Written by Mitch Cyrus

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President Logan got back into the storyline this week on "24", and then was likely 86'ed by his crazy ex-wife. And in a classic scene, Jack took a cigar cutter to the fingers of the Russian consulate in his latest torture interrogation. Mitch recaps this weeks episode, and looks ahead to next weeks, which seems to reveal a leak in CTU. A leak in CTU? No ... you're kidding right? We've never seen that before in any of the previous seasons. I still love this show.

Jack Bauer has the heart of a terrorist. He keeps it in a jar on his desk..... 

Welcome to Melodrama Night.  With so much over the top acting, I was waiting for William Shatner to show up as part of Daniels’ new cabinet. 

Even so, a good show this week.  Which is surprising given that we didn’t see much of Jack this episode, as the drama came from other camps. 

Recap.  

At CTU, everyone that really isn’t doing much work to begin with stops and stares as Logan makes his way through the building to be debriefed.  For some reason, Chloe has to go in with him for a minute.  Probably just so we can get one of the most classic lines ever uttered on this show.  As Logan tries to chit-chat with her for a moment, she shoots him her normal “I smell a turd” look, and says “Sorry, I’m feeling ambivalent”, and turns around and walks out.  BAM!  What a great line!  I need to find a good place to use that one sometime.  Maybe in our next staff meeting? (and do any of you know a good employment service for me to use once I’ve pulled that one on our CEO?) 

We have our long anticipated introduction of little Ricky Schroeder as Mike Doyle, the new head of field operations.  And he is such a total prick...I love it.  Buchanan lets everyone know that they need to get a plan together quickly to attack the Russian Consulate, with the first objective being to extract Markov to get his information...and if they can save Jack, that’ll be good, too.  Doyle shows that he is a fine graduate of the Chloe O’Brien People Skills School, as he motivates Morris at one point by nearly strangling him when he smarts off about needing more time, and then tells Milo to STFU and deal with it when the geeky whine-box complains.  I wish he could have scored the trifecta by tasering Chloe or something...but I’ll cut her a little slack after that great dissing of Logan.  Milo checks on Morris and they share a moment...of disgust with their new mutual enemy.  I’m sure they’re planning all kinds of mean stuff to do to Doyle in retaliation...probably by putting up goofy pictures on his MySpace page or something equally diabolical.  “I thought I was a pain in the ass,” Milo snipes.  Thank you, Captain Obvious. 

In the Consulate, Vasily, Markov’s chief goon, is on the radio telling his boss that he’s about to whack Jack, and he decides that it would be fun to first kick him in the knee and throw him down the steps next to the body of Russian guard before shooting him.  Jack looks like he could really use a belt, and he finds one...removing the one from the dead guard while Vasily is still yakking.  Using it, he disarms the dimwitted Russian-Corpse-To-Be, and then gets to the gun first, shooting him good and dead.  He gets to a phone...just in time to have them cut off throughout the building on orders from Markov, who has seen the Vasilyectomy on the security cameras.  So Jack, in major pain due to the blast and the beatings he took, must limp around the building until he can MacGuyver his way out of another fine mess. 

Logan, as it turns out, has an alternative to CTU’s plan to violate international law by attacking the Consulate.  It seems his ex-wife bonded with President Suvarov and his wife after that little deal last season when Logan was willing to allow the three of them to DIE in an ambush just to save his worthless hide.  So Charles thinks that HE can convince Martha, now in a half-way house for rich nuts, to call Mrs. Suvarov to convince her husband to demand Markov’s cooperation. 

So it’s back to the Magic Helicopter for Logan, who takes all of about 45 seconds to arrive at Martha’s Happy House...where she’s comforted by her boyfriend, none other than the only person other than Jack to appear in every season of “24”, former Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce.  How cute!  Especially considering that last year we had a movie with Kiefer Sutherland as a government agent and it involved a Secret Service Agent boinking the First Lady.  Not that anyone really watched “The Sentinel” anyway...but I found the irony amusing.  However, Jean Smart and Glenn Morshower are on the other side of the photogenic scale than Kim Basinger and Michael Douglas. 

But I digress.  Logan arrives and is completely dissed for a second time when Aaron refuses to shake the creep’s hand.  I was really wanting to see Aaron spit in it, but that’s just me.  And then we get all kinds of awkwardness when Martha and Charles first lock eyes.  After a few minutes of the type of bickering that isn’t the least bit surprising to anyone who has went through a divorce, Martha agrees to help, and puts the call in to Anya Suvarov. 

In another usual turn for “24”, an overseas call does not go immediately through, so we have some time to wait.  How convenient!  During that time, we get to check up on Doyle and his troops gearing up for the assault while Jack is still limping around trying to find a quarter to use in the nearest phone booth.  Failing that, he falls back on a more tried and true approach, taking a couple making out in storage room hostage, and forcing the man to steal a satellite phone for him. 

So Plan A is for Martha to convince Suvarov to help.  Plan B is to storm the Consulate and let the chips fall where they may.  Daniels likes more options than that so he decides to unveil Plan C, which is to bring in the Ambassador of an Unnamed Middle Eastern Country (psst...it’s Iran), tell him they have proof that Assad lit off the bomb, and let him know that he’ll start lobbing nukes towards his major cities (psst...Tehran) if they don’t help find Fayed and another suitcase bomb goes off in the U.S.  Which makes this something like the fourth or fifth time in the history of “24” that we’ve almost turned a big portion of the Middle East into glass?  Lennox has beat up and locked his own conscious back up in the closet, and he goes along with the lie (for now...I get the feeling he’ll waffle again). 

