Written by Mitch Cyrus

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A lot was revealed in this week's episode of "24", with Sean the Snake and Erika the Skank both being outed as FBI moles, Colonel Debaucle being apprehended and put at bay, and a NEW terrorist threat developing late in the show. You just know Mitch has a lot to say about this past episode, and we get his thoughts on it, as well as his predictions on where the show is going in his latest "24" recap. We have a major plot shift unfolding, and a two hour episode on Monday to usher it in. Jack Bauer would have gotten the ring to Mordor within 24 hours

Since this episode had a lot going on, let's get right to it and avoid wasting time by re-hashing last week's episode (IOW...I got nuthin' worth talking about regarding last week).

One note...The Milk Carton makes its first appearance this week.

Recap

Tonight is Sean the Snake Night.

I need a drink.  Or ten.

And Erika the Skank is in on the whole moley, moley, moley thing.  I must admit...after seeing StS revealed as the Mole last week, I didn't expect EtS to be in on it, too.  I'm trying to remember if they've ever had a couple working like this before, and I don't think so (which means I'm sure someone will correct me in the next day or two).

Jack and Renee are cuffed and put into a squad car.  Renee is terribly worried about Marika...Jack seems about as concerned as the fate of a lab rat, telling Renee about how important of an asset Markia is.  "She's not an Asset, Jack, she's a human being!" (not for long).

Col. Debaucle grabs Marika and gets her in the car, but rather than kill her, he lays on the B.S...who knows...he might actually be that much in love with her.  Well that's about a ton and a half of creepy right there.

Chloe and Empty Suit Larry are keeping track of them utilizing every satellite and traffic camera known to mankind, but at the same time not knowing that Seanerika have the room bugged.  Jack and Renee are out of police custody and are now tailing them...and if you don't like how Jack drives, stay off the sidewalk.  And the soccer fields.  And the park benches.

Debaucle looks in the rear view mirror.  Ruh-roh, Roerge!  We're being followed!  Well thank you, Captain Obvious!  OK.  I own a Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Great SUV (horrible gas mileage).  Excellent vehicle for a lot of things.  Escaping pursuing FBI vehicles is not one of them.  Especially when Marika the StupidBrave  catclaws the drivers eyes, grabs the wheel, and makes the Jeep go airborne, executing a perfect Triple Lindy before ending up on its side.

So the driver kicks out the windshield, and while bleeding profusely, responds to the commands of two armed people pointing guns at him by ssssllllloooowwwwwllly pulling out a gun.  Which is a great excuse for Jack to up the Body Count by one.  Debaucle also staggers out like Mitch after a Browns/Cavs November double header at the local sports bar, only to be grabbed by Jack.  Renee tries to get Marika out of the car, and she's not in good shape right now.  That's what she gets for being the only one in the car without a seat belt fastened.  (of course, it's kind of hard to cause a wreck from the back seat when your seatbelt is fastened...but perhaps I'm splitting hairs here).

The car is also on fire, causing Jack to yank Renee out of the car...resulting in Renee pulling a gun on him.  You go, girl! (I don't believe I just wrote that.  If I ever do again, please smack me).  So Jack helps, and they get her out milliseconds before the Jeep explodes.  Just like EVERY vehicle explodes in TV or movies...in a manner only possible if there was a fuse attached to a pound of C4.

Well that was too much action, so let's drag things to a grinding halt by going to the hospital to watch the First Old Man in hour 2 of his 5 hours of surgery.  In one split screen FOM's surgeons diligently work on him.  In another, we see the President with a worried look on her face.  In a third, we watch grass grow, while in the fourth, we get to see paint dry.  Chief of Staff Ethan Warden Norton reports that in the 30 minutes that the President has been at the hospital, the SomeGala invasion has met with little resistance, the capital has been taken, refugee camps have been liberated, and a statue has already been erected to her (and the first drunken college kid has already placed shades, an empty beer case, and a gaudy Madonna-esque bra on it).

Ethan then makes the horrible, horrible mistake of asking the upset Prez if she'd "like to talk about it".

Never, ever, ever ask a woman if she'd "like to talk about it".  Because most of the time...she DOES.  You see...women don't know that guys don't mean it when they ask that.  And guys are too stupid to know that women don't know that.

On, and on, and on with the guilt trip about the DeadSon, and that she should have listened to FOM, and I'm thinking 10 drinks isn't going to do it.  Luckily, by the time she's done yammering about it all, I've had a chance to distil another gallon of whiskey.

