Previously on 24

Okay, after 24 had seemed to be springing back to approximate some of the TV goodness we saw in late lamented seasons....sob....last week saw Jack, Chloe, Madame President and the ex-Evil Veep/Discredited Former President Logan riding the shark.

Where to start? Having discovered a mere 10 or 11 hours before that he was madly in love with a woman who would choose to remove a pair of handcuffs from a bad guy by grabbing a bone saw and severing the miscreant's thumb...followed by various law enforcement hi-jinks and a brief (extremely) roll in the hay, Jack has lost his beloved.

He also realizes that Madame President deserves to be the next Discredited President, for withholding the truth about the death of the hair-gel abusing President of the Islamic Republic. It was the Russians who did it.

We don't think that Jack knows this, but Evil Ex-President Logan has assumed the role of all-knowing statesman and advisor/confidante to Madame President. He's able to blackmail the Russians into signing a now-spurious peace agreement, and thus, what, temporarily saving face before the world?

Hmmm.

Jack does know that Madame President isn't living American values. He steals a helicopter, lands it on the roof of a Manhattan building, and disappears into the crowd en route to CTU to get information on Russian culpability from Bridezilla.

Once they find out that Jack's after Bridezilla, Logan and Madame President have her taken off to a dungeon to be waterboarded by bizarrely mustaschio'd members of a "private security firm." (Uh, this guy was obviously drummed out of active duty service based on his bad deployment of facial hair.)

Chloe is still in charge of CTU. (WTH???) She displays her ability to mobilize every sort of tactical operation.

Though to our knowledge, she hasn't called for a perimeter.

And she fails to give Jack credit for being able to call her next move. He calls and asks for her help finding Nina, I mean Bridezilla. She sets him up to head out to an industrial laundry in Queens, where the intrepid CTU team will scoop him up in a sting operation.

Instead, he disables everyone on the team (and whoa, there was an extremely GQ handsome Black man we were very concerned about) and snags Bridezilla's ex-Intended, Cole for his team.

The two of them are going to go rogue to rescue Bridezilla, discredit the President, somehow mend fences with Chloe, and find the Canisters.

Oops, that last one was a typo. Just ruminating on what was a different, and much better season.

RIP: A host of handsome black guys (Curtis, sob), Nina, Teri, Milo, Eggar, that former CTU head who kamikaze'd nucular warheads (or was that what happened to the canisters?) into the desert, Renee...and wait, what did happen to Jack's other main Squeeze, Awwwwdrey?

Unknown: Chloe's family (Morris and Prescott), Tony, David Palmer's 28 year old brother and also ex-President Wayne (last seen, comatose).

Sigh, RIP, 24.

(cool photo by Flickr's Richard Ling, used under Creative Commons License.)

Previously On 24: 8am - 9am

Ok, I'm still not watching live these days -- it's all on "M"!

Last week. Let's see, the peace agreement is on the verge of salvage, as POTIR's flawless widow has been persuaded to take his place. (His spoiled daughter, Faline, seems to have lost sight of the fact that she's partly responsible for dad's death...)

This starts to unravel the fact that the Russians (hah, those wily and evil folk) are not actually on board, the Prime Minister tells Mme. President that the Russians won't recognize POTIR's widow and won't sign the accord, per the order of Russian President Suvarov. (Remember him?) Apparently Suvarov only person in the universe who isn't on Mme. President's speed dial.

And it turns out that the Russian prime minister is in cahoots with the bad guys. He's got a connection who seamlessly dresses up like an EMT and moves to the scene of POTIR's death and dispatches with Samir, who dies an unpleasant looking death back in the CTU medical suite.

From there, the Faux EMT's plan is to follow Renee and Jack, who have decamped in a cab -- Jack having had yet another convo with Mme. President and once again resigned from CTU -- and kill them both.

Hastings has been removed from his posting as head of CTU. His replacement (wait for it) Chloe, is quick to request a toxicology panel for Samir.

According the resilient and recovering (Evil?) Ethan, Mme. President's only diplomatic avenue to conversation with the rotten Russkies is to engage with the criminally discredited (and then apparently pardoned?) ex-President Logan (formerly known here as the Evil Veep) who has an inside connection with them.

"M" and I predict that things will not go well for Mme. President.

Jack and Renee go back to his place for a (quick, extremely quick) roll in the hay.

The ick factor is high, extremely high.

While Jack is making coffee (WTH?), Chloe calls Jack to check in, and Renee picks up his phone. Chloe quickly informs Renee about Samir's murder (verified by the tox. panel, go Chloe) and Renee realizes that she might have recognized the Faux EMT from her old cover as a Russian mobster's moll and requests to see the files from that case.

But not before the Faux EMT kills the guy across the street from Jack's pad, watches Renee and Jack roll around (eew) and shoots Renee mortally.

Jack runs down to the street, puts Renee into a cab...because hospitals are closing all over NYC, he doesn't get her to a trauma center quickly enough and she dies.

Jack is in a World Of Pain.

Previously on 24, and A Change

Ok, let's see what happened last week.

The President and her team are sequestered on a military base in NJ. (Why they didn't go back to DC is kind of odd. Whatever.) The bad guys, of course, put in a call to Madame President, probably on her cell, to give her an ultimatum: unless she hands over President Hair Gel to them, they are going to unleash nucular bombs that will kill a swath of my fellow New Yorkers.

After further credible conversing with CTU to determine the reality of this situation, she decides that she's not going to deal with terrorists --- and that Jack Bauer must personally escort the President of the Islamic Republic and his family through an improbable tunnel between the UN and New Jersey.

(And of course, it turns out that Jack, although shot, has not been wounded. His body armor took the brunt of the bullet. He might have a broken rib...but nothing like that can stop Jack. He agrees to take the President's assignment, bringing Renee with him at her insistence.)

While she and her cabinet debate the issue of dealing with terrorists, one of her senior military advisors, a General, decides that the solution is treason. He and the president's scaly senior aide, Rob, agree to circumvent the President's authority. We see them attempting to hack into Ethan's laptop to find info for the word on POTIR's whereabouts, so that they can turn him over to the bad guys themselves. Ethan walks in on them, and before it comes to total fisticuffs, he appears to succumb to a heretofore unrevealed heart issue. He has Jack on speed dial, and gets off a call, but is unable to get through.

The General who is running the coup op bullies Rob into withholding medical care from Ethan, until they've captured or killed Jack and the other agents escorting the President of the Islamic Republic...they send a special ops team to meet them at the outside of this odd and improbable tunnel they're traversing.

Dana, aka Bridezilla, as it turns out, is working with the head bad guy. She's conversing with him from time to time from her desk at CTU, as he directs Tarin to drive the now armed bomb up to the Upper West Side, presumably to blow himself up with 100,000 of my uptown neighbors. (Though I rarely go that far uptown.)

Jack keeps trying to call Ethan from his march through this oddly cluttered tunnel. (It looks like a movie representation of a museum basement, stick dry and filled with crates.) When he can't get through, he gets suspicious, and tells his team to turn back.

