Previously, On 24

Sob. As hard as we've been on the writers this season, we wanted them to improve! We didn't want everyone on 24 to be fired! Just selective people who weren't up to snuff.

(And here's a great memo, supposedly from David Mamet, on how to make great TV. Sadly, the excellent show whose writers he was memo-ing (supposedly) also bit the dust. 24 writers, read it, learn it, live it.)

That said, in our requiem for this season of 24, last week's show was one of the best. Let's see what I can get down before it's time to view it this week, old school and "live".

Jack goes off in search of the rods, with some of his sidekicks in tow. Because CTU has been taken out, nobody knows where he is. Chloe puts in a call to Renee, at Jack's apartment. Renee pulls it together and takes off after Jack.

In the meantime, things are chaotic at CTU. Some guys from the NSA come in to get them up and running. (Uh, because CTU has no disaster recovery plan of their own?) The NSA guys are real idiots who reject Chloe's expertise. She has to pull gun on them and risk her own life to get things back up and running.

There's a firefight with the bad guys. The head bad guy takes off, after seemingly making a phone call to his girlfriend. Owen, the poorly trained 19 year old CTU agent also known as Bambi, gets killed, as does the guy he was trying to save. (It should be noted that these guys are dead because they didn't listen to Jack, in a chilling, yet improbable scene where they try to use the sides of an armored SUV that they managed to deconstruct as cover while they cross an open courtyard. And Jack is also shot, which opens things up for a tender moment later on between him and Renee.)

Cole and Jack are on their own, until Renee comes in, guns blazing and apparently meds on board. @$$ is kicked, and yet no fix on the rods. There are also signs that Tarin regrets his action. The women of 24 have urged Faline to hang tough.

(Could they be in Staten Island or the Bronx, two boroughs that we haven't visited yet?)

Faline goes back, improbably to the UN where POTIR and his disapproving yet newly supportive wife are being held. (No sign of the Infidel Girlfriend.) We all know that Tarin is a bad guy, and it seems that Faline is convinced, too. POTIR shows signs of being willing to back away from the peace process, but his wife urges him to do the right thing. Yawn.

Also at CTU, it turns out that the Colombo-like parole agent is still around. We thought he had left, but maybe he got turned back at one of the blocked bridge and tunnel crossings.

He has another little convo with Bridezilla. He knows that she has something to hide. She strangles him, stuffs him behind some wall panels, and phones her boyfriend...the head terrorist.

While not as satisfying as bringing back Nina, definitely bodes well for vindication of this wonderful actress, who we'll hopefully get to see in a non-lobotomized emanation.

Dammit, I'm out of time! Sob, just like 24.