Previously On 24: 2 am - 3 am (Milo, We Hardly Knew Ye)

OK, last week was a big whatever. I've actually been working on something else, so gotten a little lazy about checking the blogosphere about 24. What I've read has indicated that the audience has fallen off steeply in the past couple of weeks. If we didn't have the blog?

Well, we're nothing if not committed. There's only one other season where we actually gave up. (Season 4? I did make it a few weeks further than "M" did...and the good news is that things did pick up the following season.)

So last week. Hmmm, let's try to remember. First off, in the review of the prior week (which I saw unimpeded by a keyboard, as I was finishing my dinner), I noted Jack's lower lip trembling when William Devane chewed him out for messing with Awwdrey. I'll come back to that in a minute

OK, first of all, a guy who was our friend some 18 hours ago, President Suvarov, is now going to bomb us back to oblivion because the Chinese have the circuit board. What Suvarov doesn't know is that the circuit board doesn't work: Chinese have to either stop in at Radio Shack for a new one, or to call tech support. Or perhaps they might kidnap someone who knows how to make it work.

They start planning their siege on, guess where?

In the meantime, Awwdrey has given up one clue about where the nefarious Cheng is (Bloomfield), leading CTU analysts to figure out that Cheng is hiding in warehouse quite close to CTU. Awwdrey's Dad has taken her away and told Jack to take a hike as far away as he can from Awwdrey. (Good secretaries, after all, are hard to find.)

Evil Veep and Tom are in cahoots to get Blonde Toady to sabotage the work of her twenty eight year old boyfriend. She is surprisingly resistant to lying and cheating on the guy. To be honest, I can't even remember what he's got going on? Is he the one that knows how to make the circuit board work?

The Chinese start nattering on about getting something they call "The Package", who we are kind of led to believe might actually know how to hack the circuit board. We spend a good 20 minutes or so wondering who The Package will be: Chloe, Milo, Morris...the possibilities are limited and somewhat boring as a result.

Jack is still under arrest, and Nadia is really stepping into her new leadership role at CTU. (We're not sure where the guy from Division is...maybe the post-nucular blast traffic has finally clogged the drive-thru at Starbucks. Division Guys doesn't know that one of the CTU baristas will be glad to pull him a doppio at the CTU espresso machine.)

For some reason, CTU is sending Marilyn and Spawn of Bauer home. And Marilyn is allowed to interrogate Jack. She gives him a smoldery glance and tells him she'll be there for him. He is unresponsive and in a World of Pain.

Blonde Toady heads back to the love nest with Boyfriend. Tom has loaded up some bad intel to her PDA, and instructed her to make sure she gives TEYOBF the opportunity to download it. Blondie is also wired with a camera and sound, and thus we're treated to some of the interesting point of view effects I have enjoyed this season...Tom and others are in a surveillance truck; Toady proves herself less than intrepid in that she's not capable of resisting the randy advances of TEYOBF even for long enough to use the facilities!

He must really be into her. We predict (and OK, it was in the previews) that this will make him extra angry when he figures out she's zooming him.

Doyle is checking out the copper factory, only to find it empty; the Chinese have burrowed under CTU and are storming the place. Of course, CTU is staffed with mostly gentle IT folk, as "M" points out, she could hack them herself. There is shooting...CTU goes down quickly with barely a yelp, and most everyone in the main control room is corralled into small area near Chloe's desk. (But wait, where is Bill???!!!)

The Chinese ask the CTU leader to identify himself. Milo steps forward and is promptly shot dead. (Lead up to this through the episode is a bit of a semi-wistfully smoldery and ambivalent exchange between Milo and Nadia...leading one of the Friends of the 24 Blog to comment something to the effect that he looks like an actor who is doing the best he can under difficult circumstances. Which leads back to my observation about Jack's lower lip. One reason that 24 is at all watchable (other than the interesting visual stuff) any more is that the actors are somehow managing to soldier on, even in the face of some less than 24-worthy writing. In addition to stealing from other movies and TV shows, they are also stealing from themselves in prior seasons. But I digress.)

So as all of this has gone on, of course someone lets Jack out so that he can cadge a gun and go find Marilyn and Bauer Spawn. Jack's nephew/son escapes into the ventilation system, and Jack and Marilyn wind up cowering in the control room with the rest of the group.

The Chinese identify Nadia as the true leader of CTU, and get her to answer the call from Doyle when he calls in to report on the failure to catch any bad guys at the copper factory. We can only hope that we'll find out that she used some kind of code word so that the tac team will come back in with guns blazing.

We learn that Jack's dad -- back with longer hair and after a trip to Walgreens for hair gel (but alas, no lessons in how to use it well) -- is behind the Chinese assault on CTU. He wants "The Package", who we find out is Spawn of Bauer.

The Chinese get on the PA and threaten to kill Marilyn if Bauer Spawn doesn't give himself up. He proves himself to be neither the son of Jack or Graeme by actually surrendering to the bad guys (a real Bauer would have let them kill her)...and learn that the Chinese objective is to deliver him to Jack's dad.

We are left to ponder how Jack's Dad can have both the Russians and Chinese in his thrall. (I'm kind of hoping for a supernatural twist: he can see dead people, or maybe he's a Vampire King of some sort.) We don't know why they had to refer to an adolescent male as The Package, and wonder whether he has been programmed by his nefarious Grampa to know how to hack the circuit board.

We don't know where Bill is, if TEYOP is dead, what happened to Sandra and Walid. And we still have no idea as to the whereabouts or identity of Jack's Mom. (But we do know that, especially given the timing of all of this right around Mother's Day, she's going to be mighty angry at anyone with the last name of Bauer.)

"M" or Friends, anything else?

One bit of news is that "M" and I will be blogging together live, hopefully somehow with Hubby too, from the Chicago suburbs...I'm visiting for a business trip, heading back east early Tuesday. A highlight of Mother's Day, for me, was seeing "M"s son, "J", toddling around with a gift bag slung over his shoulder like a cute little Man Purse!