Season 5; Hour Five (11:00 AM - 12:00 PM)

Well, we had several developments this hour, none of which were all that surprising. CTU and others are becoming aware of what was in the unguarded hangar at the airport (nerve gas) and Walt continues to be a bastard. In other news, Martha Logan is, predictably, being set up to look nuttier than Mr. Peanut when in reality she does have the drop on Walt. Amazing how Walt can sidestep so many layers of national security yet he has almost been waylaid twice by the unhinged first lady. Crazy biotches are unpredictable, Walt.

Also in this hour we had the reunion of Jack and Audrey, which I will get to later.

We roll into Hour Five already with things at full-tilt, but this episode, while very good, felt like the first somewhat less intense episode. There wasn’t much shooting or action (save for the IT guy trying to cap Jack) but there was some very good acting and plot development.

Back at the airport, Curtis and his team are able to locate this guy who is being referred to by everyone as “yellow tie man.” It’s odd to me that bad guys typically get names – even if we don’t ever hear them, such as “Nathanson” – yet the yellow tie man has no name as of yet. He’s clearly not going to be the biggest bad guy but he is doing his best to look as creepy and evil as possible. He randomly stares at his henchmen and stays eerily calm no matter what’s going on. Oooooh, scary man!

Anyway, Curtis and the Curtettes have figured out where the yellow tie man went and they hustle right over there. Seeing a large canister-holder sans canisters piques Curtis’ interest and the dead, foamy-mouthed rats in the vicinity further tweak his spidey-sense. I was a bit worried we were going to lose Curtis here to nerve gas death, which I’m sure we’ll see soon enough and which I’m sure will be brutal. However, after some quick work, CTU has determined that it was “weapons grade nerve gas.” That’s worse, of course, than, say, your average hardware store grade nerve gas.

Over at the Presidential retreat, the Russian prez is presumably taking a nap or watching hockey on a flatscreen TV somewhere. Whatever he’s doing, apparently the President of the United States is done with him. The first lady is found by her lackey, Evelyn, and a doctor is brought to the scene. At no point during this episode does the doctor determine that Martha was knocked out by chloroform, but I would think that would be a detectible thing. Couldn’t it be found on her face, nose, etc? Perhaps not, I don’t know. Regardless, it just makes Martha look even crazier and Walt has the incriminating evidence regarding the famous Palmer phone call that is already getting to be a tired plot. Of all the people Palmer could call, he calls looney tunes Martha? He encrypts the one clue he has to the airport debacle? It’s looking more and more to me like Palmer didn’t really want to have what he knew distributed to wider audiences. Although I guess that’s partly because he knew Walt was such a snake and the President was such a limp-wristed sissy.

Anyway, Martha continues to insist that she had the evidence and was attacked and Logan continues to think she’s completely batshit. Practically oozing slime, the prez agrees to have Walt make the arrangements to have Martha committed “to Vermont.” Evidently, when you’re crazy they just send you to Vermont where there are other crazy people to play with and big fields to run through all day long. Kind of like the farm your parents sent your old dog away to when you were six.

Martha catches on that she’s being sent to Battyville when Evelyn, who has fucked up more today than Derek, unsmoothly begins packing up Martha’s stuff. Nicely done, Evelyn. And way to let the crazy woman out of your sight. Again.

Predictably, Martha goes out the window of the bathroom and once again seems to evade the attention of everyone. There were only two things that could have happened here – either she would go out the window as she did or she would off herself, especially with the “she’d rather die than go back to Vermont” talk. (Not exactly the slogan that Vermont tourism is likely to adopt methinks. [They’d probably prefer something like “Send us your rich loony white chicks. –D]) And that’s the last we see of Martha this hour, which is fine with me. Let’s hope she hides in a barbecue pit at the retreat for the next 19 hours. And then, pushing our luck, let’s hope Logan gets a hankering for ribs.

As for the terrorists and yellow tie man, the only further plot exposition we get from them is that their intention is to eff up Moscow. Hey, that’s fine. Alert CTU Moscow and let everybody go home for the day. Although I’m sure it won’t be that simple and in fact they’re going to make it look like the Americans are at fault. So who are these guys? Are they splinter groups from countries that were formerly part of the USSR? I’m guessing that must be the case.

A lot happens at CTU this hour, including Jack walking back in and having everyone see him and do that stare and whisper thing. Of course, this is interesting since in Hour One Tony and Michelle commented that nobody still worked at CTU from when attempts had been made on Palmer’s life, the last attempt being three years ago. Well, I mean, before the successful attempt four hours earlier. Anyway, if turnover is like that, then I doubt everyone would know him. But maybe they’re all just intrigued to see the guy who duped every government agency into thinking he was dead for 18 months. Maybe I’m over thinking it again.

