News > TW Recap: Twenty-Four, 05/07/07
May 8, 2007
SUMMARY
Heller and Audrey leave CTU (offscreen, of course, so the producers don't have to pay either actor). Nadia tells Jack that "Bloomfield" is the name of a copper refinery on the edge of town, because why wouldn't it be a copper refinery? She says she's sending a tactical team to take it, and when jack asks to go along, she refuses.
At the refinery, Cheng (not "Chang," as I had previously assumed) tells his cadre of soldiers to get ready to attack. He doesn't say WHAT they're attacking, but given his none-too-subtle dialogue from loast episode, it's a fair bet that they're going to kidnap Morris or Chloe in order to unlock the nuke component.
Jack's nephew, Josh, and his cousin-in-law, Marilyn, are evidently still at CTU. Josh, watching the news, angrily tells his mother that he wishes he'd never been in this family of murderers. Chloe comes in and tells Marilyn that Audrey Raines is still alive. Marilyn goes to Jack and apologizes for telling him that Audrey was dead without knowing the real truth, and Jack obviously forgives her because it wasn't exactly her fault. Marilyn says she and Josh will leave in the morning, but promises to bring Josh by to see Jack before they do so.
Back at the Oval Office, Karen Miller calls his Russian spy boyfriend (evidently named "Bishop") and tells him exactly what Daniels told her to say last episode -- namely, that the US has the component back and that she wants to meet him back at her place. Daniel watches as they exchange sex talk and looks really, really uncomfortable. The plan is that Karen will put some memos stating the US's success in retrieving the component part on her personal PDA, she'll leave it unattended, and Bishop will read the memos and report to president Subarov that the component has been recovered.
At Bloomfield, shots of Doyle leading the tactical team into the refinery are intercut with shots of Chang informing his soldiers of the plan to raid the Mysterious Building which everyone know will be revealed as CTU. Doyle's men enter the building, but they find that the entire refinery is empty save for an assload of weapons crates. Meanwhile, Cheng's men -- wherever they are -- crawl into the sewers through a hole in the ground and work toward the Mysterious Building which everyone knows will be revealed as CTU. A few seconds later, the building is revealed to be CTU.
Morris asks Chloe for some help, and Chloe acts like a total bitch before apologizing. Morris tell sher not to be sorry, and that he broke up with her not because of what she said, but because of what he did when he armed the nukes and her inability to forget it. Chloe says that she is fully capable of regretting it, and MOrris, like a badass, invokse the fact that Chloe knows him intimately and therefore knows full well that he is never wrong.
Outside Lisa Miller's, Lennox gives her one last inspirational "don't fuck this up or you'll be brought up on treason charges" speech and sends her inside. Lennox and some secret service dudes wait in a van outside of Miller's house. Lisa enters and tries her best to act nonchalant. She attempts to excuse herself to the bathroom several times, but Bishop's lust for sex is too much. He grabs her, throws her on the bed, and takes his shirt off. Awkwardly, we cut to commercial.
Cheng's men move into position under CTU and hack their security system. Because evidently, there are access terminals in the CTU sewers. Just in case.
Milo and Nadia have more awkward relationship dialogue, made even more awful and awkward because both characters refuse to look at one another, and Nadia delivers lines like "I don't know what I feel...i need time to sort it all out, okay?"
After Chloe checks the satellite feed and tells Nadia that the Chinese definitely left Bloomfield before the tactical team even arrived, all the CTU communications go dead. The Chinese soldiers blow a sewer grate above them and begin climbing upward into the main CTu building. All the CTU security systems die, and Nadia sets the base on lockdown. The soldiers invade and begin indiscriminately shooting security guards. They make their way to the main CTU hub as Jack tries to convince the guard outside his door to set him free, but the guard is too busy yelling into his walkie-talkie like a moron. The guard then lets Jack out, who asks the guard for a weapon right before said guard gets blown away by a random Chinese thug. Jack naturally grabs the guard's pistol and blows the thug away, then a few more, and then decides to grab one of the dead soldier's machine guns.
In the Hub, the Chinese leader asks who is in command and, after a moment of silence, Milo speaks up despite Nadia's silent protestations ("silent prostestations" meaning vigorous head shakes and concerned glances). The thug asks him to come forward, and before Milo gets within five steps of him, the thug pulls his pistol and fucking SHOOTS MILO IN THE HEAD.
In their isolated waiting room, Josh and Marilyn Bauer are accosted by two Chinese soldiers, who -- strangely -- get on their walkie-talkies and tell their leader that they've found Josh Bauer, as if they'd been looking for him all along. Before they can say anything else, Jack shows up and kills the shit out of them. He forces Marilyn and Josh to follow him to an air condition room of sorts. Jack stops an air conditioning fan by wedging his machine gun into a fan blade. He forces Josh to climb into the duct right before two soldiers enter the room and force Jack to drop his remaining weapons before escorting he and Marilyn back to the hub. Doyle calls CTU and the Chinese decide it's time to answer: the leader calls over Nadia after checking the staff roster to see who is in charge (why he didn't do that earlier is beyond me). He tells Nadia to tell Doyle that everything is okay, or else he'll kill literally every person in CTU. Nadia tells Doyle that everything is fine, but she calls him "Mike" for what may be the first time in the season. Doyle hangs up, seemingly suspecting that something may possibly be awry.
The thugs activate the PA system and address Josh directly. They promise not to hurt him, that they will take him to a safe place. They then threaten to kill his mother in 10 seconds if he doesn't reveal himself. The soldier gets to 9 before Josh climbs out of the vents. Which, when you think of it, is pretty unreasonable -- he could have been anywhere in the duct system, and possibly been more than ten seconds away from one of the few remaining Chinese soldiers. But then, the Chinese military isn't known for its decency.
Cheng gets the call that Josh is in custody, and makes another call of his own. Cheng calls Jack Bauer's dad (remember him?), and informs him that Josh and Marilyn are in custody. It turns out that Jack's dad is the one they hired to repair the component chip, and that his asking price was the return of his grandson.
REACTION
This episode would have been a lot more exciting if we hadn't seen many of these scenes before in earlier, better seasons, but it nonetheless remains one of the better entries this season.
This is (at least) the third time CTU has been invaded/attacked by terrorists, the second or third time a woman has found out her boyfriend is actually a spy and had to conceal that fact, and the umpteenth time we've seen a CTU employee randomly and "shockingly" killed.
Honestly, when Milo got killed, it wasn't that surprising -- once the Chinese soldier asked who was in charge, the music suddenly stopped. So you knew some shit was going to go down. And there had to be some reason for that weird dialogue exchange between Milo and Nadia -- as it turned out, it was to remind us that Milo the Douchebag was actually related to some of the peripheral sideplots, as if reminding us of that fact would make us miss him or something. But it was nice to see Milo get his shit totally wrecked.
Still, though, you can't complain about an episode that rips off Die Hard at almost every available opportunity.
...Then again, maybe you can.
P.S:
Peter MacNichol is the single best actor on the show. He's made Tom Lennox more than just an annoying political ally: it frequently seems like Tom has motives on top of motives, and, though he seems to be a generally noble guy, you can never quite tell where his loyalties lie. Plus, during the scene where Daniels and Miller basically bitch at each other over Lisa's infidelity, MacNichol has the greatest way of delivering an "Uh, anyway, about the fate of the civilized world..." type of line.
