know about Yemi’s friendship with a certain Smoke Monster, because they really beat him up.

While this is going on, Jack decides to do a bit of freelance handyman work, and crawls up into the ceiling for a plot device to exploit. Tony and Jack discuss their plans to make sure and get the Prime Minister so they can get to who they REALLY want to (Dubaku), completely unafraid of being overheard by the bad guys who are just eight feet away.

12:04 pm – Agent Larry gets an urgent message from the Attorney General, and calls Agent Renee Walker, who is driving in the completely empty streets of Washington, D.C. Agent Larry is quite upset about Renee using what she learned on America’s Funniest Interrogation Videos, and knows what she did to Tanner The Sniper. They argue about Renee going to the Prime Minster’s house, and she wins by hanging up on Larry.

Shaun is on the phone with his wife having an incredibly creepy conversation during a pretty big FBI operation. Shaun seems to have a lot of extra time on his hands, but successfully fills a few minutes of valuable air-time before the show moves on to a more interesting plot point.

12:06 – Back in the Prime Minster’s safe room, he inserts a few more quarters into the machine to make sure it stays locked for another thirty minutes. He’s pretty worried they’re going to run out of quarters soon.

His wife asks what Jack and Tony want, because she’s running out of different ways to says “Who is it?” to stall them. The Prime Minister says that they want the names of his allies in Sangala. She says that even though it’s a fake country, she knows that he would never expose them. (What’s with everyone exposing themselves tonight?) She realizes that she’s the real person he’s protecting, and she looks worried.

12:07 – It took a while, but Emerson finally figured out how to use the webcam that leads into the safe room. Emerson threatens to shoot the guy who looks like Yemi, if the Prime Minister doesn’t come out soon. Yemi’s not afraid, because he knows he’s got an “in” with the island. Emerson counts down, is about to shoot Yemi when Yemi’s phone gets a call from the FBI! Those guys have the BEST timing.

Turns out it’s Shaun on the phone, but he hangs up after nobody answers. Emerson uses his powers of deduction to realize that since the FBI called, they might know what’s happening at the Prime Minster’s place. He’s still not sure, so he asks Yemi. Yemi doesn’t answer, so Emerson hits him for the umpteenth time.

Tony, Emerson and a Miscellaneous Thug argue about what to do next. Jack walks in and says he has a plan to “flush them out” with “gas”, which disgusts everyone until he explains what he means. Miscellaneous Thug still doesn’t believe the FBI isn’t right around the corner, even after Jack explains the magic of “24” traffic rules to him – The FBI office 21 miles away will take least 15 minutes to get to them (with traffic!). They finally quit arguing after Jack says he can make some gas that he learned about by watching MacGyver. Tony and Jack are pretty sure of themselves, because they discuss their plan AGAIN, thinking that no one is within listening range of them.

Commercial

12:15 – Back at the Prime Minister’s residence, Jack works on his MacGyver gas in the air ducks. It doesn’t look at all like baking soda, vinegar and dry ice. Emerson gets back on his webcam to let the Prime Minister know about the gas, saying it isn’t laughing gas that’s pouring into the room. The Prime Minister and his wife take a chance and decide to cough and choke a bit while they think about it.

12:16 – Agent Janis is completely shocked to find that someone from the Attorney General’s office wants to talk to her about a letter he received from The Snipe’s lawyers about something that happened less than half an hour ago. Things like this usually take a lot longer than that. She, of course, denies every thing, and Agent Larry grabs her away. She seems completely fine with that.

12:18 – Renee is outside of the Prime Minster’s residence, which is still a completely police officer free zone.

Inside, Miscellaneous Thug wants Jack to “put more gas” in. Jack tells him that would “kill them instantly”. It appears that whatever gas Jack uses moves more quickly the more you make of it, and knowing Jack something like that is completely possible. Since Miscellaneous Thug doesn’t understand chemistry, he leaves.

Meanwhile, the safe room has turned into the unsafe room, what with all the poison gas and all. Mrs. Prime Minister decides to hit the “deal” button, and the door opens. Tony and Jack help them out of the unsafe room, and out of the house.

They move the prisoners to an inconspicuous large yellow ice cream truck while Renee watches. She calls Agent Larry, lets him know what is happening, and is promptly caught by Miscellaneous Thug. Larry tells Janis to get Renee back. Janis nearly leaves, but realizes Larry met to get Renee back on the phone. Larry trips one of the FBI extras in the room, and leaves.

Miscellaneous Thug brings Renee over. She swears at Jack using some naughty words, and they lock her into the yellow ice cream truck. The truck leaves without turning on the bells, which disappoints all the children in the area.

12:22 – Emerson calls Nichols to let him know that Renee knows the FBI knows that nearly everyone knows they want to know what the Prime Minster knows. What they don’t know is what Renee might know about what’s REALLY going on, so they have to check their source at the FBI. Renee takes this opportunity to call Jack a naughty word.

Commercial

12:28 – Henry’s Secret Service Agent Brian gets off the phone with a friend, who says he’ll help break the encryption on the thumb drive. These guys are obviously computer experts because they were able to determine the drive was encrypted even without having a computer with them to check it. They chit-chat a bit, going over what they’re doing, in case we’ve all forgotten last week’s show when we fell asleep.

Brian’s idea is to meet this “friend” in an apartment in about 20 minutes, which sounds completely safe to Henry. Henry says that he knew Roger was murdered all along, and he can’t wait to go “neener-neener-neener!” to everyone that didn’t believe him. He also wants to find the people that killed Roger and make them pay. Brian wants to tell the President, but Henry says it’ll be more exciting if he waits until later in the show.

12:29 –Ethan comes in to talk to the President, and doesn’t even bother knocking first, which in past administrations was a big “no-no”. It was safe though, because all the President was doing was looking at her script to make sure she got her lines right. The President wants to do a military strike in Sangala, and cites many good reasons to do so, not the least of which is that it is a fictional country.

The Secretary of State comes in and tells everyone about the Prime Minister’s abduction and that Tony and Jack are with them. She just can’t believe it, and paces around to prove that. The President wants to find the Prime Minster, and tells Stevens to bring in “every relevant agency”, forgetting that CTU isn’t around anymore.

12:32 – At the FBI, Shaun walks around and acts generally creepy around Blonde Female Agent… And then we find out why: They’re having an affair.

Janis interrupts just in time to spare us any further creepy talk, and asks Shaun to “babysit her downloads”, which sounds even creepier than what Shaun was just talking about with Blonde Female Agent.

Larry takes a phone call from the head SWAT Guy, who just got done sweeping up at the Prime Minister’s residence. SWAT really is a full service outfit nowadays, if they’re housecleaning too! After SWAT Guy tells Larry about Renee, Larry FINALLY tells Janis that everybody in the office should making finding Renee a top priority. That’s probably good, because so far it seems like it’s just been Larry, Janis, Shawn on the job.

12:34 – The yellow ice cream van drives down the road. Renee decides that it’s a great time to apologize to the Prime Minister, even though she’s never met him before. The Prime Minister thinks this is a little creepy, but tells her not to worry about it.

Emerson gets a phone call from Nichols and nearly takes an ice cream order before realizing who it really is. The news is, Renee found out about the abduction because of The Sniper, and as far as everyone knows, nobody knows anything else. He tells Emerson to kill Renee.

Emerson tells the driver to drive to an abandoned construction site. Jack seems interested in the fact that Washington must have a lot of those, just like LA does.

Tony suggests that they find out what Renee knows. Emerson disagrees. Tony wants to suggest that they really, REALLY try to find out what Renee knows, but creepy music starts playing and the discussion ends.

Commercial

12:40 – Agent Larry is still really upset that Renee is missing. Shaun is shocked that Larry’s acting this way and is really shocked when Janis tells him that Larry has “feelings” for Renee. Shaun says that bad 1970s songs were banned from the office, when Janis tells him she’s sure Larry and Renee have a relationship. She says she knows this because of her “instinct”. Shaun looks a little worried this “instinct” will reveal not only that he and Blonde Female Agent have an affair going, but also that Janis is about to figure out she’s the only one in the office not seeing someone else at the office.

12:41 – Dubaku gets off a phone call from Juma, who tells him that the President hasn’t moved any troops anywhere. Nichols tells him to look on the bright side, and that an invasion hasn’t started either and that just means more screen time for all the actors who aren’t in that other subplot. Dubaku wants to use the module again, and Nichols convinces him not to do so.

12:42 – Brian and Henry get to the apartment, which is completely secure since they hid the key under the doormat. Brian re-secures the room by putting the key back under the mat after Henry enters.

Henry looks around. He realizes that they’re in Samantha’s apartment, just in time to see Brian putting on some rubber gloves. Henry protests and says that he didn’t mean THAT kind of investigation. Brian explains everything to Henry, and Henry keels over from the muscle poison he slipped into Henry’s drink. Brian promises to make Henry’s death quick.

Brian goes into the next room to pick out some cutlery, and uses his “phone a friend” to tell Agent Vossler to get Samantha and bring her there. Their plan is to frame Henry for the murder, and stage a suicide. Brian explains Henry that he’s REALLY sorry about the whole “killing you” thing.

12:46 – Agent Vossler tells Samantha that she needs to be put into “protective custody”, which should be less creepy than it sounds, but won’t be. She agrees.

Commercial

12:51 – Shaun and Janis take some time to stall some more by rehashing even more of the “Renee and The Sniper” plot we saw last week.

The guy from the Attorney General’s office goes to talk to Agent Larry and informs him that he knows that Renee is missing. Larry explains the situation, but the guy decides to be a jerk and presses the point that he would just love to have an investigation as soon as he possibly could. Agent Larry stands up to the guy for being a jerk.

Janis calls Larry, using the same ringtone they used to use in CTU. She tells him that Renee was referenced during an NSA intercepted phone conversation, and it wasn’t a telemarketer. She tells Larry to come and listen to the conversation.

While Larry is on his way over, Janis tries to impress Shaun with her elite minesweeper skills, but he isn’t impressed. Larry finally gets there and they play the clip: They’re going to kill Renee.

