Written by Mitch Cyrus

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It was another great episode of "24" this past Monday night, and per usual ... Mitch checks in with the episode recap. We had a couple big plot twists, developments in the former President Logan angle to the show, and the appearance of Rick Schroeder's character next week. Mitch fills us in, and tries to predict where we're going in his latest "24" recap.

Jack Bauer doesn't have a firewall on his PC. He has a Bauerwall. It's basically just a JPEG of Jack Bauer. No virus has ever attacked Jack Bauer's PC. Ever.... 

And with tonight’s episode, we have reached the half-way point of the season.  No major twists yet, but I get the feeling that a full out assault on a Russian Embassy may just take things in a different direction.  Or not...you can never tell with this show. 

Much faster paced show this week, and I think things will stay at this pace for another two or three episodes until it gets to nightfall, and another twist will be introduced. 

Recap.  

After a brief shot of the unconscious (how could they tell the difference?) Wayne Palmer being wheeled into surgery, we change scenes to L.A., where the man who SHOULD have been standing right next to a bomb, Charles Logan, is prattling on to Jack about how similar they are due to their shared periods of isolation and imprisonment.  Yeah...except for the little fact that Jack was in a cold, damp, dark cell where he was routinely drug out and beaten whereas Logan was “restricted” to his 5,000 square foot house with its 200+ acres in sunny California...other than that, it was nearly identical.  Logan continues to babble on in some warped New Age manner.  All that was missing was someone playing Enya in the background (and me reaching for a spork to jab into my ears). 

The entire country is spared being bored to death by going back to the White House Bunker, where Vice President Daniels is about to land and is demanding to see Tom Lennox.  Not being the spineless wuss that Wayne is, the Secretary of Defense (played by the guy I will always see as the smarmy warden in “Shawshank Redemption”) doesn’t accept Reed’s b.s., and immediately orders an All Points Bulletin for the Secret Service to find him. 

I guess Reed and Carson didn’t exactly think this part through...the minor detail of escaping after the bomb blast.  Carson still wants to kill Biscuit, and make it look like a suicide...but Reed has doubts that it will work...he’s probably seen too many episodes of CSI, and doesn’t want to face the prospect of having to deal with the uber-irritable David Caruso or William Peterson, so he informs Carson that if he wants to kill Lennox, he’ll have to kill him as well.  I was half expecting Carson to quickly pull out a gun and blow both of them away...but “The Sopranos” doesn’t start for another month or so. 

Reed pleads with Lennox to “do the right thing” by keeping his mouth shut and going along with them, and that way all the wonderful little plans Lennox had for using the Constitution for target practice could come to fruition.  Lennox reluctantly agrees and the Three Amigos make their way down the hall so that Lennox can call off the wimp-hunt. 

Except that he totally busts Reed and Carson!  Guess Reed didn’t notice that Biscuit had his fingers crossed when he “promised” he’d go along.  Harrumph!  The nerve!  Lying to an assassin! 

Speaking of liars, we get a Liars’ Summit at the Russian Consulate, as Markov, the Russian Consul, tells Logan that he hasn’t seen Gredenko in well over a year, even after Logan threatens to send off tapes to the Russian President implicating Logan and Markov in the Sentox plot from last season.  Markov still denies anything, but Logan (and the rest of the world) knows differently just from seeing his sweaty upper lip.  So of course, the moment that Logan leaves, Markov is on the phone to Gredenko.  You’d think that since CTU spies on everyone all the time, and can intercept any phone call on the planet...they just might have anticipated that little move and turned their SuperSpySatellite in that direction. 

But that would make things too simple...and Jack Bauer would much rather do it in a manner that allows him to torture and kill people.  So it’s time to violate International Law once again!  Jack has the driver pull over outside of the gates of the Consulate, and calls Chloe so that she can temporarily kill the power to the back of the building.  Logan is beside himself, not believing that Jack is about to do the exact same thing to the Russians that he did to those Chinese Bastards!!® a couple of years earlier.  And he’s not the only one, as most of us are wondering why the writers keep bringing back total retreads of plotlines from earlier seasons. 

