When last we left the fun loving 24 crew, we had the President held captive by General Juma, a glaring lack of security cameras in the White House, a safe house with no ability to communicate to the outside world and a timid, timid vice president content to dribble out the clock with his team down a bucket.
Despite all of this, our faithful President Taylor, in a moment my friend Rob called “more awkward than any Kim Bauer scene” (how’s that for a ringing endorsement?), embraces her daughter Olivia and tells her to “keep your eyes open and stay ready. We’re going to be okay.” Perhaps she’s forgotten about her VP’s spine removal surgery, the ineptitude of whoever installed the security system in the White House and general lack of dependable FBI agents. But hey, maintain the optimism.
Yet just as I’m being skeptical, La Presidenta is proven correct. Jack whispers to Bill that he removed the lid from five presumably odorless canisters of CH4 hidden in the safe room. They just need to create a diversion, get one stray bullet to go off and most of Juma’s men will be taken out by the blast. Why not go now? Bill asks. We’re clearly the two most dangerous people in the room, I’m wearing an awesome black turtleneck, yet none of Juma’s men seem to be paying attention to us. I mean, look, we’re not even hiding the fact that we’re talking and no one is even telling us to shut up. Jack insists they wait.
Juma has ceased focusing on the war in his own country and has traveled all the way across the world to order the president to read some admission of guilt, which is being broadcast on the internet. If only Al Gore hadn’t have invented that thing. The VP still will not give Moss the okay to begin a rescue mission. Apparently he’s waiting for the president to actually hold up a sign saying “okay to come in now.”
In a turn of events destined to give him nightmares, Moss decides to cross an authority figure and sends his men in. At this same time, Buchanan makes a run for it – thank heavens none of Juma’s men were watching the hostages – wrestles a gun away from one of the henchmen and fires a bullet into the safe house. Somehow the explosion knows to only take out Juma’s men – much as in the fourth Indiana Jones, when the orangutans instinctively knew communism was wrong and attacked only the Russians – and the tide has turned in Jack’s favor. His awareness in times like this is unmatched, as he immediately assesses the situation and yells for the suddenly functional Aaron Pierce to secure the president. Pierce and Jack take out all of Juma’s men and then Jack is face to face with Juma himself.
“Don’t move. Don’t. You. Move,” yells Jack but when Juma makes a move for his gun, Jack shoots him from point blank range. The battle no longer in doubt, Jack runs over to the safe house and looks at a charred Bill Buchanan, a man who died for his country. In real life, they give you a medal of honor. On 24 , they honor you with a silently ticking clock. Either one is moving. This has got to be the most shocking death in recent memory, as well as the first silent clock since Edgar in season five.
Everyone thinks the conflict is over, including my Meg, who texts me “What now? Roll the credits and call the season 11 episodes early?” Not so fast, Meg, we’ve still got the ultimate bad guy to take care of: Jon Voight. Pre-death, Buchanan had informed Jack how someone supplied Juma with real time info on the White House. Jack relays this info to Moss, requesting an opportunity to “talk” to the traitor Ryan Burnett. And…here we go again: Moss goes down the “Why? So you can torture him like you did before?” trail, Jack says he would have gotten results, blah blah blah.
You know what? I really can’t handle writing about this debate 17 times every episode. From here on, any “do the ends justify the means” type conversation is simply being labeled “Debate X.” Thank you for understanding.
Moss decides to send Jack back to custody. He’ll win Debate X and handle the situation himself, thank you for asking. Renee pleads with him to listen to Jack. No dice. She decides to contact Ethan (the guy from Shawshank), who overrules Moss. Why isn’t this order coming directly from the president? Moss asks, and Ethan claims it’s because he doesn’t want to bother her. Moss thinks it’s because she wouldn’t be comfortable with Debate X.
In Ethan’s defense, the president is a bit busy. For one thing, she wants to personally contact the family of every person killed today. She keeps saying this. How many people were really killed? 12? 14? The other thing she wants to do is appoint her daughter to the position of special advisor. I mean…you’ve got to be kidding me. Every week my friend Joe emails me about how he dislikes the president, finds her weak, etc and I always think he’s overreacting. Let the record show that 9:31 PM PST on March 9, 2009 was the time I officially bailed on Allison Taylor as president. All Olivia has to do is apologize and she’s cool to work in the White House? This is like when Homer Simpson’s brother blindly left Homer in charge of designing his company’s new lines of cars.
Thankfully, we have Jon Voight’s villain character to keep us entertained. Last week he provided us with the classic “stress is the fertilizer of creativity” quote; this week we’ve got him calmly telling his Ron Livingstonesque aid to grab a drink in the face of seeming danger. Alerted to the fact that Jack is being brought in to interrogate Burnett, he wants to know what can be done about it. Told that some Quinn dude is going to take care of Burnett and Jack, JV analyzes the situation as if it were a high school basketball game: “Quinn’s good…but Bauer’s good too.” Since I was a kid rooting for Cobra against GI Joe, I love a good villain. Here’s hoping Voight is a real character, not one around for only an episode or two.
Back on the mainland, Moss has suspended Renee because she adhered to the wrong side of Debate X and is supervising Jack’s interrogation of Burnett. Moss warns Jack that he is not to lay a finger on Burnett, then lays three fingers on Jack’s chest. Jack looks down and without saying a word, threatens to rip Moss into bite-sized pieces should Moss leave his hand there.
Moss instinctively retracts his hand and begins to think of ways he can Kim Bauer this situation. Idea number one is to not position anyone in front of, or even near Burnett’s room. Clearly his best idea, though, is behind door number two: refuse to see if there’s a problem in the room, even when you lose both audio and video feed. Nice work Larry! Also, good to know there’s a security camera in the hospital. Now if only we could get one in the White House…
While the video cameras are malfunctioning, Evil Agent Quinn, a silent killer in the mold of Snake Eyes from GI Joe, has set off nerve gas in Burnett’s room, rendering both Jack and Burnett temporarily incapacitated. He quickly moves in, slits Burnett’s throat, frames Jack and departs. The security camera finally regains its picture, Burnett is dead and Moss sets off the security alarm. Jack regains consciousness, climbs into the ducts and out of the hospital all within 45 seconds. There he calls Moss to explain how he’s been framed and the point of this is to keep them distracted from the real target. He hangs up as Moss yells a slightly harsher version of the words “Darn it!”
Funny thing: I once read where Kiefer Sutherland, learning about a drinking game where they drank whenever he yelled a slightly harsher version of the words “Darn it!” said the slightly harsher word like 13 times in a row one episode. Do they have to drink when someone else says the slightly harsher word? If not, but they’re still looking for quality drinking opportunities, allow me to suggest the following:
Drink…
During anything resembling Debate X;
Whenever anyone says “we don’t have a lot of time”:
Whenever the fake president of a TV show makes a public service announcement about climate change (Huh? Is this show still on Fox? Shouldn’t their PSA be telling me to use more oil or something?);
Whenever Jack is framed, left for dead, arrested or kept alive for no reason whatsoever;
When Kim Bauer comes back
(Come on, you knew I’d get another Kim Bauer joke in there somewhere)