12:55 – The yellow van stops at the abandoned construction site, and Emerson gives Jack a gun to kill Renee. He and Tony get Renee. Emerson and Miscellaneous Thug watch while she and Jack talk. Jack fake kills her, grazing her neck.

12:59 – Jack covers her with a giant sheet of plastic wrap, and walks back. Emerson tells Jack and Tony to bury her, which Tony and Jack start to do, even though Renee is really still alive.

1:00 pm – TIME’S UP!

NEXT TIME ON 24: BRIAN STILL HASN’T KILLED HENRY! DUBAKU PUTS SOMETHING HORRIFYING OUTSIDE THE PRESIDENT’S WINDOW WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING! JACK WANTS TONY TO SHOOT EMERSON SO THEY CAN GET ON WITH THE SHOW! SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

24 – Season 7 – 11 am to 12 noon


Previously on 24 happened 5 minutes ago

11:00 am – Janis immediately tells Walker that Tony and Jack got into a black panel van, which is interesting because they really got into a bright blue van. Sean tells Walker someone is still jamming cameras.

Agent Larry and Agent Walker talk, and they’re both pretty upset that Jack is a much, much better Agent than they are. A phone call comes for Larry, from the White House. Walker swears she’ll get Jack.

Janis brings up a profile on Tanner – he’s a Gulf vet, tried to sue the government, his momma can’t dance, and his daddy don’t rock and roll. Walker says she wants to talk to him when he wakes up.

11:01 – Larry’s phone call with the White House doesn’t go very well when he tells them that Tony and Jack are working together. Ethan tells Larry that he “royally screwed up”, and that he knows, because he’s made some pretty bad decisions himself. They tell him that getting Jack and Tony is his only priority.

Ethan says, “Bottom line, the Bureau is not going to be an answer to our prayers.” Allison says, “Yes, but a nice Futon might be. How much time does this leave us?” Ethan tells her a little less than two episodes, so they better get around to picking furniture right away. They rehash the plot line they talked about just a few minutes ago, and walk around, speaking in very concerned voices.

11:06 – For a bunch of guys on the run, Bill, Tony and Jack sure do take their own sweet time walking up the set of stairs in their own secret hideout – but that’s what they’re doing.

Jack asks Bill, “What do you call this place?” Bill says, “CTU, with light and wood paneling”. Chloe appears and says, “Hey.” Jack says, “Hey”.

Jack asks the burning question, “Tony, why the heck aren’t you dead?” Tony tells him that he was dead for 10 minutes, but Dr. Horrible brought him back to life by singing a song Joss Whedon wrote, and via a hypo needle that Emerson supplied. Rather than using this miracle drug to make millions, Emerson decided to recruit a bunch of ex-operatives to hire out to clients.

Tony says he really was working for Emerson, at was a very naughty boy. The last straw was the module, and that Dubaku was planning on killing innocent Americans. Tony couldn’t go to the authorities because the plot line for this season would be a lot shorter, and wouldn’t have involved Jack at all. Besides, there were agents within the government that Dubaku was paying off, so it wouldn’t have worked anyway.

Tony says he needs to get back undercover right away. Jack points out that everybody is going to know that Tony escaped, and might have made a deal with Monty Hall, and possibly the US attorney. Jack realizes he might be able to help, and asks how many people are involved in this very complex operation. Bill says counting himself, Tony and Chloe – Three. He says, “Three. No more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.” Chloe says, “Skip a bit, Bill”. Bill starts to continue, but Jack interrupts to ask if they have proof. Bill says, they do, but only at the lowest level, and that they need more quarters to make it to a higher level. Jack says he’ll help, but only because they’re the only people he can trust right now.

11:10 – A thug meets with Emerson to tell him that he has a couple of fresh thugs to replenish the supply, since the last thugs were shot. Emerson is surprised to receive a phone call from Tony, who says that everything is fine because Jack is on-board with the plan, is ready to synergize the strategy, and is generally a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is. Emerson tells Tony to bring Jack with him when he comes back.

Commercial

11:16 – Henry writes a note, puts it in his pocket, and tells Agent Named-By-Dr-Seuss that he needs to go see Samantha. The Agent agrees to get a car so they can go. President Allison tells Henry that she has to meet with the Prime Minister, but she isn’t sure what to do. Henry says that she’ll do the right thing, and she asks him not to quote movie titles.

11:19 – Sean tells Walker that they have 17 units in the field. Walker wants Sean to widen a perimeter, which isn’t a euphemism, so he does. They want to find Jack.

Sean’s wife calls Sean from a plane, directly into the middle of the top secret FBI analyst room, using an airline phone that can’t possibly be hacked. Sean admits that there’s a problem with the planes up in the air right now, and that she shouldn’t worry. Surprisingly, she’s not at all worried by this news, but is in fact relieved, indicating she must have some kind of “I react completely the opposite of the way most people would react” syndrome. She promises to call Sean as soon as possible.

Turns out that Janis isn’t the only nosey person in the analyst room: Erika asks Sean about his wife’s plane. Sean seems really irritated by the fact this this plot line seems a lot more like Die Hard 2 as time goes on.

Janis runs over to Walker to let her know that The Sniper is now awake, and ready to not answer any questions. Walker promotes Janis to Field Agent Janis, and they leave to go talk to Tanner (The Sniper).

11:21 – Jack asks Tony about Emerson. Tony says, he’s British, former SAS, urban warfare, sniping, close quarter combat, and a really good dancer. Tony tells Jack that Emerson treated him like a brother when nobody else would. Jack says, “What, do you mean like… noogies? Is this going to be a problem?” Tony assures Jack that he’ll do what has to be done.

11;22 – They pull up to a building on yet another completely deserted DC street. Tony rings the doorbell, and says, “Candygram”. A thug answers, and lets them in. Emerson tells Thug One and Thug Two to take Jack downstairs, because he needs to talk to Tony alone. They do. Emerson tells Tony that Jack isn’t worth the risk.

11:23 – Jack has a seat downstairs, while Emerson and Tony talk things over. Emerson gets all Hollywood on Tony saying, “I’m going a different way.” Tony pleads Jack’s case, but Emerson won’t listen. He decides it would be better to get rid of Jack, and that Tony should be the one to do it.

11:24 – This doesn’t sit well with Chloe AT ALL. She and Bill have been listening in on one of Chloe’s listening devices, which she has access to, even after CTU disbanded. I can only guess she grabbed a handful on her way out of the building, or bought them at a CTU garage sale. Bill says that if Jack dies, Tony’s position will be complete, which sounds a little too “Emperor Palpatine” for Chloe. Chloe says that Bill must have known this was going to happen, and Bill admits he read ahead in the script, but Jack knew it too.

11:25 – Jack realizes what’s about to happen, so he decides to change things up and beats the hell out of both Thug One and Thug Two before they know what’s happening.

Emerson comes downstairs. Jack tells him that he’s much better than both Thug One and Thug Two put together, so Emerson should hire him instead. Emerson throws all logic out the window, and agrees. Even Thug Two thinks he’s crazy, and tells Emerson he’s going to leave if he doesn’t kill Jack. Emerson walks over to Jack, points his gun, turns and kills Thug Two with one shot. Emerson shoots him a couple of times more, because he remembered that even though Tony was dead, he came back, so he’s going to make EXTRA sure Thug Two won’t come back.

Commercial

11:30 – Sean calls an air traffic controller, impersonates Agent Larry, GIVES HIS LEVEL 5 SECURITY CODE CORRECTLY, and has his wife’s plane re-routed. I’m guessing that Sean might have packed his wife’s bags this morning, and things aren’t going to end well.

11:31 – Dubaku has sent another message to the White House, which President Allison and the Prime Minister listen too. She rehashes her dilemma AGAIN, just to be sure that everyone watching fully understands. The Prime Minister throws in an extra problem: Juma’s about to attack a refugee camp. The PM pleads with her not to abandon his country, and leaves.

She turns to tell Ethan that she’s not happy with not knowing the slight “detail” about the refugee camp, and that if he knows anything else, like who the fifth cylon is, who’s going to win American Idol, or what the heck is going on Lost, she wants to know right now. Ethan wants her to back down, but she’s not so sure. She tells Ethan to check with the FBI about Tony and Jack.

11:35 – Emerson tells Jack, “No hard feelings”. Jack’s changed clothes, and is now wearing black like all the bad guys. They go into a big long dialog, about why Jack came back. Jack says things like, “I wanted to know what it felt like to walk into a propeller” and “I wanted to start a dialog”. The conversation was confusing enough that Emerson buys the whole thing. It also sets him off guard enough that he forgets to speak in his British accent. Emerson gets a phone call, and takes it.

11:39 – Tony walks over to Jack to ask what’s going on, and plants some kind of security bug near Jack, presumably Chloe and Bill can listen in. He tells Jack to watch himself around Emerson, but not in that way. Emerson isn’t to be trusted.

Emerson gets off the phone call, and says they have to get a package to a client. It turns out the “package” is the Prime Minister.

Chloe hears this and realizes they’re going to torture and probably kill the Prime Minister, possibly not even that order, and she’s upset. She wants to call someone. Bill says if they do that now, the show will end early, and they’ll never find out about the greater conspiracy. Chloe reluctantly goes along.

Commercial

11:43 – Henry and his Secret Service Agent arrive at a park in yet another completely deserted street. Henry convinces the agent to leave, and goes off to talk to Samantha.

11:44 – Samantha meets with Henry and says that Roger’s death wasn’t an accident. Roger found out about some illegal trading going on, which even by the SEC’s recent standards couldn’t be ignored. Roger found out about a lot of offshore accounts that were trading with Sangala, which is weird since as we all know, it’s a fictional country. The evidence lead to a senior member of President Allison’s staff, but Samantha doesn’t know who it is. She gives Henry some evidence, and asks to be left out of it. We see that Henry’s Secret Service Agent was watching them from the bridge, probably taking video that’ll be posted to YouTube later.