Back at NASCAR-Washington, Marika has, in fact, become The BraveDead, as the paramedics pull a tarp over her face.  Methinks Renee is about one angstrom unit away from meltdown here.  Jack doesn't care, he's busy forcing another paramedic to endanger Debaucle's life by waking him up enough for Jack to torture him some more...primarily by threatening to fly over to SomeGala and torture Debaucle's son, just for giggles and grins.  Debaucle begs Jack to leave his family alone, saying he has "a list", and then immediately goes into cardiac arrest. 

It seems the Debaucle is also a bit of a Cyborg, and he has The List implanted in his rib cage.  Jack decides that a little surgery would be a great idea at this time, and the one paramedic agrees after feeling Jack's 9mm in HIS rib cage.  Jack finds the "data device", and gives it to a chopper pilot with instructions to take it to Larry.  Naturally, the Snake is listening, who immediately gets with Erika to plot out a plan to crash the entire FBI server farm.  Oh, hell...why not?  I'm beyond trying to put any rationalization behind this after listening to two unbelievably stupid people try to talk techno-garbage about what they'll do, when any 5^th grader who has ever booted up a hard drive knows that what they are doing is as nearly as impossible as someone sitting through an Alex Rodriguez press conference without rolling their eyes.

At the hospital, we have quite the little (soon-to-be) lovers' spat going on, as Renee doesn't have Jack's ability to compartmentalize an innocent woman's death, and is making sure he knows that she's not happy with it.  Too bad for her that Jack has totally went into his Tao of Spock philosophy of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", and has already forgotten about Marissa, and is focused like a laser beam on the data Chloe is now downloading.

"Ahem...it's Marika," says the sarcastic blonde on the sofa beside me.

"Who?"

WHAP!

(I'm in so much trouble if she ever figures out how to put lead weights into sofa pillows).

In this week's episode of How Convenient!^TM it looks like Debaucle's Insurance Cybernetic Implant is a "PX-1-7 Drive"...giving them "only one chance" at a download.  Funny, it looks like the same card from my Sony digital camera that had the pictures of our most recent drunken middle-aged-assholes' poker party...and with that little device, it was physically impossible to erase the evidence...er...pictures.  Whatever.

With the crash of the system complete, Sean shoots Erika, to complete his frame-up.  This bit of news will go in the papers right next to "Bear Shits In the Woods".  And we have yet another person with a wound to the small intestines who dies in less than 10 seconds (see also; Rant, Mitch's Last Week).  Then Sean shoots himself through the brachial artery, causing as much damage as a popped zit ('Tis but a scratch!).  All of this criminal mastermind thinking should only be enough to fool the totally stupid.

Hello, Larry!

Files gone...so they are really screwed, which means this plot line will drag on for another four or five episodes.

But, Wait!  Looks like they didn't quite wipe it all off, as Chloe worked her normal voodoo and was able to recover the drive, which prompts the Snake to remember that his mother was French, so he high tails it to the nearest exit.  However, Maybe-Not-So-Empty-Suit Larry was not quite as trusting as he appeared to be and was anticipating that move, catching him before he got anywhere close to the exits.  You Dog!  The Snake lawyers up...and I'm now thinking that Larry may soon not be so Holier-Than-Thou about that whole torture thing.

At the hospital, Renee's eyes are now reaching the size of those on a Margaret Keane painting.  The Guilt Trip is made even worse as Sister Ironside shows up to get the Bad News.  Suffering in quiet dignity wasn't really her thing.  Tearing Renee a new one was.

Jack and Renee have The Argument, and then Renee becomes the 29^th person this season to bring up Teri Bauer just to yank Jack's chain...which works quite well as Jack finally raises his voice above the level he uses for a Bank of America commercial.  Then we get the face slaps we saw in the previews, and Renee breaks down into a sobbing heap.  This caused a half eye-roll from me, until they broke from convention.  Jack fell back on the old cliché of "you'll learn to live with it", which causes Renee to push back at him again.  Jack decides to try to get one last snipe in, telling her to never pull her gun on him unless she intends to use it.

"I did."

Woo-ahh!  Sign #856 that they must mate.

Right before coming back from break, I saw a Diet Mt. Dew commercial that had Abe Lincoln ripping off his shirt and throwing Steven Douglass off the stage in a wrestling move before breaking chairs over other people on the podium.  Sign #857 that The Bottom has been Scraped.

