Written by Mitch Cyrus

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One episode and two hours left. And Mitch is VERY concerned about this possibly being one of the lamest Final episodes we've ever seen. The Last Big Threat to America has been neutralized, and it looks like we're going to spend two hours covering Jack being blackmailed into helping Tony escape, Kim and the Cougar, and Olivia possibly bringing down her mother due to the Jon Voight scandal. As he does every Wednesday night, Mitch recaps last week's episode and tries to make sense of where we're headed. In 96 hours, Jack Bauer has killed 93 people and saved the world 4 times. What the hell have you done with your life?

From the previews, we know we're going to be seeing Kim this week.  I hope that's a good thing...because sometimes ya' just can't tell when it comes to her.

A reminder that next Tuesday, May 19^th at 8 PM EST, I'll be hosting a "24" wrap up show on TheClevelandFan Live radio network on Blog Talk Radio.  Rich Swerbinsky and Tony Lastoria will be joining me, and I hope to have a couple of other writers from the site chiming in as well.  I also will gladly welcome any calls from fans of this column as well...the dial in number is (646) 716-8012.

Recap

FakeTricia starts out the show by almost having an orgasm as she talks about the "eight or nine thousand that will be exposed" to the pathogen.  Makes me wonder if she watches disaster flicks with a vibrator right next to the remote control ("oh yeah, give me that earthquake, baby!").

Yes...I might have just broken a record...the fastest I've ever went Too Far.

Go to the Gutter.  Go straight to the Gutter.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.

Tony gives Jibraan his instructions on taking the canister into the center of DC on the subway.  And I have to ask; why do they have a subway in Washington, DC?  As you have noticed all season, you can get ANYWHERE in DC in a matter of ten minutes, so there should be no need for anything resembling mass transit.

FakeTricia puts on another wig and glasses, and decides to go with the Sarah Palin look.  And if you think I'm going to risk another avalanche of nasty emails from one side or the other by making an additional comment here...you're mistaken.  One thing I've learned this season; partisan politics makes for really humorless people.

But now that I think of it...just for grins and giggles...let's piss off BOTH sides, and go for an option insult. 

Option 1: FakeTricia puts on her Sarah Palin outfit, planning this time to get in a helicopter and shoot defenseless people instead of wolves...as long as they are liberal (and if they are in Washington...they are obviously liberals).

Or

Option 2: FakeTricia puts on her Sarah Palin outfit as part of her diabolical plan to distract Janeane Garafalo from her task of cracking security codes, as she'll be too busy calling up Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher in order to bitch about the cost of her FakeSarah's.

What?  You seriously thought I'd pass this up?

At The Apartment That the INS Forgot, Jack uncuffs Hamid, telling him that he will find his brother (or at least his corpse...so technically, he's not lying).  And for the second time today, Jack stops an EMT from giving morphine to a dying terrorist (earlier, it was Col Debaucle).  Hell, it might even be the SAME EMT...as small of a world as exists in 24-Land, it wouldn't surprise me.  Jack warns Renee to "step out of the room".  "Do what you need to do," says Renee.  Ah, yes...it's so nice for her to get away from the puppy dog eyes and back into the "Torture: Good!" mode. 

Back to CTU-Lite, Chloe chastises Janis for being a mental midget as well as a physical midget, which causes Janis to finally admit what we've all known all along.  "It's obvious that I'll never be able to do things as well as you did at CTU.  All I ask is that you not make me feel like an idiot while pointing that out".

"Alright," Chloe responds, totally deadpan.

That might have been the Greatest Moment This Season.  Seriously...I re-wound it six times, just to make sure I savored every little nuance of shame and defeat in Janis's voice, and the condescending smarminess in Chloe's.

Jibraan tries to tip off the Subway Authority...but is thwarted by a clueless desk clerk (redundant), followed by a "police officer" who is really one of the Bad Guys. Damn...they are doing their best to make me feel sorry for Jabraan, so I'll really be concerned whether he lives of dies.  The Smart-Ass in me really HATES when they do that.  However...the "normal" side of me likes it, as it shows that the writers really can do the suspense thing well.  And in truth, the actor playing Jibraan is doing one hell of a job.

Back from the break, which included the first of at least 10 commercials that we'll see this evening for "American Idol", and Aaron Pierce is on the phone with his charage and not at all happy that the First Slut Olivia has lied to him about "retiring to the residency".  Seems the net is quickly tightening regarding who might have tipped off the assassin regarding the location of JonVoight (current location?  Over here.  Over there.  Up there. Down here). 