11:48 – Walker and Janis arrive at the hospital, and tell the agent there to watch out for Tanner’s lawyers. Walker and Janis enter the room, and she starts questioning him. He must have been following tonight’s “action”, because he’s nearly asleep while he answers questions. He finally tells Walker to go away, she grabs him in the face and makes him do a fish imitation, but that doesn’t convince him to wake up or talk. The agent calls, and says the lawyers are on the way.

Walker and Janis leave the room. Walker tells Janis to stall the lawyers. Janis is pretty upset that Walker isn’t following federal guidelines, but finally goes along.

11:49 – Walker goes back in to talk to Tanner. Janis distracts the lawyers by saying she’s pretty sure she has reasonable grounds for a personal injury case, which gets them very excited.

In the hospital room, Tanner won’t talk to Walker so she pulls a gun on him and presses it into his gut. He doesn’t talk, and she starts to leave. He laughs, which causes her to turn around and cut off his air supply. He starts to choke just as they go to commercial.

Commercial

11:55 – Janis keeps moving the lawyers around, who finally stop to ask a nurse. She looks him up and realizes there’s been a ventilator malfunction. The lawyers AND Janis quickly write down the name of the hospital on their hands, with the note: “In case of emergency, do NOT take me here”. The nurse runs to the room, which is jammed. Walker finally leaves the room, calls Agent Larry and lets him know about the plot to kidnap the Prime Minister. Larry tells her not to go alone, so she gets in the car to go alone.

11:57 – At the Sangalan embassy, a Sangalan agent who looks exactly like Eko’s brother Yemi from LOST, gets a phone call with a very similar ringtone to American ringtones. Agent Larry tells him that the Prime Minister is in danger. The agent hangs up and starts telling all the other agents that an interesting plot twist might just happen in a few minutes. They don’t even have to wait that long, because Emerson and crew blow up a glass window they were able to hide behind without anyone noticing. They run in and start shooting people.

11:58 – The agent gets the Prime Minister and his wife to a safe room, and they lock themselves inside, with the agent outside. The door looks secure, so Jack goes into a room right next to it and uses a golf club to tear a whole in the wall to get to the prime minster.

11:59 – The Prime Minister tries to make a phone call, but can’t. Jack realizes that he’s going to need a bigger golf club, because the one he has won’t go through the reinforced concrete.

12:00 noon – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON 24: JACK HANDCUFFS WALKER! PRESIDENT ALLISON AUTHORIZES AN ATTACK! THE SAFE ROOM ISN’T AS SAFE AS IT APPEARS!

24 – Season 7 – 10 am to 11 am


Previously on 24, we found out: Red Foreman wouldn’t dare call Jack “dumbass”; Jack likes to threaten people with pens; Air traffic control should never be in a basement; Tony could play a part in the “bring out your dead” portion of Monty Python and the Holy Grail; and we’ve missed 24!

10 am – President Allison is pretty upset about Tony not having the air traffic control module, since she thinks it would be “fun” to control planes, and she wants one too. It turns out the module is with Colonel Dubaku, the butcher of Sangala. This guy is not someone you’d go to for suggestions on which roast to buy, because he’s slaughtered over 300,000 people, and no one told him he shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. Dubaku got a message to the FBI, which is played to President Allison. She understands the complete thing, despite the really rotten audio recording. Dubaku wants all the troops out of his country by tomorrow, with proof in three hours, and his own Mini-Me.

President Allison asks about the firewall, which, as noted before, took years to build. Agent Tim tells her that they can get the whole thing revamped in six days, which means that engineers at the FBI must be using the Lt. Scott method of engineering estimation. It’s still not fast enough for President Allison, so she tells people the need to start contacting first responders to they have time to get out of the way of the coming trouble.

10:05 – Agent Larry’s helicopter lands with Tony, Agent Walker and Jack. Tony leaves to be questioned, while Agent Larry confronts Agent Walker about why she didn’t go through channels. Jack, who was standing four feet away, walks up to give an explanation, which freaks Larry out. Larry says, “Excuse me! This is private!” Jack looks at him and says, “What? Really? I was standing, like four feet away!” He goes on to ask how The Sniper could have gotten out of the building when there was a full PERIMETER (there’s that word again), around the whole thing. Larry seems perplexed by this, as if he missed the days the talked about perimeters in FBI Manager class.

Jack tells Larry that he needs to tighten the circle around Tony to no more information leaks out or they’ll never get the module back. Larry tells him they’re a lot higher tech at the FBI these days – they use Depends, not circles. Larry finally agrees, saying they’re going to limit access to level 4 clearance and above, and get Janis to run a security check to see if she can track down the lead without trying to suck up to anyone.

Larry gets a phone call from the White House, which he thinks will impress Walker and Jack. Larry tells Walker to keep him “in the loop”; Jack looks like he really does want to keep Larry in a loop, but not in a way Larry would like. Larry leaves, and Jack removes his glasses dramatically.

10:09 – In an interrogation room, Agent Janis tells Tony that she has to lift up his shirt. Not for any good reason; she just wanted to look at his chest. Suddenly she realizes she might be on camera, so she hooks up some iPod ear buds to Tony’s chest. She asks if he’s comfortable, and Tony gives her a “you’re kidding, right?” look.

Walker and Jack arrive in an adjoining room, where they get popcorn and a drink while waiting for the interrogation to start. Walker tells Janis to go check communications, and red tag all information that has to do with Tony, so it can go on sale later. Janis looks really disappointed that she won’t be there to zorch Tony with the ear buds. Walker tells her the next time they’re going to torture someone, Janis will be the first person they think of. Janis leaves. Tony still hasn’t said a thing.

Janis gets back to her workstation. Sean is pretty freaked out he can’t get to half the servers in the building. Janis tells him to quit worrying about servers, that another waitress will be around shortly, and to go back looking through the evidence he can access with his clearance.

10:11 – In the undisclosed secret terrorist hideout, Emerson gives Nichols the news about Tony being captured by the FBI. Emerson wants to use assets to bring get him out, but Nichols says he doesn’t have anyone names “Assets”, and that there’s no way to do that without jeopardizing their mission. Dubaku comes over with the very upsetting news that, shockingly, the US troops haven’t moved away from Sangala, even though the President just heard the news 10 minutes ago. Dubaku wants to give her a demonstration to prove they’re serious. Nichols tells him they don’t have the PowerPoint slides ready, so he’ll have to wait for the White House to respond.

10:13 – Agent Larry comes back to tell Walker that Tony has been working for General Juma, and that Tony wants to blackmail the White House. Jack asks “How”, which Larry misunderstands as some kind of Indian greeting. He also can’t believe that Jack can hear the conversation from literally five feet away, but tells him that Dubaku and Juma want a complete troop withdrawal from Sangala. Jack promises to get the module… all they have to do is let him talk to Tony. Larry makes a big show of acting distraught about the whole thing, but lets Jack in to talk to Tony anyway.

10:15 – Jack asks how Tony preformed the great “I was dead, but now I’m not” trick. Jack tells Tony that he can save time, pain, and a lot of money on his car insurance if he’ll just say where the module is. He assures Tony that being friends with a genocidal maniac won’t look very good on his permanent record either, especially with thousands of American lives at stake.

Tony tells him that Juma’s pretty serious about his threats, and it should make for at least one exciting moment later in the show, but he can’t tell Jack anything about it now. Jack asks why Tony is doing this, and Tony tells him that when the part came up for a “Tony” this season, he thought he’d be perfect for the part. He also says that Juma was willing to pay real cash money for the module, as opposed to Monopoly money. Jack looks disappointed, and says he doesn’t believe him.

Tony starts to go on a diatribe about how the people in the government doing the kinds of jobs they do, don’t really care about what happens to their agents, or their lives. Tony tells jack that his own life has been pretty screwed up this way: His daughter won’t talk to him, Terry’s dead, and Audrey…. As soon as Audrey’s name is mentioned, Jack – and everyone else in America – yells for Tony to shut up. Jack gets really hostile when Tony tells him that its like those people are “spitting on Terry’s grave”. Jack slams Tony against the wall, telling him “So help me God, I’ll kill you, and this time you’ll stay dead”. Tony whispers something that sounds like “Deep sky”, and Jack asks him to repeat it. He says the same thing again. Larry busts in the room, and tells Jack to leave.

10:17 – Jack leaves the room, and dials “1-555-DEEP-SKY”. There’s an answer! The voice on the other end asks who it is, and it turns out to be BILL! Bill’s all dressed in black, so he’s obviously on a covert operation of some kind. Bill is surprised to hear that it’s Jack on the phone, and that he’ll ten minutes to go to commercial and figure out how to call Jack on a secure VPN line. Bill hangs up, and he’s with CHLOE!

Bill tells Chloe that they’re going to need Jack’s help to get Tony back undercover. Chloe responds that Jack doesn’t seem to be in a very helpful frame of mind. Bill says that he plans to say, “Help us Jack Bauer, you’re our only hope”. Chloe refuses to wear Princess Leia hair-buns to ask Jack this.

Commercial

10:22 – Ethan meets First Hubby Henry as Henry arrives back at the White House. Ethan tells Henry that he really just needs to forget about Roger, and that Roger killed himself rather than be on a full season of “24”. Henry doesn’t believe this for a minute. Ethan tells him it’s all probably because Roger was doing some insider trading, and that he was about to be investigated by the SEC. Henry finds this hard to believe because over the last couple of years NOBODY has been investigated by the SEC. Ethan says President Allison knew all about this, and that’s why they’ve been quiet about it. Ethan leaves to talk to the President, and tells Henry not to say anything.

10:24 – Ethan meets with the President who say they’ll have to order the pull back by at least two and half episodes from now. She says that Agent Tim told her that Tony isn’t talking, so her choice is: 1) condemning innocient Americans to death; 2) thousands of Sangalans slaughtered; or 3) let Jack Bauer loose to try and save the day. Ethan only hears options 1 and 2. She asks, “How did this happen, Ethan?” Ethan says, “Hey, I’m stuck in this show too, you know how this happened as well as I do.” Ethan says he votes for #2. The President says she wants to keep working on options so neither of them ends up in #2.

