Written by Mitch Cyrus

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On this week's episode of "24", we saw alot of jumping around back and forth between the three main story lines. And we had a serious development at the end of the show. Is President Palmer dead? What about Assad? Per usual, the Mitch Man makes sense of it all for us in his weekly wrap ...

On Jack Bauer’s tax return, he has to claim the entire world as his dependents... 

Did someone leave a wake-up call for me?  Other than the last few minutes, this was the slowest episode by far this year.  The only thing that salvaged the evening for me was that immediately after ‘24’ concludes, I jump over to Tivo and catch “Heroes”, which was a totally kick-ass episode Monday night. 

Looks like I won’t find out which of my “Assad Theories” is true for another week or two.  It’s highly doubtful that Wayne is dead, but the same can’t yet be said about Assad (although I have a clue about it at the end). 

Lots of jumping around amongst three main storylines this week.  Makes it hell to recap, but I’ll try to avoid bouncing around too much. 

Recap.  

We start out with Gredenko at the Jet Blue assembly field, pissing Fayed off and tipping off the audience for when to make sure to watch by telling him that it will take “a couple of hours” to get the nuke delivery system ready (it turns out to be aerial drones stolen from the military).  The scraggly Russian bitches to the flunky standing next to him about his disgust in having to work with the likes of Fayed, stating “the Arabs and the West can destroy each other”.  Um...a little Current Events primer for you, Boris the Blade...take a look east by south-east from Moscow, and you might find that the old Soviet Union wouldn’t exactly be inheriting the top of the totem pole if the U.S. and Europe went down...you’d still have about 8 gazillion Chinese and their mega-economy to worry about (those Chinese Bastards!!!®...sorry...had to get it in somewhere).  

At the White House Bunker, Wayne meets up with the ambassador to some unnamed Middle Eastern country.  Unnamed because we certainly don’t want to offend anyone over there, do we?  He looked about as thrilled to meet Assad as I was when I met my daughter’s latest boyfriend.  And he’s not a bit happy when he learns that Wayne wants him to pressure his Prime Minister to support the arch-enemy Assad.  But given the other option is to have the U.S. military turn his country into a big sheet of glass, he wisely assents. 

Waaayyyy too much of tonight’s episode was spent on Morris and his impending meltdown.  So let’s get that out of the way before going back to the interesting parts.  Morris is screwing up more often than a NASA flight engineer, and I’d say it’s starting to piss Chloe off, but the phrase “Chloe is pissed” is about as news worthy as saying “Mitch has a beer”.  She nags him once more about calling his sponsor, which Morris assures her that he had.  After he heads to the head, she gets the “liar, liar, pants on fire” look on her face as she swipes his PDA, looks up his sponsor’s number, and leaves her a message. 

Nadia also catches a couple of Morris’s mistakes, and confronts him and Chloe about it, forcing Buchanan’s hand somewhat as Bill states that he’s removing Morris from working on some “important” task or another.  Morris does his best Mike Krzyzewski whine-fest and convinces Bill that he’ll be fine...and Bill, realizing that all the other “analysts” at CTU are just there to take up space, relents.  I guess I can sympathize...that sort of sounds like my place of employment. 

But once Chloe gets a call back from Morris’s sponsor stating that she hadn’t talked to him in three years, she storms after him right into the men’s bathroom.  And why not?  I’m sure she has bigger cojones than most of the other guys there.  She pops open a stall (glad it was the right one), and immediately starts lighting matches.  Damn, he really needs to stop hitting Taco Bell at lunch every day! 

Morris lies to Chloe about having a new sponsor...which begs the question of why he didn’t remove the old one on his PDA and add the new one...but I guess that flew right over Chloe’s head.  After Chloe leaves, Morris pulls the bottle back out, takes a look at it, and dumps the last few swallows down the drain.  To me that indicates that he HAS taken a few belts, as the bottle was still half full when he puked out what he took down last week. 

Back to someone we really care about; Jack.  First, he tells Marilyn and Josh that Phillip escaped, and tells them to head on over to CTU (always a bad idea for civilians).  He also does the warm (fatherly?) thing and tries to comfort Josh a bit...and then shares another “I want to jump you RIGHT NOW!” look with Marilyn.  But there’s no time for that just yet, as a helicopter is waiting to take him to Logan’s ranch. 

Another great acting job from Kiefer, as the look he gave Logan when he first met him was enough to freeze mercury.  Jack brushes off Logan’s attempt at chit-chat, and goes right into pressing him on what deal he wants to cut.  “None”, states the slime bucket, saying that he’s doing it for “redemption” and that his faith has made him a new man.  Ah yes...right from the “I Got Caught Playbook for Disgraced Politicians”...act like you are now a Holy Man and renounce your old ways while you look for new ways to fleece the public. 

As distasteful as it is to Jack, he has to call Wayne to get permission to let Logan temporarily out of his house arrest, as only Logan can put enough pressure on the Russian Consulate to get him to reveal Gredenko’s location (although we see from previews that the threats of a cigar cutter on steroids to a man’s fingers might also work).  Wayne was about as happy with that choice as I am picking a team to root for when the Pittspuke Squealers play Crackmore Ratbirds (I usually root for a scoreless tie with lots of injuries to both sides).  Logan mutters a passage from the Bible to himself as he’s getting ready, and that’s about all we see of them for the episode. 

I’m still wondering where the hell Jack got that suit to put on to go to the Embassy?  I guess it’s something else he keeps in that satchel he’s always carrying about...that damn thing has everything. 