At the White House, we have a mother/daughter argument.  And Mitch does what he's best at...ignoring it, knowing it will soon blow over...because if there is one thing a father with daughters knows, it's that getting into the middle of one of those battles only gets both sides angry with you. 

(BTW, the President would never say "one of the guards", as Allison did to FirstSpoiledPrincess.  Whatever they pay these writers and fact checkers, it's too much).

At 5:55, Bill Buchanan also announces that things are "finally over", due to the information on Debaucle's implant.  Sure it is...and if I just click HERE, I'll make $10,000 a month working from home! (no, that's not really a hyper-link to riches, so stop trying to click on it, you gullible morons).

Jack looks reflectively across the Reflecting Pool (sorry, couldn't resist), being glad that The Whole Thing is over.  Only if they are going to change the name of the show to "10", which wouldn't make Bo Derek happy.

Then notices Tony sitting behind him.  "This ain't over yet."

Oh.

My.

Gawd!

I'd have never guessed!

Sen. Red's chief of staff is involved...who just so happens to be the Lower Level Flunky of the Jon Voight Conspiracy Group we met last week.  Stay tuned!

Final Thoughts

~ Was it just me, or was Jack being quite the insensitive jerk this evening?

~ Good to see that as predictable as this show can sometimes be, it can still really surprise you.  Having Erika the Skank being the second mole was quite a revelation.  I was also surprised in the previews by seeing them still hanging onto the SomeGala plot line.  I was getting all ready for the entire season to make the hard 90 degree turn and start concentrating on the Jon Voight Conspiracy Group...but they have other plans in mind.

~ Bill said that Larry "was confident that the FBI was secure".  You know those kinds of blanket statements of hubris seem to always come back to bite them in the ass.  Odds of Janis therefore being Mole #3? 

~ We get a 2 Hour event next week when Gen. F.U. Jobu attacks the White House.  With Jack Bauer playing the part Harrison Ford played in "Air Force One" (except he's not the President...yet).  Why not?   We've already had Air Force One shot down in "24", let's just go all "Independence Day" on the White House as well.

Bauer Body Count 

15.  If the previews are correct, expect a big jump in this over the two hours next week.

Who Is The Mole? 

I am going to put this category on hiatus...but I get the feeling we'll be revisiting it soon.

Odds of Survival

Marika and Erika go off the list.

Col. Debaucle (100:1)  Although with him in the hospital, he may just fade away to Milk Carton status.

Tony (20:1).  Showed back up a lot quicker than I expected.  I really think that one of the following three Friends of Jack will die; Tony, Bill Buchanan, or Renee.

Janis (20:1).  She may still be a sleeper mole.  She may also be this year's sacrificial CTU/Fed innocent to bit the dust.

Empty Suit Larry (10:1).  Nice to see him finally grow a half-pair this week.

Chief of Staff Ethan (8:1).  My pick for collateral damage in the W.H. Attack.

First Old Man (7:1).  One point on the odds for every hour we have to wait until we are relieved of this boring plot line.  Last week, they said "five hours"...this week it changed to "several", so the odds go from 5:1 to 7:1.

Bill Buchanan (6:1).  After Ethan, my next pick for buying it in the cross fire from Gen. F.U. Jobu.

Sean the Snake (5:1).  At this point, I'd say he's simply heading for life in prison.  But he may come back as a bargaining chip...which would therefore put the odds once again a lot higher.

Spoiled Princess Olivia (4:1).  Could get killed in the attack on the White House...more than likely, she ends up as ransom.

Renee Walker (2:1).  I hate to put her on this list, but with the stress going on now, and the friction with Jack, it's possible.

President Allison Taylor (1:1).  They don't have a problem offing Presidents in this show.  As the first woman shown as president, I don't think they'll kill her off, but I would put nothing past them.

The Milk Carton

Have you seen me?

The Dikembe Mutobos - Got Jack and Bill into the White House.  Probably on a plane to SomeGala right now.

Wild Tim Guarnere - Doesn't appear to be the W.H. mole.  In fact, for the last few weeks, he hasn't appeared at all.

Sean the Snake's Wife - Who cares?

Kim Bauer - She's supposed to make an appearance this year.

The Kidron, Ohio Cows - Eat Mor Chikin.

Jon Voight - M.I.A. since "24: Redemption"