10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
1.12.09
Somehow, Jack should have known his day would lead to a bunker "not far" from the Metropolitan DC area with wood paneling on the wall and a scruffy Bill Buchanan staring back at him with weepy puppy dog eyes.
The Bauer: I wish I could quit you. But I'm only here because you people are the only ones I trust. The minute you do anything to make me think otherwise, I'm turning you in.
Settle down Jack. All gay cowboys say that at first.
And how did we get here?
Tony's has kidnapped a tech-guy (high school equivalent to the wimpest kid in school) and forced him to make a CIP device that can tear down the country's infrastructure because it can break through a Firewall (hse = making wimpy kid do your homework while you play with his videogames in the next room).
The US can't rebuid the Firewall. They can't even rebuild roads properly.
So now he's' in FBI custody and because Freckles (hot redhead FBI agent) wants to jump Bauer's bones, she pushes to have him interrogate Almeida because "it makes sense."
The interrogation plays out like all of Bauer's reunions with old friends: angry accusations about the last time they hung out, someone says something about Bauer's dead wife, an elbow ends up on someone's neck, and Bauer starts screaming "I will kill you myself and make sure you stay dead" (No one ever really dies unless Bauer kills them).
"Blue sky"
WHAT? There's a safe word for just this type of situation?
At some point, and I'm assuming it occurred during one of the many hostage takeovers at CTU, Tony and Jack came up with a safe word in case one of them was involved in a double secret undercover mission or simply high on Colombian Bam-Bam and needed a ride home.
And out of all the words in the English language they came up with BLUE SKY, which must have taken an extra day of training to figure out how to say it with a straight face (or maybe they were high and listening to Wilco).
From here, the curtain is pulled and we realize we were watching non-bizarro 24 and that DC really is LA and, eventually, a wild animal is going to run free through the streets ( and keep in mind that "wild animal" can also include Kim Bauer).
Operation Blue Sky now involves busting Tony out of FBI custody.
Step 1: Neutralize the hot girl. Don't fight it. Don't...
-Awesome Jack. Say goodbye to sexual tension because now you're just like every other guy at the dive bar on a Saturday night.
Step 2: Hacker Faceoff between Scowlface and Cryface (Garofalo looks like she stubbed her toe five years ago and has been holding in the tears ever since).
-This can only mean the jello-fight is near...seriously, I will be SUPER pissed if Chloe never meets Bizarro Chloe this season. And when it does happen, it better be awesomely awkward. Like I-just-saw-my-dad-naked-and-now-he's-talking-to-me-about-it awkward.
-"Anything is possible if you know what you're doing" is probably on a t-shirt with a picture of a rainbow on it.
Step 3: Break window with fire extinguisher. Jump out.
-How was this not part of the original plan? The parking garage was right there.
Step 4: Get to street
-For Tony, this simply meant jumping out and landing on top of a car in an area completely bereft of any Feds whatsoever. Perhaps some of the CTU drones found their way to the FBI.
-For Jack, this meant hot-wiring a car and busting out of the parking garage on a vehicle of freedom. This will be part of the Jack Bauer Experience ride opening at Disney in 2020.
Step 5: Wait for van
- And not just any van. A bright blue panel van thatmay as well have"The Mystery Machine" painted on the side of it. Apparently CTU Startup has no shame.
CTU Startup is operational thanks to a cable modem, a suped up Mac book and numerous take-out menus. But Bauer is pissed, mostly because he wasn't invited to Tony's Welcome Back party at Chuck E. Cheese, where adults gather to engage in melees with pepper spray.
Brokeback Buchanan, complete with tight turtleneck, tussled white hair and the look of despair in his eyes, has recruited Chloe "I fantasize about Jack while watching him on C-Span" O'Brian. Once they get a dog and "Hang in There" kitty poster, CTU Startup will be complete.
Scowlface: I saw you on C-Span Jack. Can't believe what that senator said about you. You looked good though.
When is Jack going to get it over with and have a night of weird animal sex with Chloe?
This is what sex with Chloe entails. Extra points if you incorporate the bomb.There's an overreaching conspiracy within the US government and Team Brokeback Buchanan is now determined to bring it down. But in order for Tony to regain his cover, Jack must go along for the ride (hence the aforementioned "I wish I could quit you" moment).
After Bauer beats the shit out of terrorist thugs and plays the recession card ("I need this job! I have nowhere else to go!"), he is accepted and given a proper change of clothes. Oh and there's no such thing as a recession card. Believe me, I tried.
Now that CTU has gone rogue, confusion abounds in the world of 24. Though, in case you get lost in the plot, the president and her adviser are there to rehash the plot for viewers everyone 24 minutes.
Tony's been involved with a group connected with Colonel Ike Dubaku from Sangala, who just made demands and now wants to start blowing shit up. I love this guy.
The demands means Madam President Alison Taylor (MPAT) has to decide between killing unknown Sangalans and tens of thousands of sweet, innocent, delicious American lives. According to MPAT's advisor, American lives are worth more on the public scale of worthiness.
Any downtime in the show as was given to First Husband Henry and his "paranoid quest" to prove his son was murdered, only to find out that he was right. He then sits on a park bench and realizes crazy isn't all that fun when you're right.
The FBI is thoroughly confused since it thought it had a mole (Billy Walsh from Entourage!) and Hot Agent Walker (HAW) is now determined to make this right because the guilt inside of her is just too much for her hot womanly body to bear.
HAW is the Lifetime version of Bauer, which means she only has great power when she's either being mocked or threatened by a man. So after shaming a perfectly good Who-are-you-working-for moment during a hospital interrogation, HAW accepts her Lifetime movie dystany and finds the first penis-looking object in the room (oxygen tube) to squeeze the life out of it (metaphorically, this is what happens in all Lifetime movies).
