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A nuclear bomb has detonated in the greater Los Angeles area, Jack Bauer’s brother Grey has taken Jack and his father Phillip hostage with the intent to kill them, and Darren McCarthy has found someone to program Abu Fayed’s remaining four nuclear weapons. Perfect.
The fifth episode of 24’s sixth season opens with the ever-more-annoying and suspicious Tom Lennox presenting President Wayne Palmer with a plan to beef up security in reaction to the attacks on American soil. Having just forced Karen Hayes’ resignation he offers his not-so-genuine condolensces to the president. “I just heard about Karen’s resignation. I’m sorry for the loss.” President Palmer is skeptical at best to Lennox’s words, while Lennox sees his plan as the only way to find the terrorists responsible and limit other attacks from occurring, despite the fact that the President denied the plan mere hours ago. In response to Lennox’s plan President Palmer calls an emergency meeting of his cabinet, including the Vice President who made his first appearance this season for about twenty seconds and made it clear that he will be a thorn in the President’s side in the hours to come.
At this point I should point out that James Cromwell portrays Phillip Bauer, whom whether appearing in the instant classic L.A. Confidential or the slightly less magnificent Eraser, his characters are never to be
trusted.
Cromwell’s character this time around; Phillip Bauer has been taken to a construction site along with his son Jack. Here Grey Bauer’s employees have already dug their graves, and are a trigger’s pull from dispatching them. However, Jack, in pure Jack form, manages to save himself and his father in a matter of no more than ten seconds. Jack calls his boss, Bill Buchanan at CTU Los Angeles and tells them what happened. Buchanan dispatches an assault team to meet Jack and Phillip at Grey’s house where they will apprehend and interrogate him.
Meanwhile CTU had intercepted a conversation between Abu Fayed and Darren McCarthy. The call strongly suggests what we learned last episode, that McCarthy has found someone to reprogram the remaining four nuclear weapons for Fayed. CTU also managed to intercept a highly corrupted image file, which could contain an image of the programmer. However, Morris O’Brien, a CTU programmer, will need up to an hour to decipher the code and make the file visible, which is of course shocking considering each episode of 24 is exactly an hour.
Upon Jack’s arrival, he and a team of CTU agents storm Grey’s house as he’s in an argument with his wife, Jack’s ex-girlfriend, and their son, who looks suspiciously like Jack.
After getting a hold of Grey and a punishing chemical induced interrogation session Grey confesses to some of the crimes of last season; the murder of President David Palmer as well as two of Jack’s closest friends at CTU.
Throughout the day Grey was the man on the Bluetooth headset giving orders to corrupt President Logan. Jack nearly kills Grey out of rage when hearing the news, but is stopped by the presence of his father who he sees through the door.
The increasingly less engaging, yet more thought provoking plot of President Palmer’s sister and her boyfriend Walid Al-Rezani makes a brief appearance but doesn’t appear to have any significance at all.
CTU remains hot on the trail of Darren McCarthy and the deciphering of the intercepted image.
The episode appears to be headed towards the top of the hour with little actual development in the plot and just lots of setting up for the two-hour special event next week. I figured we would learn the identity of the programmer and thus a new character is introduced and pursued for an hour or so. If things go really well, CTU may obtain some more information from Grey Bauer before the clock turns to 1:00 P.M.
Never have I felt so wronged by own instincts. Moreover, in hindsight when has 24 ever not had a twist or turn if not both waiting when you least expect it? The writers had me right where they wanted me.
The episode’s final segment gives us Morris O’Brien leaving CTU once he has done all he can to the image before it finishes loading itself. Morris’ brother was in the Valencia area when the nuclear bomb went off and is in critical condition at a local hospital. Moments after he leaves CTU and drives away the image finishes revealing itself. The image Morris was deciphering turned out to be a picture of Morris. While this is certainly shocking, Morris is the most likely traitor among the CTU employees. Therefore I was more surprised when Buchanan and Jack called Morris, he was innocent, then taken hostage at gunpoint by McCarthy in the middle of the street.
It felt as if that would be the cliffhanger to the next hour, Morris is going to be forced to program the remaining nuclear warheads and CTU will do what they can to stop that from happening. Jack is still on his way back to CTU after leaving Grey’s house and what felt like a heartfelt apology from his father, who will be brought back to CTU with the rest of the agents who are transporting Grey.
Phillip, as any furious father would, asks for a moment alone with his disobedient son. Disobedient sons caught in the act are usually nervous or scared to see their father. Instead, Grey asks “How am I doing?” as I wonder what in the world has just happened. Phillip and Grey are and have always been on the same side, despite the presented murder attempt at the inception of the episode. Though proud of Grey’s restraint in not giving any important information to Jack, Phillip can’t risk him being taken back to CTU where far more extreme measures of torture await. To protect himself and “The company,” Phillip injects Grey with the pain serum that had been used on him earlier, and injects him with a lethal dose. Phillip screams for the CTU agents in the other room and tells them he had a seizure, blaming them for it as the clock strikes 1:00 P.M.
The majority of the 12:00 hour had me under the impression that little may come from it. I was wrong and it appears Los Angeles may pay the price.
