2 am
Tonight on 24 we pick up at the hospital, where Marcos has holed up in some kind of vault and is attempting to reactivate his bomb vest while Jack tries to figure out a way to get him out alive. As Marcos glares at Jack through the closed circuit camera, it occurred to me that he looks a lot like Carson Daly.
At the same time, the Fresh Prince and Dana return to CTU, after a quick stop to get some dry clothes. Since Dana’s real name is Jenny, I have been contemplating a nickname for her. I have decided to combine her names, so let’s call her Jana… no wait, let’s call her Denny. When the Fresh Prince and Denny get back to CTU, they are greeting by Bubba Gump Hastings, who is miffed, but is willing to cut them both some slack since he is so short staffed. So they get off with just a proverbial slap on the wrist.
Denny is demoted and now reports to Chloe. Chloe must be tired, because instead of delivering a sarcastic zinger, Chloe offers Denny nothing but sympathy and encouragement. Yawn. Then, Arlo tries to mend fences but just ends up hitting on her again. Arlo is guilty of sexual harassment on almost an hourly basis, but he doesn’t care. When you work for Bubba, you can pretty much get away with murder.
Anyhow, once CTU figures out that Marcos has an American mother, they send the Fresh Prince out to get her. At the same time, the bad guys get close enough to the hospital that they can see in the window. And they tap into the CTU video feed. That’s impressive. I bet they also figured out a way to get all the dirty movie channels on cable for free.
Meanwhile, Hassan and his estranged wife continue to search for their estranged daughter, who is in a hotel, making sweaty love to Tarin, Hassan’s estranged head of security. (Some people say I don’t really know what the word estranged means, but I think they are just estranged.)
Fresh Freddie finds Mama Marcos and brings her to the hospital. Jack convinces her to talk to her son, who is slowly making progress with his vest bomb. You can tell by the handy green progress lights on his lapel. While Jack is dealing with the crisis, the Fresh Prince gets a phone call from Denny. It turns out that Milton from Office Space is heading into town and he wants his stapler back.
Actually, the guy’s name is Bill Prady, and he’s played by Stephen Root, who you may remember from Office Space, News Radio and a million other things including a couple of great scenes in No Country for Old Men. Prady is Kevin Wade’s parole officer, and he is looking for his favorite hillbilly. The only lead he has is phone records linking him to Denny. Although he tells Denny he expected to get her voice mail at 2am, he insists on meeting with her immediately because he has an early flight to catch. Afraid that he’ll talk to Hastings, Denny agrees. So now she’s going to take even more time off from her job. She calls the Prince for advice, but he tells her to handle it, after all, she’s a good liar. (Zing.)
She’s gotta think outside the box here. Sure, Prady is looking for Kevin, but fastest way to Milton’s heart is to give him back his red Swingline stapler. I’d go that route if I were her. But I would also be sure I had my TPS reports ready… and she might want to add a few extra piece of flair too, just to be safe.
Jack gets Mama Marcos to talk some sense into her nutty son, but to no avail, he still intends to blow himself up. He tells his mother to go and gets his vest reactivated. We know this because all four green lights are lit. As the estranged mother leaves, Jack walks in, just as Chloe has disabled the bad guy’s access to the video feed. Now it’s just Jack and Marcos. This is where it gets good.
Jack tells Marcos that if he detonates himself and allows the dirty bomb plot to succeed, then Jack will personally make sure that his dear old mom will be in the city when it happens. And if she is not in the vicinity of the blast, then Jack will personally escort her to ground zero and contaminate her. Then Jack looks at Marcos through the screen, with his own, angry Carson Daly glare and says something like “Look in my eyes and tell me if you think I’m lying.” Then he explains what radiation poisoning will be like for his mom. Then he adds, “If you blow yourself to little bits, I’ll have your mother come in and clean it up.”
Marcos may have been able to infiltrate the hospital, escape CTU and re-arm the bomb, but he is no match for Jack Bauer’s bravado. He puts down the detonator and opens the door. But the bad guys, who are close enough to see the hospital lobby, use a remote clicker to activate the bomb. (They also accidentally open all the garage doors in the neighborhood. ) We know the bomb is activated because a handy digital countdown display appears next to the handy green lights.
Jack tries to disarm it, but there’s no time. He manages to get the name of the head bad guy from Marcos just before he pushes him back in the vault to explode. Jack is thrown back, but is not injured by the massive C4 explosion, nor is he deafened by the loud bang echoing through the vault. He calls Bubba Gump Hastings and gets patched through to President Hassan Chop. He informs Hassan that the man they are looking for is Tarin, his estranged head of security who is currently doing the Wild Thing with his estranged daughter.
Hassan’s wife calls Kayla yet again, and this time she picks up, while Tarin is washing her sweat off of himself in the shower. They warn her of Tarin’s true motives just before Tarin comes back out, suddenly seeming much more sinister than he did a few minutes ago.
Next week, Kayla heads up sh*t creek in Tarin’s boat, while it hits the fan at CTU.
See you then.
--- What did you think? Post a comment below or drop me a line at jack@backinjack.com
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