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Terrorist Vladimir Bierko and his men have taken over a Russian submarine, planning on using its missiles to launch the rest of the Sentox gas at their targets.  The only man that can assist Jack Bauer is Christopher Henderson, Jack’s former mentor and Bierko’s accomplice.  They have only twenty minutes to retake the submarine and stop Bierko.  The tag team of Bauer and Henderson are fighting for two different things.  One is trying to protect his country.  The other is protecting his life, playing the odds with only his only agenda being his own survival.  Henderson is implicitly responsible for all the attacks today, his company supplying deadly nerve gas for the terrorists.  The deaths include Jack’s friends Tony and Michelle Almeida and President David Palmer.  The safety of the country overrides Jack’s desire for vengeance.

Henderson lives up to his word, working with Jack to disable the missiles and ending the attacks.  Henderson’s instincts kick in and he bolts before Jack can find him after they take back the submarine.  He knows that he can’t trust Jack to help him and his wife disappear forever just like Jack did last season.  And for good reason because Jack never planned to let Henderson walk away.  In a moment that’s pure Jack Bauer, the two men face off against each other on the hull of the submarine, guns leveled, knowing only one will walk away.  Jack remains in control of the entire situation, stacking the deck in his favor from the very beginning.  With the country safe, it becomes personal and Jack Bauer finally has his vengeance for the deaths of his friends.

With the submarine secured, there’s only one more loose end for the day: President Charles Logan.  With no proof of the President’s involvement, Jack and CTU have no evidence to use to have the President removed from office.  For Logan, it looks like he’s going to get away with everything, escape any shame for his involvements in the gas attacks and assassination of the former President.  Even with his wife and his chief of staff knowing and working against him, no one has the ability to implicate Logan and bring him down.  Everything today looks like it’s going to work out for him in every possible way.

Jack ends up kidnapping Logan, hoping to force a confession out of the President.  He knows that from the time he’s taken the President that he only has a limited amount of time before the Secret Service and every other member of the Armed Forces will be after him and find him.  We’ve seen how Jack is when he’s driven and when he’s trying to torture a confession out of someone.  There’s no possible way that Logan could resist Bauer, right?  With only five minutes with Logan, Jack tries to get the confession but the Secret Service barges in and rescues Logan before Jack can break him.  Jack’s arrested and Logan remains untouchable.  Is that really how it ends?  Is that the end of the day?

By now, we should know enough not to doubt Jack.  When he has a goal in mind, he’ll do anything necessary, including self sacrifice.  Throughout everything, Jack manages to remain one step ahead of Logan just as he stayed one step ahead of Henderson.  Thinking through every possibility, Jack has accounted for everything and, in the end, succeeds.  At the end of the day, Logan is arrested.  Jack is reunited with Audrey Raines and it looks like they’re going to have a second chance at a life together.  And then all hell breaks loose.

For a season that’s been about the consequences of the President’s actions, Jack’s actions finally catch up to him and we find that they also have consequences.  And they’re not just the actions of the last twenty four hours but of Jack’s past.  Actions that forced Jack into hiding in the past now catch up to him and break Jack down, begging for his own death.  “Kill me,” are the last words from Jack we hear before the clock counts down and the day is over.

These episodes wrap up the best season of 24.  This fifth season has contained more action, intrigue and violence than the others before.  Forget the stupidness of Jack as a junkie or the outrageous situations that Kim Bauer found herself in.  While reworking the cast onscreen, killing old characters and bringing in new ones, the producers of 24 have refined the show into a twenty four hour thrill ride capped off with two hours that pulled it all together, but not too neatly.  At the same time, they’ve given us an ending that means we’ll be spending the next seven months wondering if we’ve really seen and heard what we thought we did, a broken Jack Bauer.  SEVEN MONTHS!!!!! They’ve reinvigorated the basic concept of the show and brought a new energy and level of excitement that had been missing during the last couple of seasons. 

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