At CTU, Jack gets to chat with Rudy, who talks about how hard you need to work in practice in order to get ready for the game. No, wait, that’s not Rudy – it’s Mr. McGill. My bad. Fat, puffy, Mr. McGill. Granted, if my name was “Lynn” I’d want people to not know it, either. Use your middle name or something, Lynn. Unless it’s Robin or something.

Anyway, Lynn again seems to win some points by agreeing with a lot of what Jack says. Jack and others are always trying to run off half-cocked and jump into things. Perhaps that’s the way you need to be to be a field agent. McGill once again shows that he understands that and agrees with much of Jack’s analysis but wants to do things the right way. I’m starting to sort of respect him but the ice is very thin. What helps is the way he confirms that Jack is no longer a suspect in Palmer’s murder. Rather than wasting time interrogating him to be sure, Lynn succumbs to the overwhelming evidence that Jack was framed (as well as to Jack’s charms) and hands him a key card, telling him he’s got a “level 2” security clearance. There’s a lot of talk about security clearance levels around CTU today and you’ll recall last year when Tony was miffed that he only got a level 3 when he used to be a level 6. This hour, we see that Spenser for Hire is working on things that he accesses as a level 5 but that he’s only supposed to be a level 3. Got all that?

Speaking of Spenser, Chloe cuts him some of her trademark ‘tude and then decides to go apologize and perhaps give him a hummer in the computer room of death, where Nina, Teri and some guards have been killed over the years. Before she can unzip Spenser’s drawers, he suspiciously covers up what he was doing on a computer (downloading porn) and tightly accepts her apology. Then she fucks up the moment, as per usual, and after Spenser walks away (good move) she whines to herself, “Why do I do that?” Because you’re a social gork, Chloe. Of course, it doesn’t take her long to recover from feeling warm and fuzzies in her heart and she pokes around into what Spencer was doing, which was tracking Jack’s movements through CTU. Chloe investigates and realizes Spenser’s up to something no good and alerts Buchanan and then we have a weird interrogation of Spenser. Interestingly, as Spenser is being accosted by two CTU guards to come to see Buchanan the Fox summary says that “Edgar watches smugly as two security guards apprehend Spenser.” Smugly? Isn’t that a great description? I think it’s just that Edgar is fat. And jeez, is it me or is he larger than ever? Yikes. Maybe he ate the last person who slept with Chloe.

On to the interrogation, which surprisingly doesn’t use torture or even the threat of torture [Being subjected to Chloe’s bone-dry wit in close quarters may not be torture but I’m thinking doing the nasty with her might qualify. – D]. Chloe is Spenser’s boss, so I guess that’s why she is present, but she isn’t really an interrogator. She shows some rare emotion by squawking about Spenser getting into her bed as a means to being an internal mole. Wow, giving away the store there, huh Chloe? Now Papa Buchanan knows you’re boffing the help. He does calm Chloe down rather sweetly and understandingly. I have to say, as much as people walk all over Bill, I really like him and the way he delivers lines and emotion. He’s the kind of guy I like running things. I also like the subtle touch of having people express sympathy specifically to Bill about Michelle’s death – some of them, like Jack, know that he had a thing for her and that they were close friends.

On that subject and digressing slightly, I liked the touch of Bill and Jack’s reunion meeting – they didn’t make a big deal of it but shook hands and it seemed rather meaningful to both of them. They didn’t make out or anything, at least not while we were watching them. Perhaps during the four minutes that elapses during commercials.

Either way, I also liked how Jack apologized specifically for being the reason Michelle was killed and saying he never wanted anything to happen to her and the way that Bill barked, “Of course you didn’t!” Bill said it rather forcefully, almost as though he was trying to convey a “Don’t even think that way” without actually saying it. Nicely done by both of them.

Anyway, it turns out that Spenser was at CTU as part of an internal affairs investigation sanctioned by the White House and specifically Evil Walt Cummings. Walt’s in for the ass-kicking of his life, though, because Jack is coming to get him at Logan’s retreat. At least that’s what he says. It looks like McGill is about to become one of the converted and allow Jack to get around the rules due to technicalities like “Well, he doesn’t really work for CTU anymore.” Yeah, but if you know what he’s doing, you’re complicit, dipshit.

Getting back to reunions, McGill decides to have Audrey question Diane. Of course he does. Yes, that makes sense. “You know Jack better than anybody here,” says Rudy McGill. Okay, but what does that have to do with anything? And how does he even know that?