When they turn back, the special forces guys come into the tunnel after them. Gunfire ensues, along with a chase scene and the usual number of bodies. Jack learns about the covert op from one of the poorly directed members of the national service, who seems to have understood and agreed to participate in this treasonous op.

Jack sends Renee, the President and his family back. More gunfire. And boom. POTIR, having somehow gotten his hands on a gun, gets a shot off against one of the bad guys, saving Jack's life.

As the show closes, it appears that Tarin has misgivings about his mission to blow up the Upper West Side, and POTIR is contemplating turning himself over to the bad guys.

(Wouldn't it be delicious if POTIR was in on this whole thing?)

And on a side note, I won't be live blogging tonight, for the first time in many years. (More on that in my next post.) I hope that M can chime in at some point. We'll catch up tomorrow.

"M" says: Hubby just got home at 9 CDT and now both kids are in bed. I'll have to try to watch and post notes. Maybe I'll do that as I do "step" on the Wii

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.

Previously On 24: Was it 2am - 3am?

So, last week "M" and I both had issues during the first half of the show.

Depending on 24's resilient formula of changing plotlines (if that's what they are) every 3 hours, I'm back on track, though, baby.

What I picked up about last week was that the googly eyed kid had been recruited by the bad guys to wear a bomb -- they had more than recruited him, he was in their thrall. Something about his dad's bad deal in America.

Jack, the kid's mom, and various others tried to get him to give up and come back to his senses, but no go.

Splat.

Faline, having run away with her illicit boyfriend, winds up learning that Dad was right, and he's a bad guy. (Mom, back in the picture, gives her the signal.) She now has to figure out how to sneak out of their hotel room. (Spoiler alert: previews indicate that this likely won't end well.)

Mr. Hastings has a talk with Bridezilla, and she appears to be trying to get herself back on track at the office. It's hard having to sneak away to kill and dump the bodies of her old ex and his Bromantic Partner. Good thing there are swamps convenient to Manhattan.

As soon as she feels back on track (though we think that she was fooling herself about her Intended's Intentions) MethHead Kevin's parole officer rings her up. On her cell. Not sure how he got her number.

She's stressing, and her BF is trying to figure out how to get out of this mess...

I'd go into it more, but it's too late. (I'm old school, I still watch it live.)

Tick tick tick tick, bloop, bloop.

Previously On 24: 11pm - 12pm

It was another week of improbable cooking and inexplicable judgement by the denizens of 24-land.

Chloe has taken Renee up for a psych evaluation, Hastings has not yet proven himself to have a first name, and Arlo has taken leadership in the lives of Bridezilla and Her Intended by spying as she shirks her work in a doomed attempt manage the fact that her ex-con ex-boyfriend, MethHead Kevin, and his Bromantic Partner have surfaced in her life and made her an accomplice in a robbery of a police evidence locker and attendant attack on a police officer. (These yutzes have gone to a bar in Jersey City and are trying to get her to come over and party with them while they threaten her.)

Arlo threatens to take his nasty but inaccurate inferences to Bridezilla's Intended...she decides to talk to her Intended about her Past...but then he and his men have to go out on a raid, and she decides to slip a gun into her purse (standard issue for IT jobs at CTU) and get on the PATH train for Jersey City.

Bolly Boy is in touch with bad guys back at home in the Islamic Republic, who are seriously bugging him for The Rods. Bad Dad and Remaining Son Josef get annoyed with Bolly Boy's imperious demands, and send him elsewhere at gunpoint to wait for The Rods.

Jack's brought before Bad Dad, pretending to attempt to convince him that he wants to deal with him and that he's not a cop. After a torture scene involving jumper cables that "M" feels is pulled directly from Lethal Weapon (which I've never seen), Jack shows off results of his devotion to the Crossfit training system and manages to electrocute, kill and basically vanquish his torturers -- and also snags a cell phone and calls CTU, which you may recall had lost him.

Using a banquet table to stymie carrot and onion chopping Evil Chef (aka Bad Dad), Jack holds him for the 3 minutes it takes CTU cavalry to comes in to clean up the scene and prepare to take the Russian back to headquarters.

...but wait -- Madame President continues her winning ways with respect to micromanagement and negotiating with terrorists. Bad Dad won't give up The Rods without an immunity deal. She and Jack agree that it's the only way, and agree. They've got to find the Rods, which the Russian allows will be found at a truck stop rendez-vous.

But no. Bad Dad's remaining son, Josef, is far more evil than we even could have imagined. He's scammed The Rods, made a side deal with Bolly Boy, and left a signal indicating that he's double-crossed his Dad.

Somewhere in there, The Islamic President continues to have hair gel issues, cracking down on democratic action back in his homeland.

Doe-eyed daughter Faline takes him to task for having taken her loyal boyfriend Tarin into custody. News of this unsuspected love affair between Faline and Tarin only fuels the President's suspicions. Faline subsequently attempts to bully and charm her way into the room where Tarin is being held...to no avail.

"M" is right. Such as these story lines are, there are far too many of them.

See you later!

Previously on 24: 4am - 5am

I'm not going to overdo the review (if that's possible for me to say in all honesty)..let's just say that Jack's back is to the wall once again.

He's dying of a rapidly progressing seizure inducing disease that is turning his brain into the neural equivalent of swiss cheese. His terminally stupid daughter has turned up in the magical last hours of the season not to save his life, but to turn out to need saving...

...while his remaining efforts and energy would be better spent on saving the world.

The President's daughter (who I swing back and forth on -- is she stupidly evil, or evilly stupid?) is creating other issues, thus diverting the president from the world saving work she should be doing.

Agent Walker is sure to screw something up in her desire to exact revenge on Tony.

Even in a season where we've hardly had any female characters of note, I have to now say, we've shown up -- and we're here to create problems. And to (apparently) not solve them. (Focus, Mme. President. Focus.) That's what Jack is here to do.

So the last two hours, perhaps of our lives, for Jack Bauer...I can only wish that we'll have some stuff blow up real good before the world is saved.

(And it would also be good to know what happened to his nephew/son, his Dad, and what a babu is. We have our list of characters we'd like to see resurrected...and I'm kind of hoping that Tony lives through the season to be a nefarious bad guy next year.)

And of course, we can hope that Kim will survive long enough to save Jack's life.

(Or maybe he'll be put into a cryogenic container -- let's call it a canister -- and the next season of 24 will take place in 2050, when diseases caused by prions are curable and Jack can be thawed, cured, and taught the new technology required to save the world in the future.)

Until later...

(And the top photo is at Noah's Ark in the Wisconsin Dells...it is what I came up with when googling for an image with the phrase "the point of no return." The bottom photo is a cryogenics tank from one Titan Industries. Kids, I am not making this up.)

Previously on 24: 4am - 5am

Here's Kiefer, looking a little tired, apparently doing the right thing late last week, turning himself in at a Manhattan police precinct.

The Post or Daily News had a photo of the bloodied Kiefer the night before, with a headline like, "Jack cracks," or something equally intelligent.

Sigh. Kiefer, even if someone offends Brooke Shields, headbutting is never an appropriate response in real life.

