24: Day 8: Hour 9

Go go go!

• Chloe finally gets to do something. Alpha Russian calls Josef and she's going to try to triangulate the signal.

• No subterfuge here as Jack jumps in on the call and offers immunity to Josef. Josef is not so keen on that idea, what with his dead brother and all.


• Before Josef can decide, he's clipped by Longhair's crew. Of course it wasn't enough time to narrow down his location, all we know is he's somewhere in Queens.

• Josef's phone is still connected! Longhair spilled some beans about a port.

• Want to identify a person based on their voice on an overheard cell phone signal? There's an app for that!



• Chloe is distressed. Calls Jack and asks if he's okay. Jack, looking like he's fresh out of the tub, nonchalantly says he's okay. I think to Jack this is still one of the more boring days of his life.


• Talks to Renee, who at least has the decency to have a slight bruise on her face. Jack says that as soon as he brings in Sergei, he's out. Also I think he's in love with Renee.

JACK BAUER "AS SOON AS ______ , I'M OUT" COUNT: 47

• Suit Guy gets all snippy with Hastings. He's starting to remind me of Neil Patrick Harris.


• "If you fail, I fail, and I can't let that happen, Brian!" I'm thinking Suit Guy is going to stick his nose where it doesn't belong and screw everything up even worse.

• Suit Guy is sending over someone from the Justice Dept. to supervise CTU. Doesn't he watch The Office? Having co-managers doesn't work!

• Along those same lines, hasn't he watched any previous season of 24?

• On the other hand, I'm none too impressed with the job Hasting's has been doing here.

• Cole is letting his personal problems get in the way. He's running off to investigate what Dana is up to. Says to tell Hastings that he's "following up on a lead." Wouldn't Hastings want to know what that lead is? I guess not. I can just see Hastings berating another CTU employee. "Why can't you be more like Cole? He's out there following leads while all you're doing is analyzing legitimate data."

• Dana's got a gun with a silencer! Fake Leo and Weird Friend are partying with strippers, in the back of a van. These dudes rule.


• Kristin from the Justice Dept. shows up. Surprisingly, her and Hastings immediately butt heads. I'm hoping this plot line will end being romantic-comedic. They don't get along at first, but eventually they'll realize they're perfect for each other.



• I have finally learned Longhair Todd's name. It's Farhad. Please update your records.


• Farhad meets some unwanted cohorts. He learns that these goons plan to use the rods for terrorism purposes. He's shocked and surprised. What the huh? What was he planning on doing with them? He's going to cry, he's so disturbed.



• Kristin is really giving Renee the business in this debriefing. Pointing out that Renee likes to kill and maim people.

• Jack is freaking out because they're setting Renee up to take the fall, but I dunno, she kind of deserves to take the fall right? Maybe Hastings does.


• Jack slaps a security guard in the throat. He's a great agent and all, but how can you get away with beating up the hourlies as many times as he has? He busts into the interrogation room.



• Jack, while choking a defenseless woman: "Have you no decency?"


• Jack: "Better put that down son, or someone is going to get hurt."

• Turns out that someone is Jack, who get's tazed, bro.

• Meanwhile...

• Farhad beats up a guy and scampers away.

• Jack is browbeating Hastings. He makes a good point, it was Hastings who insisted that Renee join the mission.

• Chloe busts in, she's got ... Farhad Hassan on the line?

• Farhad has turned, he wants help and he'll give CTU whatever they did. Hastings, of course, makes a mess of the conversation.

• Hastings: "Get Cole out there." Chloe: "We can't, no one knows where he is." Hastings: "Then get me Owen!" Doesn't he even care that Cole has gone missing? And what about Dana? HASTINGS YOU SUCK!!! Worst CTU boss ever.

• Dana, still in her car. So she's been sitting there for half an hour, an eternity in 24 time.

• How did Cole find Dana so easily? CTU's People Finding Technology is so inconsistent.


• Cole demands answers. Dana: "My name is not Dana Walsh. It's Tony Almeida." Shocking!

• I don't have a good feeling about Farhad's survival.

• Oh great here's Owen.

• I believe his full name is Owen G. Rookie. (the G stands for Greenhorn)

• Jack gets all smartassy with Hastings. Also I guess Jack is free to go. No consequences for assaulting the security guards or the government official.

• Jack wants to run the operation. Hastings is through with all this "I'm done" baloney. "I'm sick of all this 'in' and 'out.' If you're going to be hanging around CTU giving me shit all the time, I want you in with both feet."

• A nice sequence as the 24 theme plays and Jack adjusts his Jack Bag to the other shoulder. "Deal." By making his Jack Bag less convenient to take off, he's clearly in.




• Cole decides to go ahead and kill Fake Leo and Weird Friend based on a three minute explanation from Dana.


• Okay, he cuts them a deal. I trust Fake Leo to honor the deal but I got a bad feeling about Weird Friend.


• "Knock Knock"

• "Who's there?"


"Stab!"

• Cole and Dana are dead... wait no Fake Leo shouts out a warning! Weird Friend gets shotgunned!



• This scene is a moving tribute to the end of Return of the Jedi. And with that another hour of 24 is in the books.

24: Day 8: Hour 8

Here we are, another 24 recap! Frankly, I think the events in the Parallel Timeline are boring and they better be leading somewhere. It's been a while since I've blogged about this but if I remember right, last episode Jack's plane landed safely in L.A., where he went on to pick Vienna over the other girl after a Sidney Crosby goal in overtime. Or something like that.

