Season 6; Hour Fourteen (7:00PM - 8:00PM)

Air Date: 19 Mar 2007
Reviewer: J

Wow, can you believe what happened to Logan? Oh, wait. You didn’t see what happened to Logan? I just assumed I nodded off or got distracted by a shiny object and missed it.

This kind of thing pisses me off because, much like Jack’s father, why the Palmer brothers are so bad at choosing running mates, and why Charles Schwab insists on those stupid, creepy-ass pseudo-cartoon commercials, this will likely never be explained. The writers aren’t sure what they want to do with Logan so let’s just leave it hanging out there. This works on a soap opera but it’s hard to make work on a show like 24 that purports to unfold right in front of us and, thus, we supposedly can expect to see what happens to people. I suspect we’ll hear about Logan before the end of the season but it’ll be something like the way we heard that Heller survived his Ted Kennedy experience last season.

As for this hour, I did enjoy it and we saw Jack once again have something of a lesser role in the hour. This is leading people in some arenas to speculate that they’re prepping for Jack’s eventual departure. This is false, let me assure you. Sutherland is signed on for at least another two seasons plus a potential movie AND he’s a producer of the series now. So he’s not going anywhere.

At the beginning of the hour, the CTU crew is cleaning up the corpses and aftermath at the Russian consulate. Jack is insisting he’s fine but Doyle isn’t having it. The on-site doctor says Jack has some floating rib fragments. Hard to say when those happened but I think we’re to believe they happened when Jack got knocked down the stairs by Vasili, the Russian guard who got a name in the script even though he was killed moments later.

Jack wants to remain involved in the mission, but Doyle orders him to CTU medical. Jack, realizing it’s more dangerous there than pinned down in the Russian consulate without any bullets, looks around fervently as though he’s trying to think of some way in which to get his own way. Seeing that there’s really no longer a Russian consulate to invade, he seems to agree to go back to CTU and see if he can cause more headaches there.

Speaking of CTU, they’ve realized that at the same time, Gredenko and Fayed have managed to launch one of the drone planes out in the desert. Where the hell is the attack team? Wasn’t the whole point of murdering all those Russians so they could get intel on where Gredenko and the nukes were located? And Jack got that info and relayed it to CTU and they…. didn’t go? Well, nevermind, because now the drone is in the air and headed somewhere.

Chloe tracks it and CTU notified the Air Force to get some fighter jets up and ready to intercept this thing (although I would think detonating it in the air could be bad for the environment, too). As this is being discussed, CTU loses the drone off radar because it’s small or impervious or some such gobbeldy-gook.

Actually, it’s because Gredenko’s drone pilot, operating the drone just a few blocks from CTU as we’ll soon learn, has somehow disabled CTU’s tracking capabilities. How? Good question. Put it in the Logan bin of unanswered wonderments.

The VP decides that the best course of action is to threaten a nuclear strike on the country Fayed is from. Interesting to me that he doesn’t want to strike Russia since we pretty much have 100% confirmation that one of their nationalists is in on it. I guess that would make things kind of awkward for the Presidents of our respective nations, though. Plus Anya and Martha might be a little hamstrung to go shopping together. Oh, and we’d annihilate each other nuclearly, too. There’s always that issue.

At CTU, Jack and Marilyn have a moment in the hallway. Remember all those times where it looked like Jack was ready to jump Marilyn’s bones? Well, if she hadn’t already sent more signals than a homing beacon, she gives him the full-on green light as she goes in for a kiss. Wow, really cashing in on being widow quickly, eh Marilyn? Jack, though, gives her the old eighth-grade brush off of turning your head to the side. Nothing worse than that. Jack explains that he still has a pocket rocket for Audrey, to which I can only reply, “So what?” You weren’t married to her, Jack, and Marilyn probably hasn’t had sex in a long time. Which, neither have you, come to think of it. Cash in, brotha.

Marilyn then drops the bomb that Audrey is dead. How the hell does Marilyn know this? How does everybody seem to know everything about the details of Jack being in China and Audrey being killed in prison, etc.? Way too much for Marlyn frickin’ Bauer to know.

Jack is of course gobsmacked and goes to Chloe to snarl at her for not telling him. He demands her file and, sure, Jack, you can have classified intel even though you don’t work here anymore. He promptly has the file and learns that she was the one who put together the fact that he was in China and she was “going through backchannels.” Like who? Marilyn Bauer?

Anyway, she was in a horrific car accident, of which we see some pictures, including one of Audrey’s charred remains. Yikes. That sucks. I guess Kim Raver really isn’t coming back. Or else it’s all a ruse and she’s in prison over there right now. Maybe that’s what was traded for Jack? Would Wayne do that? Maybe.

Earlier out on the CTU floor, Milo asks Chloe to “make sure” Morris isn’t drinking. Chloe goes over and plants a wet one on Morris, who seems to take advantage which only makes sense given his weirdly moody ex-wife/current girlfriend. Chloe tells him directly that she’s just checking his breath as Milo looks bemused at the situation. Hey, Chloe did tell Morris she’d be keeping tabs on him. From Morris’ point of view, this isn’t a bad way to have tabs kept on you.

We soon learn that there’s a leak in CTU. Shocker. If there isn’t one per season, that’s more of a news flash. Doyle, in keeping with his role as a dickhead, immediately suggests they check Nadia’s station. Milo gets mad at Doyle for disrespecting his crush but, as Buchanan points out, if they have to check everyone, what difference does it make who they start with? Plus, if it comes to it, just tell Nadia’s civil rights lawyer that you were checking everyone alphabetically and backwards.