It works (and like all Lifetime heroines, it gives hope to scorned women everywhere) and leads HAW to the home of the Ambassador of Sangala, who was just at the White House begging for guns (the weakening global economy has affected us all).
It also brings HAW closer to Jack "the lay that got away" Bauer.
Here, Jack, Tony and Emerson (...so the terrorists are all ex-military men. Hmmmm) are attempting to bust through the panic room where the Ambassador has locked himself in.
Emerson tries to get the door open by threatening to put a bullet in someone's head while Jack rages at some drywall with a golf club, which shows how lame walls are when they are not made out of fire and just how off the handle the Bauer has become.
Just to add my scientific view, when Jack escaped FBI in the car, I almost died laughing. The speed that car got from going that parked position to the cement barrier wall must have been about 20 mph AT MOST. There is no way that car would have busted through all the cement. To prove my point, take a look at this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ao_C89CgR8). Now I know the car weight is much different, but still the speed of the smart car was much faster than Jack's car and hence the force would have been about the same. Somehow I don't think Jack would (1) break through and (2) walk away
ReplyDeleteTo Swim4444, but Jack said "This is going to hurt." So that means he probably broke his collarbone but shook it off after a minute or so. This is the same guy who got some ribs cracked in one of the other seasons and only occasionally winced after that.
ReplyDeleteWhat I missed was the conversation between Chloe and Jack that happens every season:
Jack: Chloe, what's happening? We need to get out of here.
Chloe: I am trying Jack, but this is difficult stuff.
Jack: Try harder, we are out of time.
Chloe: Ok, got it. Go down the hall, turn left, open the ventilation shaft....
Jack escapes.
Good to have that back
It amazes me how you come up with these great recaps. "The lay that got away"!!! Too funny.
ReplyDeleteThe rogue CTU hideout is an evolutionary step towards a full-fledged batcave predicating the eventual transformation of Jack (and Tony...) to comic book characters.
ReplyDeleteTony, of course, will eventually become either a Joker or Penguin-like evil personna and Jack will have to wear a cape... and a mask...
I'm still waiting for the upcoming "Damn it Chloe!"
ReplyDeleteThere is way too much tension in CTU Startup. Also, it will be interesting t see how Jack and the Gang break into a concrete barrier.
Probably by kicking it in or driving into it with another crown vic: they're expendable.
Another fine recap. But I'm still not going to watch any more this week. Enough is enough.
ReplyDeleteNow we know that becoming bauer-tizes is a very quick process. You just need to agree to one of Jack's illegal schemes and go in with him once. Agent Hottie is bauer-tized. Uhoh.
ReplyDeleteThought it was funny how The Bauer said "Don't fight it" a few times to her. Yeah, a woman being raped or having her air supply cut off is definitely not going to fight it.
"There is way too much tension in CTU Startup. Also, it will be interesting t see how Jack and the Gang break into a concrete barrier.
Probably by kicking it in or driving into it with another crown vic: they're expendable."
Dude, it's reinforced concrete. The only way to get in is with some very potent explosives, that they don't have. Therefore, they're going to have to force them to open the door. Cutting off their air or gassing them would work.
Finally, I'm not sure when Jack said "This is gonna hurt," whether he meant the jamming himself under the steering wheel or the crashing through concrete part. And yeah, that absolutely could not have happened in real life. It's impossible for any normal car to get through the barrier like that and keep its occupant alive. They had to give Jack some kind of serious injury, of course, to try and make it real, but notice how Jack is kicking terrorist ass not that long afterwards. Right. Without a hospital visit to repair the damage.
Chloe >>> Nervous Chick. Nervous Chick annoys the hell out of me. I'll take Chloe's weirdness any day over Nervous Chick.
Finally, Colonel Douchebag and the rest of the ethnic cleansers are not very good at what they do. They care more about revenge than anything else. Remember 24:The Redemption? One dumbass was hell bent on getting revenge for his brother's death. Now we have Colonel Douchebag wanting the former Ambassador so he can torture and kill him, I guess. If you can't put aside your lust for vengeance, you can't be a successful terrorist.
RE: car going at 15 mph going through wall
ReplyDeleteYou forgot that once you have Bauer inside of you, you become bauer-tized. Concrete barriers are nothing to a bauer-tized car. Hell, part of it was probably that the wall started buckling when it realized Jack was in an oncoming vehicle.
Next episode, I expect dirty secret service agent to relay the fact that Henry has information to his boss.
Maybe they'll rob Henry at gunpoint and/or kill him to make it look accidental.
They could spin it as "He discovered the truth about his son and was so devastated that he killed himself."
As much as I hate to nitpick:
ReplyDeleteThe dude in the panic room is not the ambassador. He's el presidente (or prime minister) of Sangala....
I was looking at Old Man Buchanan and I saw those eyes, too. I thought he might be about to cry...seriously.
ReplyDeleteBlue Sky. Totally innocuous. No one would ever figure that out. Jack had to make sure he was close enough to hear it if it were to be uttered (because there were velociraptors in the room).
I pretty much knew that HAW was going to be in the way of the escape plan, but I didn't think she would be the first to pass out from the excitement. That was pretty cool.
Scowlface and Cryface are battling over the internet AND the intranet. Fascinating. I don't know who's going to break first. Sext-non-face-to-face-catfight. Let's follow it and see where it leads.
I was looking at the uniformed officers they have running around at the FBI and all their duty belt equipment is haphazard, like they just didn't have the time to dress properly. Isn't the FBI supposed to be tactical? Why have your ammo BEHIND YOU? There's someone who needs to be Bauer-tized.