It's 4 a.m. and ears of CTU agents are still ringing and your only hope is...

I know computers and hate praise.

24 Season 8 Episode 13
4 a.m. to 5 p.m.
3.22.10

Since CTU has been EMP'd into the stone age, which is technically 1993 in tech terms, the once all-knowing, all-seeing and all-hearing entity has been reduced to traffic cams, phone with hardlines and remote-controlled drones circling the sky that will soon become self-aware and kill us all.

It's gotten so bad that the only thing the essential personnel at CTU can do is pass along reports of burned agents and flooding in the basement.

Bubba Gump: Flooding in the basement...will we drown?"
America: You're dumb without your fancy techno gizmos

The non-essential personnel was escorted outside with the rest of the scum, mainly because they didn't have access to the fancy CTU flashlights (you need a level 4 Hastings pass).

Thankfully, the NSA showed up with its magical box of cell phones and a by-the-book tech dude on a power trip. Why the bad attitude? Oh right, he's married and pushing geeky chics around is the only way he can feel powerful.

I'm not surprised. The NSA always gets a little anxious whenever anyone wants to get up in someone's Trunk Line, especially when it's the girl who makes weird faces into the camera. And because the writers never really explained why it was so dangerous to go through the Trunk Line, I have to believe it was because they weren't allowed to say "Let's just go up the ass and get the system running again" on national television...even on Fox.

Now that CTU is the deaf, dumb and blind kid (who can play a mean pinball), Jack is left to fend for himself with an actor desperately trying not to say "Dude" every 10 seconds (you can hear the intonation in his voice that he soooo wants to).

"Dude! There's snipers everywhere! That's a suicide play! Dude!"

But can it really be called a suicide play when Jack has fashioned an armored turtle float that is now crawling toward freedom? They should have called it the Slowsky Float, since it was going at dial-up speed. It would have been appropriate given the out-of-date tech theme of the night.

It's a shame Not-Owen-CTU man didn't trust Operation Human Shield. His punishment? Being turned into a bullet pinata for all to see.

However, the Slowski Initiative did little compared to the Bauer's "suicide" play of running around in circles and shooting blindly into the night with an automatic rifle. If this was a real suicide play, Jack would have C4 strapped to his back while holding a hand cannon and riding a rabid tiger.

This was all so that they could reach this mythical "hardline" telephone so they could call CTU, the federal agency that looks to recruit people who think differently, which in this case includes people with a penchant for Trunk Lines and grumpy-looking blondes who have a soft-spot for terrorism.

Yes, welcome to your new mole: Starbuck. Apparently the subplot was lame for a reason...and now we get to look forward to Freddy Prinze Jr's best attempt at his "What the...." face when he finds out.

At least we got to see Prady try to cop a feel before he choked out. Like riding a rabid tiger to your death, there's the lame way to go out and then there's the classy way.