In a typical stroke of CTU luck, it is indeed Nadia’s computer that is hooked up to the baddies. Maybe she has Nina’s cube from Season One and it’s just an unlucky cube, eh? Doyle goes and takes her into custody as everyone just seems disappointed. There’s no way she’s actually guilty and I think we all know that. And it kind of sucks that I think it’s that obvious that she’s not guilty.

Gredenko is seen getting word that San Francisco will be nuked very soon. Man, San Fran gets the shaft on this show all the time. Wonder if it’s something the LA-based crew has in their heads.

At the White House bunker, Karen Hayes wants Wayne to help stop VP Daniels from his nuclear strike attack on the unnamed middle eastern country that Fayed is from. This is kind of stupid, I must say. But nevertheless, Daniels is going to go ahead with it and Hayes, as I said, wants Wayne to stop him. However, Wayne’s in a coma so he’s going to have a hard time winning any arguments. Karen, clearly not familiar with what a coma is, wants to have him woken up. Well, it’s not that simple, Karen. And your parents didn’t send your first dog away to live on a farm in upstate New York, either. Sheesh.
Anyway, Wayne’s doctor says he’d need consent from Wayne’s family to wake him from the coma because it could be life-threatening. While this may be the case with most patients, I don’t think the President falls under the same guidelines. I imagine the mandate is to save his life at all costs, regardless of whether his crazy-ass human rights lawyer sister says its okay to wake him or not. Because you know the impassioned plea from Karen is coming soon.

At CTU, Doyle is enjoying interrogating little Nadia and I’m amazed they don’t have Burke in there yet. Maybe his shift is over? Nadia antagonizes Doyle by commenting on how she knows about “what happened in Denver” and how he likes to hurt people. Well, so does Jack but you guys keep trusting him to get the job done, don’t you? And what the hell did happen in Denver? (I asked that because you know Fox wants you to wonder it so fine, I get it, there’s a past history there. Can we move on now?)

Right about the time Doyle is thinking about popping Nadia’s head off with his bare hands, Milo comes in to tell him to stop. Not because he’s defending Nadia but because they have the location of the drone pilot and they need Doyle to head the mission. Because they’re low on field agents, I guess.

Jack sees everyone assembling and decides he’s going. He asks Bill to please approve it, as though anything Bill says could impact Jack’s decisions. Jack wants to “finish this” and avenge Audrey’s death. On the drone pilot? What does he have to do with things? Man, I must have dozed off if this makes sense to anyone else. Wouldn’t those responsible for Audrey’s death, if it is indeed not an accident, be somewhere in China? Or has Jack already deduced who is to blame for this? What if it’s Wayne? What if it’s Logan? I kind of hope it is since those would present different ethical challenges for Jack instead of if it’s actually Fayed or Cheng or someone like that.

Regardless, I don’t see how this current situation has anything to do with Audrey’s death while trying to find Jack while he was imprisoned for something he did to another country years ago. Bill probably doesn’t get it, either, but knows things are always infinitely more fun when Jack’s out in the field and you never know when he’s going to call in and demand a helicopter or announce that he’s stuck inside another foreign embassy looking for illegal help. Right, Bill? Bill?

Bill agrees with Jack’s approach so much that he says he’ll tell Doyle that Jack’s running point on this operation. Yeah, that makes sense. It also makes sense that Doyle would accept this with no backtalk since he’s such a reasonable guy. Yeah, this whole paragraph makes complete sense.

Anyway, they get to the location of the drone pilot within about four or five minutes, if that. I can’t even get from my office to my car in four or five minutes.

As they’re getting ready to move in, Jack is wincing in pain from his many injuries and Doyle asks if maybe he or Sipiwicz should take over. Jack says he’s fine and Doyle gives him a “whatever.” What ever happened to all that “my men’s lives are on the line” crap, Doyle?

They move in and, naturally, take down the hostile. Maybe they should have kept him alive long enough to question him, though. Just an idea. Jack takes control of the drone and begins steering away from San Francisco. However, Jack’s apparently turned into a lousy pilot because he can’t keep the drone from stalling and he announces that he needs a place to touch down. Chloe first locates a strip of residential road. Yes, smart, Chloe. Jack tells her that’s a no go and she finds an industrial park that appears to be right along the water. Why not just splash into the water itself? Wouldn’t that have been easier and probably safer?

Jack brings the toy plane in for a rather shitty landing and the plane bounces around and pinballs off of several things on the ground, eventually coming to a fiery stop with its nuclear core busted open and the nuclear gunk oozing out.

I did find it funny that the Fox summary online says that “None of the first responders have reported a detonation.” Well, I don’t think this is a good way to judge whether it went off or not since I’m fairly certain none of them would report a detonation if it actually did happen, either. They’d be too busy turning into vaporized molecules of human beings to get on the horn to CTU.

At the White House, word comes in that Jack saved the day again, although Daniels perks up when he learns that the radioactive material has almost certainly released fatal doses of radiation to the first responders. That’ll teach them to volunteer for their local fire department.

Daniels decides that this is close enough to a nuclear attack and decides to unleash hell on whatever country Fayed is from. While I understand the horrific looks he’s getting from Lennox, Karen and others, I also can sort of see the point here. If we suffered multiple nuclear attacks in one day, I’m fairly certain the American public would demand retribution. They’d also probably begin lynching Muslims in the streets, which I imagine Daniels would sanction, too.

Anyway, the VP orders the nuclear missile strike on Generic Middle Eastern County (GMEC) over the protests of even Tom. Daniels, of course, is doing exactly what Gredenko said the Americans would do – blame the Arabs. Of course, Wayne wouldn’t have done this so Gredenko is clairvoyant to have predicted that this would happen.

As for Logan, still no word. His horses back at Camp David Palmer are probably getting lonely.