PopSyndicate.com

Desperate to get the recording that implicates President Logan in the terrorist events of the day, including the killing of President Palmer, Jack Bauer stows away aboard a diplomatic plane, needing to get to one of the passengers and the recording the passenger carries.  Karen Hayes, now leading the remains of CTU, begins piecing together the events of the day and realizes that not everything is what it appears to be.  Chloe O’Brien, Bauer’s usual CTU-based accomplice when Jack’s on the run, is now on the run herself, a fugitive from the government agency that she works for.  President Logan, trying to protect himself from the conspiracy he’s part of, watches it all crumble around him.  All in all, it’s a normal day for 24.

In every season, there have been episodes where the action goes so over board and melodramatic leaving you shaking your head.  In the past, that’s usually involved Jack’s daughter Kim and a recluse survivalist or a stray panther or something completely ridiculous.  With Kim out of the picture for the majority of this season, the ridiculous subplot has to be filled by Jack as he ends up highjacking a plane.  Desperate to get the Logan/Henderson recording, Jack attacks an air marshall, drags another man down into the luggage compartment of an airliner and, in the end, urges everyone on the plane to cooperate with him at gunpoint.  Showing that nothing gets in Bauer’s way, our hero appears to be the terrorists he’s trying to protect the country from.  In the main story, we get standard 24 plot points that aren’t really a surprise to anyone who’s watched more than a season of the show.

While the main Bauer plot travels off into odd and weird tangents this week, the supporting characters carry the suspense and plot of this episode.  From a first-lady, struggling with the truth about her husband (and getting some good insults in toward her Secret Service guard,) to Novick and Hayes slowly piecing together what’s really been happening today and finally to Chloe, who gets to play secret agent even as she tasers a drunk business traveller in a hotel bar, seeing the supporting cast develop and carry an episode is a welcome breather in the season.  Without the irritating Kim Bauer or the overpowering presence of President Palmer, the supporting cast is stronger than it has been in the previous seasons.

This episode shows what has been great this season; the ways the show’s producers have tried to shake things up primarily with the supporting cast.  Most of the usual cast of characters have been taken out of the show and new characters have been brought in.  And instead of having those characters sit around and wait for Jack, they’ve actually been doing stuff; using their heads and acting independent of Jack.  Since nothing really new and exciting is being done with Jack, shows like this episode are great since they show off everyone else.

3