Use your words instead!

Poor guy.

That said, his fictional alter ego is also having a very bad day. I wasn't too excited about last week's episode, let's see what I can remember.

In the meantime, Tony is still sucking face with his evil girlfriend, and calling shots on when the bioweapon attack should take place. Tony and co. have bullied this poor guy -- who only came here from an unnamed (or unremembered) Middle Eastern country so that his brother could access the American dream -- into being a patsy for the Canister attack. There's all kinds of IT drama loading stuff to his computer, etc.

Jon Voight/Hodges/Daddgelina has been given immunity, and he starts to prepare for his boring life as a possibly still evil denizen of some suburb in a big square state somewhere far west of here. There are all kinds of intimations about the special country club treatment that he'll have at the Betty Ford Center for witness protection...

...and simultaneously, Oilivia is plotting to have him killed, having had a White House tete a tete with someone she apparently may also have "dated" who she believes can connect her to a hit man. After lots of discussion about the potential consequences of this action, he agrees to help her.

Aaron is oblivious. Or is he?

In the meantime, Jack and Chloe have identified the Muslim guy, Jibran, and his imam. Renee and Jack head off to the mosque so that Jack can abuse a religious leader, who rises to the bait and acts belligerent and resistant, refusing to tell Jack where the supposed terrorist lives.. Jack throws some cuffs on him, and they drive off towards Jibran's place.

Tony gets poor Jibran to tell his brother that he's a terrorist, and the kid spits in his face. Tony and Jibran leave, apparently to do something nefarious that will reflect badly on Jibran. Tony has convinced Jibran that he's saving his brother's life by cooperating....I don't think so.

Olivia has voice contact with a mysterious disembodied being who will pull the trigger on Hodges, so to speak, as soon as she presses "execute" button on her computer screen that will apparently initiate a $250K wire transfer. (Heh heh, "execute", get it?)

At the last minute, Oily Olivia has a change of heart, and presses "cancel" on the transaction screen. She skips off to the White House ICU; the First Man has been moved from West Arlington hospital pending the Canister attack.

The First Family shares a tender reunion.

Hodges is released into the custody of witness protection wallahs by Janeane/Janis. (WTH? We thought she was in IT.)

(And may I digress? As if this whole blog weren't a digression. What the heck was anyone thinking about Janeane Garafolo, period...and then, what about the character of Janis, one of the least interesting characters ever to come to 24? I mean, bring back Milo!)

Hodges gets into the back of a black SUV, which then blows up real good.

Word gets back to the White House. Olivia swings back to the "stupid" side of the evil vs. stupid game, and makes a panicked phone call to the macher (I've always wanted to use that word!) who set her up with the hitman. They agree to a predawn meeting at some park.

(Hopefully there's a Starbucks nearby. I'm gonna suggest that Olivia get one of those big pink frappucino drinks. You know, the ones with the whipped cream on top that require the extra long straws. She could use the calories -- 570 with whipped cream, per the Starbucks website, which seems like a bit of creative marketing unless the pink stuff is just water and pink ice, blenderized -- and should avoid the caffeine.)

(And another aside. The nature of this season's WMD has taken some of the pleasure that the Women of the 24 Blog used to get from using the word "nucular." Sigh.)

Oh, yeah, Chloe and Jack, bla bla, tender moment, one day to live, etc.

Due to Chloe's studly IT skills, she's learned that Jibran is being framed. Jack and Renee impress the Imam with their mental flexibility. Jack is in a World of Pain. The Imam reminds Jack that it's never too late to find one's relationship with God.

Jack and Renee surprise the guy holding Jibran's brother. The brother quickly breaks a mirror and starts slashing the heck out of the bad guy. Eew. He's subdued quickly enough, and Jack roars iconic words, "We need a medic," in hopes of keeping the bad guy alive long enough to find out the Canister's target.

As the show closes, Mme. President wants to know who on the inside could have had Hodges blowed up, and Tony and Jibran are apparently preparing for an attack on the Metro.

Previews show Jack wailing on Tony, Kim pouting, and Olivia slinking around.

We are gonna hope for some of the good old time 24 writing: Hodges isn't really dead; Aaron -- working in cahoots with the also undead Nina -- has somehow prevented this from happening.

Bloop, bloop. See you in a few hours.

Previously on 24: 3am - 4am

Sorry, it wasn't a yawn last week, but a giant explosion is about to happen -- in my kitchen. I've got to empty the cabinets before some work can get done tomorrow...this stuff always takes forever. And I'm not done yet!

That said, a few highlights of last week.

Jack: still dying
Tony: still re-evil and part of a conspiracy that involves Canisters, an evil chick, killing a guy in the bathroom, with a shower curtain (Professor Plum was nowhere in evidence), and then showering apparently around the dead guy's still-warm body
Oilivia: still evil, and now plotting to murder Daddgelina
Chloe: still pouty, and back to bring up the CTU servers, on the order of President Madame
Mme. President: still micromanaging: after ordering the CTU servers recommissioned, I think she went off camera to rack them up herself, and then to sign off on the White House bi-weekly payroll
Daddgelina: alive after he "took the pill", and being threatened by Jack, who wants to know who is in charge of the next scheduled attack (aka Tony's boss)
First Man: probably in the next room over from Angelina's dad in good old West Arlington Hospital
Eggar, Teri (grandma, not baby), David Palmer, and Bill: all still dead
Nina: if Tony can come back, can't she?
Kim: still stupid
Other Bauers: still MIA

tick, tock, bloop, bloop

Previously on 24: 2am - 3am

Once again, I'm hamstrung to remember what happened last week. Stuff blew up, Jack was in a world of pain, Tony slunk around to cement his re-rogue status, women were either stupid or evil...and there are Canisters on the loose -- despite one of the rare uses of a Perimeter this season!

And I'm also hamstrung for time. Let's see if I can expand on that a bit without going out of my 15 minute time boundary.

OK, so Agent Moss is still dead. If you think about it, he's the victim of not listening to his own gut: he kept on asking Renee what she saw in Jack. Jack's the one who legitimized the undead Tony.

(Now what about Chloe? Stay at home mom, or has she gone evil?)

So, Renee and Jack head to the Starkwood compound. (Yes, a law enforcement professional is taking a man with a rapidly progressing degenerative brain disease to a still active crime scene. Hmmm. I hope he's armed.) Renee demands to see Larry's body and then takes command.

Tony is on the phone with his evil friend, and also monitoring the search protocols being used to look for Evil Friend and the Canister, and relaying that info over to him so that he can take evasive action.

After the now familiar question, "Hey, got any C-4?", Tony has instructed his Evil Friend to rig a building to blow (was that conversation this week, or the week before?)

Meanwhile, a hot blonde lawyer is getting dressed in the middle of the night; she's Daddgelina's attorney, getting ready to go over to advocate on his behalf. Instead, she gets a faceful of anaesthetic from a bad guy and another nearly identical blonde chick. The blonde steals the lawyer's glasses and ID (using an iPhone app that can duplicate your fingerprint!) and heads on over to holding -- not before the real attorney is dispatched -- carrying a little red pill that she instructs Hodges to take, after some high pressure negotiating tactics involving threatening his family and preserving his legacy.

