Our episode begins with the warden from Shawshank tendering his resignation. I mention this not only because it allows me to use one of my favorite verbs (“tender”, which ranks third on the list after “propitiate” and “hinge”) but also because it sets up a confusing scene wherein President Taylor mentions all that she and Ethan have been through. For a moment I think these two are married before remembering about her miracle husband, currently in the hospital recovering from both a gunshot wound and poison ingestion.
Over at Halliburton, er, Starkwood, Jon Voight learns that his assassin Quinn has yet to check in. Does this mean Jack has escaped? Possibly. Voight continues as planned with his emergency board meeting. Booming into the room, Voight stands and delivers his primary objectives to the corporate lemmings seated around the table. “This didn’t need to happen,” he says in the midst of a confusing rant somehow understood by a surprisingly competent crony named Doug (who looks like a weird fusion of coach Flip Saunders and Jake Fratelli from The Goonies).
Voight wisely takes Doug outside and addresses the conflict one on one. Rather than setting up a situation where there are witnesses, he leaves Doug to sort things out for himself. The dad from That 70s Show is dead, Kelso won’t be over anymore and Voight certainly isn’t going to fess up to having anything to do with the murder. When confronted with this charge, Voight clearly and coldly states that “Starkwood is not in the business of political assassination…but maybe we should look into it. I heard it’s a growth market.” Man do I love him as a villain.
(Note: Of all the outlandish things that happen on 24 -- the endless string of bullets missing Jack, the puzzling lack of security cameras in the White House, the inexplicable open roads in the DC Metro area -- the idea of Starkwood's corporate board meeting lasting only two minutes is perhaps the biggest stretch. You’re telling me not one of those suits would pipe up with some self-serving comment about “synergy” or “collaboration” or how they’d like to “piggyback off that last point”? Please.)
Meanwhile, Jack and Tony are en route to intercept the biological weapon stocked away at a warehouse. They kidnap a woefully inept security guard named Carl, whose previous experience likely included a stint on Dr. Evil’s security team. We’ve just seen Carl on the phone with his pregnant wife, whose impending childbirth, we soon learn, is the reason he’s accepted money to leave the gate unlocked.
Jack and Tony try to call the FBI but someone is blocking all communication in the area. Somehow Carl’s walkie-talkie works – the second instance this season of all communication being blocked except for walkie-talkies -- and he receives a call from the bad guys to open the gate. Jack tells him to play the part and Carl asks for assurance that they’ll keep him safe. Jack tells him “It’s just another day at the office. You’re going to be fine.” Not sure if Milo, Ricky Schroeder, Samwise Gamje, et al would agree but as John Madden might say, you’ve got to have a short memory to be a secret agent.
Carl lets the Starkwood guys in and is forced to escort them to what he now knows is the biological weapon. His job fulfilled, a henchman named Cooper takes him down an aisle to kill him. Tony and Jack look on from a distance, with Jack for some reason considering blowing their cover by saving Carl’s life. Tony plays the roll of every single 24 viewer by telling Jack not to break his own rules. Doing so would endanger the mission, kill many more, etc. but Tony forgets that this is the middle of the season when Jack traditionally has clouded judgment.
Right on cue, Jack guns Cooper down, leaving precious few seconds for them to get in position to do something about the biological weapon. Sure enough, a shootout begins as soon as Cooper is discovered missing. Why wouldn’t Jack and Tony use the element of surprise when the henchmen were standing there like ducks in a row? Oh that’s right, middle of the season. Nevermind. Jack takes out a couple guys, Tony maybe does the same but the weapon is still loaded onto the truck.
Jack tells Tony to cover him and runs after the escaping truck. He does his whole “jump atop a moving truck” thing – wish I’d kept career stats on how often he’s pulled that move – and quickly disposes of the driver. Meanwhile, Tony has been captured. Yes, even though Jack can typically take out ten men with nothing more than a tin of fly nap and a crumbled up TV Guide, he and Tony cannot combine to do so when blessed with two machine guns.
Jack drives away and calls Moss, who answers with the tone of a mother wondering why her son still isn’t home at 12:01. Jack explains that he’s driving a truck armed with a biological weapon but it’s only a matter of time until the Starkwood people track him down. Moss hears him, believes him, then asks question after question so as to delay the whole “phone in for backup” procedure. Dude, get off the phone and call in the reinforcements. How hard is this?
Jack hears a troubling noise and soon notices a problem with the truck. Make that a big problem: there’s a hole in the side of the truck and one of the WMD’s gauges has cracked open. He runs around back, takes a deep breath and enters sans gas mask. Inside, he merely shuts off a valve – really, that’s all it took – but bullets spray around him as he readies locks up the rear. That’s right: the Starkwood boys are back, and they’re pissed. A helicopter lifts the WMD off the truck as Jack takes cover behind a rock. After all of Starkwood clears out, Jack calls Moss to tell him the bad news: the biological weapon is gone.
Oh, and there’s one more thing: “I was exposed,” Jack tells Larry. Fear not, Jackie boy. I know being exposed to a deadly biological weapon can be scary but we do have historical precedent. Besides the miraculous survival of Henry Taylor this season, we can also look to the late, great Michelle Dessler, whose leather jacket rendered her immune to the chemical weapon which killed everyone else at the Chandler Plaza Hotel in season three. Here’s hoping Jack’s tuxedo jacket has this same power.
By the way, if anyone cares, Olivia was, indeed the one who ratted out the Shawshank warden. Also, she appears to be seducing a reporter who looks exactly like Emerson from the beginning of the season. There may have been more but I’m really making a concerted effort to save time – as Jack always says, we don’t have a lot of it – and TiVOing through her parts seems like the best way to do so.
