Welcome to the Dark Side

3 a.m. to 4 a.m.
5.9.05

There are only a few actions a man can do to get a woman to forgive him when he does something wrong like trip and fall on her cat or indirectly kill her husband. Saying you're sorry and giving her a hug isn't one of them. Giving her a box of candy and paying her car insurance for a year would have been better. Candy is yummy and car insurance is annoying unless you crash into a lot of things.

The Bauer is going to have to realize that he's not built for a relationship. The job is the only thing that loves him back. When he tries to love other people or things, the job punishes him by killing them or sending them away. The job is jealous of anyone that the Bauer looks at. If Bauer isn't careful, the job will lure him completely to the dark side and cause him to do weird creep things.

A big "hey now" to Chloe moving in on the Bauer with the whole "I'm here for you" play. Being there for someone in relationship need means you want to throw that person up against the wall and do nasty dirty things to them.
I shudder to think what sort of weird experience that would be for the Bauer. He must have come to the same conclusion since he shot Chloe the "Are you serious" glance. Apparently he already read the memo Buchanan sent out about Chloe's "personality disorder" and doesn't want to date the weird chic at work.

Since the days of the cavemen, the tradition of doing something bad and lying about it to everyone you know has been passed down from generation to generation. It has reached such high places as the White House and low places like your mom's bedroom.

The Palmer had to deal with lying to a country. This is on par with lying to your mom about what you did (or didn't do) on a Saturday night with your friends. You have to tread carefully with this because if you mess up you could be at war with your mom or a country. Both are equally bad and can cause the same amount of casualties.
Blaming someone else is key, especially when you have factual evidence to back up your claims. That's why you always made friends with the bad kids in school. In case you got in trouble, you could always blame them.

The kids who didn't befriend the bad kids in school turned into people like the spineless President Logan who looks at you with bugged-out eyes and whines "Why did you do that?!?"
And c'mon, a billion Chinese at war with you? Yea, that's only if the bums and the millions of fast food owners get their pitchforks and start throwing them towards us. They just discovered capitalism and electricity. They also shoot their own people half the time when they are actually armed with guns. I don't think we have that much to worry about. That is, unless they combine capitalism and electricity. And start aiming correctly instead of squeezing the trigger in a fit of rage. Then we're screwed.

I wish Bauer's A-Team came up with their alibis or at least discussed the option to for a couple of minutes. Then we could have heard Curtis, The Bauer, or the two other random guys say one of the following.

1. "We were at Fridays."
2. "I was in the bathroom. And I wouldn't go in there for at least an hour."
3. "I tripped and fell on a cat"

It didn't matter anyway since random guy #2 (aka The Mask) screwed it all up because he allowed the Chinese soldier to reveal his face for the camera. Luckily for The Mask, he had the option of running away in a helicopter and probably headed to Vegas. If you've done wrong, that's the place to go to feel right.

Chang has to settle down with his accusations, though he's probably more pissed that someone got him up at 3 in the morning. He didn't even believe that the non-Asian guy could have been part of a group that wants to see China go down. The Bauer should have simply replied "Dude, everyone hates China" and left it at that.

More plot teasing with Bitchelle and Tony. Maybe if they utter one romantic line to each other in each episode, they would have completed the entire "I want you back" conversation by the end of the season.
And nice segue by Tony to initiate the relationship talk with Bitchelle.
"Imagine. I saw them hours ago and they seemed totally right for each other. And now, everything is ruined. Which reminds me of us, except the opposite. Yea, let's do it."
Buchanan deserves to lose Bitchelle to Tony. There are two things you don't leave Tony alone with in a room and that is women and beer.

Where the hell was Edgar? I was concerned at the midpoint of the episode because despite the very talented agents at CTU, it is not that easy to hide a fat man. Could it be that he finally got something to eat?
It must have been one of those stupid subs (AKA Subway. I hate Jared and I know I'm not alone) since he blew the cover-up completely. It's always the fat guy that ruins it for everyone else. And it's always because the fat guy was left out of the party.

It sucks to be CTU and playing Where's Warhead?, especially since the area they have to search in is the middle of the country where every thing and everyone looks the same. If the warhead was wearing a striped red and white hat and glasses, then maybe CTU would have a chance.
There is a 300-mile radius and, thanks to some creative background checking there is a guy that gave Marwan a "super weggie" in 1996. No one likes weggies, especially when the underwear disappears into your ass. And if you've had one done to you, then you know the pain and embarrassment is grounds for a warhead to be dropped on the perp's head.

Marwan strapped the warhead to a missile? This guy is so badass. He totally doesn't mess around, especially with the four-minute launch countdown. A lesser terrorist would have made it 30 minutes just to create tension. Not Marwan. He just wants people to die so he can go home and listen to Norah Jones to relax.

Yay! The Bauer shot Marwan! Now he's poking his gun at him. And there comes the creepy smile and the wild look in Bauer's left eye. Watch out kids, the Bauer has entered the Dark Side and since he's naturally violent, this means he'll just turn into a creepy middle-aged man.
Marwan picked up on this as well, which is why he requested to die. He played it up like he was done with his job, but in reality he's just incredibly homophobic. There's always more terrorism to commit, but there's only so much man-gun-love a terrorist can take.

Speculation on the final destination of warhead missile
1. Canada, making Marwan a patriot and The Bauer a terrorist for trying to stop him for the past 20 plus hours.
2. Missouri. In the immortal words of Abe Simpson. "I'll be in a cold, cold grave before I recognize Missouri as a state!"
3. China. Ah the irony.
4. Nowhere. The missile is a dud thanks to shoddy handy work from a factory in Detroit that boasts the slogan "Three working missiles out of six is better than none!"