It ain't a Sudafed. (Due to the nanny-staters, it is practically impossible to get Sudafed anyways.)

Somewhere in here, Kim's on her way to the airport, and we see her on the phone with her (age-appropriate) husband. Her daughter, Teri, is cooing in her crib. There's some bla bla bla about Jack, but no real plot motion. (Baby Teri's evil twin, Nina, is nowhere in evidence.)

Back at the crime scene, the grid search for the Canister continues, unencumbered by the United States Constitution: Renee has apparently declared martial law, and is bulldozing over the rights of the hapless civilians who are protesting the seemingly illegal search.

Jack is taking calls at the crime scene, and takes one from the guy who was debriefing him, inquiring about another evil terrorist that Jack had reported that Tony had (supposedly) interrogated to death.

Jack realized that someone on the ground at crime scene command must be feeding the grid search patterns to the guy with the canister, and that Renee has gone into a trap, and he radios the team to get out. The evil friend blows up the building, and Jack rushes in to save her, Tony in his wake.

Hodges, being transported someplace else, is placed in the back of a paddywagon - but not before Oilivia has looked daggers at him. (I can't remember why the heck she would even be over there.)

While in transit, Hodges takes the pill, and he has a seizure. The guys driving the paddywagon divert -- where else -- to West Arlington hospital: "M" and I are hoping that he and the First Man will be roommates.

And eew, there's a disgusting scene/plotline basically stolen from Silence of the Lambs: Tony's Evil Friend smears a dead guy's blood all over himself, and Tony "rescues" him.

Jack checks in with his friend the debriefer, who reveals that the guy that Tony had supposedly interrogated to death was in fact alive, and had been apprehended trying to cross a border. This, combined with his insight that search protocols are being shared with the Evil Friend, leads Jack to realize that Tony has re-re-rogued, and he confronts him.

At first Tony dissembles. Then, it's time for poor Jack to have a seizure.

Tony steals Jack's anti-seizure injection kit and taunts him -- while simultaneously loading his Evil Friend and the Canister into an ambulance, where they'll both be driven straight through the Perimeter -- and then asks some of the medics to help Jack, in preparation for slinking off. (But not because he actually wants anyone to help Jack, but because he doesn't have time to kill him without attracting attention.)

Jack is unable to express himself, or to get anyone to stop Tony.

And the Evil Friend, following Hannibal Lecter's plotline, attacks the EMT and takes the ambulance driver hostage.

(And now I can't remember: was Hodges going to West Arlington Hospital, or the Evil Friend...or is everything going to converge there? Somehow?)

Bloop, bloop!

Previously on 24: 1am - 2am

Ok, you can get a CTU eco water bottle at Fox's 24 website, but no clock?

I was looking for a good clock image, because last week was supposed to "stop the clock".

And they were kicking it old school last week. Let's see what I can remember.

Madame President has called off the air strikes on Starkwood.

And psychoboy Daddgelina has come in to the White House for a sit down down with Madame President. WTH? She pretends to be negotiating with terrorists, as he proposes that his militia become another official armed force of the US.

Meanwhile, while Jack is directing Tony back at Starkwood.

Yes, The Canisters make a reappearance this season. What was it, season 4, when Canisters were last up on 24? But I digress.

There's all kinds of drama with Tony pulling some C-4 out of his back pocket in order to ignite and incinerate all of the weaponized Crutzfeldt-Jacob prions (conveniently stored in Canisters) that the evil Hodges was going to rain down on American soil. Inexplicably (or so we thought) he rescued some of the bad guys as he does this.

The explosion was awesome. (Obscure factoid: a yoga text was quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer when the atomic bomb was first detonated.)

Once the blowing up was accomplished, the micromanaging Madame President personally arrests Hodges, who vows that Madame President will regret this -- it's not going to be enough to arrest him. Others are involved.

(Maybe our old friends the Chinese?)

At any rate. Jack gets on the horn with Mme. President, and starts to try to get her to pardon Tony...and his memory fails him. The President asks one of her toadies to make sure that she gets up-to-the minute updates on Jack's health.

Kim Bauer turns up. (She looks like she might have had some work done, or something. But I digress.)

Jack rails on Renee, telling her that she's an interfering so-and-so. But, it turns out that Kim has been trying to get to him for quite some time, it's not all about Renee interfering. She's off the hook.

Kim and Jack have a distraught reunion and rapprochement, but Jack turns her away, refusing to let her to participate in a risky experiment that may not save his life. We see her kind of stalking away. (Hopefully to interfere, as we know her to be capable of doing.)

As things get sorted out at Starkwood, they still haven't found Tony, presumably ok but blown away by the blast. (Why did Bill have to die?) They assume he'll be found.

And no doubt, Tony turns up. Larry arrests him, apologizing. They get into a copter and fly off.

There's another SUV filled with FBI guys who encounter one of the Starkwood baddies. A firefight ensues, and one of the FBI guys gets word back to the mother ship that this guy has one of the canisters! And then, he's shot dead.

The copter is also somehow involved, and everyone but Tony is shot. Even Larry.

We think that Tony is helping Larry...but it turns out that instead, Tony has re-rogued.

More with the apologizing, this time Tony. After which, he suffocates Larry -- directing the bad guy to run off and hide the Canister. (This plot point stymies me. Why didn't Tony just have the bad guy shoot Larry?)

As the show closes, Tony waits for the FBI to come pick him up, hopefully bringing him a can of Barbasol and a razor.

(Hopefully Renee will be in a position to kick his @$$...bloop, bloop!)

Previously on 24: 12pm - 1am

OK, last week bugged me so much that I may have blocked it out.

I'll see if I can remember any of it. The one upside is the foreshadowing of Kim's return -- ok, maybe it's a double-edged sword. We're kind of dreading it. Although she is unambiguously stupid, and not evil, which is kind of a relief.

(If only we could have more than one resurrection per season, maybe they'd bring Nina back, too!)

The standoff at Starkwood ends with the FBI slinking off. But not before they get some comms on Tony. Because he's such a trustworthy guy, he's apparently been mysteriously deputized.

Jack has been infected with weaponized and fast acting Crutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Incorrectly, according to the neurologist in my life -- thankfully my friend and not my physician -- characterized as "mad cow". Whatever.

This disease is hitting Jack hard and fast, though he manages to keep his shirt clean despite the convulsions. He's given injections that will allow him to deal with some of the symptoms.

I'm going to just spew plot points, they may not be in order. Along with my nefarious demands. Bring back Nina! Bring back the Chloe's actual character, not just a pod person. Bring back the writers from season 5!

So, the action at Starkwood's compound involves actually finding the WMDs. Starkwood board member and 40-something hottie Doug Knowles apparently knows where they are. And thankfully, Jack has number. Knowles is tapped to help Tony -- it just gets better and better. We learn that Tony's been entrusted with this op by everyone from Madame President on down.

