24- Season 7: 6 and 7 am – 24 Hours You’ll Never Get Back

6 am & 7am

You know, when I sit down to write these recaps I am always concerned about being funny, but after what happened tonight, I don’t feel any pressure. Nothing I write will be as funny as Kim Bauer flailing around with her arm on fire. Kim got her “Bauer On” tonight, and she wasn’t the only one. Both Kim and Agent Lohan sprung into action tonight, making me wonder if we might get a spin-off next year called Jackie’s Angels, with scantily clad Kim, Renee and Chloe taking orders from a now incapacitated Jack via a speaker phone. But who will be Bosley? Tony? Nah, he’s too dark. Aaron? Nah, he’s too quiet. I know… Janice.

Let’s get to tonight’s season finale. It’s 6 am and Jack has been forced to bust out Tony or the goons at the airport will kill Kim. Jack pulls a gun on Agent Lohan and even puts a slug in the other guard’s leg to show he means business. I’d love to know how many legs Jack Bauer has shot or stabbed in seven seasons. That’s Jack’s favorite method of administering a non-lethal wound. Jack lets Renee know that he is only doing this to protect his daughter right before Tony takes him hostage. When Tony did a similar thing in order to save Michelle a couple of seasons ago, Jack chastised him for putting his personal interests ahead of the mission. Mr. Bauer is now officially a hypocrite.

It turns out that Tony wants to use Jack’s infected body to reconstitute the virus. His gal pal Cara thinks that is a great idea, and even agrees with Tony when he suggests that he should get a promotion within the mysterious organization. Wait a minute… something is up with Tony. Is he really good, pretending to be bad? Or is he bad, pretending to be good after pretending to be bad? Maybe he a double, double, double agent, or a triple, reverse single agent, with a twist? I’m getting dizzy.

As the sun comes upon DC, Jack momentarily gets away and tries to kill himself in a pool of gasoline. That way the virus will be destroyed in the fire, but Tony stops him before he can light up. It seems the only person Jack Bauer has trouble killing is himself. (And that goes double for forgiving… more on that later.) They take Jack back to an operating area where a few doctors drain some of his spinal fluid to see if he can be used to make more pathogen. Meanwhile, Cara convinces Alan Wilson to meet with Tony and consider him for a bigger role.

Meanwhile, Ethan, the disposed Chief of Staff, returns to the White House to help Big Red retrieve the secret recording that will implicate Olivia in the murder of Hodges. Olivia gets out of her questioning session just in time to catch Ethan in her office and has him put into custody once she discovers the recording device hidden behind the picture on the wall. She has him detained and gets the disc from him. But Ethan was ready for her, and actually slips her a blank disc. Once he listens to the recording, he goes back and confronts Olivia. He tells her that she has to confess to her mother and then Madam President can decide what to do.

At the same time, Kim Bauer is still at the airport with the evil couple. Agent Lohan contacts Kim by phone at the gate and warns her. A shootout breaks out, and we never learn how the two bad guys manage to smuggle knives and guns into the terminal… especially on a day when we are told security would have been heighten because of the prior terrorist attacks. The woman is killed, but the guy slips away. It’s here that Kim’s “Bauer Genes” kick into gear and she ends up chasing the long-haired bad guy through the baggage areas and into the garage. Kim even yells “Dammit!” at one point, leaving no doubt as to whose daughter she is. When the bad guy’s car is shot at, it flips and catches fire. Kim knows they need that laptop to find her father, so she charges in and wrestles it away from the trapped bad guy. She emerges with the laptop and her sleeve on fire. As if she wasn’t the hottest chick on the show already, they have to go and light her on fire.

Alan Wilson is convinced to meet Tony face-to-face on order to see the medical report on Jack. He needs to determine Jack’s usefulness for replicating the pathogen. (I guess his email is down so they can’t just send him the file.) But in a moment alone, Jack learns Tony’s real motive. Everything he’s been doing has been to get himself close enough to Wlison so he can kill him. You see, Wilson was behind almost everything that has happened on 24… ever. He’s behind David Palmer’s assassination, he’s responsible for Charles Logan’s exploits and most of all, he is responsible for Michelle’s death. So Tony’s plan is to strap a bomb to Jack and blow Wilson straight to hell when he arrives.

