News > TW Recap: Twenty-Four, 04-09-07
April 10, 2007
SUMMARY
Tonight's episode, which chronicles the hour between 10 and 11 pm in The Sixth Worst Day of Jack Bauer's Life, opens with a "Viewer Discretion Advised" warning. Granted, most of the previous (and nonviolent) episodes included this warning just because it makes what follows seem that much more potentially interesting, but tonight's episode earned that warning. And then some.
The show opens where it left off last week: after coming out of his coma, President Wayne Palmer orders a nuclear strike against an unnamed Middle Eastern country (basically, Pakistan) whose ambassador he has been in talks with for the entirety of the season. Tom Lennox and Karen Hayes try to talk Palmer out of the launch, citing the fact that he's being totally friggin' illogical, but he doesn't listen. Palmer's hand begins to involuntarily shake, which Lennox seems to notice.
Palmer gets the ambassador of Not-Pakistan on the phone, and gives him an ultimatum: Palmer knows they've been withholding evidence, and if he doesn't get it within the next five minutes then the ambassador is going to have to deal with a nuclear strike. The ambassador (almost immediately) acquiesces, and says that they have just now found a man named General Mohmar Habib, who is most likely controlling Fayed in the US. Palmer calls their bullshit and accuses them of knowing about Habib from the very start, which the ambassador (somewhat sheepishly) admits.
At the last second, Palmer aborts the missile strike, but warns the ambassador not to ever withhold such information again. After a few sighs of relief on Palmer's end, it is revealed that the missile the president launched was a dud: regardless of whether or not he called for the abort code, nobody would have been killed. Palmer was simply bluffing to get Not-Pakistan's ambassador to give up the goods.
We then cut to Jack and Fayed in the back of the bar where they found him. Jack is doing his thing the way only he can: punching Fayed (with a towel wrapped around his fist, for some reason), shouting "WHERE ARE THE BOMBS," acting generally pissed off about everything. After a few minutes of being himself, he calls Buchanan and basically says that Fayed wants to be martyred and will refuse to give up anything. While, in the background, Doyle tries really hard to act like Jack and coerce the truth out of Fayed, Buchanan tells Jack to bring Fayed back to CTU for some pharmaceutical torture. I assume that means they're gonna use truth serum or something, but maybe it just means they'll get him drunk on Robotussin or something and he'll just divulge his secrets out of whimsy. Jack tells Doyle to get the car ready (like a good bitch should), before looking Fayed in the face and delivering one of the most badass lines of the season: "Now we're gonna have some fun."
Back to Palmer. Tom Lennox apologizes for ever having doubted him, and Wayne admits that, though he isn't David, he's beginning to gain some self-confidence. Wayne also knows that Lennox has something on the VP, but when he asks, Lennox tells Palmer that there is a big difference between informing the president, and protecting him.
Jack and Doyle and Fayed talk for a few seconds on the van ride back to CTU. Whatever they were talking about really doesn't matter because a few moments later, out of nowhere, an armored car rams the total fuck out of the CTU van, overturning it. Arab dudes with guns come out of the armored car and begin shooting. Jack shoots a few of them (naturally), a few nameless CTU agents are cut down in the firefight (even more naturally), and then both Doyle and Jack are killed and Fayed is whisked away by the terrorists.
Wait, what?
The armored car drives away, and we linger on Jack's inert body for a few seconds. Suddenly, he sits up, yells something along the lines of "It's done," and about a half-dozen CTU fans appear from around the corner. Evidently, the entire armored car attack was a ruse -- the guys who "killed" Jack and Doyle, and who took Fayed, are actually a secondary CTU team posing as terrorists.
For absolutely no reason whatsoever, Doyle is revealed to have sustained a superficial injury to the back of his head. It doesn't even come back later. It's just, "Oh, ow, my head hurts."
In the Fake Terrorism Van, the fake terrorists tell Fayed that General Habib has sent them. Fayed asks for a gun, which they reluctantly provide him with. Despite their protestations, he refuses to name his destination until he personally speaks to Habib.
Buchanan calls Palmer and tells him of the situation. Lennox suggests that maybe they should just torture Fayed some more, but Palmer tells him, "If Jack Bauer says that's a dead end, then that's a dead end." Palmer knows his torturers.
Palmer summons the ambassador of Not-Pakistan and acts like an angry badass. The ambassador tries to stall, saying that they've done everything in their power: "We have even arrested his family." Without missing a beat, Palmer replies, "Have you threatened to kill them?" The ambassador, Tom, and Karen look flabbergasted for a few seconds before Palmer angrily asks the ambassador exactly how far he is willing to go to prevent terrorism.
