Season 9, Live Another Day: 4pm-5pm: Drama, suspense, intrigue finally ratchet up

Most of CSCS’s team survives the trap. CSCS, too, even though he didn’t wear his helmet. But the Brit PM ain’t happy. Not even after Pres. Heller tells his general 2x to engage the RAF. (Ooops, another mental gaffe—it wasn’t for emphasis or to quell second thoughts from general—this time in front of someone who doesn’t know PH is gaffey.) Not even after PH tells PM Jack’s on the job. And we’re not tracking him. And I don’t want you to either. Yup, PM’s none too pleased. Especially with his chief of staff (need I say it, a woman) telling him PH is going loopy. How does she know what drugs PH is on?

Yup, Jack gets his way again, and takes over his show again. He wants Kate with him, and what’s CSCS gonna do when the Pres tells him to do anything Jack wants? So, CSCS yoyos Kate, yet again, back onto active duty, and she heads out with Jack.

Jack sweet talks her as only he can, telling her why he picked her, quizzing her about her traitor hubby, telling her that despite his plan he expects they’ll die, expecting that as soon as the contact sees Jack he’ll take Jack out. Except if Jack has unconscious CIA agent Kate in the trunk. Kate buys it, Jack sticks a needle in her neck, sticks her in the trunk, and the game’s afoot.

Really afoot. Because did you really expect PM to do what PH asked? Jack’s smart, and stuffs Kate in the trunk while under a long overpass, but Brit surveillance can see through roads and their IR technology sees Jack doing it (no way, by the way), so they naturally think Jack’s double-crossing PH. So they discreetly tail him to the meet. Probably for the better as Jack had just one backup, whereas the Brits have a whole brute squad.

Jack faces the classic “what’s the password” puzzle. And while Chloe’s fumbling to try to get it, Jack, having seen the movie, knows there is no password. And with half a thought, any viewer would, too. Is that the 1^st instance of contrived suspense this episode?

Jack’s parts go pretty much as you’d expect. Kate gets wakened and tortured over stuff she has no way of knowing. It makes one’s skin crawl when thinking of torture, which I prefer not to do every chance I have. But when she’s about to get drilled in the head—literally—after the Brit brute squad took out Jack’s man (I sure hope Jack’s man sees more action that that), the brute squad finally breaks in, all the baddies but contact get shot with Jack’s help, Kate turns the tables on the torturers—that was cool if tough to believe, Jack’s contact lives long enough for Jack to take him into “custody,” which means long enough for the brutes to take him off Jack’s hands so that contact can grab a grenade and blow some of them up. And by some of them, I mean all of them that are left—it looks like Jack and Kate are the only ones left standing. How convenient—and maybe Jack’s backup comes out clean, too!

In the meantime, chief of staff Mark’s forgery of PH’s signature is in the hands of the Russians, and they want Jack—or want PH to tell them why he’s changed his mind! Cool, drama is building again.

And Mummy, against Sonny’s better judgment, which earns him a stern slap, sends wifey, now widow, out after MEH’s sister. To do what has to be done, should it come to that. Here, I gotta pause to wonder what Mummy’s thinking. I’m locked into Mummy exerting psychological pressure on the kids during all their formative years. But here’s Mummy using her widowhood to drive her vengeance against PH. And here’s Mummy pulling the trigger with wifey looking on, making wifey a widow, too. And we know wifey loved MEH. Does Mummy really think wifey is that brainwashed? Hasn’t Mummy also taught wifey to hate those who make you a widow?

Pause aside, wifey finds sis. And sis’s very cute young daughter. Uh-oh, wifey immediately gets second thoughts. Wifey finds out that sis doesn’t know anything she shouldn’t, gets invited to dinner, calls Mummy who tells her to kill her anyway. Wifey has dinner with sis, pulls knife, but doesn’t have the heart to pull the trigger, figuratively. Wifey tells sis to pack and go.

Now, what would you do if someone told you that? Sheesh, what was wifey thinking? First thing you do is call the police. At least someone in this show has common sense. But as wifey tries to keep sis from calling, using non-lethal force, of course, the knife goes off, and sis dies as blood stains her blouse with nary a slice through it apparent. Daughter comes out just in time to see mommy dying and goes tearfully tearing out the door. Wifey gives chase through traffic, pays the price, and we didn’t even have the foreshadowing of that Lost episode. Though is it the ultimate price? Scenes say otherwise, as does other foreshadowing—Jack’s trick of his contact (and pushing the Enter key) might pay off!

Episode closes with Kate’s bud at CIA telling CSCS that he’s found some lost files about Kate’s hubby. Like a good manager in a time crunch, CSCS tells Kate’s bud to backburner them, spend all his time tracking down Mummy. I do wonder why Kate’s bud picked now to poke around in those old, dead files. Must be more suspense contrivancing.

Yup. CSCS calls a guy with a run-of-the-mill voice distorter, and we now finally see the intra-agency drama ramping up. Looks like there might be a good reason Kate didn’t know hubby’s a traitor. Maybe he wasn’t!

