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The 24 Blog - 5 PM - 6 PM [BLOG]

By: Jamie Samuelsen
@jamiesamuelsen

If a nuclear bomb ever fell on a city where Jack Bauer was living, we can now safely say that the only things to survive the blast would be the cockroaches…and Jack Bauer. Not that Jack's a cockroach. He's the furthest thing from it. But after watching a drone seek to destroy Jack with four different missiles, and then to see Jack come out the other side unscathed, we now have a new appreciation for Jack's durability. If Jack had cramps in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, he'd definitely take the floor. Then again, he's about 4 foot 8 so he might not make much of an impact. But I digress.

 

The hour opens in the aftermath of Simone's collision with a bus. Advantage bus. The police and EMT arrived within seconds (a far better response time on 24 than you get in Detroit). And a police officer that looked oddly like Dikembe Mutombo started questioning Yasmin (Farah's little girl who watched Mommy get stabbed in the gut three minutes earlier.)

 

Jack hears about the accident from Chloe as he picks up the pieces from the shootout at Rask's warehouse. Any authority that the M15s had is quickly erased as Jack uses a knife to free his friend Belcheck. (I need some help on this one. I still don't know his connection to Jack. I don't even know what language he speaks. Jack said "I'll call you," to him and it required subtitles.)

 

Chloe tells Jack that she's used Rask's computer to track the contact phone number to an area where a lot of police activity is going on - i.e. the bus accident. Jack jumps in the car (but not before getting the door for Kate, chivalry is never dead) and takes off for the hospital. On the way there, he calls Heller on the Bluetooth ("Siri…Call the President of the United States." "Calling Presley Unistats.") He brings Heller up to speed and throws in the fact that someone tipped the Brits off to the plan. Heller admits that was him and then has to quickly get off the phone so he can rip the Prime Minister a new one.

 

Heller and Davies have a memorable face off as Heller tells him that the Americans are "working their asses off" trying to stop the attack by Margot. If by working his ass off, he means having Jack Bauer fall into his lap and then letting Jack do exactly what he wants, then I suppose he's working his ass off. Davies apologizes and then admits that he knows Heller is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's. Heller insists that if the issues were hindering his job as President, he'd resign immediately. Heller seems defiant, but it becomes rather clear that Davies has planted a large seed of doubt in Heller's immediate future.

 

Simone meanwhile is being rushed to the hospital and getting checked out by the paramedics. One of them observes her injury, 'Missing finger. Looks recent." Three hours ago? Yeah, I'd say that was pretty recent. If I had severed my finger, it would look a lot worse than Simone's does. Not to mention the fact that I would have spent the last three hours staring at my hand and screaming my head off. But that's just me.

 

Simone's cell phone rings and the paramedic answers it. Hey! It's Mom!

 

Margot learns what's happened and quickly dispatches a bearded man to the hospital to find out what happened to Simone and to find out exactly what the authorities know about her identity and her mom.

 

While all this is going on (in other words, the main plot line of the show), Navarro is back at the CIA office trying to cover his tracks for framing Kate's husband Adam. Jordan is on to him big time and is certainly not dropping it even though there's kind of national crisis going on, or something like that. Navarro sends a Jim Harbaugh-looking guy named Gavin to try to capture some of Jordan's files - but he's not buying it. So Navarro calls back the deep-voiced guy who turns out to be…Adrian! Chloe's latest and the head of "Open Source". So basically Adrian is Julian Assange and Navarro is Edward Snowden. Do I have that right?

 

Navarro isn't sure what to do with Jordan and Adrian is no help, telling Navarro that he's the "middle man". Hmmm. If he's the middleman, whom do you think he's working for?

 

I have two theories. First, he's working for Margot who uses "Open Source" to get all the attack/drone documents on Heller. Or two, he's working for Mark just because he's a weasel, but we need to see him become a villainous weasel so that Audrey will leave him for good.