Oops...looks like Martin was the guy that told the hitman to go ahead and kill JV, even though he hadn't yet received his money.  Martin took things into his own hands, telling the hitman to proceed and not worry about the money because "she's good for it".  His reasoning?  After his talk with her, his Miss Cleo Powers activated, and he knew she really, really, wanted to do it (your mouse said "no", but your eyes said "kill that bastard").  Which also means that he now has her totally in his back pocket. 

Unlike with Jibraan...I really don't care.

Kim calls her hubby.  Her flight has been delayed "an hour.  Which probably means two."  Hmmm.  In two hours, it will be 7:20 AM, with only 40 minutes left in the season.  How Convenient!^TM Hubby continues to try to Talk Sense to Kim (obviously, he doesn't yet really know her that well), suggesting that she should stay.  Before her battery dies, we find out (a) that Hubby is a doctor (of course), and (b) Kim's being stalked by someone.  Could be a bad guy.  Could just be someone working for that slime bucket Perez Hilton, looking for an ugly picture to post on a trashy internet site.  I hope it involves a wardrobe malfunction.

Chloe has finally decrypted the cell phone triangulation of Tony's location.  Thank God she, like hubby Morris, also has Mad Blowfish Skilz.  And What Luck!  Tony is right in front of them!  Jack executes a perfect Pit Maneuver on Tony's van, and then drags him out for the ass-whuppin' he so desperately deserves.  Or at least the Famous Jack Bauer Sleeper Hold (which does take a toll on Jack's "delicate" physical state).

However, prior to that, Tony was to be able to trash his hand-held PC enough so that even Chloe could not get any information out of it...and if Chloe can't, then nobody can.  Except in this case, Janis has those types of Mad Skilz.  Yeah!  A Chick Pissing Contest!  I'll bring the popcorn.

Jack finally gets the Big Confrontation with Tony; which starts with Jack using Tony's face as a speed bag.  Rah!  Tony asks Jack to go ahead and shoot him...being a closeted masochist.  And Jack, being a not-so-closeted sadist...says "no".

Hey...as long as he didn't Head Butt him, it's all good.

Within 20 seconds, the now Omnipotent Janis, and the Green-Eyed Chloe have determined that the target is Washington Square, have cracked the comm link to Jibraan, and have rigged the American Idol votes so that Adam advances to the next round.  Jack is letting Jibraan know that his brother is safe, but he's in deep doo-doo.  Jibraan finds the package, and Jack tries to talk through dumping it somewhere where it won't kill enough people as to give FakeTricia as much as a pleasurable shudder.

Unfortunately for Jibraan, the writers watched "Airport", and some idiotic "Good Samaritan" has tipped off Metro Police about the suspicious looking Muslim Guy, who must be up to no-good.  With the delay, Jibraan has no choice but to play the part, and whips the canister out and uses his best Crazy A-Rab voice to scare the bejezus out of everyone with his cries of "It's a BOMB!" (funny...it looks nothing like the movie "Speed Racer".  Thanks.  I'll be here all week.  Try the veal!).  But it works, as Jibraan manages to not get plugged by 20 or more cops, and gives the canister to Jack, who slam dunks it into the Hazmat containment unit seconds before it detonates.  Nice teamwork.  Kind of looked like LeBron earlier in the evening, dumping a last second pass off to Mo Williams who buried the trey (and buried the Hawks).

OK...Tony captured.  Threat neutralized.  And there is more than two hours to go?  Must be time for Plot Twist Number 5 (sung to the tune of Mambo Number 5)

A little bit of Debaucle in my fist.

A little bit of Tony's blood I sprayed.

A little bit of JV everywhere.

A little bit of Kim makes me OK.

And now...I must truly apologize for everyone out there who cannot get that rotten, rotten song out of your mind.  No.  Really.  I am sorry (snicker).

At the airport, Kim is being excessively paranoid.  And remember; just because you're paranoid, it doesn't necessarily mean that they AREN'T out to get you.  But as it turns out, creepy-looking-guy is actually spying on her for Jack, as he wants to make sure she's on that plane.