We can ponder that lack of originality for a bit while we listen to VP Daniels talk to Biscuit after he pulls him out of his Secret Service debriefing.  Agent Lowery seems to be a bit skeptical of Lennox’s story, but it looks like Daniels will run interference for him under one condition; he stops telling people that the dear, departed Assad was innocent.  As predicted earlier, dark skinned Islamic fundamentalists make much better scapegoats than pale skinned Yuppies, and Daniels’ peeps have told him that blaming the “fer-in-er” would play much better to the Toby Keith-loving set.  So it’s just one moral dilemma after another for poor Biscuit. 

You do realize that if the U.S. actually could do as much mucking around with foreign consulates as they do in “24”, we’d pretty much be at the top of every country’s “Hate List”, and none of our consulates would be safe?  Be that as it may, Chloe manages to cut the power right after Jack gets out of a potential sticky situation by being able to speak in perfect unaccented Russian (of course).  He slips into Markov’s office, barricades himself in, and pulls a gun on the Consul, demanding to know Gredenko’s location.  Markov’s not giving it up yet, so Duke University graduate Jack gets to pretend Markov is Tyler Hansbrough, and proceeds to re-arrange his nose. 

That’s still not convincing Markov to talk, but it is making Jack feel a lot better after the Dookies got their assess kicked (again) by the Tarheels...however, Jack is running out of time, and that calls for actions to piss off another real life government official by going for another nasty torture scene.  For tonight’s lesson, Jack takes Markov’s cigar cutter and discovers that it works equally as well on the tip of Markov’s pinky as it does on a Romeo y Juliet.  And it sounds really gross as well...snickt... 

Realizing that Jack really likes his work, and that he’s got quite a few knuckles left to lose, Markov spills it, telling Jack that Gredenko is in the Mojave Desert, and that he’ll be using aerial drones to deliver the bombs.  Jack is about to relay the information to CTU, when the door goes BOOM, and Jack is captured (for about the 40^th time in the six seasons of ‘24’). 

Very limited dealings at CTU this week.  One bit we did get was Bill talking to Karen Hayes, and of all the shocks from this year, this may be the biggest:  Karen was still stuck at the airport, waiting on a plane to take her to L.A.!!!!  The Space Shuttle they used to get Assad from L.A. to D.C. in two hours must still be fueling up.  So given that she has nothing better to do, she decides to rescind her resignation after receiving the news about the attack on the President.  I’m not sure Daniels is too thrilled about that, but it looks like she’ll be patching up that broken bridge between herself and Biscuit Lennox. 

The CTU scenes were mostly used this week for the characters working there to “show concern”.  Concern about the President.  Concern about Jack.  Concern about getting their NCAA brackets filled out.  Oh, yeah...and concern about VP Daniels going on the air to talk about the attack on Wayne, while also informing the entire country that they can now forget all those troublesome facts that were pounded in their heads in middle school and high school regarding Civics, cause PappaVP has a brand new bag...and he’ll be using it over the heads of the John Q. Mohhammeds in America. Daniels is hoping that FDR’s WWII Japanese-American interment camps are still in working order, or else he’ll have to shell out a few hundred billion dollars more to Halliburton to screw it up. 

CTU also knows that Jack’s been taken, because Morris has shaken off (temporarily) his need to join Britney in rehab, and has intercepted some transmissions from the Russian Consulate that they’ve captured Jack (conveniently, Morris is also fluent in Russian).  Is it time to start World War III just to save Jack?  Why not? 

But Jack will first try to do it himself, as he convinces one of his captors of Markov’s guilt, and the guard agrees to make a call to Buchanan and tell him about Gredenko and his Mohave vacation.  As the guard walked out the door, I yelled “Dead Man Walking”, which turned out to be true about a minute later as the guard is murdered by the head of security after he’s made the call to CTU, but before he could say anything.  