 

Then again, he technically is becoming a villainous weasel because he's meeting in broad daylight with the Russian Deputy Minister. The Russian has figured out that Mark forged Heller's signature on the transfer order and he basically calls him out on it. He then goes on to tell Mark that he'd look really bad in the eyes of his wife if he forged the President's signature to get rid of her ex-lover. Geez, these Russians know EVERYTHING, straight down to who was sleeping with whom? Mark assures the guy that Jack will be turned over to the Russians, but it might take some time.

 

"Time we do not have," the Russian says. Really? You don't? You've been hunting for Jack for five years. And just six hours ago, you received word that Jack was even alive. And now, you're running out of patience. Relax buddy. Give it a day or two.

 

But Jack doesn't have a day or two or an hour or two. He needs to find Margot and right now Simone is his only lead. He orders the hospital to be locked down and he barges into the operating room. The doctors tell him that she'll be unconscious for some time, but Jack won't hear of it. This is 24 dammit. This is where medical miracles happen. If anything bad ever happened to one of my love ones, I'd demand they get a role on 24. The dead come to life (Tony Almeida). Amnesia gets cured (Teri Bauer). And comas can be reversed just to get someone back on their feet (Wayne Palmer…and now Simone Al-Harazi!)

 

While Jack is talking to the medical team, Kate is talking to Yasmin trying to learn why she is connected to Simone. Yasmin tells her all about seeing Auntie Simone kill her mom and the fact that her Uncle is Naveed (Or was Naveed). As Kate leaves, Yasmin tells her that she hopes Simone dies. Easy there, princess. This isn't Game of Thrones. Not EVERY character dies. Sheesh, just look at how long Chloe has survived.

 

The bearded henchman overhears Jack and Kate talking and relays everything back to Margot. She realizes that Simone is wavering in her deep devotion to the evil plan. And since Simone had already defied her once, she's not getting a second chance. So she orders a strike on the hospital. Yep. That's right. She wants to know exactly where Simone is so she can send a drone to destroy the entire place!

 

Jack and Kate enter Simone's room where the doctors have not only revived her, but also caused all her wounds and scrapes from the bus accident to heal over. This woman has the clotting powers of a champ. Her white blood cell count must be off the charts. Jack starts questioning her, but she clams up and insists that even though she tried to warn Farah and Jasmine, she would never help the government.

 

So Jack reaches into his old bag of tricks and grabs her severed stump for a little good old-fashioned torture. Oh Jack. It's so good to have you back.

 

It's unclear from this whether Kate is outraged, intrigued or even a little turned on. But the move backfires as Simone passes out from the pain. Damn. Back to the ol' drawing board. As Jack and Kate emerge from the room, they look left and see a group of police officers talking. They look right and see the bearded wonder. Nice hospital security. When they told the authorities to lock it down I guess they forgot to mention, "including all suspicious looking bearded gentlemen." He fires off a gun and takes off running. Before he can get too far, he's taken out from some now awake police officers. This gives Jack a chance for a well-earned "DAMMIT!"

 

But Jack looks at the dude's cell phone and realizes that he's sent the exact coordinates of where they are to Margot. Her return text says, "You've got eight minutes" and I don't think she's talking about a pizza delivery.

 

Jack orders the hospital to be cleared now…NOW! (Gotta love Jack repeating himself.) And chaos ensues at St. Edwards. Kate retrieves Yasmin because I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for her (I don't.) They escape the hospital just as missile #1 hits causing death and damage, but none for our heroes.

 

Jack and Kate jump into a Chrysler along with Simone who is somehow limping along by their side. Margot is watching from the drone and is able to identify the three of them getting into the car. I have to say that's a bit of a stretch. But then again - you have one person limping, one tall blonde woman and a short man with a man bag. How many trios like that are leaving the hospital.

 

Simone looks awful at this point - like a cross between the Emperor from the Star Wars movies and Merida from "Brave". As Jack drives away (avoiding missile #2!) Simone looks out the window and seems to take note of the mayhem behind her. Perhaps this will spur her to actually have a conscious and tell Jack and Kate where the mom resides.