They're sneaking around while Janeane/Janis hacks the Starkwood systems to get them into one of the buildings.

Despite her talent at shutting down power plants and hacking into security systems, she's not quick enough. Doug gets caught by Starkwood security and taken off to Jon Voight (aka Hodges/Daddgelina). Tony slinks off after the WMDs.

Tony kills some Starkwood guys, gets an ID card and body armor, and takes an elevator 5 levels below ground (but his phone still works! in Hell!) and gives his BFF Larry a call. (Tony encounters the first really hot bad guy of this season, an evil doctor who totally buys into Tony's disguise.)

Somehow, Tony's got to give Jack a video feed of the WMDs so that Jack can fulfil Mme. President's request that Jack personally give visual confirmation that these are the real thing.

Whatever.

After a bizarre diatribe about what Daddgelina's up to with the WMDs and his bruised feelings about the devaluation of Starkwood's contribution to the republic -- and his feeling that he had treated Doug as a son (foreshadowing a bad end for sure) Daddgelina brutally murders him. Another handsome dead guy.

Oilivia is confirmed to be totally freaking evil.

Her ex-boyfriend, the blackmailing journalist she used to get rid of Ethan, threatens to release the story about the raid on Starkwood's compound. She stops by his hotel suite (evil reporters stay in the best hotels) and allows him to "convince" her that an assignation will be just the thing to silence him...in the afterglowy moment when he reveals that he's going to go ahead and release the story, instead of a cigarette, she whips out the cell phone video she just filmed of their, uh, encounter. He appears silenced, if not chastened, by her threat to put that one out there to the world and his wife. She tells him to find another job, gets dressed and heads back to the White House. Flanked by Aaron. (Who we totally heart; hopefully this warm feeling will not be abused by the writers this season.)

A doctor tells Jack that adult stem cells might experimentally work to reverse the effects of weaponized CJD, but that they'd have to come from a relative. Jack is totally in a World of Pain, he doesn't want to reach out to Kim. (Don't worry, Jack, Renee will do it.) No foreshadowing of the nephew/son or his dad from the previous season.

Tony and Jack confirm the WMD, and the President calls an air strike on Starkwood. (Jack tells Tony to get out.) Starkwood is prepared for this, they can somehow see this on their radar. (But they can't see Tony slinking around?)

(And WTH, the FBI left with their tails between their legs on some legal point about illegal searching...but it's ok for the President to call an airstrike on American soil because a known rogue has shown them some cell phone video footage?)

The episode ends with Hodges calling on a phone line he's covertly had installed at the White House and demanding to talk with Mme. President.

Wiping the foam from his mouth, Daddgelina tells the President if she doesn't call off the air strike, he'll shoot some missiles at various targets on American soil. He also wants to come over to the White House an improbable convo with Mme. President.

(There was a particularly neat effect where Hodges was apparently filming himself on a little camera while talking with Mme. President, so you saw two images of him simultaneously...I have to say that the personal video devices are turning out to be worthy of a screen credit this season.)

She aquiesces, and has the air strike cancelled without explaining herself to any of her cabinet members or staffers, and stalks out of the room to the White House kitchen, getting ready to grind beans and put on a pot of Joe for Hodges' visit.

As Craig points out, tonight's episode is supposed to stop the clock.

If only! "M", I, and all of our 24 friends could get another 8 hours of our lives back. (And we'd be able to do it without having to renew our relationship with Kim Bauer.)

Bloop! Bloop!

Previously on 24: 11pm - 12pm

OK, I've only got 15 minutes to post this. Go.

Action opened up with Jack being scrubbed and hosed after exposure to a bioweapon, whose improbable characteristics I won't detail here. Suffice it to say that Jack's been hosed in more ways than one. (And surprisingly, neither "M" nor I found anything to say about Jack's underwear choice. I myself might have guessed he would go commando...)

The entire Sangala/Starkweather/terrorism connection is explained in about 4 sentences, soap opera style. (Writers, we think that's pretty lazy. Get some Red Bull in you and get back to work.)

Jack gets taken back to FBI HQ, while the rest of the FBI team goes over to Starkwood's compound. There is some discussion about whether they can take in military reinforcement to back them up against the 1500 mercenaries on site at Starkwood, and a spurious decision is made that this would be unconstitutional. (Thanks, Craig, for the research.)

Madame President has named her lipwear challenged none too resourceful and proven to be evil even if only by virtue of criminal stupidity daughter, Oilivia, as acting chief of staff to replace Possibly Evil (still, in my mind) Ethan.

Oily Olivia is either hitting on or attempting to co-opt our fair-haired Aaron, luring him out of retirement with her version of smolderly glances. (She doesn't smolder too well, though, it looks more like she's leering.) The Women of The 24 Blog believe that Aaron needs to keep the enemies of our country close, and take on the job so that he can ultimately thwart her oily plot. Whatever it is.

Tony is being held hostage. But then one of the bad guys, Greg (assistant to the dastardly Daddgelina) kind of sort of rescues him, shooting at least one of his own in the process. Greg knows where on the Starkwood compound the bioweapons are being held.

Tony, a highly trained government agent gone hardened criminal just takes Greg's conversion at face value.

Tony gets on the phone with Larry (whose number he has, how?) and gets Larry to call his new BFF, Madame President, and negotiates amnesty for Greg. It can happen that fast!

Yawn, there's also some annoying Jack-Renee-Larry whatever. Talk about girl on girl action: Larry to Renee, "I should have trusted you," Renee back to Larry, "No, I should have trusted you."

Bla, bla bla. And Jack, there's no cure for what ails him, I'm afraid. And he's in a World Of Pain.

The good guys go in to Starkwood (sans haz-mat gear, I have to say my local CERT team would be better equipped) as per Greg's advice.

Oops, it doesn't look like that's where the WMD is being held after all...and now we have a standoff.

Tony gives Greg what our family calls The Mean Face, when its executed by someone under 3 (or a youthful at heart dad).

And we're out. See you "live" tonight.

Previously on 24: 10pm - 11pm

Sigh, it really is more difficult to remember the action when a whole week goes by between viewing the show and writing this post.

I will say that this episode hinted at some of what first sucked "M" and I into what might be called called fandom. (Uh, well, "M" thinks that Kiefer is hot; "A" thinks he's not.)

On one hand, nothing blew up and the end of the world seems to be at least 60 minutes away. On the other hand, you have evil family members; a vast and well organized terrorist conspiracy with apparent ties to good guys (do we really think that Jack's Dad is dead? what really happened when that oil platform blew up? it would be a real twofer if Bauer Senior was Olivia's biological dad...); some kind of weapon that will inevitably have to be defused to save the world; Jack and Tony on the prowl together again...and a few loose ends have been swept up -- we have confirmed that Oily Olivia is evil, and the First Man story line may be over...we hope.

Here's what I remember. Jack and Tony rendez-vouz to head over to some shipping yard. On the way over, Tony suggests that they call the FBI for backup. Jack says, no.