Final Thoughts.   

Very good show tonight, but after viewing the previews for next week, I’m looking forward to that one a lot more. 

Rick Schroeder makes his long anticipated appearance next week as Mike Doyle, taking over the responsibilities that used to be handled by Tony Almeida and Curtis.  Here’s some financial advice, Mike.  Don’t concern yourself with the pension plan they offer at CTU...but do go for the quadruple salary option on your life insurance plan from them.  Your kids and widow will thank you. 

Why is Logan shown meeting up with his (ex?) wife?  Daniels was pretty insistent that he was to go straight home after school and not lollygag around.  And Tony Lastoria hits another homer as he told me last week that Aaron Pierce finally appears, and is involved (married?) to the former first lady.  Let’s just hope he keeps a few spare cases of Valium at the house...for her and for him. 

Not content with attacking a Chinese Consulate, the U.S. will attack a Russian one next week.  Hey, guys!  You might just want to start thinking about attacking the consulates of counties that DON’T HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.  Try the Dominican Republic’s Consulate next time.  The only thing they could do to us would be to cut off our supply of All-Star shortstops. 

Best Scene: Jack gives Dick Cheney a woody for his demonstration of proper interrogation techniques with Markov.  

Jack Bauer Death Count:  8.  Plus one Russian digit.  Looks like he gets to add a few complete Russians to his corpse collection next week. 

Who’s the Traitor?:  Now that Reed is set up to take his next assignment as Bubba’s beyotch in Attica, who is next on the list? 

1. Nadia.  The only scene with her in it showed her once again really pissed off at Daniels’ actions against people of Middle Eastern descent. 

2. ex-President Logan.  I’m hoping to see Martha Logan and Pierce tag team bitchslapping him next week. 

3. Vice President Daniels.  His desire to pin the blame on Assad despite being told differently might mean that he’s part of the Blue Man Conspiracy Group.  Or maybe it just means that he’s a dick. 

4. Lisa Miller (VP Daniels’ chief aide).  If Daniels himself isn’t part of the BMCG, then she’s the next most-likely suspect. 

5.  Aaron Pierce.  18 months with the wacky Martha have put him over the edge. 

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.  12 hours to go. 

Markov – 30 more minutes.  We know Jack escapes, and shoots up a bunch of bad people.  Since he already has the information from Markov, the sleazy Russian serves no purpose except target practice.  Chance of living through the day? 5% 

Morris – 4 more hours.  They pretty much ignored him last week, but they’ll certainly go back to that storyline.  Chance of living through the day?  10% 

Nadia – 5 more hours.  After Morris dies saving someone (probably Chloe) from her evil clutches, she gets it during the next episode.  Chance of living through the day?  33%  

Phillip Bauer – 6 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).  

Tom Lennox – 8 more hours.  Poor guy.  After all he’s been through, I think there is a chance he’s finally done in by another member of the BMCG.  Chance of living through the day? 75% 

Fayed – 9 hours.  Adoni Maropis (Fayed) been off at the Fox Studios Bar and Grill for the last few weeks slamming down tequila shots with Eric Balfour (Milo).  Nothing much else to do for them lately.  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

Mike Doyle – 10 more hours.  So which will be shorter; Mike’s career as the head of field operations for CTU, or Taylor Hicks’ ‘career’ as someone whose music is something people actually want to hear?  Chance of living through the day?  50%  

General Gredenko – 10 more hours.  This year’s Henderson.  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

President Logan – 11 hours, 40 minutes.  Since Wayne will pull through, somebody has to die, and this would provide everyone with some well needed closure.  Chance of living through the day? 50% 

Audrey Raines – 11 hours, 50 minutes.  Marilyn’s freaky ice blue eyes burn a hole through Audrey’s skull. 

Off the List – Carson and Reed.  In custody, and soon to be seen on Court TV.