10:29 – Chloe is at her laptop getting a secure line, proving that she doesn’t need a room full of computers to prove her LEET engineering skills. Bill calls Jack back. Jack asks what the hell is going on, because he hasn’t read ahead in the script yet. Bill says that Tony isn’t a terrorist, that he’s been working under “deep cover”. Bill continues, and says that Tony was supposed to be watching the module this whole time, but since he was arrested, they lost track of it. The reason for this is (surprise) the inner circle around the president is corrupt, which in the whole history of 24 has never happened before. They just don’t know who the bad guys are right now.

Jack asks which agency is running the operation. Bill says that there is no agency, because the conspiracy is too widespread, and besides he got REALLY bored after CTU shut down, so he needed something to do for a while. Bill says they need to get Tony back under cover ASAP, and that Chloe says “hi”. Chloe gets on the line, and tells him that she can’t believe Senator Red Foreman talk to Jack that way, that Jack looked good on CSPAN, and that the camera didn’t add 20 pounds to him like it does for most people.

Bill asks Jack for his help to get Tony back out of the FBI, and Jack says he needs Chloe to help them find a way out of the building because someone took down all the exit signs.

Commercial

10:33 – Agent Janis goes to talk to Sean, who is still brooding over his computer. She asks about some files that got downloaded last week, but he’s distracted. She asks if she can help with the solitaire game he’s been playing. She walks away, and we see that what ever Sean has been doing, he keeps getting “access denied”.

10:34 – Henry’s phone rings. It’s Samantha! Henry apologizes, but she stops him and tells Henry that Roger was murdered!

10:35 – Agent Larry asks Tony where the module is by asking him in a very stern voice. Tony doesn’t crack, so Larry raises his voice. That doesn’t work either, despite Larry’s Borg-like Bluetooth implant in his ear. Larry tries whining a bit, and showing Tony some black and white Photoshop-ed pictures, but none of this gets Tony to crack.

Tony tells Larry that unless Juma’s demands are met, planes are going to start falling from the sky, because he has powerful magnets all over the country just ready to go, and that any pictures Larry has will be of dead Americans – and not the Grateful Dead ones either.

Walker calls Larry, and tells him that Tony won’t crack. Walker wants to torture Tony, “just a little bit”. Larry recoils at this idea, and tells her that he wants Jack completely out of the building. I’m sure Jack will love this idea, since that was his plan anyway.

10:37 – Walker goes into the FBI analyst room, and Agent Janis practically yells across the room that she found might have found the leak, but that she has to go into the “mainframe room” to pull some of the vacuum tubes to get the user id. Janis leaves.

Walker asks Agent Teller, who appears to be the FBI bellhop, that Jack is about to check out of Hotel FBI and to go get Jack’s belongings.

10:38 – Janis goes down to the mainframe room, which is smaller than you’d expect and brings up a terminal which is about 3 feet off the ground, just her height. She is shocked to find out that Sean was the one that accessed the computers without authorization. And, of course, what with the lax security around the place, she turns around and sees Sean standing there.

She confronts him with the information about the database access, and he tells her there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation: He’s been stalking his own wife’s plane, and when he couldn’t stalk her without the right clearance, he decided to break federal law so he could keep stalking her. He brings it up on the workstation, and Janis completely believes him. Sean leaves.

10:41 – Chloe, back in form, already has broken into all the security camera at the FBI. She calls Jack to tell him that Agent Walker is on her way, already has film loops that can be installed so Jack can get away, and is writing a UNIX kernel module in her spare time.

Walker enters Jack’s room, and she thanks him for Tony, and that they “wouldn’t have him if it weren’t for you”. Jack gives her a big hug, tells her “don’t fight it” (which is more than a little disturbing) and makes her pass out. He grabs her gun.

Commercial

10:46 – Chloe calls Bill to let him know what Jack’s status is. Jack leaves the room, and confronts Larry and an officer in the interrogation room. Larry looks completely surprised by this, because he was sure Tony was going to crack under the pressure of his stern tone of voice. Larry starts to talk a little too much, and Jack finally elbows him in the face. Tony does the same thing to the officer, who just happens to be just at the right place for this. As they leave, Jack tells Tony that Chloe’s on the job, so getting out of the building should be no problem, just like old times.

They make it past a couple of agents, and Tony and Jack apologize to each other for saying nasty things and nearly killing each other. They continue to try and leave the building.

10:49 – Sean notices there’s a 0.7% performance hit on one of the servers, which greatly alarms Janis. They realize that someone’s hacked into the system, not realizing they’re up against Chloe. Chloe is using a Mac, while the FBI people are using PCs, which could slow them down, but they’re using Windows XP instead of Vista. Janis “pings” the line, knocking Chloe offline. Sean brings up a picture of Agent Larry knocked out in interrogation room 1, saves a picture of it for the next office party, and sends it to Janis. Janis calls security, who sets off an alarm, altering Jack and Tony they’ve been found out. Five officers run down the hall, which hardly seems far, since they’re all against Jack. Jack asks Chloe for some more help, but she says she’s blocked, and…

Oh oh, Chloe says she’s pissed off.

Commercial

10:55 – Tony and Jack are still locked down, even after spending time hiding for the whole commercial. They make a break for the stairwell, which is completely unguarded. Larry and Walker get in the analyst room, where Janis and Sean announce they’ve found Jack and Tony in the stairwell. Larry orders a perimeter around the building. Now, if I were Jack, I’d try and meet with someone in the basement to get a way out that way, since that’s the way Sniper fooled everyone who set up the last building perimeter.

Jack’s got a much better plan – Chloe! She breaks back in, surprising Janis with her LEET SKILLZ. Chloe tells them about a pending ambush, so Jack and Tony go out a window. Walker and Larry are mad now. You can tell because they each use the word “perimeter” within 30 seconds of each other.

Jack and Tony go to a parking garage. Jack provides some cover while Tony jumps off the garage onto a car. Jack jumps into a car, hot-wires it and floors it without looking where he’s going. Jack screams while the car heads for the barricade to the outside, since he realizes at the last moment that he forget his seatbelt. While this is going on, a bright blue, completely inconspicuous van pulls up next to Tony. It’s Bill! Jack and Tony make their getaway! One of the officers uses the word “perimeter” to tell everyone how grave the situation is.

In the van, Jack asks what’s going on, and Bill tells him that they have to go to commercial so he’ll have to tell him next hour!

11:00 am – Time’s up

24 – Season 7 – 9 am to 10 am


Previously on 24 – We watched Hour 1. What, you forgot that already?

9:00 am – Air traffic control is pretty upset, and decides to really freak everyone on board by trying to call all the passengers.

9:01 am – Agent Larry gets a phone call, and finds out the bad guys are using terrorist plan Die Hard 2. Everyone at FBI is pretty sure they have no idea what to do.

9:02 am – Walker calls Larry. Larry explains about the “Die Hard 2” plan, Walker explains about the “Schector has too much lead in his diet” plan. Jack realizes that Tony must have a plant at FBI, and tells Walker. Walker says she has plants all over the office, and that’s what makes it a nice place to work. Jack tells her he means someone at FBI must be working with Tony. Walker doesn’t believe him.

9:06 am – Jack is asked to give up his gun, which he does, since he can use just about anything to kill anyone, anyway. Jack gets in a SUV and leaves with Agent Killner, whose name Jack approves of.

Walker talks to the agent Jack was speaking with, and he assures her they’ll get the guy as soon as SWAT gets there. There’s no UPS truck yet in sight, so it might be a while.

Meanwhile, the sniper has made it from the roof all the way down to the lobby, where we see a bunch of FBI agents standing around chit-chatting about sitcoms they saw last night. The sniper heads back upstairs.

9:07 – Agent Janice (formerly Agent Garaffilo) is still a little freaked out about “all these guns and stuff”, while Agent Larry gives her and Shawn some orders. Air traffic control calls back and tells Larry that despite their best efforts, they still haven’t figured out how to contact the plane, even through nearby airports in the area. The air traffic control manager hangs up.

They still don’t know what’s going on, until one of the screens starts flashing with strange animated green icons. Tony has a similar screen, but his looks more like a Matrix screen saver.

The manager gets a phone call from Tony, who tells him to bring up the video feed from the tower at JFK… and then the manager hangs up on Tony! I’m not sure I would have done that.

The planes are on a collision course. We can tell this by the animations of planes on green screens and the concerned looks on people’s faces. At the last second, Tony tells one of the planes to pull up. That plane does, and narrowly misses the first plane. All the people on that plane do another Star Trek lurch. Everyone looks really relieved. Tony calls back and tells the air traffic control manager that was just a warning.

Commercial

9:16 – Walker and the FBI agents all get into a staring contest with the building through television monitors in a van, trying to force out the sniper that way. The building is winning, and there’s no sign of the sniper.

9:17 – A black car, with thugs all dressed in black arrive at Tony’s place. One of them announces himself as Emerson, which sounded remarkably like “terrorism”. Tony gets one of his thugs to remove Lathan’s handcuffs, which had to make it hard to work on that module. Lathan is told to go get cleaned up.

Emerson arrives, and Tony gives him the air traffic control module in a nice metal case, where it’s encased in foam. I can only assume that the previously over-heating module is not hot enough to melt the foam or make the case hot because of its advanced technology. He asks Tony how the FBI might have found out about Schector, and Tony actually has to explain who Jack Bauer is, and that he’ll take care of him. Tony wants to know the rest of the plan, since he hasn’t been reading ahead in the script, but Emerson refuses because it’ll be more exciting that way.

9:20 – Back in the White House, Ethan talks to the press secretary about what to tell the press and what not to tell the press, right outside the press room, where no one could possibly hear the conversation.

The press secretary tells the press that General Juma is a really bad guy, and that the US has used some really strong language, and that if he doesn’t listen, they’ll use even MORE strong language, and possibly even send in troops.

