Written by Mitch Cyrus

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When a Jedi senses a great disturbance in the Force, it is Jack Bauer.

The momentum continues to build on this season.  I’m not sure we are even out of the woods for this being considered the Worst. Season. Ever., but at least it is finally trending the right way.

Recap

In going through the “previously on 24” section, I just realized that Chloe had said of Kayla’s car that “she was just exiting [Something or Another] Bridge”.  And 15 seconds later, she is in the tunnel at their doorstep.  So who the hell was the genius who decided to put such a top secret, ultra important security and law enforcement agency right next to everything?

The same people who dreamed up KevinBob and Dana.

Nuff said.

There is a little something called Disaster Recovery that every government agency and publically traded company must have…by law.  And for the most crucial operations and services, organizations usually have what is called a “hot failover” site that provides redundancy, and enables you to quickly recover if even the worst happens…like having a bomb or EMP taking out your entire facility.

You would think after all the bombs, chemical attacks, and armed attacks against CTU, that they might know better by now.

You’d also think that as many times as I’ve watched this show, that I’D know better now than to bitch, because there is nothing that pisses off a “24” writer like “facts”.

End of rant.  So now Jack is trying to use NSA out of Washington to run computer point on everything now that the Single Point of Failure has failed.  Again.  (“ENOUGH ALREADY!!!” shouts the Dead Horse).

Jack thinks that the only way they can get the rods onto Manhattan is by using the East River, now that Bill in NSA is able to shut down the bridges and tunnels.  And sure enough, that’s what Samir and Tarin are getting set to do.  Let’s see….Manhattan is little over 13 miles long, so I’m guessing that by some incredible circumstance, Jack will somehow find out the exact 50 yard area that they will use….although I’m sure it will be a little too late to stop the rods, but not too late to stop a bitchin firefight.  (yes, that part really was written before I saw the end.  I’m good, ain’t I?)

BubbaHastings is walking Kayla out the door, giving her instructions to help identify the Samirskateers once she gets back over to the UN.  She gets all princessy-snippy, telling Bubba that she’s “doing nothing until you tell me what’s going on”.  So Bubba takes great pleasure in popping that last little bit of illusion she had that Tarin was anything other than a lying traitor (but a great kisser, I’m sure).  Kayla’s lower lip stuck out about as far as my daughter’s did when she didn’t get her way with me back when she was 12.  (Hell, she still pulls that stunt into her 20s).

Sure enough, Jack was able to program his GPS to “East River Kamistralian Terrorist Take-Off Point”.

Confessions of an ADD Mind:  I’m thinking that Jack Bauer ought to provide the voice for a GPS.

“Right turn NOW, DAMMIT!!!!”

“You call that a U-Turn, you pansie!”

“You have arrived at your destination.  Please engage the parking brake and disengage the safety on your M-16.  Kill them all.”

Jack, Cole, and the two guys wearing helmets are in the car, one of them being Owen the Nervous.  Two will die.  I wonder which two that will be?  (again…written BEFORE I saw the actual events unfold.  But predicting this is about as difficult as predicting that reporters will be shouting questions at Tiger Woods at the Masters that he will ignore).

Sure enough, the SUV is suddenly taking more shots than Ben Roethlisberger at a college bar.  All I care about is that we’re about to FINALLY have some additions to the Jack Bauer Body Count™. 

Nearby, one of the jihadists recognizes Jack as the guy from the Marcos Impressionist Chamber Painting.  “That’s Jack Bauer!” says Tarin, as his testicles quickly try to retreat into his large intestine.  But they think that the firefight will create enough of a diversion to get them across the river unnoticed.

What the hell is going on here?  Jack’s squeezed off at least 100 rounds, and hasn’t hit anyone yet.  Cole sees Tarin and “someone else” taking off in the Zodiac, but they are out of Jack’s range…which usually means that they would have to be in Boston, but not this time.  With communications jammed, what can they do?  Oh, yeah…use that convenient phone both that just so happens to be right there across the parking lot.

The NSA wonks have showed up at CTU, and the head guy is right away snooty with Bubba for how they let the place go to hell since they’d been gone (“love what you’ve done with the place”)  Frank, the “Senior Engineer from NSA”, wants to work with only “his people”…a possible sign that they aren’t who they say they are…but since Bubba called him out on it, I’m not thinking the writers are not quite smart enough for a double switch.