You see Tony is a lot like Two-Face from The Dark Knight, except instead of getting his face burnt, he was killed and then brought back to life. He is a fallen hero so hell bent on revenge and justice that he will do whatever he has to, even if that means people will die.

Wilson shows up, but before Tony can detonate Jack’s C4 sweater vest, Agent Lohan swoops in on a chopper. Another fire fight ensues and now it’s Renee who starts channeling her inner Bauer. She hops on the side of a SUV and shoots her way to Jack. If they ever get married, their first song should be “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya”, because that’s just what she does. She leaps off the moving truck and tumbles right into Jack’s lap. Then she disarms his deadly sweater vest. My god, this girl is a catch. I bet she likes watching sports too. (By the way, just I spotted Annie Wersching, the actress who plays her, on an episode of Supernatural.)

Cara and Wilson manage to sneak off, like most bad guys do on this show. They see Tony and Cara calls him over. She embraces Tony but he shoots her, to her dismay. Once again, Tony steals a page out of Sean’s playbook from earlier this season. Sean also shot and killed his girlfriend, just before he shot himself in the side. Tony smacks Wilson around and then reveals that not only did he kill the love of Tony’s life, but she was pregnant with his son. Tony raises his gun but Renee and Jack show up and clip him with a gunshot. (I believe in the leg.) Tony reaches for his gun and gets shot in the hand. Tony and Wilson are taken into custody. It’s finally over.

No wait, not quite. We go back to the White House. At this point I had forgotten all about this plotline. The President’s husband seems to be in pretty good shape for a guy who was in critical condition a few hours ago. I wonder if he has that Wolverine mutant healing power. Olivia tells her mother and father about her shenanigans. Her father wants to cover Hodge’s murder up, but Madam President eventually decides to do the right thing and turns her daughter in.

We know the day is coming to a close when Chloe and Janice make peace. I think I will miss their battles the most in this off season.

Back at the FBI, Jack Bauer prepares to die, even without Indigo Montoya telling him to do so. Jack and Agent Lohan have a couple of close encounters, but Jack fails to use his last hours in the way that most guys would. No, instead of making sweet, sweet love to Renee, Jack meets with his new buddy, the Muslim Cleric and has a nice discussion about forgiving himself. (Because Jack Bauer doesn’t ask God for forgiveness, he forgives God, dammit.) Then he is sent into a coma to ease his passing. At last, the final curtain is about to fall on the life of Jack Bauer.

Meanwhile, Agent Walker goes to see Wilson before he is transferred. Walker is afraid the Wilson won’t talk and they may not get another shot at him once he gets his lawyers involved. So Agent Lohan takes matters into her own hands. The last time we see her, she incapacitates Janice and heads into Wilson’s holding cell with a look on her face that would make Tony Almeida proud. Jack may be infected with the pathogen, but Renee seems to have caught the torture bug.
But we’ll have to wait until next season to see what happens.

We end the season with Kim showing up at her father’s bedside. She insists that they attempt the controversial stem cell treatment. She knows the risks, but she’s willing to take it. If Jack dies there is no season eight and Elisha Cuthbert needs the work. Let’s face it; she hasn’t done much since Old School and The Girl Next Door.

So that’s it. Season seven is in the books.

I don’t know… once Starkwood was taken down and Tony went bad, this season got pretty darn silly, even by 24 standards. I’m still digesting it all, but I can’t say I am totally satisfied with that ending, But who am I kidding, by the time season eight rolls around, I will be as giddy as a little school girl. What did you think? Feel free to chime-in down in the comments section.

I hope you enjoyed reading my recaps. Now I have to think of other things to write about. Keep checking in between now and next season of 24 and please see the entry below for a little more on what’s going to be going on here at Back in Jack in the meantime.

Thanks.

Jack

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