Back at Che Looney, Martha is getting more and more unhinged as she waits for the call and totally goes off on Logan, unleashing all the pent up rage she’s harbored for over two years.  Not content to just throw produce at him, she walks by and proceeds to plant a kitchen knife into Logan’s neck.  Damn!  Again with the neck fetish this year!  Jack’s post flight snack while under Fayed’s control, Curtis getting shot in the neck when holding Assad hostage, and now this. 

The best thing is that Martha really doesn’t understand why she’s in handcuffs, as she thinks she should be given a medal...and I don’t entirely disagree.  But they still need her help, and the WhackedOutSwitch gets flipped back to “off” as she talks very calmly and rationally to Anya. 

Good News!  Suvarov agrees, and gets on the phone to Markov, ordering him to cooperate. 

Bad News!  Markov tells him to pound sand. 

Good News!  Suvarov gives Daniels the Green Light to go medieval on the Consulate. 

So Mikey and the Boys start kicking ass and taking names, overrunning the Consulate in a matter of minutes...making the phone Jack just got from LoverBoy totally moot.  And to add injury to insult, LoverBoy catches a bullet for his trouble before Jack pops two more baddies.  And it’s a good think Jack lived, as the S.W.A.T. unit sorta forgot about that “take Markov alive” part of the plan, and blew him away with about 50 M-16 rounds after he shot at them once with his 9mm.   

Jack immediately gets to a phone and calls in the location of Gredenko to CTU.  At the same time we see that the Really Bad Guys have armed a bomb and have the drone about ready to take off, especially after Markov called Gredenko telling him to “launch NOW!” 

Cut to the ambulance, where we see Logan calling out for Martha, and then flat lining.  YES!!!  I love a happy ending. 
 

Final Thoughts.   

Why do I get the feeling that there will probably be some great doctor in the ambulance who will revive that snake?  But I hope not.  Charles Logan’s transformation into another Chuck Colson was about a 9.9 on the Creepy Scale. 

Looks like a drone gets launched this week.  I’d like to think that we’d have some military weapon for shooting it down, but I get the feeling that there will be some way for a member of the Geek Triumvirate at CTU to reprogram it. 

Speaking of CTU...I am SHOCKED!!! SHOCKED!!! to see in the preview that there is a leak at CTU!  Who could have ever predicted such an event? 
 

Best Scene: Martha proving that they have HBO at Che Looney, as she knew from watching “Rome” the proper technique to use in plunging a short sword (kitchen knife...whatever) into someone’s neck.  
 

Jack Bauer Death Count:  11.  I may have to do some research to see if this is the longest time he’s ever taken to reach double figures. 
 

Who’s the Traitor?:  Time to get serious on this one. 

1. Nadia.  Odds are about 1:1 that it’s her.  She’s served no other purpose on this show.  On the other hand, since the writers/producers seemed to have gone out of their way to have limited “Arab Bad Guys”, this could just be a smoke screen. 

2. Milo.  Odds of 5:1.  Can’t really see it after he took a bullet to save Marilyn...unless he’s the type of traitor doing it for money, and values his own skin much more than “The Cause”. 

3. Morris.  Odds of 10:1.  The testy Brit may be more involved that we think. 

4. Chloe.  Odds of 50:1.  Maybe she went over the edge when she thought Jack was about to die in the first episode and sold them out? 

5.  Unknown, little used CTU flunky.  Odds of 25:1.  They could break from tradition and have it be someone we’ve not really seen before.  Yeah...right.  It’s Nadia. 
 

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.  11 hours to go. 

Morris – 2 more hours.  I’m going to stick with thinking that Nadia is the traitor, and Morris dies saving them all from her. I’ve moved up the Time of Death now that they’ve told us that the revealing of a leak occurs next week. Chance of living through the day?  10% 

Nadia – 3 more hours.  Terri Bauer and Audrey Rains have 100 times more charisma than Nadia...something I didn’t think was possible.  Chance of living through the day?  33%  

Phillip Bauer – 6 more hours.  Three more bombs.  One will be deactivated next week (or the following), meaning they still need to get to Gredenko/Fayed and find the other two.  Phillip will be part of it.  Chance of living through the day? 50%.   

Tom Lennox – 7 more hours.  He has been such a wimp this entire day, but I think Karen Hayes helps him find his spine.  Unfortunately, someone will probably plant a knife in it.  Chance of living through the day? 75% 

Fayed – 8 hours.  He’s becoming more boring than Nadia.  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

Mike Doyle – 9 more hours.  He’ll either die heroically, or be The Man for next season.  Chance of living through the day?  80%  

Gredenko – 10 more hours.  Rent “Snatch” to see how he should best be dealt with.  Chance of living through the day?  0% 

My Willful Suspension of Disbelief.  Probably somewhere around the 3 AM show. 

Off the List – Markov.  He lasted 25 minutes longer than I predicted last week. 

President Logan.  I’m hoping they follow the precedent they set earlier with Assad, and come back first thing next episode telling us that the guy we thought could be dead actually is.  In either case, we’ve seen the last of him.