In the long line of 24 traitors, this Sean Walsh guy doesn’t do much for me. Sure, he’s got the weird posture and shifty eyes. Yes, his shirt sleeves are rolled tightly enough to cut off circulation in his arms. Thing is, he really can’t wield too much power. I mean, what’s the most damage he can do? Create a computer virus that Chloe will figure out how to de-bug anyway? I’d much rather they have chosen someone who at least presents himself as powerful. In this episode we learn his little blonde friend Erika is also in on the scheme. Problem: she’s not the greatest at maintaining her composure, as we learn in her first panicky scene.
Erika seems like she can’t control herself, needs help calming down and says she’s really scared. Ay-yi-yi. Between her and Garafolo…I mean, don’t they teach a “grace under pressure” class at FBI Orientation?
If anything, Jack Bauer could teach it. Five minutes after being wrongfully arrested, he and Renee are back in their car and in pursuit of Dubaku. You’re probably assuming the big man is traveling alone, being as how he promised to kill his girlfriend and all. Not so much. With all the charm of a drier whose buzzer won’t shut off we have Marika and Dubaku’s relationship. Dubaku can’t understand why Marika turned on him. Doesn’t she understand that he brought peace to Sangala? How could she do this to him after he trusted her with his fake identity and empty promises?
Dubaku tells her he’s a forgiving man. He still wants her to come with him. Even faced with certain death, staring into the face of a man who hours ago orchestrated a mid-air collision between two planes, she pulls the “I don’t know who you are” card, tears running down her face. Interesting strategery. Then the mass murderer, the butcher of Sangala, reaches over and…kisses her??? Can any amount of question marks adequately capture the senselessness of this move? Do they not have women in Sangala? How can he be in this much love with her?
They head off in the car and Dubaku ignores the advice of the random white diplomat (RWD), who reminds him Marika was working for the FBI. Dubaku says he has the situation under control.
Little does he know that Jack and Renee are hot in pursuit, twisting and turning their car, screeching around corners, yelling and drawing closer before careening out of control. Team Dubaku appears to have lost them.
Marika takes matters into her own hands, hiding the driver’s eyes and causing him to lose control. The car flips over. Jack and Renee are there within moments, gunning down the driver and yanking an unconscious Dubaku out of the car. Marika remains lodged in her seat. Renee feels convicted by her wookie debt of honor and insists Jack help her save Marika. Jack goes through his usual Machiavellian diatribe but Renee has had enough, pulling a gun on Jack and demanding he help. Good for her. Even by his own standards, Jack’s emotions are fairly robotic this season. More on that later.
They pull Marika out of the car moments before it explodes. You would assume Dubaku would crawl away while unsupervised, but he defies every law of cinema and remains unconscious. Meanwhile, Renee tries to save Marika’s life. As my roommate Zac points out, her CPR form is way off. For all you future FBI agents out there, you want to keep your arms straight rather than looking like you want to do bicep curls.
Marika passes away under Renee’s care as the ambulance arrives in time to save Dubaku. Jack keeps them from taking Dubaku to the hospital with his usual coercive yelling: I know you can hear me, we both know what’s going to happen here, etc. He threatens to track down Dubaku’s family in Sangala unless Dubaku tells him who the traitors in the US government are. Dubaku says something about having a list “on him” which we soon realize means “in him”: Jack cuts a metallic chip out of Dubaku’s gut, a la Jason Bourne. What’s on the plate? Is there an account number for a bank in Switzerland? No. Looks like it has info on all the traitors in the U.S. government.
Jack calls Moss, explaining what he thinks is on the chip and sends it back to FBI headquarters, trusting a nameless police officer to ensure its arrival. In any other season the police officer is taken out within five minutes; this year he somehow transports the chip safely. Again, weird season.
Agent Walsh (the guy from Entourage) and Erika (the blonde) scheme about how they can still keep from being exposed. They resolve to shut down the entire mainframe once Chloe begins decrypting the data. I love when things are “decrypted” on these shows. It’s one of the three most used words in spy jargon, along with its first cousin “encrypt” and my personal favorite, “triangulate.”
Chloe begins decrypting and as she does so, the FBI traitors leap to action. Erika is frazzled at first but figures out how to power down the entire mainframe. With Moss and Chloe running down the hall to find out who’s screwing with the computer system, Walsh and Erika begin making out. Just as I began ranking this on the list of 24’s all-time weirdest kissing scenes (no way it’s weirder than when the legendary Milo – Nadia tonsil-hockey match set seconds after he finished torturing her in season six), Walsh shoots Erika. Not a bad move by Agent Walsh: he establishes himself as a hero, builds trust, and shoots himself in the shoulder to finish the act. Note: throw in a multi-million dollar reward and he would have exactly replicated Gary Sinise’s strategy from Ransom.
Walsh thinks he’s home free when Walsh and Chloe appear to buy his alibi. Minutes later Chloe has somehow managed to decrypt the files, leaving Walsh in a tricky predicament: should he now try to destroy the mainframe again? In the middle of changing clothes – apparently the FBI is the same as nursery school, where students have a spare outfit in a locker – and, lest we forget, minutes after being shot, he panics and runs around the building before being cornered by Moss and miscellaneous agents. Thrown against the wall, he asks for his lawyer.
Meanwhile, Renee has to explain to Rose that her sister is dead. Renee starts to lose it and berates Jack for having no emotions. Jack continues to pull the whole “this was our only option/we got the job done” act, which infuriates Renee and has her wondering how he can pretend nothing happened. She asks how he felt when his wife was killed, even slapping him repeatedly to see if he feels anything. Then she falls into Jack’s arms. “It’s over,” he tells her. Oh no it’s not, Jack. Not even close.
Shortly thereafter, Jack is watching the sun set over the Lincoln Memorial when his old pal Tony Almeida sits down next to him. It seems there’s going to be another attack and Tony needs Jack’s help to prevent it. Jack mulls it over and decides he’s in…but by golly, if Tony is screwing with him there will be trouble.
Back at the White House – where President Taylor had been transferred earlier – Bill pleads his case that she put an end to the interrogation of Jack Bauer. He uses Jack’s full name like 19 times in this episode whereas everyone else is called by either first or last name. Is this a Tolstoy novel? What’s with the full name treatment? Anyway, Taylor says she’ll consider it and calls in Senator Mayer (the dad from That 70s Show) as well as his chief of staff…who we’d seen before as RWD but can now be addressed by his real name: Ryan Burnett. Burnett gets a text telling him the next planned attack will proceed as scheduled. Tick-tock, tick-tock, and we’re finished with this week.
Only two problems:
1. The “sneak peak at next week’s all-new 24” completely gave away everything that’s going to happen; and
2. All this talk about Jack not caring, not having any objective other than to get the job done, having no feelings…I fear we’re headed for a Kim Bauer episode. She’s the only thing Jack has left, she’s easy to kidnap, and suddenly Jack will, indeed, show he has feelings again. Yup, I can see it coming. Maybe (hopefully) I’m just paranoid.