While this is going on, Ethan gets a phone call about the near miss the airplanes had, and leaves the press area.

9:21 – President Allison meets with the Prime Minister in the Oval office, with everyone standing around like they’re in a big photo op. Allison insists that Juma be treated fairly in a court of law, and that the law does eventually work, citing OJ as an example. The Prime Minister eventually agrees, and they shake hands.

9:23 – President Allison leaves the room. Ethan meets her outside to tell her about the near miss at JFK, and that Tony is behind it. Allison says, “This is unacceptable!” Ethan tells her, “Oh! Well! If it’s unacceptable, we’ll get a more acceptable terrorist to take over”. She brushes this off, telling him there must be some way of unhooking all these “doohickeys” so the terrorists can’t use ’em. Ethan says they’re working on it. Allison tells Ethan to get all the non-essential planes grounded. This is probably a similar order to that has been used in Washington to get rid of all non-essential traffic to allow Jack to drive around, unimpeded.

9:24 – Emerson gets a phone call from the Sniper, and hands the phone to Tony. The Sniper is SHOCKED, just SHOCKED, that he’s trapped in the building. He’s not sure how this could have possibly have happened. The SWAT team is still looking around for him in the building.

9:25 – Out in the car, Agent Killner tells Jack that he loves the show, and asks for an autograph. He also says that he thinks Senator Red Foreman had no right to be questioning him like that. Jack says that it’s OK, because it’s a plot device they haven’t used before, and that if more people knew about the show, there would be even more viewers than there are now.

9:27 – Agent Leonard, who is completely alone, and without any of the SWAT team the rest of the agents were waiting for, moves around a dark basement, forgetting to turn on the lights, which would have helped him see The Sniper, and made this sentence much shorter.

Leonard and Sniper suddenly see each other, but neither of them shoots because that would be what everyone expected them to do.. That’s a good thing for both of them because Leonard, because he tells Sniper, “Tony sent me to get you out”. Leonard gives Sniper an FBI jacket, car keys, and big hug from Tony, and Sniper slinks back off into the dark. Leonard radios up, and says that the basement is clear, forgetting he doesn’t have an extra FBI jacket for himself.

9:28 – Jack says, “Agent Walker – She’s good, huh?” Killner misunderstands and says, “She knows what it takes to get the job done.” Jack senses that he’s needed outside, so he asks Killner if he can get out to get a breath of “fresh air”, which is Jack code for “I’m about to get a bad guy”.

When he steps out, Jack immediately notices that all the agents buy their shoes at the same store, except one guy (Sniper). Going on his “one of these things is not like the other” hunch, he tells Walker not to have the FBI follow Sniper. Jack tells her it would be “more fun and stuff” if they followed Sniper on their own. She immediately wins Jack’s respect by using the word “perimeter” too, and gets the keys to another agent’s car. She and Jack follow Sniper.

Commercial

9:34 – Emerson tells Lathan to do as he’s told, and he’ll stay alive. They arrive at a new secret location, which looks exactly like the last dark room they were in, except this has bigger computer screens. Speaking of alive, Colonel Dubaku is too. He was last seen nearly getting blown up in Africa, but now he’s standing in this new secret location. Emerson gives the module to Dubaku. Dubaku must be really upset with our government for messing around with his and Juma’s girlfriends, because he tells Emerson that the US is going to pay the price for “interfering with our affairs”.

9:36 – At the Oval Office, Agent Tim tells President Allison that the multi-year project that it took to build the fire would take literally weeks or even months to re-engineer. Nobody in the room questions how a multi-year project could be redone in a couple of months, because they’re afraid of looking dumb in front of computer expert Agent Tim. Turns out that the national power grid and the water system are also controlled by this SAME computer system, and boy, if someone has to reboot, there’s gonna be trouble. Thank goodness computers never need to reboot.

9:37 – Ethan gets is fiftieth phone call in the last hour, this time from the agent that’s with the First Hubby. This agent is named Gitch, or Gidge, or something like that. Whatever it is, it sounds like he was named by Dr. Seuss. In any event, he informs Ethan that the First Hubby is going to see his son’s ex-girlfriend, that FH has hired a private investigator, and that President Allison needs to know.

9:38 – At FBI, Agent Larry talks with Agent Janis. She informs him that Walker and Jack have both left the building, and so has Elvis.

9:39 – Jack and Walker follow Sniper in their car. Jack gets a little spooked until Walker explains to him that what he’s seeing is called “traffic” and a “red light”. Jack explains that he never saw this sort of thing when driving around Los Angeles. Agent Larry calls Walker and asks where she and Jack are. She says, “Earth”, which seems to placate him at first, but he’s still suspicious so he tells Agent Janis to try and figure out where Walker is by using the signal in her radio.

9:40 – Walker asks Jack how far he would have gone, and Jacks’ about to answer when he realizes she meant with Schecter. He says it doesn’t matter, because all the script said was to draw on his face.

Commercial

9:48 – At an office, First Hubby meets with Sam, the girlfriend of Roger (his son) on the terrace of a building, where no snipers could possibly shoot him. First Hubby asks her about the $400,000 in the Grand Cayman account, and she says it’s money from her aunt that just happened to go into HER account, instead of her aunt’s account. First Hubby points out that Turbo Tax has no way of accounting for this kind of fraud, and if they IRS finds out she’ll be SOL. Oh, and that he doesn’t believe her. He threatens her, and the Secret Service detail intervenes, telling him they have to go.

9:51 – Tony calls Sniper, who is POSITIVE that no one followed him. Tony tells him to stand by, and Tony prepares to leave. Jack realizes they might be spotted, so they stop the car 500 feet away, and park. Sniper’s car gets blocked from continuing by a fork lift, and stops. Ten seconds later, the fork lift moves, and Sniper drives his car another three feet, stops and parks.

Walker gives Jack a gun, and they follow after Sniper. Sniper’s just about go use his Thug Key card to get in this impenetrable chain-link fence when he hears a noise, and gets ambushed by Walker and Jack. Jack punches him a few times. Jack then uses his gun to shoot out a security camera. Tony doesn’t consider this the least bit freaked out that Jack might be there, despite years of working with Jack.

Turns out that the hideout Tony has been on is a boat. Jack approaches, using Sniper as a shield, which works out for Jack, since another gunman shoots Sniper. Walker shoots the gunman. Score is now 2 to 0. They get on the boat; another gunman – score is now 3 to 0. Walker and jack go below deck.

Walker finds a computer, which is displaying a green screen with the words “delete all system files”, which is just like every other computer in the world.

9:59 – Jack looks around, finds a door, and Tony busts through. Jack chases after him, and they briefly stop to exchange glances. Jack finally tackles him and subdues him. Agent Larry shows up by helicopter and Jack asks Tony, “What the hell happened”, which is exactly what viewers over the last two hours have asked themselves.

10:00 – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON 24: President Allison looks concerned! Jack Yells! Tony doesn’t change his expression! ALL TOMORROW NIGHT! SEE YOU THEN!

24 – Season 7 – 8 am to 9 am


Last time during “24: Redemption” – We learned that: Jack Bauer is equally effective in real locations and fictional locations; soccer has more rules in Africa than in America (notably, machine guns); sometimes people at embassies can be real jerks; and despite just trying to settle down and help orphans, bad people still manage to find Jack Bauer, and he still manages to kill them.

8:00 am – Someone who looks a lot like Dr. Flox from Enterprise argues with his daughter about not using a cell phone, and ends up getting into a major car accident while using his cell phone. Guys in black vans grab the man out of his car right after having the accident. I’m guessing this happened in Miami.

8:02 am – Someone who looks a lot like Red Foreman is starting a congressional hearing with JACK BAUER testifying! Jack Bauer turns down having an attorney, because he is, of course, Jack Bauer. The senator starts asking questions about people, and Jack tells him the answers are classified. The senator states that it sounds like Jack tortured people. Jack doesn’t answer, and when the Senator asks why, Jack tells him that the Senator forgot to answer in the form of a question but he’d like to answer the final Jeopardy question for all his money.

8:06 am – The Senator says he wants the truth, and Jack tells him he can’t handle the truth. The Senator and Jack start to argue about Jack’s methods of saving people, and Jack isn’t the least bit scared off by this, because he’s probably armed at this moment.

Before the Senator can say anything else, yet another branch of government comes in and asks for Jack’s services, which I’m guessing are going to be just like what the Senator was just objecting to. The Senator tells Jack that he can go, but that he has to be back at this same time tomorrow. The Senator doesn’t realize that Jack’s days are a lot more action packed that most people’s.

8:07 am – The female FBI agent introduces herself as Agent Walker, and tells Jack that he is going to be briefed when he gets to their offices. Jack says he wears boxers.

8:08 am – The agent gets a phone call from Agent Garaffilo, and is told that Michael Latham was the guy that got kidnapped in the morning. Turns out that this guy was an engineer, and nobody in the criminal world knows anything about getting into computers, so that’s why he was kidnapped.

8:09 am – A very concerned agent holds a briefing in a conference room full of people, who must have been waiting around in there in the first place, because the kidnapping only happened about 10 minutes ago. The people around the table ask some obvious plot advancing questions.

8:11 am – At a bad guy’s hideout, Lathan is already working on a computer. We can tell it’s a bad guy’s hideout because there are very few lights, unlike the good guy’s offices, which have lots of lights. Since Lathan is already working on the computer, this hideout must be about 2 blocks away from the accident scene, so of course no one was able to follow them there. Latham’s pretty good at his job, since he’s messing around with the computer while it’s still turned on. You’ll notice that it automatically turned off when the bad guy grabbed it.

This isn’t looking good though, because they keep showing airplanes, which means there’s going to be a pretty bad accident soon.

8:12 – Jack’s already at the FBI, meeting Agent Larry. Larry is sorry that his brothers Darryl and Darryl aren’t there to meet him too. Larry tells agent Walker that Jack is the type of guy that can go off at any moment, and Walker tells him she’s pretty sure that Jack isn’t wired for explosives.

