Previously on 24: 4pm - 5pm

Another very bad hour of so far Jack's worst day. Seriously, poor Kiefer and other stalwarts are such good actors that they have made previous seasons seem exciting and dare I say at least incredible, in a good way.

Now it is just plain in-credible! But I am an optimist, and can hope for a turnaround. "M" is on the beach with "J", the Hubby, and various Grandmas.

Ok, let's see what I can remember. First of all, Jack and company manage to retrieve the First Man (possibly sans that finger) from the basement of a Chinese grocery. While Renee is on the phone with Agent Moss, Jack sees that she's having a hard time.

No, wait, was that the week before last?

Hmmm. Ok let's try this. Madame President must have read The One Minute Manager when off camera, because she's ready to delegate everything to the military while she goes to some public hospital in Arlington where civilian medical employees are operating on her husband. (I would have preferred the secret hospital in the White House bunker as a plot move with more of a 24 touch, but I digress.)

She takes Bill, a rogue yoga instructor whose wife must be back in Vermont managing the yoga studio/B&B they opened after CTU shut down, as her security detail. Her actual security detail has no problem with this.

And she has totally authorized Bill, Jack and Chloe to do whatever they need to do to so that Jack can save the world, again.

Morris shows himself, and so we now are guessing that Bill and Chloe aren't an item, or at least not an official one. My guess is that after CTU shut down, Chloe picked up some work at Fannie Mae. Now that this gravy train has shut down (seriously, I know some IT people who were making unusual bucks there, which I couldn't understand at the time...sigh) Chloe is glad to get back to some paying work. Chloe also has a very cute boy; was he named Prescott after "W"'s grandfather (you know, the one who, legend would have it, stole Geronimo's skull?)

Morris drops Chloe off at CTU, I mean the FBI Cubicle Farm, where she is quickly made and outed by the Insecure Blonde Chick as Jack's girl. (Uh, because she recognized Chloe from the CTU Facebook group?)

Meanwhile, Dubaku has finessed one of the mercenaries (who look like frat boys or ex-Goldman bankers to me, and are the US based masterminds of the Sangala unrest) who had planned to get rid of him.

But they can't. If anything happens to him he's got an information bomb pointed at the Department of Justice (whatever) that will reveal all of their smarmy frat boy backsides; they've now got to get him and Marika out of the country. He then convinces Marika to leave in the middle of her diner shift to pack and flee the country because "immigration" is after him, leaving her sister behind (for now, wink wink).

Jack and Renee catch up with Marika and convince her to join their rogue team.

There's some tender bonding between Marika and her manipulative and needy older sis, before she gets into a town car driven by one of the frat boys.

Jack allows as how he doesn't really care what happens to Marika, and prevents Renee from giving her a way to contact them if she's in trouble. Renee has continued "issues" with the rules of her new status as a rogue.

Meanwhile, Janeane/Janis blackmails Sean into giving her his password and she slinks off to the server room to find out what Chloe is doing. She comes back and feeds it to Sean.

Chloe does manage to insult Larry, who it turns out is also a network administrator, though an incompetent one. She pouts a little bit, too. Come back, Chloe! Look a little frumpier, then we'll really know it is you!

The President is hanging out in the waiting room in the hospital with Bill. She needs to have her heretofore unrevealed daughter brought to her, but she can't make a call because there has been a falling out. Is there anyone that Bill trusts?

Our favorite, Aaron, comes back into the picture. (Bring back Jean Smart! She was crazy, not stupid or evil.) He brings his quiet charm to the task of retrieving the spoiled and nasty young woman who is possibly attempting to trade on her relationship with her estranged mother in some sort of murky business meeting. She finally listens to Aaron, and realizes that her dad is in trouble, and agrees to go with him.

Moss tells Renee that Agent Hair Gel's wife is raising a stink about having been cuffed to her Pottery Barn coffee table while some chick held a gun to her baby. It is only a matter of time before the chickens come to roost on that one.

Sean turns out to be the FBI mole working with the ex-Goldman bankers. He has not only managed to tap Larry's phone, so he knows what is up with Marika and can rat her out out to one of the banker guys. But he has also set up a fake warrant for Jack and Renee that gets them taken down in a roadblock situation. (WTH? He know what car they are driving, how? Aren't they still in the Caddy that Jack jacked?)

As the clock is counting down, Moss is trying to get them released, and one of the banker/mercenaries is telling Dubaku that Marika has gone rogue and offered to take her out.

No, says Dubaku, he'll manage this one himself.

Bloop, bloop.

And I'm not sure when "M" returns from warmer climes. Early Monday evening I'm going to my first martial arts class ever, hopefully I won't accidentally take myself out. Yogi or not, I'm not the most coordinated person out there. But someone should be here, in some shape, when 5pm rolls around in the 24 verse.