Nevertheless, Audrey agrees to do so and awkwardly questions Diane. It’s hard to say whether she and Jack are doing the nasty but it’s clear Diane has feelings for him. At one point, Diane comments on Jack’s past life and asks Audrey, “Did you know him before?” The camera zooms on Audrey’s strained face as she says, “Yes, I knew him.” Showing far more restraint than I could, she does not add, “Biblically.”

Jack learns from Bill that Audrey is questioning Diane and his head snaps around so fast I worry he might have broken his neck. Isn’t that every guy’s worst fear? That two women you’ve been involved with are going to be in a private room talking specifically about you and the lies you tell? Yikes. Incidentally, I actually had something like that happen to me when, randomly, two girls I had dated ended up on the same hiking trip through some organization. While at a campfire, they exchanged stories of dating me. One of them had definitely had more of me than the other and I like to think this led to hair-pulling, eye-gouging and a fight to the death. It didn’t, though.

Anyway, Jack appears on the other side of the glass wall and Audrey looks bamboozled. She knew he was alive but Kim Raver does an extraordinary job of conveying a feeling none of us have likely ever had. That is, thinking someone you loved was dead and now realizing they’re standing in front of you. Diane, unlike most women on this show over the years, is not clueless and immediately picks up on the connection. She looks sad as she realizes that Audrey is a lot hotter than her. “Yeah, but there’s no song about ‘Jack and Audrey,’” Diane thinks to herself. Jack walks away to write some lyrics.

Audrey catches up to him and they have a very cool scene together. A lot of the sappy scenes on this show don’t work well because we’re not always invested in the love story, given that it’s always just a same-day season. However, there is a lot of baggage here and Audrey points out that it was hard for her to deal with thinking Jack died believing she was mad at him. That’s some powerful stuff right there. There’s also some exchange about Audrey’s husband Paul, whom Jack had to sacrifice last season and he feels she should hate him for that. She does not. It’s very well done and I wish more attention was paid to the quality acting on 24. I mean, is there anyone on this show who you watch act and cringe because they’re not pulling it off? No, right? That’s not the same on other shows.

The one bit of significant action this hour was the attempted hit on Jack. He is called down to see Tony who is evidently waking up (and apparently Carlos Bernard was filming something else at the same time and thus has been nonexistent these last few episodes) and wants to see him. As Jack leans over Tony he spots the IT guy that Spenser let into the building and who was just posing as a doctor coming from behind with a gun. Jack takes evasive maneuvers and a kick-ass struggle ensues with the mercenary being a very tough guy. The part where he flings Jack into the concrete wall was impressive and I’d love to see how they did that stunt. There’s also some struggling with the assassin’s silenced pistol which goes off several times, with bullets whizzing right over Tony’s peacefully slumbering melon. Wouldn’t that suck for Tony to die in the crossfire after surviving what he’s already survived? And who’s going to confirm to him that Michelle is a goner? I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. But it looks like the next hour or two will be out of CTU so this gives a couple more hours for Tony to fully wake back up. So by 2 PM, he’ll be prowling the floor at CTU.

Anyway, Jack ends up hindering the assassin with a pair of surgical scissors to the neck, although it looks like killer-man could have survived and been questioned. But Jack has no interest in that and – oops! – jams the scissors into his jugular, causing loads of blood to ooze out of his mouth. He also had killed the real clinic doctor prior to trying to cap Jack, so that’s already two more deaths on the CTU clinic's body count. Good lord, why don’t we just locate the nerve gas and confine it to the CTU clinic since it’s not like any more people would die from that than would die from a normal visit to that death camp.

We wrap up the episode with Jack vowing to go after the mole within Logan’s administration, the aforementioned Evil Walt. They do a good job of illustrating who they mean (in case you’ve been thrown off by Walt not yet getting a split-screen in the previouslies) by showing Jack and Walt side-by-side. Jack looks resolved to catch him and Walt appears to be trying to stare a hole through the wall.

Interestingly, we hear Lynn comment that Walt is Logan’s “chief of staff.” He is? I thought he was Logan’s “security chief,” as per Palmer at the end of last season? So what is Mike Novick? Just an advisor? And I’ll ask once again what Novick's doing advising a member of the opposite party of Palmer? Anyway, now in the course of about two hours McGill has confused us all by using “District” and “Division” interchangeably (something Secretary Heller did last season as well) and by being the first one to refer to Walt Cummings as chief of staff. Is Sean Astin not reading his scripts carefully or are the continuity people just off on a coffee break?

Around here, we never take breaks. You know why? Because “it’s the nonstop season of twenty-four, on Fox!” Of course, if it really were a “nonstop” season it would be over in exactly 24 hours and D and I would have ice on our fingers from trying to type up twenty-four reviews. In fact, it stops for seven days each week. Not to be too technical there, but you know Lynn McGill would have called Fox out on that.