And here we are finally getting into the 24 intrigue we know and love—Mark, CSCS, wifey. So far, all we’re missing is Jack torturing anyone—has he gone soft? Sphere: Related Content

Season 9, Live Another Day: 3pm-4pm: Where’s Jack?

So, where’s Jack? Was it good or bad that it took me a day or two to realize how little Jack did this episode? Good, I guess, because it means that I was plenty entertained by the rest of the story. We saw Jack at the start as Kate (character formerly known as DQ) has him in custody only to lose him to the Marines who don’t think the CIA has any jurisdiction in the embassy. And here’s where Jack does almost the only real thing he does all episode—Marine questions him and he stonefaces (that’s not the real thing, but wait because I gotta set the stage), 

 

(he’s pretty good at that, but  is he the best?), then everybody wants to know where the crooshall missing cirkit is—get ready for Jack’s one real thing—they start asking around, and Kate (who has it!) offers that it musta gotten lost when the Marines blasted their way in, and that’s clever, too, as she infuses the comment with a disparaging tone that starts to deflect attention from their questions. And here’s the brilliance of Jack (and the writers)—Jack goes just wild enough to fully distract from the question, Kate figures she can slip out unnoticed and does so. And the Marines and the viewers don’t even realize the brilliance!

Other than that? Jack gets delivered to Pres. Heller and on the way Audrey spots him. Jack tells PH just enough but not enough, saying he’s got a lead, but anybody else would screw it up, so if you don’t let me play, I’m taking my ball and going home. I hope you can save the day without me, but you can’t. Jack even promises to give himself up after he saves the day, let the Russians have me, just let me go into the field again, please? OK, he didn’t say, “please,” so maybe that’s why he stays stuck in that windowless room. (PH and the writers disappoint me here, not having any angle Jack didn’t think of to use for bargaining.)

Audrey then finds him and spends some quality time alone, up close, and personal with him. He’s almost as good at stonefacing her as the Marines. I still have the memory of her having been memory-wiped into a zombie and not knowing Jack some seasons ago, but though married (“Mark treats me well,” Jack is kind enough to inquire after), she still wants something from Jack. Luckily, she walks out before any of that something happens, and that’s about it for Jack this episode. What else happens that’s so interesting?

Pres. Heller and everybody else learn Jack was right, as the Air Force loses control of and touch with drones of death. Good thing they’re the latest stealth technology with no IR signal, no radar presence. When will we learn to beware of the ultimate weapon? OK, yeah, no great surprise there. But how ‘bout this: Audrey heads out to setup a meet between the Brit PM and PH (1^st indication that Audrey has any kind of official status here), Mark heads out, too. And the 24 world comes crashing down (is there any other way?) as he apologizes. He says he was wrong, the one who let his emotions cloud his judgment when he argued to take Jack down. Where’s the drama in that? Where’s the dramatic tension as he plots to get his way? What happens to the forged presidential signature on the rendition order for Jack? The good guys are gonna start acting like a team? I never saw that coming in a 24 season.

And then there’s the terrorists. MEH snuck traceability into Mummy’s message of ultimatum to the world (give me Heller or I blow up Britain). CIA finally figures it out, and CIA station chief Steve leads the charge of field ops to the location. MEH asks to take a break from flying the DoD so he can see wifey, and Mummy says Sonny learned enough from watching MEH that MEH can go—but be back in 15 min so you can blow something up. MEH sees wifey, tells her (will he ever learn?) his new plan—the traceability, plus hiding evidence that proves wifey’s innocent; she looks all doe-eyed, lovey-dovey, thank you my one true love! He heads back to the dirty job of piloting the DoD.

But he looks at his watch! Mummy, all coy, asks what’s he nervous about (I’m wondering why look at the watch? It’s not as if the traceable message included a timer, but this is the clock-watching 24 we’re watching here). Mummy says they found his handiwork and converted it into sending the CIA into a trap. Sonny takes over again, goon hits MEH, and everybody heads downstairs. Mummy holds a gun to MEH’s head, MEH pleads for wifey, who still loves him, to save him, and wifey, apparently no dummy, or at least a good agenda-driven terrorist gives us the blank eyed stare. Mummy pulls the trigger, ending one more possibility for drama in this series, although no one really thought it’d ever amount to very much, did you? New-widow doesn’t shed a tear.

CSCS and field ops now are headed into a trap without knowing about Sonny’s itchy but green trigger finger. Kate, remember her?, thinks something’s fishy—how could Mummy have been sloppy enough to leave a trace? Kate (even though CSCS again took her off duty, so OK, there is some drama left in her and in this show) calls her new BFF Chloe, who finds something screwy in Mummy’s transmission, tells Kate, who once again upon the word of someone she knows only as a wanted criminal immediately convinces everybody at CIA that they don’t know what they’re doing. CSCS and team hightail it outta the empty estate just as Sonny drops the laser-guided missiles from DoD#1. Live feed from the team goes down, and no one—not CIA, not Pres. Heller, not Brit PM watching with Heller—knows what happened to the team.

But they now know the one lead they had, the one lead they were counting on, the one lead that meant they didn’t need Jack, wasn’t all that good. Think Jack will hold a grudge and not play ball when they come crawling back, now that they know he was right all along?

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