Agent Garaffilo appears to be the office suck-up, because as soon as Agent Walker leaves to talk to Jack, she’s on Agent Larry like a South Florida retiree at a blue plate special.

8:13 – Agent Walker tells Jack that the government has a single firewall to protect all the extremely vital computer systems in the whole country. Before Jack can point out that doing that is a pretty stupid way to set up a network, she continues and says that they need his help. Jack says that he quit doing that, since his Senate indictment was getting in the way. He says he’s not sure why she wanted to talk to him in the first place, since there doesn’t appear to be anyone that needs to be shot in the thigh. Walker tells him that the person behind the firewall break-in is Tony Alemeda, who Jack last saw dead on the floor in CTU. (This gives me hope that Edgar, too, might not actually be dead.) Jack frowns while watching this, saying he always wondered why all federal computers take a long time to bring up pictures when the pictures on the Internet come up so much faster.

8:15 – Jack’s pretty upset that it might actually be Tony, since he never once called or wrote to him while he was in a Chinese prison. Jack says he knows a lot about Photoshop, and that he’s not convinced. Walker says that she dug up Tony’s grave, just in case they were dealing with a Zombie Tony, and it turns out that DNA evidence says that the body wasn’t Tony after all. Jack looks at the picture again and seems pretty upset.

8:16 – Tony comes out of the dark in the bad guy’s hideout, to look at the planes on the screen. The bad guys don’t understand how to use the module Latham worked on. It appears broken, most likely because they left the lid off the thing while they were using it. Tony brings the module back to Lathan, and threatens him with a never ending subscription to AOL if he doesn’t get the module working quickly, and that he won’t need Lathan’s tech support help soon. Lathan gets the message.

Commercial

8:21 – At the White House, Mrs. President watches a fake news channel about a fake country. The President and Ethan, her advisor, discuss the African situation and General Juma. Ethan thinks a bail out might help, but the president tells him he’s thinking of General Motors, which makes cars not dictatorships.

Henry, who looks remarkably like Mr. Keaton (but isn’t), walks in without knocking, which can be dangerous in the Oval Office, and is very concerned about someone who’s giving a very hazardous press conference. Henry is Mrs. President’s husband, the First Hubby.

The President gets some notes about a briefing before the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and is very excited until she finds out it has nothing to do with joints. Ethan says that he doesn’t want to sound like a broken record, and makes a hissing and popping noise. The President says that’s the worst impression she’s ever heard.

8:24 – The president enters the room and she thanks everyone for helping with the operation. She suddenly realizes her mistake, and leaves the operating room, and goes to meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that going to war is a very hard decision.

8:25 – Lathan fixes the module for Tony, saying it was just overheating and gets it back online. This really freaks out the real air traffic controllers, because they see a glitch on the system, and that never EVER happens to computers.

8:26 – Back in Walker’s office, she tells Jack that Tony is part of a home grown terrorist organization trying to mess around with infrastructure. Jack says that this whole “green” thing is going a bit far if people are starting to grown their own terrorists now. She tells Jack that Tony is probably a teensy bit upset that his wife, Michelle, was killed by a government task force, lead by the former president. Jack points out that everyone involved with that has been kicked off the show, so he still doesn’t get why Tony would be involved. He finally agrees to help, and Walker gives Jack access to Tony’s information.

8:28 – Agent Larry tells Walker about the glitch in air traffic control, and that it probably doesn’t mean good thing for frequent flyers. They all look very concerned.

8:29 – On the plane, everyone does a Star Trek lurch, proving the plane just hit turbulence or something scarier.

8:30 – Jack’s taken this time to read everything already, so Walker takes him to Shawn, while telling Jack about air traffic control. Shawn seems just thrilled by this.

8:31 – Back at the Joint Chief’s meeting, a guy who looks like he should be a general because of his white hair and bingo pad on his chest tells the President the plan to get Juma. He says all he needs is a go order from her. The President tells him he’ll get a green light as soon she gets Secretary Steven’s post invasion report. He says he really just needs a go order, not a traffic signal, but she doesn’t hear him. Steven’s is being passive aggressive, and she tells him she needs the report right away. Ethan pulls her away to talk to someone in the hall. As she leaves she says she expects Steven’s homework on her desk when she gets back.

Out in the hallway, Agent Tim tells her about everything nearly all the other characters in the show already know about – the air traffic control break-in. They discuss possible options – she wants to ground all the planes, but Tim says that if they do that, half the show will be over by then. He tells her that she’ll be briefed in real-time, as opposed to being briefed in future time, which is a lot trickier. The president says she doesn’t like the timing of this, and Ethan reminds her of the name of the show again.

Commercial

8:38 am – The First Hubby is having tea with a reporter, trying to bribe him with an exclusive story, but is interrupted by an agent. There’s a phone call for the First Hubby from someone named Chuck. The First Hubby is excited by this, and asks if Peppermint Patty is there, but it turns out to be a different “Chuck”.

8:39 am – Chuck looks like he’s either a Dabney Coleman impersonator, or a private investigator. Turns out that he’s investigating the mysterious death of the President’s and First Hubby’s son, and that his girlfriend got a mysterious $400,000 just before the son’s death, which they think might be slightly suspicious, but nobody’s investigated yet. The First Hubby asks the agent if Chuck might be leading him on, and the agent says he probably is. (First Hubby neglects to ask if there might be a massive internal conspiracy about this.)

8:41 am – Back at the FBI, Agent Garaffilo swears she’s checked all the sockets – (but I’m guessing that Chloe would have done a much better job), and freaks out a little bit, which is always something you want in an FBI agent.

8:42 am – Jack directs Shawn to keep typing for him, which thrills Shawn to death. Jack thinks that the access cards the bad guys have been using might have been forged, which is something that never occurred to the crack FBI staff. Jack recognizes the guy who likely forged the cards is Gabriel Schector, a supplier that he and Tony used to get things “off book”. The FBI agents are just about to screw up the plot by trying to get Schector the old-fashioned way, when Jack tells them that would be a mistake because it would really drag out the plot.

Agent Larry makes a crack about Jack wanting to torture the guy instead, and then when Jack starts to confront him, Agent Larry just eggs him on some more. Jack says that he really doesn’t care what they end up doing, because he’s the star of the show, and it’s in his contract that he’ll get to shoot some bad guys sooner or later. Walker interrupts this little macho fest that Agent Larry and Jack are having to ask how well Jack knows Schector. Jack says that he didn’t think Walker wanted a date that badly, but she ignores this. She asks to speak to Agent Larry privately, and they walk 5 feet away past a half-height cubicle where no one could possibly hear them.

8:44 am – Walker tells Agent Larry that she wants to take Jack to meet with Schector, and that she’ll keep Jack on a short leash. She goes back to Jack and says that they’re going to do things “her way”. Jack looks away as if to say, “She don’t know me very well, do she?”

Commercial

8:50 am – Washington streets are just as easy to get around on as Los Angeles streets, because Walker and Jack can drive around without even stopping once on the way to visit Schector. Jack tells Walker that he and Tony used to use Schector as a conduit. Walker says, “Wouldn’t that hurt?” Jack explains that they used Schector as a conduit for technology that he and Tony needed.

Walker asks if Jack and Tony were close, and Jack says they were, but in a “let’s go get the bad guys” way. They arrive outside of Schector’s building, where they meet an FBI agent that sticks out like a sore thumb on an otherwise relatively deserted street. He assures them that Schector’s inside.

8:51 am – Back in the President’s briefing room, she’s briefed by Steven’s on a computer monitor only capable of displaying yellow. She apologizes for “dressing down” Steven’s in front of the Joint Chiefs. He accepts her apology, and assures her that he doesn’t hate her freaking guts for doing that.

Ethan comes in and tells the President that the reporter isn’t going to say anything until WAY after the show is over, so they won’t have to deal with that plot line anymore. They will, however, have to deal with this whole kooky airplane thing. They exchange very concerned looks.

8:52 am – In the hallway outside the Apartment of Forgery, Jack hopes that Schector isn’t going to give up the information easily. Walker says that they work under the confines of the law, forgetting that Jack isn’t with the FBI.

8:53 am – Schector comes to the door after a HUGE thug answers the door and sees Walker’s badge. Schector’s a little freaked out that Jack is there, telling Walker that he has a witness (Huge Thug) if Jack does anything.

8:54 am – Schector asks Jack how that whole Senate Hearing thing is going. Jack is still maintaining his composure, since he hasn’t reached the Jack’s Mad Threshold yet. (It’s creeping up though.) Jack says that he just wants the information on the components Schector stole for Tony, which freaks out Schector a bit, and he tries to get Huge Thug to get them to leave. Jack asks, “Are you sure?” and before you know it, Walker already has Huge Thug down on the ground. Jack grabs a gun, pointing it at Schector, who yells, “This was unprovoked! Unprovoked!” Walker appears to have studied the Jack Bauer playbook, because she tells him, “He was going for his gun! I have a witness!” (Jack looks so proud right now.) Walker tells Jack to “do what it takes”.

Jack grabs to deadliest thing he can find – a ball point pen. Just as he’s about to draw on Schector’s face, Schector agrees to talk. He gets out the words, “Last time I saw Almeda”, triggering an explosive device in his chest, or possibly a shots from a sniper from across the street. Maybe both, because there is definitely a sniper across the street and Schector and Huge Thug get shot. Walker and Jack are pinned down for a moment, long enough for the sniper to run off.

8:57 am – The phone rings, and it’s for Jack! Tony finally called him, after all this time. Tony warns Jack to stay away, and it looks like Jack still doesn’t believe Tony has turned bad.

8:58 – On the airplane, they get instructions to land. An air traffic controller realizes that his video screen has effectively been turned into a video game, because he doesn’t have contact with the planes anymore. The person who does is Tony, who learned how to be an air traffic controller while he was busy not being dead. He gives them instructions, which freaks out the thug with Tony. The thug thought this whole, “Let’s steal air traffic control equipment and the engineer who knows how to get through the firewall” was just a prank. Tony assures him it isn’t.

