Previously on 24, 3am - 4am

After being led to expect a twist that will change everything, spoiler alert, don't worry. The bad guys have just taken CTU out again. (They really need to get someone like Blackwater to come in and give them some security advice. But I digress.)

Before the EMP blast that "changes everything" (not), we're treated to a few sparks of the old 24, and so much of the new far less spicy version.

Faline and her boyfriend Tarin, having decamped to a swanky hotel in lower Manhattan, are tracked down by Faline's mom. Mom rats out the evil Tarin, who then drags Faline off by her hair to an empty bank that hasn't been turned into condos, but instead has been conveniently left open for terrorists to set up a TV studio.

They use their setup to stream threatening video to POTIR and his disapproving wife. Somehow, Chloe (the only woman of 24 who would leave an image on one of those airport body scanners, the others are so insubstantial) figures out where they are, and Jack and his team are en route.

But first, Tarin and Faline do a faux escape, and Tarin faux dies. Yawn. Faline punches CTU into the GPS on the "random" car she gets into -- the one with the EMP bomb poorly disguised under a blanket that CTU security didn't catch.

Hilarious scene of Hastings, that tool, attempting to lead CTU out of the impending crisis by running and shrieking. To No Avail.

Oops. Boom.

A "parole officer" searching for MethHead Kevin somehow gets Bridzilla's cell number, and he has come into CTU. He's asking so many "stupid" questions, ala Columbo, that he clearly has something else going on. He's onto her, but we don't know what his deal is.

(We're pretty sure he's a bad guy of some sort. And now he's stuck in the disabled CTU to wreak some kind of havoc, although whether just in Bridezilla's life, or as part of a bigger agenda, we don't know.)

The Rods? They're on their way to town. Once CTU is disabled, the only thing standing between my beloved city and a small scale nucular armegeddon? (And was someone in CTU implicated somehow, I can't remember?)

Yawn.

MIA? Madame President and her sneaky aides, Kim Bauer & family, as well as POTIR's Infidel Girlfriend. Bridezilla's Intended, Cole, keeping his distance.

Of course, we still don't know what happened to Tony. Morris, Prescott, and the child's babu (whatever that was), also nowhere to be found. (Thankfully, it was not "take your children to work" day at CTU.)

And "A" has found approving comments (sigh, necessary because we're being assailed by spammers) to be difficult. I accidentally deleted some of Tai's fun comments...and then I think I approved some of the spammer's comments. (Which I can't find.)

Sigh.