 

Thus ensues one of the better car chases in 24 memory. Jack is driving all over the place as the drone chases (and fires missile #3). It struck me that he actually was sitting in the wrong seat for a British car, but that didn't help him at all from crashing into car after car after car. When he finally comes across some traffic (Wow. Traffic in London at rush hour. That never happens.), he jumps out of the car - and then punches some innocent bystander and takes his car. Great move. But Margot is watching the whole thing.

 

So Jack and Kate navigate the new car underneath an overpass, out of sight from the drone - and switch cars again. Jack puts a well-placed brick on the pedal of his car and sends it straight ahead, then he and Kate jump in the other car with Simone and go the other way.

 

Ian fires missile #4 at the wrong car then celebrates a direct hit like he just got past the elevator level on Donkey Kong (I know. I need a more relevant video game reference!) But Margot sees that the car is empty and knows that Jack has gotten away. Knowing Margot, the next time Ian fires off a missile, he may be doing it with nine fingers.

 

Jordan has been dispatched from the CIA office by Navarro to pick up a drop. Jordan is all too thrilled to be doing this, which should have been a huge red flag to him. He basically calls his boss out, gets reprimanded. Then some other dude asks for all his data, which seemed very odd. Then Navarro just plucks him to go into the field on an operation. And he thinks this is normal?

 

As he approaches a boat for "the drop", he gets shot by the Matthew Stafford of hit men. Talk about NO accuracy. The shooter clips Jordan in the shoulder and he falls into the Thames. (That's code for - of COURSE he's still alive). And sure enough, he swims across the river under water and comes up on the steps on the other side. So now he knows that Navarro sent him out to get killed - but the killing didn't work. That's a fly-in-the-ointment situation.

 

Jack and Kate are driving back to the CIA to get Simone looked at by CIA doctors. I've always been impressed by the medical facilities at CTU and CIA offices. They're basically full, functioning hospitals. We don't even have a workout room at my office. Just a couple of vending machines and a foosball table.

 

Jack gets a call from the President who seems awfully tired and awfully weary. He tells Jack that he needs to see him. So Jack tells Kate to drop him at the embassy and then take Simone onto the CIA.

 

We wonder why Heller wants to see Jack, but we soon find out.

 

He plans to turn himself over to Margot! He calls her up on Skype and they have a nice little chat. This scene is blatantly unrealistic. No Skype/Facetime/Video chat has ever gone that smoothly without the screen freezing, the audio dropping out or the sound not matching the picture. Totally unrealistic!

 

Is Heller actually giving up? Does he figure that since he's going to resign anyway that it can't hurt to "fall on the sword"? Or is this part of some larger plan? We will find out next week!

 

RANDOM NOTES

 

-          Jack was in full effect this week with no fewer than three dammits, two GO!s and one Now…NOW! I would have preferred a "Dammit Chloe" thrown in there too.

-          Anyone else catch that when Jack and Kate made the final car switch, Jack told her, "Get my bag." Classic.

-          Did they ever really explain why the cops raided Chloe's office? Sent by Adrian? I don't really care that much but it was a weird throw in.

-          Is it a key at all that Rask's phone calls were tied to Simone and not to Margot? That seemed odd to me unless it was just some sort of tracking defense that Margot had put in.

-          Heller did tell Mark to set up a meeting with the Vice President once the crisis is over to talk about a plan for a formal transfer of power. Does this mean that the VP will be in play this season? Will the VP play a nefarious role? Is the VP named Selina Meyer?

 

JACK'S KILL COUNT - WEEK - Zero SEASON - Two - He may have hurt some people with his driving. And I'm sure there were some residual deaths from the missiles. But I think he was kill free this week.

 

KATE'S KILL COUNT - WEEK - Zero  SEASON - Two - Same deal as Jack.

 

STEVE NAVARRO LEADERHIP AWARD OF THE WEEK - This guy. He knows he's toast. And he still has to ask Adrian what he should do about the Jordan problem. And then he hires the worst hitman of all-time to do the job. Navarro deserves whatever he gets.

 

ANNOYING TIME ISSUE OF THE WEEK - So Jordan - a systems analyst with no experience in the field - can take a bullet and THEN stay underwater for five minutes before coming up for air? Impressive!

 

That's it for hour seven! I'd love to know what you think about the episode.

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