Episode: 24 8.21 – “12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.”
Original Air Date: May 10, 2010
Holy crap! My head is reeling. If there’d been any more action tonight, I’d be in a coma.
Dana’s body is found and at first I thought she was still alive because last week, she died with her eyes open, but tonight they were closed. Thank God she’s really dead (“really most sincerely dead,” like the Wicked Witch of the West). Cole IDs her for the cops, and is then sent to CTU for debriefing. Jack takes a look at Dana’s memory card which shows her talking with the Russian sharpshooter who shot Renee about knocking off Hassan. Jack uploads the card to Ricker and asks him to ID the Russian.
Logan’s aide, Pillar, is feeling his oats over at CTU and giving orders to get Jack. Chloe wonders what it was in the bank’s safe deposit box that Dana got hold of, if, as Pillar says, there was no evidence. Pillar scoffs at her and we all know that when he did that, he aroused Chloe’s suspicion. She tries talking to Arlo, who seems to understand her logic, but without hard evidence from Chloe, he decides to follow Pillar’s instructions.
Meanwhile, Jack gets to Ricker, who tells him that he’s on all the police scanners and he’s got to know what’s going on or he won’t help. Jack sits down and tells Ricker all about Renee and now there’s no doubt, if you ever had any, that it’s revenge Jack’s after and not justice. Ricker’s satisfied and IDs the guy on the memory card as Pavel Tokarev, and that he came to America last month with a diplomatic visa. And I thought the worst thing those diplos did was illegal parking without getting a ticket. Jack recalls Meredith Reed, the blonde reporter who’d been humping Hassan, which may account for the rise in his hair. But I digress.
Jack phones Reed and reminds her that he saved her rep, and now he needs her to save his. He asks her to meet him in the coffee shop of a shopping mall and she finally agrees. But, hark! The entire phone call is played back by Pillar and listened to by none other than ex-President Logan and Novakovich.
A Russian ops team is dispatched to the mall to off Jack and Reed before she’s given the evidence as a news scoop to stop President Taylor from her cover-up. Logan’s so devious. You’ve got to love him. Just the way he casts his eyes around the room or uses them to manipulate Taylor is amazing.
Chloe’s watching Pillar in the office of CTU head, and he notices that and gets a little nervous; they opaque the glass so Chloe can’t see. She gets Arlo’s attention and voices her concerns and reasons why she believes the intercepted call was from Jack. She believes Pillar is going to have Jack taken out. At last Arlo listens. He is able to make a 90-second loop in the security camera feed which gives Chloe 90 seconds to talk with Cole in the holding room. Cole says he doesn’t know where Jack is and he’s angry because Jack “executed” Dana.
Chloe: If I can get to him, I can talk him down.
Cole: Jack showed up with state of the art weapons. You find his supplier, you find Jack.
Chloe and Arlo pull a list of Jack’s known associates.
Logan phones Pavel directly. He’s so hot for Taylor’s promosed public credit for the peace accord, he isn’t even bothering to cover up his own actions. Logan tells Pavel to whack Jack and Reed. Pavel’s at the mall with his team and his rifle at the ready.
President Taylor leaves a meeting with Mrs. Hassan, when summoned by Logan, not that she wants to but what choice does she have now? She’s in too deep. Logan tells her Jack’s got the evidence, which shakes her up, but that he’ll be “reacquired” because they know where he is. She grudgingly agrees to have her press secretary announce Logan’s part in the peace accord which, he hopes, will restore his crappy rep.
I gotta tell you that the next scenes at the shopping mall are among the most exciting ever on television. Pavel and his scattered team members, all watching for Jack finally spot Reed arriving and Pavel draws a bead on her but holds back, waiting to see Jack. We see Jack, darting behind different people so that, no matter where the cameras are pointed, he cannot be actually seen.This drives everybody crazy. Pillar, at CTU, is screaming “Don’t you see him yet???” He’s furious because he knows Jack is there, somewhere, unseen. Very riveting to watch Bauer moving like a panther (a panther, not a cougar) and you get the idea he knew this was a trap and he came ready. Pillar spies Jack and screams even louder at Pavel, who finally sees Jack and sets his sights for a clean shot. But noooooooo, suddenly, the barrel of a gun is pressed against the back of Pavel’s head. It’s Ricker!!!!!!! Waytago Ricker!!
Back on the floor, Jack’s taking all the Russian ops out left, right, and center. He has shoved Reed behind a dress rack and after he’s knocked everybody off, carefully missing all the shoppers, he grabs Reed and meets up with Ricker, who has Pavel as hostage. Be still my racing heart.
Pillar has to tell Logan that Jack and Reed got away and decimated the Russians, and that Logan had better avoid Taylor if he wants to hold onto his plausible deniability. Logan doesn’t want to pull back from Taylor, fearing he’ll lose the peace accord credit the President’s press sec is about to announce. Besides, he says, he’s sure Pavel won’t talk. He tells Pillar to find Jack and take him out, and I don’t think he meant on a date. Pillar takes a CTU SWAT team to the shopping mall to destroy any traces of the dead Russians. At CTU, Arlo gets security cam footage from the mall and now he and Chloe have evidence and proof that Pillar was out to whack Jack.
Jack and Ricker move to an empty building, with Reed and Pavel. Jack gives Reed the memory chip and sends her into another room with Ricker to look at it. Jack, alone with Pavel, secures him and checks his sniper rifle, convinced it’s the one that killed Renee. He tells Pavel what Renee meant to him and asks if Pavel killed her. “Go to hell!” sneers Pavel. “You first,” Jack says. Well, now we’re seeing torture like the old days. I hardly missed the lack o’ Jack’s dammits. Beatings, pliers, blow torches, knives. Very cool. Really.
And it gets better. Since Pavel isn’t saying who gave him the order to kill Renee, a frustrated Jack spies Pavel’s cell phone and sees that the SIM card is gone. Pavel won’t tell him where it is but hey, this is Jack Bauer. Of course he figures out Pavel swallowed it. What does he do? You guessed it. He cuts a hole in Pavel’s gut and squishes in, feeling around for the card as Pavel finally croaks and Jack gets the SIM card. Cleaning the blood and guts off it, he inserts it in Pavel’s cell and hits the redial. Even Jack looks a little surprised as he hears a message: “You have reached the office of President Charles Logan.”
Maybe Jack Bauer is emotionally damaged now, and maybe he’ll never find love again, and maybe he’s gone way too rogue, but who cares? This ep was full of twists, surprises, and more blood and guts than you’ll find inside a man-eating shark in a crowded swimming pool.
Rating: 5 / 5 Stars