FakeTricia talks to the head of the Blue Man Conspiracy Group, letting him know that she has a plan for springing Tony.  And given that we're still almost 20 minutes away from the start of the Two Hour Finale, I'd say her chances of succeeding are about on the same level as the chances of the Indians' bullpen of sucking on any (and every, it seems) given night. 

OK now...raise your hand if you didn't see it coming when Jack's airport buddy was garroted by the greasy haired guy Kim quickly befriended.  Now both of you put your hands down, go to the whiteboard, and write "I will start paying attention to obviously plot ploys" 100 times.

So it's the "Kim Is In Danger" plot line.  For something like the 50^th time in seven seasons. Sigh.  "Metcalf Up the Middle" was less predictable (sorry...I have no link for this, so you non-Browns fans are just going to have to take me at my word that this is the nastiest thing I could say about an annoyingly predictable and ultimately useless development).  To make it more symmetrical, Mrs. Greasy Haired Bad Guy appears to be a bit of a cougar...so here we go again...Kim threatened by a Cougar.  Pass the Patron, because I think I'm going to need it to get through these last two hours.  (and if you really needed that link to understand what "cougar" means in this connotation...you simply must get out more).

Speaking of Annoying Daughters, FSO is back at the White House, and Aaron is pissed.  But Olivia turns on the tears, lays on about twelve layers of bullshit about the stress she's endured throughout the day, and Aaron is so sick of listening to her, that he doesn't care what she's done.  Oh, wait...he does...and he calls former Chief of Staff Ethan, asking him to come in and activate his access to the recording device that was in his former office...the device that would have recorded the FSO's conspiracy to commit murder conversation.  First Slut is going down!!!!  And I don't mean in the same manner that she did earlier with SleazyKen.

Time to wrap up the happy endings, as no one else around there seems to realize that we still have two hours to go.  Additional cat-fighting between Janis and Chloe...yawn (unless Chloe breaks back out her machine gun and totally aerates her).  Jibraan meets up in a teary reunion with Hamid...yeah, move along.  And Greasy Haired Badguy and the Cougar work with FakeTricia to force Jack to become a Enemy of the State for the 15^th time this season to save her.  Which may force him to kill Renee.  Right.

Final Thoughts

Chloe, above all others, should have looked at her watch the instant the canister had been disabled, realized that it had only been 22 hours since All This Began, and immediately called Jack to warn him.  After all, she's already gone through four of these with Jack, and the pattern is there.  You'd think someone that smart would realize that fact.

Nice of them to show Jack on a medical table obviously getting a stem cell injection into his spinal column to cure him.  Of course that's totally predictable...but I'd like to have the allusion that it may work out another way.  Seriously, this is one thing that irks me about "24", how on most weeks, they'll totally give away certain plot points for the next week.

At this point, I am VERY concerned about this possibly being one of the lamest Final episodes we've ever seen.  The Last Big Threat to America has been neutralized, and it looks like we're going to spend two hours covering Jack being blackmailed into helping Tony escape, Kim and the Cougar, and Olivia possibly bringing down her mother due to the JV scandal.  Given that only one President has served out a single, full, four year term, Allison Taylor's chances of joining David Palmer in that exclusive club are getting smaller by the moment.

All we can hope for is one truly shocking moment that could at least hold a candle to, say, Nina Myers killing Teri Bauer.  But I'm not holding my breath.

Death Watch

With only two hours left, it's too late to get into odds...straight up or down vote.  We'll check my score next week.

Jack : Alive - I will next astound you with my Bold Prediction that it will be dark tonight.

Tony: Dead - Although they may still do a repeat of Nina Myers...lock him up so that he can get out next year and stir up some trouble early in the season before Jack plugs him.

Kim: Alive - Sorry...as much as we all seem to want this to work out the other way...it's just not going to happen.

FakeTricia: Dead - But not before she runs the gambit of wigs and dons a gray one.

Renee: Alive - So next season, Jack can have a child with her who would be younger than his grandchild.

Janis: Alive - It's just not fair.

Olivia: Dead - Risky pick here...I'm thinking this may be the only way to spare her mother the scandal of the JV murder.

Martin: Dead - Gets taken out by Aaron after he kills FSO?

Aaron Pierce: Alive - And certain to not allow himself to ever get talked into coming out of retirement again.

Chloe: Alive - Are you kidding me?

Will Patton (Blue Man Conspiracy Group Leader): Alive - Got to keep one of them alive to cause problems next season.