9:00 am – Time’s up!

Parody Summary of 24 – Redemption


As many of you know, I blog summaries of “24” for Dave Barry’s blog, and host them here on my own blog as well. I post over there as “Steve (The 24 Guy)”.

Here’s a summary of “24: Redemption”, which aired tonight. Hope you like it.

Previously on 24, we found out: Jack Bauer was relieved when he was able to get out of Audrey’s room without waking her out of her coma; Jack’s brother and father were pretty much worse guys than he previously thought, which would explain why they didn’t stage an intervention when Jack started dating Audrey; Chloe told Morris she was pregnant, and despite all odds, Morris might have something to do with it; and most of all, people were willing to hang around for more than a year to watch Jack Bauer get back into action!

It’s four years after Jack escaped from Audrey. Sangala, Africa is staging it’s own Indiana Jones warehouse from the looks of it. They have VERY strict school bus laws there, because a guy with a machine gun is going through town with a bunch of boys. He takes a phone call from another guy who’s teaching a lot of little kids how to survive downtown Miami by giving them shooting lessons.

That night, around a campfire sing-a-long that only Jason Vorhees would love, the man at the training camp gives a boy a machete. They drag in a guy who is bloody and crying; he must have seen Audrey recently, but it turns out that he’s just someone who was working with the current government in that country. The guy in charge tells the kid to “kill the cockroach”, and the kid mistakenly kills the government worker instead. First Audrey, now death. That guy had a very bad day.

The “24” logo comes up! They remembered how to use it! They’re doing this real-time, which is how long we’ve waited for the show to start.

3:00 pm – Driving in the country, a guy complains about the air conditioning, but appears to be worried about the federal subpoena he’s holding.

Two kids argue in a school yard as a big truck arrives. It is a box shipment, from The Exciting Box Truck, and these kids look like they REALLY like boxes.

One of the boys goes into a bedroom and starts taking things from…. JACK BAUER! The kid looks like he knows what Jack might do, but it turns out that Jack doesn’t mind. Jack says the scarf the kid is looking at is for his daughter, Kim, if she hasn’t been attacked by a wild animal since he’s been gone. The kid starts interrogating Jack about which places he’s lived, which can only mean that Jack is being a mentor for a future agent! The kid really has to work on his snooping skills though, since Jack did after all catch him in the act.

The kid wants to know when Jack is going back home, and Jack says he’s not! The kid realizes this would make it tough to give Kim the scarf. Jack gives the kid, “Willy”, the scarf.

The head of the school comes back with a guy named Frank from the embassy. Frank wants Jack to come back with him, and tries to serve him a subpoena! Foolish Frank! Well, needless to say, Jack warms up for the rest of the show by grabbing Frank’s wrist and show Frank his own palm, which looks like it hurts. I’m guessing that will be the least painful thing Jack will do for the next two hours. Jack doesn’t take the subpoena and goes off the unload The Exciting Box truck.

Frank threatens Carl with a lack of funding, which is a pretty typical way that Washington types threaten people. Jack’s been moving all over the world, ducking that subpoena.

Back at the truck, the driver starts to harass Jack about the things Jack has done before, saying he’s only there to do penance, not knowing that even being associated with Audrey has been penance enough for Jack.

3:10 – At Camp Scary, where they let little kids have big knives, they’re unloading a truck with a lot of weapons. The head guy, Colonel Dubaku, seems to have a problem: More guns than soldiers. If they’d only realized that last night when they killed that guy.

A guy named Hodges from Washington calls Dubaku on either a state of the art satellite phone, or one of those big numbered cell phones for people that don’t know how to use them. It has a big antenna though, which makes me think that Hodges also has a really fancy sports car in the parking lot, if you know what I mean.

Hodges says that he’s heard Dubaku’s recruiting numbers are coming up short. Dubaku tells him, “Of course they’re short! These are little kids!” Hodges says that’s not what he meant. Hodges wants to send in some much taller soldiers, but Dubaku doesn’t want them. Hodges does want a phone call from someone named “Juma”.

Hodges gets off the phone and tells his subordinate that he’s paying for Dubaku’s country, which must mean this guy has either won several state lotteries, or works for the federal government. Hodges throws the guy the mutant cell phone and tells him he doesn’t want the “transactions” traceable. NOW he tells him. So much easier to do this sort of thing if you know beforehand that you don’t want things traceable.

At a stock broker’s office, a guy named Chris gets called into his boss’ office as Hodge’s is leaving. Chris is told to take some accounts, “burn the records, and bury the ashes”. Chris looks sad as he leaves to light fire to his collection of 45s and LPs.

Back in Africa, Carl (the head of the school) comes to see Jack and asks for a word. Jack almost says, “DAMMIT!” but stops himself when he realizes that’s not what Carl meant. Carl wants Jack to look at the subpoena, and Jack says he’s NOT going back. Carl says he hoped that when Jack called after ten years, he hoped it was for more than what Jack ultimately wanted. They look at each other for an uncomfortable moment, cough into their hands and say, “Hey! Want about that football game last Sunday?” and the moment passes.

Carl says that he stopped running, and found himself. Carl REALLY wants Jack to stay, but Jack says he’s going to move on because it would be better for everyone. Jack has thighs to shoot, and there doesn’t seem to be much thigh shooting around.

A guy on the truck is arguing with that pleasant man from the truck, saying that Juma is taking kids to make them soldiers, and not the “dress up for the school play” kind. The truck guy says that Juma doesn’t have any guns or weapons, but this talk really worries the kids.

3:18 – A bunch of kids are playing what they call “football”, because they play it with their feet. We in the US call that “soccer” because the name “football” was previously taken, even though in that game we sock people all the time. The other difference in their game, they have goats, chickens, logs and old cars on the field. The other hazards are grown men with machine guns that drive up in Jeeps They play a MUCH different game of soccer than we do.

After the game, a guy jumps out of the truck and tells them they’re now soldiers. Two of the kids take off running, and the soldiers chase after them, shooting them dead.

3:21 – Commercial

3:26 – A man and woman get dressed while watching the news on a extremely small HD TV, when the man, Roger, gets a phone call from Chris (that guy from the broker’s office who just burned all his 45s). Chris is really freaked out, because he might have burned the wrong records. Chris wants to meet Roger in 45 minutes, and the woman’s pretty upset. Turns out that Roger is the son of the next President of the United States! What a surprise! A 24 show with a tie-in with the President.

Well, soon to be President. She’s the President-Elect. Tom Lennox shows up and tells President-Elect Allison they just got word of an imminent coop in Sangala. She asks “how imminent”, and Tom tells her that on the scale of imminent coops, “one” meaning “I was just messing with you” and “ten” meaning “Houston, we have a problem”, this was at least a “9”. She stops her foot and says that this is exactly the sort of thing Joe Biden warned people about.

President Noah has got a MUCH better television system than Roger does, but right now he’s using it for a conference call to talk about those crazy Sangalan school buses with machine guns with the Prime Minister of Sangala. The PM wants Noah to help, but since this is January 20th, Noah really can’t do much except put the PM on hold and give Cisco a nice product placement ad while he talks to Tom, who just walked in and says President-elect Allison is outside.

They go to the Oval office, and Allison is SHOCKED that UN hasn’t been keeping an eye on things. Noah doesn’t think they should have a show of force, and Alliance does. The President-elect Allison says, “The last time Juma made a power grab, he ignited a tribal war”, and President Noah says that he didn’t know that tribal wars are extremely flammable. Allison says that’s not what she meant. Noah is none too keen on going into Sangala, because he’s pretty sure it’s going to be tough to get McDonald’s and Starbucks takeout there, what with the shooting and all.

Allison and Noah argue about her idealism, his cynicism, and other –isms. Noah says, “Let’s talk when you’ve been sitting in my chair for a while”, and sits down behind the President’s desk. Allison ignores this obvious come-on, and they start going over transition plans.

3:33 pm – Back in Africa, Carl arrives at the Soccer Field of terror to find vultures at the body of one of the kids. Just one. Carl starts yelling for “Desmond”, who he finds by the water. Desmond’s been shot, and Carl tells him not to go to sleep.

Back at Jack’s room, one of the kids wants to follow Jack. Jack says he wants to be alone. The kid tells Jack that his grandfather says people that want to be alone are witches! Jack says he doesn’t weigh the same as a duck, so there’s no way he’s a witch, and if he was, the kid shouldn’t come with him. The kid insists on wanting to go to America, land of Elvis. Jack says he isn’t going to America. The kids comes out and starts talking about the ghosts of his family, and tells Jack that he’s a “Pumea”, which is apparently the word for “Muggle”. Jack tells the kid (who we find out is Willy), that he has to stay and help Carl teach everyone about magic until Dumbledore can arrive.

Jack, despite his previous promise to leave at night, starts to leave during the day. Thomas runs up with a phone and tells him Carl has something urgent to tell him. Jack looks reluctant based on their previous uncomfortable moment, but takes the call anyway.

Carl says he’s keeping everything Jack needs under the sink in his room, because Juma men are on their way. Jack gets Thomas to make all the kids believe their going on a field trip to a shelter and starts to gather them up. Jack runs to the truck driver, who has a UN helmet and explains the situation. The truck driver STILL doesn’t believe him, and says he’s going to “talk” to Juma’s men, and believes it’ll work because they’re “neutral”. That lasts for five seconds when Mr. UN sees a cloud of smoke on the road and gets scared. Jack does get in one last zinger with “why don’t you go into the shelter with the other children”.

Jack finds the weapons cache, the kids go to hide under the floor in one of the buildings, and Jack heads for the woods. The UN guy makes it into the hiding place just in time.

Juma’s men arrive and start looking for the boys. Jack decides to be the Welcome Wagon and throws a stick of dynamite at them, giving us our first Jack Explosion in quite a long time. It’s not a nuclear weapon, but at this point, we should be satisfied with anything. And Jack does some shooting too! They try and shoot Jack dead, which only proves they don’t know who has top billing in this show. In all the confusion, Jack hides behind an Exploding Building, realizes his mistake and jumps away from it just before it explodes.

