I've always likened watching a full season of 24 to following a baseball team for an entire season. You've got your heroes and villains. You've got people you should be rooting for but instead try to time your bathroom breaks for the moment you see their face on TV (like I do whenever Julio Lugo strolls to bat for the Red Sox). The season begins with promise, turns into background noise for a while, then regains its importance towards its close. Some seasons end well, some end poorly but all leave you thinking back to the beginning of the year and saying "man, that was a loooooooooooooooooooooong time ago."
Last episode of 24 ended with Jack and Tony burying FBI agent Renee Walker, currently playing dead after Jack pulled the old "make it look like you shot her in the head when your bullet really just grazed her neck" trick. Apparently three minutes was all it took to finish burying her and drive away, because the second scene of this episode is Bill and Chloe pulling in to save Agent Walker. How do they know where she is buried if Jack and Tony can't communicate with them? How did Jack and Tony's van pull out of sight so quickly? In each case, I have no idea. You're not supposed to ask questions like that about 24.
Anyway, Bill – this season sporting what my friend Payton dubbed the "Albino Mountain Man look" – revives Agent Walker, who is quickly recruited and filled in on the whole operation. Meanwhile, Jack, Tony and the two bad guys meet up in an abandoned warehouse, waiting to rendezvous with the higher tier bad guys.
Leaving the van, Emerson has a sudden distrust for Jack and Tony, and pulls a gun on Jack. Is this because he doesn't want to share the reward with the ex-CTU agents? Because he watched 24 season one on DVD and saw Jack pull nearly the same exact fake killing with Nina Myers as he did with Agent Walker? Hard to say. At any rate, Almeida guns down the guy who looks like the lead singer of Maroon 5, setting up the inevitable showdown with his friend Emerson. They go through the classic "why are you doing this?" spat as Emerson holds a gun to Jack's head, eventually ending in Almeida shooting Emerson twice without killing him.
Bill, Chloe and Agent Walker meet up with Jack and Tony as Jack breaks the news to Sangolan President Matobu and his wife: we're really the good guys, you have to believe me, we need you to volunteer to be transferred to meet with Duboku, I'm Jack Bauer and you'll do what I say. After initial resistance, Mrs. Matobu convinces her husband it's worth the gamble. Nice work, Mrs. M! I suppose that decision is necessary for plot purposes but it's certainly a new era of 24 if the writers are going to allow for women making wise decisions.
Tony has his seemingly final chat with Emerson, whose last words are "If you're looking for forgiveness, go to Hell." Funny, I thought Heaven was the place where forgiveness happens. The savvy viewer will note that we don't see Emerson's dead body, potentially setting things up nicely for his reappearance in about 14 hours. Chloe and Bill prep the Matobii with tracking devices and run through the general "we'll protect you, we'll always know where you are" precautions that will inevitably prove to be untrue.
The higher tier bad guys show up to negotiate with a seemingly alone Almeida. He says he's killed off Emerson, the lead singer of Maroon 5 and Jack. For some reason they believe this and give Tony the diamonds – this apparently was the fee for his work. Just as I'm trying to calculate the market for diamonds in a sagging economy, the bad guys try to kill Tony. Ah, but they should have known better, as they're picked off by Jack, sniping from overhead. Two are left alive and Tony tells them to take the Matobii and get out of here.
Back at the White House, President Taylor has a meeting interrupted when one of her cabinet members receives a phone call from the evil Lord Duboku. See, this is another reason I could never be a terrorist: no knowledge of how to find cabinet members' cell phone numbers. Duboku tells President Taylor to look out her southwest window. In the distance she sees an explosion where two planes have collided. Honestly, if the terrorists can cause two planes to collide in mid-air, and have it timed so well it's centered perfectly out the president's window…I mean, what kind of chance do we have this season? It's okay. Jack is on our side.
President Taylor throws an impromptu cabinet meeting where she reaffirms her position to not negotiate with terrorists. We will not withdraw our troops, we need to stand firm, she says, and warns of tough times ahead. Secretary Stevens (who looks like a younger version of Al from Quantum Leap. Yes, I just made a Quantum Leap reference) adamantly disagrees, yells at President Taylor and eventually leaves in a huff. The meeting is adjourned and outside, the warden from Shawshank Redemption enacts a plan to change the President's mind: call her husband, Henry.
Only problem here is that her husband is currently incapacitated and in the midst of being framed for murder. Good times. Agent Gedge touches Mr. Taylor's hand to the knife used in killing Sam Roth (his son's girlfriend before he was killed) but forgets the age old rule of drugging your victim: never allow physical touch with a metal alloy. At least I think that's the age old rule; how else can you explain Mr. Taylor's sudden ability to talk, make fists and eventually wrestle with a secret service agent? Yes, as Gedge prepares to wrap the noose around Taylor's neck, the First Man forces him over the railing. With each on the ground, Taylor – who five minutes before was unable to move, speak, or even make noises – somehow strangles Gedge to death. Incredible.
See, this is what I love about 24. Coming into this episode, Henry Taylor was the early favorite for the Sherry Palmer Memorial "Person My Friend Charles Would Punch in Real Life Because Yes, That's How Much He Hates the TV Character" award. Yet by the end of the 1:00 hour, Henry Taylor is a hero. Sure, he's a hero who by the eyes of the law appears to have killed two people and who still has to navigate his way past the other secret service agent outside while having an allegedly fatal drug in his system…but he's a hero nonetheless. I'm telling you, it's like following a baseball team: you never know who might step up in the clutch.
(Granted, his now dead almost-daughter-in-law Sam might have wanted him to step up sooner. But still)
