Finally, tonight's episode of Fox's action drama '24' brings it home. This is truly a great show back to the top of its form. Can the Jack Bauer Power Hour keep things up for a while? Read on...
This 13th hour of Season Six is another where Jack Bauer takes a backseat. For the entire episode, he is still inside of the Russian Consulate, after violently torturing the Consul General last week. Of course, pretty soon after he's knocked unconscious by an evil guard, Jack manages to kill the guard and tries to contact CTU with information regarding Gredenko's location. The phones, however, aren't working as they should be.
Meanwhile, at CTU Los Angeles, everyone is introduced to the new leader of Field Ops, Ricky Schroder...I mean, Mike Doyle. Mike is immediately characterized as a world-class hardass, as he physically forces Morris to do his work. Also, we see that Milo and Mike have a history, despite the fact that Milo admits that Doyle has the skills. Doyle and Bill Buchanan want to lead an assault team into the Russian consul to take the Consul General into custody; Jack, however, is second priority until he calls in with the beginning of a call regarding Gredenko.
Ex-President Logan, having been brought to CTU, finds out about the assault team and warns against it, saying that he knows that Markov, the Consul General, will kill himself or Bauer if he has to, to keep his mouth shut. Logan convinces Buchanan to let him call Martha Logan, his ex-wife, because she will be able to sway the Russian President to not advocate force. After a bit of wheedling and whining on the phone with Martha's new honey, everyone's favorite Secret Service agent, Aaron Pierce, Logan comes to visit Martha and Aaron.
Suffice to say, it's not a good idea. Martha immediately tries to see if Logan's lying or doing anything for himself, and steadfastly refuses to help. Finally, after some cajoling from Aaron, she agrees to call the Russian President's wife. However, she's still pissed at Logan, and continues to get herself heated; the result is her stabbing Logan in the shoulder and hitting an artery.
Despite the attempt on her ex-husband's life, Martha is still coherent enough to call the first lady of Russia, Anya Suvarov. She appeals to Anya who in turn appeals to her husband, Yuri. When President Suvarov can’t convince Markov to surrender and give up Jack, he tells Bill Buchanan that they have his permission to storm the consulate. People get shot (mostly faceless hostiles), Markov gets captured, Jack gets rescued and thanks to Martha Logan, we’re not at war with Russia. However, it's too late to stop the drones from being launched.
The end of the episodes makes us wonder how quickly Gredenko and Fayed will have the drones in the air. In White House matters, Vice President Daniels convinces Tom Lennox to tell the Iranian Ambassador it was Assad who planted the bomb, and if Iran doesn't disavow the assassination attempt, America will start a war with them. The Ambassador is shocked and very unpleased.
Will Logan make it? He begins to flatline at the end of the episode, but let's hope that he, Martha and Aaron all come back at least one more time. Their time onscreen tonight was campy, but great fun. Stay tuned for next week's installment of '24.'
