Tag: 24 synopsis

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

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!

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!