Back at CTU, Milo Douchebag refuses to do some technical gobbledygook for Nadia the Hottie. When she asks him what his problem is, he angrily replies that he doesn't understand why she's suddenly become so buddy-buddy with Doyle so quickly. Nadia tries to infer that there may be more to Doyle than Milo Douchebag knows (referring to the fact that, in the previous episode, Doyle intentionally erased evidence of Milo Douchebag's mistakes), but Milo just gets angry and grabs her by the arm. Despite her protestations, she doesn't let go until Morris intervenes and asks what the problem is.
The fake terrorists get the call from Habib, who speaks to Fayed. Watching his son held at gunpoint, Habib tells Fayed that he did indeed send the fake terrorists that Fayed is currently with. Habib tells Fayed to round up the bombs, find a man named Samir, and then call him back.
President Palmer's health begins to wane more and more, as he begins to sweat, his eyes begin to roll around, and he exhibits many television-friendly Generic Sickness Symptoms in the conference room. Palmer sends the ambassador out, ostensibly not wanting him to see him in a time of weakness. Right after the ambassador leaves the room, Palmer collapses in front of Lennox.
Back at CTU, Nadia the Hottie reveals a possible contradiction in Habib's message to Fayed. Samir, the person Habib told Fayed to find, is evidently an ex-associate of theirs who has been dead for the past two years. Milo doesn't think the contradiction means anything, because Milo is a fucking moron that doesn't know a distress signal when he hears one. Buchanan calls Jack who calls the fake terrorist team. Before he can tell them what happened, however, the van goes under a tunnel, the cell phone goes dead, and CTU loses them on radar.
Jack's team follows the van and sees it has stopped in the middle of the tunnel, with all the occupants killed and Fayed missing. Jack finds one of those conveniently-placed doors in the side of the tunnel, follows the sound of Fayed's footsteps, and finds that Fayed has also killed a conveniently-placed trucker right in front of his conveniently-placed truck. Fayed calls someone and tells them he is on his way before driving away in the truck. As it pulls away, we see that Jack is clinging onto the underside of the truck, because that's what Jack fucking does. He calls CTU and when they can't hear his message to them over the noise of the engine, we get our first (and last) "DAMMIT" of the episode.
Palmer's doctor does some doctor-y stuff on Palmer and determines that he needs more doctor-y care, which Palmer refuses.
Fayed arrives at a derelict factory occupied by some of his terrorist buddies. He tells them he's going to activate the remaining two bombs and deal the final blow to LA. After all of the terrorists leave save for one, Jack trips the remaining one and snaps the fucking shit out of his neck while he's down. He follows the remaining terrorists and sees Fayed walk over to a table where the remaining two suitcase nukes are. Jack (who, for some reason, is not backed up by any of the numerous CTU agents he was riding with) kills two guys with one fucking bullet and then proceeds to pick off the rest of Fayed's men, one by one by using the factory's conveniently-placed barrels and crates for cover. Fayed and Jack shoot at each other for a few seconds before both of them run out of ammo, which leads to Jack tackling Fayed and slamming him to the floor like the badass he is. They have an extended hand-to-hand fight that culminates with Jack punching Fayed in the sternum before coiling a length of chain around his neck. "Say hello to your brother," he says. He then mechanically raises the chain, effectively hanging Fayed. Wait. Fayed's dead, and it isn't even the season finale? Niggawhatnow?
Doyle's team arrives about three seconds after they would have been really useful and they repossess the last two suitcase nukes. Everything seems really great until Jack's phone rings.
"Jack?"
Jack stops. He knows the voice. It's Audrey. "Help me," she repeats a few times. The Chinese dude from last season takes the phone from her and informs Jack that Audrey is alive. If he doesn't call back within the hour, they'll kill her.
REACTION
GOD FUCKING DAMNIT.
This episode was going so well up until the end. Milo's bullshit was at a minimum, Jack was acting like a total badass Palmer actually grew some balls, and we got not one, but two switcheroos from the good guys. All things considered, this was probably the single best episode of the season.
But goddamnit, why Audrey? She was the single most annoying character in all of season five (in the single worst scene of that season, she proved herself the only woman who can ever make Jack choose love over national security), and she should have died a long, long time ago. But now she's back.
It's cool that they did the typical 24 thing and ended the nuke storyline a lot earlier than you'd assume, but it's been replaced with this? With more Audrey bullshit? I'm all for the show randomly taking a new direction mid-season, but this Audrey plot will more than likely divert attention from the other characters and turn it back into The Jack Bauer Show, which made seasons 3, 4, and 5 so disappointing in comparison to the rest of the series and, indeed, some of the better episodes of this season.
Still, at least Jack will get to Make Things Personal once he goes after the Chinese. His little torture tricks are so much more fun when he's personally invested in their outcome, you know?