• Episode starts off with Dana. That's a good sign.



• Dana calls Fake Leo, who's sitting in a strip club with his weird friend. He says he's in Jersey City but I think he's actually on Deep Space Nine.

• Dana, with shaky voice: "We had a deal!" but Fake Leo wants to keep the scam going.


• Weird Friend calls Dana a bitch. Turns out he talks like Foghorn Leghorn.


• Arlo confronts Dana and she acts righteously indignant. Like, "how dare you accuse me of misdeeds! All I've done is commit several... um, misdeeds."

• Cole fills Hastings in on the Jacknapping. Hastings hunches around and sneers, which is pretty much all he's good for.

• Hastings calls out Dana and Chloe steps in and covers for her because she wants help finding Jack.


• Alpha Russian is making supper but Chef Gordon Ramsay shows up and starts yelling at him.

• He goes back to visit Jack, still posing as Ernst Meier.


• Since Jack is tied up, might as well punch him. That's kind of like throwing a gun at Superman when you run out of bullets.

• Alpha thinks Ernst is a cop. "I just stabbed a guy in the eye. You really think I'm a cop?" Alpha says that doesn't prove anything, and that in Soviet Russia, eyeball stabs you.


• Uh-oh, mobile torture unit. Jack is begging, begging, to be let off the hook. I don't know if Jack is really afraid or just playing the part of Ernst?


• Alpha says "I will break you." I know the Soviet Union collapsed and all, but make no mistake: they still want nothing more than to break you.

• I swear this EXACT scene has happened before.

• Haven't seen this fella in a while. He's throwing a little hissy fit about something.


• Alpha tells Longhair about Ernst. "In light of his appearance I'm halting delivery of the rods."


• Longhair is angry, because it buys Hassan more time to crush his enemies. He's also upset about the botched assassination. Seems like when you're in a powerful gangster's lair, surrounded by said powerful gangster's goons, you should show a certain lovely of politeness.


• Russian Son agrees.

• Time for the psych evaluation on Renee that should have happened hours ago.

• Director to Snarls: "You're not acting hard enough! Remember, you're supposed to be in a state of shock! Show me shocked!"



• Dana is coming clean to Cole.


• Cole: "It's okay, I haven't told you everything about my past either. Just do me a favor and promise you won't ever rent a movie called Scooby Doo."

• They're interrupted before she can say anything.

• Oh geez, the old thumb in the knife wound trick. That smarts.


• Jack plays possum. He's got a trick up his sleeve. Or pant, in this case.


JACK BAUER WEAPON COUNT #7 - His toes.


• So I guess Jack has a new superpower: Ape Agility.

• Hassan's daughter admits her affair with the guy who's name I don't know.


• Hassan thinks it was all a ruse to get close to him. "I cahn't thinkofabetterwayyyyy ... to get close tomy liiiiiife... then throughhhhh... my DAUGHter!" I love his line delivery. He's getting more and more paranoid by the second.

• Jack does some killin', but then encounters his one true weakness: a dead cellphone.


• Jack creeps around the building, finally finds a cell phone. Needs Chloe to trace the call.

• More creeping. Just shooting guys for no reason.


• Alpha Russian has a shot gun but he's just blasting wine glasses. He knows Jack is hiding under the tables, why not shoot under the table?s

• Jack pops up and yells "Rawr!"



JACK BAUER WEAPON COUNT #8 - a banquet table


• Is he dead? The table killed him?

• "Where's Dana?" "Something something reboot something ip address."

• Chloe traces the call and finds a picture of Alpha Russian: Sergei Petrovich. Just goes to show, even if you're a powerful lord of the underworld people will still tag unflattering photos of you on Facebook.


• Jack glances through Petrovich's file, and finds something he finds interesting.

• Jack is playing Good Cop/Bad Cop by himself. "All I want are those rods. If you cooperate, I can make the rest of the charges go away."

• Petrovich expresses regret over murdering his son. Yeah, that is a pretty big bummer dude.

• "I need to speak to Hastings." "He's on with the President." "Oh great, put me on with her too."

• Petrovich will cooperate for full immunity for him and his son. Hastings is willing to defer to Jack's judgement. What the?

• Taylor gets on the horn with Petrovich. He must feel so popular.

• Cole confronts Arlo, re: Dana. Arlo is in classic sneak mode. "It's none of my business, but I think she went to meet some guy." He shows Cole the photo evidence. That's great that two of the five people that work for CTU are now distracted.





• Dana is in the Strip Club being weird. CTU: five minutes from everything in New York.

• Hassan's daughter wants to speak to her boyfriend. I got money says she's in on the plot.

• CTU staff watches the Matrix on blu-ray while Cole and a strike team full of nervous rookies go to nab the nuclear wessel.

• Uh-oh dead guys! The rods have been stolen! BUT BY WHO? OR WHOM?


• Oh shit, do you think it was vampires?


• Fake Leo and Weird Friend exit the strip club with a couple of dancers. Trust me, that's hard to do. They must have followed the Mystery Method.

• Remember how Jack got stabbed and electrocuted a little bit ago?


• Petrovich is shocked that the materials aren't there. "We found a gold cross."

• Petrovich knows that cross. And if I'd been paying attention earlier I'd know it too. Josef!


• Josef and Longhair are ready to make a deal. Whaaaaa!