When they get there, they quickly intuit that security guard with an expensive medical bill has conspired with bad guys he thinks are only robbers. Oops, it turns out that they are picking up some WMDs that have somehow arrived undetected. (Despite the friction free flow of information about Tony and other "chatter", the FBI seems to get no intel about anything the bad guys might do...sigh.)

Jealous Larry tells possibly Evil Ethan (I can't let it go -- where DID he go during the 30 minute siege on the White House? 7-11 for a Big Gulp?) that Jack has killed the Senator, based on nothing other than his own failure to understand what Renee sees in Jack.

After a gratuitious scene back at West Arlington Hospital where the First Man checks in via phone with the president, hopefully wrapping up that story line soap style: you were right, honey; Honey, I'm going to make a full recovery. Buh-bye, First Man, see ya next season. (Maybe he'll be running for President. It happens.)

Ethan resigns, telling Mme. President that he is soon to be outed for his role in letting Jack into the ex-Goldman banker's hospital room. Ethan and Mme. President hold hands for just a little bit too long, but she lets him go. We still don't know where the Veep has been. (I'm thinking bunker.)

There's also an odd scene of Ethan and the President's nasty lipwear challenged and none-too-resourceful daughter, Oilivia, parting. We start to wonder if Ethan might actually be her dad...no way it's the First Man.

Oilivia turns out to have leaked news stories about Ethan. D'oh. I guess that this is going to turn out badly.

The head of the dastardly rogue organization Starkweather, Daddgelina, throws out some odd one liners, but we finally learn the cause of his major trauma: he's disappointed that he has this group of well trained (and hot!) rogues, and the US Government does not want to make use of them. Therefore, he's gonna change the name of the company to Xe.

Oops, that's real life. I mean, he's going to wreak havoc with America, by terrorizing and killing citizens. He woodenly proclaims that this is not what he wants to do -- it is what he must do.

But there's corporate intrigue, too. Daddgelina shows that he's a rogue times two, the board totally didn't approve having Quinn off the Senator.

Hmmm.

Jack, Tony, and the hapless security guard try to outwit the terrorists. Jack seems to be showing cracks in the armor that let him send a diner waitress of to her death at the hands of a handsome terrorist, and blows their cover to save the security guard.

(It must be noted that the diner waitress comes off as a more credible warrior than the security guard, who slithers off, rather than buying it.)

There's shooting, there's some Bauer Kills (a reliable source says 3), and Jack hi-Jacks an 18-wheeler containing the WMD, revealed to be a bioweapon. Tony is somehow known to the other terrorists (because they apparently don't believe in true "cell" organizational structure? because they are Facebook friends?) and they for some reason decide that he'll be a good hostage.

Moss has decided to look at the evidence, and realizes that Jack might not have killed the Senator. (Because Jack for some reason wouldn't have had access to the cool weapons technology that the now-staked Quinn had used?) So he and Renee are speaking again. Renee randomly and inexplicably decides to share her intel about what Jack suspects and where he is heading.

After Jack drives off, he calls Larry for help. (I'm not sure how it evolved from a bad idea to a good one in 20 minutes time.) Larry agrees to come on over.

Jack then realizes that one of the bioweapons is leaking. He holds his breath and jumps into the back of the truck to close down that leak. When he gets out, he is assailed by land and air, and Starkweather somehow manages to pull the bioweapon out of the top of the 18 wheeler (giant can opener and magnet?) leaving Jack behind, alive. (They must have had a lojack on the hijacked shipment.)

WTH? I guess the writers figured that the next 9-10 hours of our lives in the 24-verse need Jack.

Jack then calls his new BFF Larry and tells him that the bioweapon is on the move, and they both figure it's headed for Starkweather's compound. But Larry can't assault that site without due process.

Jack tells him to send over some doctors, he's been exposed to the bioweapon.

Speaking of sweeping up, in the previews, the shirtless Jack is being hosed down and scrubbed with a broom...

But we don't know what has happened to Chloe and Morris, Aaron, TEYOP, the Veep (current one or Evil one), no word on when Kim will show up (probably having also borne a child) or when we might see Nina again.

Bloop, bloop...see you in a few hours.

Previously on 24: 5pm - 6pm (or, "Bring Back Nina!")

OK, here's what I remember.

Marika took off with the frat boy to meet with Dubaku. She's scared and he's angry. He decides that she's not really to blame after all (or does he -- maybe he plans to solve this problem "at altitude, over water"?) and gets her into the car with him under the guise of heading out of the country together.

Jack and Renee are released by the DC police, after the faux warrant is miraculously released. A car chase ensues, and Marika causes a car accident that comes at the cost of her life -- creating a bit of drama when Renee tries to pull her from the fiery car. Jack refuses to help, and Renee points a gun at Jack to get him to help.

Dubaku is badly injured. Jack makes the first responders revive him for long enough to threaten to seek out and torture his family members, and Dubaku reveals the existence of his insurance policy before he passes out. Jack figures out that this insurance policy is in the form of a subcutaneous data storage device, and cuts him open and pulls a weird little disc out of his side.

Eew.

Jack gives the disc to some random chopper pilot and tells him to bring it to Larry. (Because Jack's spidey sense lets him know that this guy isn't part of the conspiracy?) Chloe gets her hands on this, and because Sean has tapped the conference room, he knows what's on it.

Sean sees that this disc will out him and all of his mercenary (yet bankerly) friends, and lures Insecure Blonde Chick into the server room. Turns out she is stupid and evil, but quite the IT babe. She starts to erase everything that Chloe is uploading, and tells Larry that they are in the clear.

Sean makes like he's going to swap spit with her, and then shoots her instead. Turns out he's a total psychopath. He shoots himself in the arm, and then makes like an injured party.

Larry (who along with the First man is kind of a honorary chick, really, and stupid but not apparently evil) spills tons of information to Sean.

Until Chloe, who as a matter of good IT hygiene had been mirroring the server on her blackberry or somesuch (something that "M" can now do, now that she's Microsoft Certified!), finds out that she's got all of the records from the disc, and outs Sean.

Larry is pissed. (And in kind of a peevish sort of way.)

And then AIG has some issues, and Jack does a hostile takeover. Uh, no, that is just we might wish had happened. Can we get Bauer on the financial markets, stat?

The President gets called back to the White House. There's nothing she can do for the First Man at the Arlington hospital. I think that Bill wants her back there in the White House yoga studio, maybe doing some balanced breathing exercises and getting back to her role as commander in chief.

Marika's manipulative older sister is extremely upset to learn of Marika's heroic death, and lashes out at Renee. Jack and Renee have a tete a tete, Renee is righteously upset with Jack for treating Marika like a piece of furniture. Renee breaks down, Jack responds woodenly, and Jack leaves, reminding Renee never to point a gun at him again unless she intends to use it.

"I did," she says.

(With the old writers, this would have presaged some inevitable hanky panky between the two of them, but I can no longer predict...)

The nasty First Daughter appears at the White House, and I was too bored to really watch and retain that.

Jack and Tony have a little tete a tete. (All of a sudden he is, friction free, sitting on the steps of one of those Federal buildings where people on TV always meet with spies and moles. I'm not sure how they connected, did Tony poke him using mobile Facebook?)