Chloe is not having a good 10 minutes.  Dana is on her nerves (OK…Dana is on everyone’s nerves), Bubba won’t listen to her request to send a bunch of people to check on Jack, and Engineer Frank totally dissed her idea for tapping into a trunk line.  Her final mistake is going to Arlo for a little moral support…which is like going to me for help in breaking your Sarcasm Habit.  I get the feeling we’re going to see Chloe Gone Rouge here in a few minutes.

Or maybe she’ll just call Renee.  Woo-hoo!  This episode has just went into the “It Can’t Suck” Category for that move.

Renee is going to go out and find Jack.  She also browbeat Chloe about not getting anyone to listen to her hairbrained ideas, telling her to “do what you have to do”.  Yep…we know what that means.

Back from break, and back to the Dana and Milton story (heavy sigh).  Dana tells Milton that the tapes incriminating her have been erased.  Milton says ‘OK’ to all of this, and wanders off.  No way in hell are we getting off this easily.

Chloe goes back in and tries to use her charming personality, winning smile, and sexy voice to convince Engineer Frank to do things her way.  Yeah…it took about five seconds of that attempt to see that it wasn’t working so it’s a case of WWJD (and I don’t mean the guy with the beard), and she pulls a gun on him, gets them all out of the server room, and locks it down tight.

So in the 15 minutes we’ve been following all of this crap, Jack is still going through ammunition like John Daly through a case of PBR, but not hitting anyone.  They’ve taken bullet proof shields off from the SUV and are going to use them to make a phalanx and waltz right over to the Call Box.  Why not?  The concept worked pretty good for King Leonidas

THIS!

IS!

BAUER!

Agent Kane turns out to be more nervous than Owen the Nervous…and keeps making the “it’s not going to hold up…we have to make a break for it!” claims against Jack’s instructions.

Of course he breaks formation.

Of course he gets shot.

Maybe I need a new Jack Bauer Count: Idiots Who Died Immediately After Disobeying Jack Bauer.

Owen the Nervous can’t stand seeing his buddy Kane the Nervouser laying there having his extremities shot off, so he disobeys Jack and tries to pull him in.

And gets shot.  Anyone see that coming?

Jack tells a big ol’ fib to the bleeding to death Owen, telling him that Kane made it.  How touching.

After the break, we get a family reunion of the Hassans, and Omar grounds Kayla until she’s 40.  With Kayla safe, Omar and Lady McBathist can head on over and join all of the other chickens…er…delegates at whatever New Jersey Budget Inn they are using for a hideout.  Kayla will stick around at the UN for awhile to help ID the baddies…I’m sure she’ll be safe there.

Bubba and Engineer Frank get to the basement to take care of Chloe, and they get in before she was able to finish.  She pleads her case, swearing to Bubba that she can do it if she only has…

Sing It with Feeling!...

Tennn Moooorrrreeee Minnnueetttteesss.

Dana, of course, disses Chloe’s idea…which pretty much seals the deal for Bubba….he gives her the time.  Hah!  In your FACE, Dana!

As Bubba is leaving, we have The Return of Milton!  He wants to see Bubba, who should just tell him to “STFU and call me in the morning”, instead, he tells his flunky to put Milton in holding, and that he’ll see him in fifteen minutes.  Which should give Dana ample time to do at least six stupid things.

Chloe, being the Geek Goddess that she is, did not need no stinkin’ 10 minutes, as she gets things back up and running in about five minutes.  Eat THAT, Scotty!  In fact, CTU coming back on line did look a lot like the USS Enterprise at that point, including some sparks going off giving Chloe a funny jump from being startled.

We are finally back at The Shooting Gallery, where Owen the Nervous has become Owen the Room Temperature, #3 on the Die For Not Listening To Jack list.  Jack decides that it’s time for him to make his 30^th Career Suicide Run, drawing attention away from the snipers while Cole runs to the call box.  He tells his quasi-goodbyes to Cole, making him promise to hold Bubba to his word about not brining Renee back “into this”.  Uhm…ya might want to have a little talk with Chloe about that subject.

Jack is hit, but keeps on killing terrorists, and then when his 500 round M-16 clip is empty, he pulls out his handgun and shoots some more, but gets hit twice more in his chest.  So do you think he was as dumb as that NYPD Sergeant (DFNL2J #1) and didn’t wear his bullet-proof vest?  Obviously, the terrorist doesn’t think so, and he lines up a head shot to finish him…

And then gets blown away by Renee!!!!

God, I love that woman.  Have I ever mentioned that before?

