After what amounted to filler last week on '24' (Jack went rogue? Again? Shocker), will our intrepid CTU agent make some headway and save his long-lost love Audrey Raines? And if so, at what price?
Mike Doyle, who Jack left near a fence at the end of last week’s episode, runs out to the main road and proceeds to cause a near-pileup. Hitchhiking isn’t good enough for Mike, he’s got to run into traffic! He gets a car and calls Buchanan at CTU to let them know of the situation, and that Jack’s got the CTU truck and can be tracked. After Buchanan briefs everyone, he asks Chloe to, you know, do her actual job and help find Jack.
Jack manages to evade everyone and Morris loses the signal at CTU; Jack parks near an electrical tower and rips the tracker off the car keys, driving off. After Morris and Chloe bitch and moan about the fact that Jack is smart enough to get off their scent, Chloe complains about having to do…her JOB, and Milo wonders if Jack’s motives really are virtuous. Morris and Buchanan brief Doyle, over the phone, about where Jack was when he destroyed the tracker.
Back in Washington, after the disastrous fall of President Palmer, a press conference confirms that Daniels is the President for the time being. Fantastic. Daniels and Tom Lennox discuss airing their grievances from earlier. Lennox admits that he’s against the conspiracy that Daniels committed to get what he wanted. He also says that he’s not going to release the tape to cover his own ass, and that he wasn’t part of getting Daniels resigned. Daniels coaxes Lennox to admit that he has his chief of staff’s support. Ah, I guess evil loves company, too. Lennox manages to save Karen’s job, though, so she’ll be the only one with a conscience left in the Oval Office.
In that mysterious warehouse where Audrey’s being held, Jack calls Cheng about trading the component for the captive. Jack wants to do things his way, since CTU is tracking him; he gets Cheng to go to an abandoned motel room, but Cheng warns him not to do anything stupid. Hey, here’s a question: is Cheng doing this on the authority of the Chinese government, or is he rogue, too?
Back in Washington, Karen and Lennox are briefing Daniels on what’s going on with Jack, and Lennox offers to deploy some non-CTU troops to catch him. They leave, and Daniels’ pretty blonde aide, Lisa, comes in and wants to know if there’s anything she can do. Turns out there is, but it involves him kissing her. On the mouth. Well, there goes my appetite for, oh, about a week. Do we really need to see Powers Boothe make out with a woman who could be his daughter? Yech. Even better, Daniels asks her to stay the night!
Doyle’s still on his way, tailing Jack. He’s stopped at the spot where the tracker was destroyed, as Nadia and Buchanan talk to him. He decides that Jack went east, and figures he’s on a local freeway; he also asks to find out if Jack and Cheng had any calls nearby. Nadia tells Chloe to look at the towers with Morris. Instead of doing their…JOBS, they bitch at each other about their work ethic, the way they talk, Milo being around, and more things that I couldn’t possibly care about. Oh, but she pushes him too far because of the whole “I armed a nuclear bomb earlier today so I wouldn’t die” line, and she tries to apologize, but Morris has none of it, because she’s Chloe. Remember? She’s socially awkward, and it’s funny. Or so I keep being told.
Back in Washington, Karen gets a call that alerts her to a visitor in her office, the man interrogating Reed Pollock, from earlier in the day, about his assassination attempt on Palmer earlier in the day. Pollock reveals that Buchanan had Fayed in custody a long time back and let him go, and Karen hid the evidence. The visitor, Peter, wants to know the truth, and Karen explains that two years back, he was held in a mass arrest and was let go because of a lack of evidence. He wants to know why she resigned earlier in the day because of this, and that Americans will want to know who’s responsible. Even more so, someone will have to take the fall: either her or Bill. He wants Bill gone, but it could be her; lucky for her, it’s her decision! I’m so sad that Karen and Bill turned out to be so bland this season; for whatever reason, they had more personality last year, but their marriage just made it obvious that the writers had nothing to do with them.