Jack believes that all is well with Dubaku's list on hand, and it is time for Tony to turn himself in. Not so, says Tony. Juma (the other guy from Sangala) also apparently has endless resources and is planning an attack on the US.

Turns out that one of the banker/mercenaries is a high ranking staffer to a Senator -- which we see right after Tony tells Jack about the guy. As we move to a split screen montage that announces the end of this 40-whatever minutes of mind-numbing TV wasteland, they are both on their way to visit the White House...where the next step of their nefarious plan is to unfold.

Uh, couldn't Tony just text Bill to tell him not to let this guy into the White House?

Anything I forgot? Could I possibly be more engaged, given what we're working with this year?

Jack, Jack, come back to yourself! (I'm wondering whether he is actually depressed, or is suffering from PTSD -- but the 24 hour format won't lend itself to any exploration of this important issue for our real warriors.)

Bring back Nina! Bring back TEYOP. We miss Eggar and Chloe and the true social discomfort and quirkyness they managed to respectfully convey. (Or was I just reading too much into it?)

Bloop, bloop....

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.

Previously on 24: 3pm - 4pm

Usually somewhere around 3pm is when I need a good cup of coffee. This is clearly true for the cast and writers of 24.

(Maybe that's where Tony went, off to Starbucks. I think he's probably up for a drink that features pomegranate, for its anti-oxidant qualities. One of those pink frothy drinks that come with the clear domed top that's like a nest for a big pile of whipped cream. Yeah, that's what Tony is doing. Or maybe he's having a shave. But I digress.)

The First Man has been brought to Dubaku, who can't wait to confess to having killed the First Son. He feels the need to justify his actions, telling the First Man that the First Son basically deserved it, for having stuck his nose where it wasn't wanted.

Jack, Renee, and Bill take a meeting with Madame President and the PM, convincing her that they are the only people she can trust. (Her security detail clearly trusts them, as she is left to meet with them solo. Uh, yeah.) (And I can't remember where Mrs. PM went, but to be sure she will wind up as a liability at some point in the future.)

While everyone is wishing for some coffee in one of the nice West Wing china sets you always see at the meetings of the joint chiefs, Dubaku calls to "negotiate". He orders one of his men to cut off The First Man's finger to prove that he's serious.

We're treated to some sound effects on that front. The President is moist-eyed, but unmoved.

Jack goes off after Agent Hair Gel, and sends Renee off for her second act of improbable torture in her short career as a rogue -- and attempts to convince Agent Hair Gel, his wife, and Renee that Renee will hurt his darling baby. Renee, clearly not having not read Kant (see "ends vs. means") cuffs the wife to a table (is that a Pottery Barn coffee table?) and appears to at least pantomime her intentions to comply.

Jack, having forgotten to cuff Agent Hair Gel, finds out where The First Man is and has to kill Hair Gel anyways, leaving his mess for the local LEOs to clean up.

The action takes us back to CTU, I mean the FBI Cubicle Farm, where Janeane/Janis coaches Sean on his affair with their insecure blonde colleague. (And he rescued his wife's plane on ane earlier episode because...he and his wife are part of an evil still-to-be revealed sub-plot having something to do with spreading a virus that causes facial immobility? And they need the insecure blonde chick for this? WTH?)

Dubaku takes some time off to manage his girlfriend's relationship with her needy and manipulative sister. Plot development: he's supporting them both, above and beyond the girlfriend's diner wages.

Big Sis: Stupid, not evil. She reveals to Dubaku that she's been able to tap into the intelligence community to find out that he doesn't actually exist. And then he asks, "So you haven't told anyone yet?"

He tells his colleagues that he has to take a break. (And don't think he won't stop at Starbucks on his way over, Dubaku is definitely a quad shot Americano in a tall cup -- and he won't be picking anything up for Big Sis, if you know what I mean.)

Bill, Ethan and Madame President engage in some improbable military strategy discussions. (Uh, waiter, where's that coffee?)

We see that while Jack has been stabbing Agent Hair Gel, his car has been being looted. Clearly the 24-verse is a dark and unrestful time for America. He trades up to a Cadillac (thanks Craig) and speeds off to pick up Renee and to go off and meet Agent Moss, who is happy to learn that Renee is alive, and glad to keep this secret by feigning a need to leave the office.

Renee is regretful of her actions, and says she wants out, "tomorrow." Jack has one of the best lines of the season when Agent Moss tells him, "The Rules are what make us better," and Jack says, "Not today."

A faux PM (another doomed Black man) has been driven to some industrial looking site (was this to try to stall Dubaku?) and everyone watches on video from the West Wing while someone gets them and their black SUV with an RPG. Sigh.

"M" and I don't know if we can hack it for the rest of the season. (But what else is there to do on a Monday night? And Craig, I don't even know how to operate my VCR, so I have to watch "live!" You're no dinosaur!)

(And talk about growing a pair! The women who brought us The Rules are clearly evil, and not stupid. Despite the fact that at least one of them has divorced, they've managed to build a business vending out dating coaches and doing product extensions of their dubious yet best-selling book. Not to mention marketing based on the fruits of the nefarious literary labors of their competitors. The headline on their website: "Is He Just Not That Into You? Or is he into you but you don't know how to get him? Book a consultation and find out." We've got to put the Insecure Blonde Chick in touch with them.)

Bloop, bloop. Do I still have time to get to yoga class?

Previously on 24: 2pm - 3pm

Ok, here's the deal. I have a conference call, a gathering at a neighborhood arts organization,and a girl's gotta eat: so I must limit myself to 15 minutes to write this recap.

That may be more time than the writers have spent on either plot or character this season.

Jack and Tony have followed PM and Mrs. PM to Dubaku's headquarters. (I forgot, as Craig points out, that Chloe had lo-jacked the PM via a dental implant. "M" and I should consider that for our parents.) Jack and Tony start crawling around in the duct-work of the building.

Chloe has spent too much time creating dental implants, when she should have been stalking the aisles of Radio Shack for components for a CIP device clone. So the bad guys can toy with us by using the prototype to hack into the system that controls release of a deadly toxic gas at a chemical plant in one of what we New Yorkers like to call the Vowel States.

(And possibly access to my tax return.)

Janeane/Janis has become aware of this threat via her ability to notice a disturbance in the force, and the writers introduce and kill off the only character worthy of the appellation we've seen all season. On the way to his inevitable death, the heroic head of a chemical plant engages in some blatantly sexist, yet jaunty, banter with Janeane/Janis while she improbably tries to talk him through manually overriding the terrorist's nefarious actions.

Is it possible that the producers/directors of 24 have recycled the Evil Veep's acting coach? Has anyone else noticed that Janeane Garofalo's face has lost all mobility? (And we know that Powers Booth and Janeane both have faces that work, by virtue of their work on other shows. Booth was amazing on Deadwood, which I watched on Netflix last summer. And Janeane? 6 simple words: The Truth About Cats and Dogs.)

Or is a virus that limits facial mobility the actual threat Jack will face down in this rest of his really bad day?