She takes out the last gunman, and then sprints for the fallen Jack as Cole sprints to the Sprint Box to Reach Out and Touch Someone (I love mixed metaphors).  Jack is still alive!  Shocking, isn’t it?

Another great 24 Moment.  Chloe is back at work, Bubba is shouting out orders, and stops to tell Chloe how superfragalisticly wonderful she is.

“I’m not good with praise,” she says, cutting him off.

Three minutes to go, and we’re seeing Starbuck walking through the remote corridors of Galactica, searching for a Cylon.  Instead she finds a Moron.  Milton the Moron.  So she does what any rational thinking person does…she strangles him.  Lucky she has that phony panel there that’s just the right size to hide a 250 pound body.  I’m sure no one will notice.

More ADD Confessions:  I’m feeling the need to channel Quentin Tarantino as Jimmy in “Pulp Fiction”.  “Does this place look like it has a sign on it saying ‘Dead Redneck Storage’?”

And then Dana calls up Samir?

Huh?

THERE’S A MOLE AT CTU!!!!

THERE’S A SALE AT PENNEY’S!!!

As we fade out, the bad guys are taking a taxi, and the camera pans back for an ominous shot of the U.N. Building.

Who would have guessed that the target would be that?  I was kind of hoping that it would have been Madison Square Garden.  I figured that if that place got contaminated, maybe those jerks at E$PN and the New York Post would shut up on their daily articles about how LeBron James “must” come to play for the (god-awful) Knicks.

Final Thoughts

OK…credit for taking one of the most clichéd twists of “24”, the CTU mole, and then revealing it at a very, very surprising time.  Didn’t see that one coming through all of my blind rage at the character.

But when you get right down to it, has anyone at CTU done ONE thing yet that you would expect an insider to do to help out the bad guys?  I just don’t see it, as the only thing Dana has been good at is cutting out of the office to deal with her redneck ex-boyfriend.  So without so much of a single clue as to the existence of a mole, this bombshell could be considered a bit of a cheat.  We’ll see over the next few weeks.

By the way…I had to rerun this a couple of times, but I noticed that the last thing Milton ever did was to cop a couple of boob feels on Dana as he was “struggling”.  Well played, Stephen Root.  Wonder how many takes he had them shoot that scene?

Bauer Body Count

12.  Jack Bauer’s usual Bullet-to-Dead-Terrorist Ratio is normally lower than Cliff Lee’s ERA from 2008-2009.  And it’s only that high because Jack loves to put two to the chest and one to the head.  Tonight?  It looked more like the expected ERA of this year’s Cleveland Indians.

Expiration Dates / Chances of Survival

Escorted Feet First Off the Island

Owen the Nervous – Just a little too obvious that the bad guys had to kill someone…and that someone couldn’t be Jack or Cole.

Milton Prady – I also figured he wouldn’t make it through the show.  But he did get a wonderful parting grope.

Anticipated Time of Remaining Life for Key 24 Characters, and the odds that they will survive the “day”.

Omar Hassan – Dead by 6 AM.  Could be a big shock next week as it looks like Samir wants to trade for him.  I still doubt he’ll die, but you never know.  If he is to die, the best opportunity would be next week..  Chance of survival: 67%

Samir – Dead by 7 AM.  I still think he gets bumped off and then Tarin takes over as the HMFIC.  Chances of survival: 0%

Dana Starbuck – Dead by 8 AM.  Once the moles are discovered, it doesn’t take too long for Jack to apply his special version of Compound W. Still, she might live just to see if FPJ can actually act when he sees her lead off in chains.  Chances of survival: 10%

BubbaHastings – Dead by 8 AM.  Dana might just bump someone off before she dies.  It could be Bubba.  Chances of survival: 60%

Arlo – Dead by 8 AM.  Better yet would be for Dana to bump off Arlo.  Chances of survival: 80%

Kayla – Dead by 9 AM.  Her still being in Manhattan means that she’s still in danger.  Chance of survival: 75%

Tarin – Dead by 11 AM. More tricks are up the sleeve of this guy..  Chances of survival: 0%

Chief of Staff RobWeasel – Dead by 12 PM.  Still can’t stand this guy.  Looks like he’ll be all for selling out Omar to save his skin next week. Chances of survival: 50%

Cole Ortiz – Dead by 3 PM.  Scared to death by the ghost of Sir Laurence Olivier haunting him for sucking so bad as an actor.  Chances of survival: 30%

Renee Walker – Dead by 4 PM.  Teaming back up with Jack.  But will his promise of being with her forever doom her?.  Chance of survival: 80%