Jack has made it to the abandoned motel, but makes sure to come out with a few armed weapons, so he won’t be completely emptyhanded. He goes slowly into the main room, gun drawn and flashlight ready. Meanwhile, Doyle’s on his way, and gets a call from Nadia, who confirms that Jack was traveling on the freeway, north. Bill, meanwhile, gets a call from Karen, but he doesn’t have enough time to get fired (spoiler alert!) so she tells him to call back in a few minutes.
Karen goes into Lennox’s office, and explains that his hunch that Peter was powerful, and explains that he knows about the Fayed information and wants either her or Bill to get canned, and have a career ruined. Lennox says Bill should take the fall, and despite Karen wanting to resign (as Lennox points out, “Didn’t you resign once today?”), he tells her that she needs to protect herself, not Bill.
In the motel, Jack’s busy getting things ready, setting up the dynamite that will kill him and all others aside from Audrey. He calls Bill, and leaves a message detailing what will happen, where it will happen and when. He asks Bill to take care of Audrey, and spares us from having another heart-to-heart with someone from CTU right before Jack “dies.”
Back at CTU, Morris requests that he gets a switch in assignment, to be away from Chloe. He doesn’t care where he’s put as long as Chloe’s not there. Bill’s sad, but agrees that it’s the best option. Bill then calls Karen, who explains what’s going on and that someone’s got to become a scapegoat. Bill asks if he’s to resign, but Karen says she has to fire him. That’ll be uncomfortable, when they see each other again. “Hey, honey, how are you?” “Oh, lost my job, thanks to you. Other than that, I’m good!”
Anyway, Bill wants to fight it, but Karen says that it has to happen, but she loves him, blah blah blah, she hangs up. After we see Jack call an emergency at the motel, to get the authorities involved, and Doyle search a nearby area, Bill calls Nadia to a conference room and explains that he’s been fired, and that she is acting director of CTU. Man, what a day for her! First, she gets tortured and then she’s promoted. What a turnaround. He’s then escorted off the premises by some burly guards. Morris watches Buchanan go, and Nadia tells him that Buchanan’s gone and she’s in charge. She makes a little speech, and then the commercials come. Thankfully, Bill didn’t get the “silent ticking clock” treatment. In fact, that hasn’t happened at all this season. I wonder who’ll have to die in the next month for that to happen?
Doyle has arrived at the motel, and calls CTU to let them know that he’s right on Jack’s tail. Nadia talks him through checking around the motel, and a fancy limo pulls up at the motel. Cheng walks into the motel, and Jack stops him, wanting to know where Audrey is. He won’t do anything until he sees her, so Cheng calls for her to be brought out of the car. Doyle, hiding behind the car, sees Audrey go into the premises and calls for backup. She looks worse for wear and is gagged. Jack ungags her and then caresses her, apologizing for what’s happened. Jack orders that she’s to be let go by herself, out of range of the sniper. He tells her to go to a gas station nearby; she does so. Doyle wants to know where the backup is, and finds out it’ll take too long to get there. Cheng orders Jack to give him the component. Jack lowers his weapon, and holds up the component. He throws it at Cheng, and just as that happens, Doyle decides to start shooting. Oh, and the backup arrives. So, lots and lots and lots of guns start firing. Cheng gets into a black Hummer and gets away, but Audrey is safe. One of the snipers has hit a CTU helicopter; meanwhile, we see Cheng get away, the component in his hand.
Jack, still in the motel room, has to deal with some more snipers, and then the backup arrives, along with Doyle. He explains to Doyle how stupid his plan was, because now the component wasn’t destroyed, and Cheng has escaped, which means we’ll have to put up with him for a little more, since two other seasons wasn’t enough. Nadia tells Doyle what’s happened, and that he has to arrest Jack. That’s likely to last for about five minutes. Before he’s taken away, he gets to see Audrey, who’s still repeating what she said on the phone to Jack; she doesn’t even recognize him. That can’t be good. So, will Jack get out of custody? Will Audrey be damaged permanently? Will any other annoying characters from previous years, like Behrooz, be back? Hopefully not that last thing, but we’ll find out next week on Fox’s ‘24’.