The terrorists find out that Jack, Tony and Bill are in the building, unplug the device, and get the hell out of dodge, after rigging the poor guy who made the CIP device to blow, yet improbably leaving the PM and Mrs. PM behind. (Or did they take the wife with them?)

Boom.

(Possibly) Evil Ethan is all cheesed off because he can't find the First Man. He complains to the president that her husband is unreachable, off chasing his conspiracy theory. Yeah, now would be a good time to distract the president with her family problems.

(America in the 24-verse has gotta be laffing their backsides off every time someone calls the President's husband The First Gentlemen. Writers, please, stop with the chamomile tea and reiki treatments: get yourselves a flipping steak and some good Scotch and get this season back on track, stat!)

After some really inexplicably terrible dialogue, which reveals exactly nothing about why everyone but Jack has gone rogue (except that Tony and Bill may have hooked up -- not that there is anything wrong with that, but it certainly explains Karen's absence), Motobo calls the White House and makes an appointment to come on in.

The agent who was backing up the dead Agent Gedge, you know, the one who could use a dose of hair gel (now known as Agent Hair Gel), gets instructions from Dubaku, who has taken the bus back to his apartment (WTH?) to bring the First Man to him alive.

A chick from Dubaku's apartment complex drops by to hit on him. Hey, were there any smoldery glances? I'll have to type less this week and keep my eyes on the screen.

Tony takes off, electing to remain rogue (and possibly to take some time for facial hair management). Jack and company get on the bus for the White House, but as I did type too much last week, I don't know if they are taking the whole circus (i.e. Renee, who is surely useful presumed dead, Chloe, etc.) or if it is just Jack and the PM going in.

We have zero tie-ins to prior seasons, other than the Tony coming back to life thing. And Jack's face also seems mobility challenged. I think he's just tired.

If the writers could only get a little more tanked up on caffeine, I know that things could be better...

Any comments from the blogosphere?

Bloop, bloop...

(Photo is Frozen Face On The Esplanade, by flickr's kenudigit, used under Creative Commons License.)

Previously on 24: 1pm - 2pm

It has been so long since we were out here, that we forgot about one of our blog features, "Previously on 24".

And this season, I've forgotten so much about 24 that even last week's show has hardly stuck in my mind. Let's see what I can remember. (And I don't have much time, I have a business dinner first!)

Jack and Tony have gone off with the bad guys, having faux assassinated, buried and dumped the body of Audrey, I mean Renee. We've been treated to a head fake by way of a silent clock in the 12:55 timeframe...so as the show opens, we don't know about the poor girl's fate.

We do guess, however, that we can put her in the stupid, but not evil, category.

In the meantime, the FBI is still going after her, despite the fact that they seem to have audio on the order to kill her (with a mere 15 minute delay -- if only we had that in real life) and figure her for a goner. Her boss, Inappropriate Relationship Guy whose name I truly can't remember, is heartbroken. The government has already seemingly stopped the torture investigation against her. Janeane/Janis, possibly even more evil than Nina (or perhaps Nina has had some some significant reconstructive surgery and is now a small and not so smoldery IT babe) is not so much on the scene.

On the way to the warehouse with PM and Mrs. PM, there is an annoying soap opera scene, complete with smoldery glances between Tony and the Good Looking Bad Guy (is his name David?) -- "M" points out that as much as she loves her husband, she's as hot for the bad guy as Tony might be -- and GLBG tells the whole story about how Tony went rogue in about 25 seconds (lending a very bubbly soap factor). Tony smolders, especially when GLBG and he talk about their bond. Ahem. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The bad guys get to a warehouse, where they plan to get rid of Bauer. If I remember correctly.

Bill and Chloe -- we still don't know where Karen, Morris, or Chloe's child (or children) are -- arrive on the scene where Renee was dumped, dig her up, and treat us to some pulp fiction action, injecting her with adrenaline so that she'll come back to life. Resurrection! They convince her that she's pretty much gonna have to go rogue with them, though I can't remember their reasoning. (I had my head between my knees while I was typing so that I wouldn't faint.)

Back at Sam's apartment, Brian, in one of my more stunningly bad calls in my 6 year history with 24 (absent that season that became so stupid that "M" and I stopped watching, which we hope we won't have to repeat ths year), has proven to be a total psychopath. And his last name is Gedge?

Sam, stupid/not evil, is dead, and Agent Gedge is putting the First Man's fingerprints onto the Ginsu knife Gedge had used to kill Sam. He takes a call from (Possibly) Evil Ethan, who is all upset about Gedge letting the First Man out...and then drags the First Man up the stairs, to a landing from which he is going to stage a faux suicide by hanging.

The First Man arises from the secret paralytic drug he's been given, and in a scene reminiscient of the final scene (at least the last one I remember) in The War of the Roses, takes himself and Gedge over the edge. Gedge looks like a goner.

There's a shootout at the warehouse. Yawn. Jack and Tony have managed to kill lots of the bad guys, there's a tender scene where GLBG dies without forgiving Tony for going un-rogue and then Jack and Tony release the PM and Mrs. PM, and convince them that he and Tony really are good guys, and that they must be delivered to the other bad guys. (Who are then supposed to kill Tony and the other rogues...Jack kills them first, sniper style.)

Oh yeah, one of the terrorists has the President's cell number, and nobody in our government can take a trip to Radio Shack to build a device to disconnect the bad guy's from the nation's single firewall that is the source of all protection from bad guys.

The bad guys make two planes collide. Sigh.

The President has several improbable foreign policy one on ones with her staffers, demands to talk to every first responder in the country, and generally proves herself to be a micromanaging ninny, incapable of leading.

Women.

What could possibly happen this week? Oh, yeah -- there's a matter of that disaster in some vowel state that the chief bad guys are planning to foment.

Maybe we'll find out that Kim is watching Chloe's kids. Even better yet, that Kim and Morris are now married and share custody with Chloe -- Karen is back in Vermont running the yoga studio that she and Bill opened in a converted barn.

Maybe Jack will show his ruthless, yet tender side once again. He seemed a bit out of his element last week. He wasn't even in a World of Pain. He just seemed to wonder, "WTH (heck) am I doing here?"

And what happened to Jack's dad and his nephew/son? Will we ever meet Jack's mom? And what about Jack's smoldery sis-in-law, and mother of his nephew/son? Not to mention Awwwdrey's dad? (She's dead, right? But Boomer Babe William Devane still has my heart!) And what about TEYOP, who according to Wikipedia is still in a coma?

(On the soaps, they wake these guys up every few years. But before we awaken Wayne, maybe "M" and I should fedex the writers some Red Bull and organic blue corn tortilla chips to perk them up. Guys, the strike is over. Get cracking.)

"M", Friends, anything else to add? I've gotta run, or I'll miss my business dinner!

And Next On The 24 Blog

We have completely forgotten our old feature, "Previously on 24"!

Does that make us stupid, evil, lazy, forgetful?

Or does it say more about what other uses we might have for our time?

"M", I'm going to try and break away from the Superbowl tomorrow (heh heh - though I do love the guy who does yoga) and see what I can see.