The leader of Juma’s men goes to look for the kids, and happens to walk, in ALL of the buildings he could have checked, in exactly the right one.

Meanwhile, Jack cleans off his dirty knife by sticking it in the chest of one of the soldier’s trying to find him. This works just great, because now not only does Jack have a clean knife, but he also has a machine gun. He immediately tests it by shooting someone.

They’re after Jack now, and even though a couple of them hide behind propane gas canisters, Jack inexplicably doesn’t shoot at the canisters! He does however teach one of the soldiers that hiding behind a pile of wood doesn’t stop dynamite from being lobbed at you.

Jack runs into the woods, and two of the soldiers foolishly follow him. In that short time, they lose Jack even though he’s in plain sight in a very small tree. Jack jumps down, knocks their heads together cartoon-style and takes turns kicking their butts… until they get two more people involved. Jack gets knocked out, and they take him prisoner. Jack’s WAY out of practice.

Carl arrives with Desmond, who’s still alive. He brings out some binoculars and sees that the soldiers are stringing up Jack in a cage, which Carl and the boys were going to use to recreate some scenes from their favorite show “Lost”. The polar bears appear to be missing.

3:44 – Commercial

3:49 – Outside the American embassy, Frank is acting like a bouncer, telling a woman she isn’t on the list to get in. Carl calls Frank to let him know that Juma’s making a move, and Frank is SHOCKED that they didn’t see this coming AT ALL. Apparently he hasn’t been paying attention to the sudden disappearances of all the young boys in the country. Frank tells Carl that all the American nationals are leaving the country because nothing like this EVER happened on Survivor: Africa.

Meanwhile, Jack has the bad guys just where he wants them: Jack’s tied up, getting beaten up, and not answering questions about where the kids are. The lead guy takes a red-hot machete and burns the side of Jack’s face with it. Despite the pain, Jack notices Carl in the woods flashing a mirror using Morse Code to say, “Hurry and do something, they might bring Audrey back”. The torturer mistakes Jack’s cries of “NO!” for Jack being afraid of the machete, and backs off. Jack tells them a lie about where the kids are, and it sounds to them like he’s sobbing, but I think he’s really just laughing about what’s going to happen.

3:53 – Carl has as a Welcome Wagon of his own planned. Jack and the torturer hear some shots, and when the bad guy turns around, Jack kills him only using his legs. Jack is SUCH a show-off. Carl arrives to free Jack, and Carl runs off to get the kids.

In the hatch, Thomas argues with the UN guy that the “UN” in “uncola” is not the same thing. The kids get on a REAL school bus, and the UN guy runs off to get into his UN truck which has been very UN effective.

3:56 – Commercial

4:00 – Chris is getting frisked at Roger’s place, which ordinarily he’d like, but right now he has bigger things on his mind. Chris and Roger argue about which one was a bigger partier.

Chris says that Nichols (his boss) wanted him to move some money in off shore accounts, and that the account holder is on the terrorist watch list. Chris wants to go to Roger’s mommy, Mrs. President. Roger doesn’t want to do this. Chris admits that he thought his 45s were valuable, so he cut some MP3s and sent the evidence to his hard drive at home, clearing any doubt that Chris isn’t at least a little computer savvy. Or, at least, the brokerage firm has really, really bad security procedures in place. Sam (the woman with Roger) reminds Roger that they have this little “inauguration” thing to go to. Chris tells Roger to check e-mail in about an hour, since the Internet’s tubes might get clogged with all the e-mail that gets sent and it won’t arrive before then. (Chris uses the Ted Steven’s e-mail service).

4:04 – Back in Africa, a bad guy version of CTU is in place, which General Juma comes to inspect. Everything is in place to start bombardment, and probably not the “bombardment” game you remember from school.

Dubaku gets a phone call, from some of his men in the field, and finds out that the really brave UN worker has completely spilled his guts about what happened at Carl’s school.

4:05 – The bus with the kids, Carl and Jack is headed for the city. Jack apologizes to Carl for all the explosions at the school, but Carl blows it off saying that they’ll use it for a “soccer field” later. Over the radio, we hear Juma’s men trying to figure out how they could possibly miss a stark-white school bus. Jack realizes that the reason the soldiers haven’t seen it yet is that they’re either blind as bats, or that they haven’t gotten to the soldiers’ checkpoint yet. Jack tells everyone to “hold on”, which is Jack code for “things are going to start happening”. They drive off the road just in time, and fortunately for Jack the soldiers were blind as bats because they drove right by. Jack and the kids decide to hike the rest of the way into the city.

4:07 – Commercial

4:12 – Noah gives Allison a gift of The Scary Nuclear Book, and invites her to have a drink. Just when it looks like Noah is going to be a nice guy, he turns around and makes Allison call him “Mr. President”. He wants to know whether Allison believes the press when it says “his heart wasn’t in this election”. Allison says, “If that were true, you’d be the Tin Man! Ha! Ha!” but then realizes Noah really MIGHT be the Tin Man after all. Noah ignores this and warns her that the job is a lot tougher than she thinks, but does end up calling her “Madam President”.

Allison walks out and starts ranting about Noah’s actions in Sangala to her husband, Henry, who it looks like is going to be co-President. Henry says he’s going to make some calls to dig something up, because we all know it’s pretty easy to dig secret things up on presidents.

Back in Africa, Dubaku is still yelling about finding Jack and Carl. He convinces Juma that he really doesn’t want to be in next season, so he wants to go after Jack now before the movie is over.

4:17 – Commercial

4:22 – Chris gets home and sees that the program he’s running on his Mac doesn’t adhere to the Apple user-interface guidelines at all. He hears a noise, and despite the eerie music, looks around to see what he can find. He comes back to his computer and finds a man with a gun at the computer, which definitely isn’t part of the user interface guidelines. Chris convinces the man that he’s never told anyone about the data he has. At this point, several other people show up, including one that can easily intimidate Chris with a rolled-up newspaper.

One guy tells Chris to open his shirt, which kinda freaks Chris out, and not in a good way. The man says, “You’re going to tell us everything you know”, and pulls out a strip of duct tape. Chris says “It’s silver! Sticky on one side! It has a thousand different uses!”. The man says, that’s not what he meant.

Roger and Sam argue in the back of the car about what happened with Chris, since Roger won’t tell Sam what happened. They get out of the car, and it appears that Allison only has had about 40 people show up for her inauguration, since that’s all that have shown up so far.

Roger’s driver gets a phone call, and it’s the guys doing weird things to Chris with duct tape! Must be some kind of Duct Tape cult. Anyway, the driver wants to know what Chris knows. They’ve tied Chris’ mouth shut which is going to make it a lot harder for him to answer questions.

4:27 – Commercial

4:32 – In Africa, Jack walks out of the woods in a very “Don’t mind me! I’m just going for a walk!” The coast is clear, so the kids move on. Carl tells Jack the way to the border, and they part ways as Jack heads for the border.

4:33 – Jack suddenly does his Radar O’Reilly impression, and realizes a chopper is coming. He tells everyone to head for the woods. Dubaku’s chopper makes a big mistake and starts to set down so they can follow on foot.

Willy turns back and goes for a scarf that he left. Carl looks back, and realizes that Willy is just about to step on a land mine trigger. Carl tackles him out of the way, mistakenly stepping on the trigger himself, which could definitely ruin his day.

Jack starts digging it out, and he and Carl start a trivia contest about who made the bomb, how many kilos it was, and how big a mistake it was to step on the thing in the first place. Jack wants to disarm the thing, but Carl tells him to get the kids to safety. Carl seems to have realized that he might accidentally meet Audrey, so he’s staying behind with a gun to ward off the soldiers. Carl is having a REALLY bad day.

4:38 – It’s getting even worse, since Dubaku and his men are on their way. They find Carl, and start shooting him and questioning him by alternating questioning and shooting. Impressively, Carl keeps standing on the land-mind while trying to lure Dubaku closer. It’s like some weird version of dance-dance-revolution, only it’s Boom-Boom revolution. Carl tells Dubau to go to hell, and lets off on the trigger. Jack hears it in the distance, and nearly cries. It’s a good thing he doesn’t because we all know from last season that Jack’s tears cause nuclear bombs to explode.

4:40 – Commercial

4:46 – Jack and the kids have made it to town. Willy finds out that Carl died, and freaks out. Jack runs after him and convinces him that they need to get to the embassy. Jack notices a man in a trench coat walking down the same street, going the opposite direction that everyone else is, and tells Thomas and the boys to find some place bullet proof. Jack shoots the guy in the trench coat, and suddenly bullets are flying everywhere. Jack, of course, is completely unharmed, turns a corner, and is confronted with the “kill the cockroach” kid from the beginning of the movie. Jack tries to convince the kid to come with them, because there are a LOT of cockroaches in the US, but as soon as a helicopter goes by, the kids takes off.

In Washington, Roger checks his e-mail and is perplexed by not having an e-mail from Chris. President Allison arrives. Due to budget cutbacks, the band they hired for her arrival can only play at a great distance, so we can barely hear it. Roger’s driver is there with Hodges, and lets him know that Chris told them everything, because one pull on that duct tape across his chest had him crying like a baby. Hodges is still worried, and tells him to keep an eye on Roger.

4:52 – Despite the HUGE crowd at the embassy gates, Jack is able to get right to the front, with all the kids. Jack drops his own name to the Marines, and Frank shows up. Jack tells him about the kids, and gives Frank the papers. Frank acts like a complete jerk, and tells Jack they need a legal guardian. Jack finally agrees, but has to go first. Jack is taken into custody. Just when it looks like Frank won’t let the kids in, he finally does.

As President Allison talks to stock footage of a huge crowd, Jack is loaded onto a chopper, Chris does a Jimmy Hoffa impression, and the gates open as the chopper lifts off.

Jack’s headed back to America!

5:00 – SEE YOU IN JANUARY!