No, I haven’t forgotten about Biscuit Lennox getting a flashlight beat down from Rob Lowe’s wimpy brother in a bout that may have rivaled the Celebrity Boxing Match between Screech and Horseshack in terms of lack of testosterone between the two “combatants”.  For the moment, Carson appears as the only other member of the Blue Man Conspiracy Group, as he’s the one slipping into the bunker, where he immediately goes to the Super Secret High Voltage Clubhouse to kill Lennox and make his cassette recorder bomb. 

So we are to believe that there is a chemical concoction so powerful as to kill anyone within ten feet of it that can be placed in such a small container?  And if so, where the hell were the German Shepherds you’d think they’d have checking for stuff like that?  Oh, I know...they’re all at the airports making sure I’m not bringing in that dangerous Cuban Cigar back from my trip to Cancun. 

Reed convinces Carson not to kill Lennox, and then is told that he must be the one to place the bomb, as he’s the only one that can get close enough.  Reed places it on the podium where Assad and Wayne are practicing their speech, and then gets the hell out of Dodge.  Assad has swapped places with Wayne at the podium as Reed keys in the code on the PDA that is acting as a trigger.  Being that Assad is obviously a bomb expert, he sees some liquid dripping from the recorder, and notices the flashing LED light.  “BOMB!”, he yells as he dives away right before it goes BOOM.  When the dust settles, Assad appears to be dead, and once they roll off the body of a Secret Service agent that threw himself on top of Wayne, we see the wounded and unconscious President. 

So we will now have a VP taking over, at least temporarily, for the third time out of six seasons of ‘24’. 

Final Thoughts.   

At this moment, it looks like my Assad Theory #1 was the closest to being the winner: 

#1 Wayne is killed, Assad is blamed, VP Dick Daniels takes over, and Jack has to DEAL with all of that.  I really can’t see that happening.  No way will they end up killing both African-American “presidents” on this show.  And since it’s happening in DC, there would be no way for Jack to be able to rectify that situation. 

Except for the fact that Wayne isn’t dead.  But in true ‘24’ fashion, it’s going to take him a couple of hours to get back to ‘normal’, during which time V.P. Daniels can thoroughly muck up the works.  From one source I read, Assad is dead (could be a red herring, however), so I’m thinking the first thing the V.P. does is something that pisses off the Muslims in America, and in doing so he makes it easier for Fayed and Gredenko.  Because that’s what replacement bureaucrats do in Washington...foul things up.  In real life, they don’t need replacement ones to accomplish that task. 

So what will be the targets of the aerial drones?  Are they going to be ready to launch in two hours, or able to strike within two hours?  Those answers will affect the plot line more than anything else I see right now, other than the Wayne situation.  I’m assuming that the bombs could be sent at Vegas (NO!!!!!), Phoenix, San Diego, or San Francisco...just in case the writers are finally tied of Los Angeles catching the brunt of it all the time.  So can they divert one into the desert and have it go off in the exact same spot where Mason dropped the one in the second season? 

Best Scene: The previews for next week.  

Jack Bauer Death Count:  8.  The least amount of Jack we’ve seen this year...another reason why this was the most boring show so far. 

Who’s the Traitor?:   

1. Nadia.  I’m getting to the point that I sure hope she is.  There has got to be some payoff to having to put up with her bland personality all year. 

2. ex-President Logan.  I’m thinking he’ll be pulling off a Phillip Bauer shortly, and will slip on out the back door of the Russian Embassy. 

3. Vice President Daniels.  More than likely he’s just a dick who thinks Nixon was a liberal. 

4.  Audrey Raines.  Just to fill out another name. 

Life Expectancy:  Unscientific wild assed guesses on how much longer certain people will still be breathing and the chance they have of living through the day.  13 hours to go. 

Carson – 1 more hour.  A bomb goes off near the President...and I’m thinking that they just might be looking for the stranger that just came in.  He won’t be taken alive.  Chance of living through the day? 5% 

Reed Pollack – 3 more hours.  I think he’ll end up saving Lennox’s life.  Chance of living through the day? 10% 

Tom Lennox – 3 more hours.  Still could be a surprise corpse, but I’m doubting that he’ll die, and that he will be the one that reveals the conspiracy/truth to Wayne once he the Prez is conscious.  Chance of living through the day? 75% 

Morris – 5 more hours.  This one is getting about as obvious as McCarthy’s death. Chance of living through the day?  10% 

Nadia – 6 more hours.  She has to go before she kills CTU agents and half of the audience through boredom.  Chance of living through the day?  33%  

Phillip Bauer – 7 more hours.  He’ll be like Morris, and will show back up and find a way to redeem himself.  Unlike Morris, I think he’ll live through it and Jack will have to see him carted off to prison.  Chance of living through the day? 50% (up from zero).   

Fayed – 10 hours.  He’s been as scarce as Eddie Murphy at the Oscars after he found out he lost.  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

Mike Doyle (Rick Schroder) – 11 more hours.  Does he take over after the CTU attack takes out Buchanan?  As you can tell, I’m still grasping at straws.  Chance of living through the day?  50%  

General Gredenko – 11 more hours.  So who gets him?  Logan, Phillip, or Jack?  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

President Logan – 12 hours, 40 minutes.  Still the guy you love to hate.  Chance of living through the day? 50% 

Audrey Raines – 12 hours, 50 minutes.  Marilyn rules! 

Off the List – Assad.  As state, it’s reported that he died in the blast.  Even if he didn’t, he would have to be too wounded to do anything else in the 13 remaining hours.