4 amIt’s 4am in the world of 24. Are you a morning person? I’m not, but Chloe O’Brien sure is, and tonight was her finest hour. While most of New York has yet to rise and shine, Chloe rises to the occasion. And she does it with that sarcastic edge that we all love so much.
We pick up just after the EMP has knocked out CTU. I actually overheard a couple of guys at a deli this week laughing about how many times and ways CTU has been taken out. The bomb, the nerve gas, the terrorists in the sewer line and now the EMP… just to name a few.
While CTU scrambles to get back on their feet, Jack calls his buddy Bill Holden at NSA and asks him to help them while CTU is blind. (Seems funny that only one government agency is working on this national crisis, while the others wait until they are asked to help out.) They manage to close off the roads in and out of the city and Jack and the Fresh Prince track the bad guys to the waterfront in a SUV with a couple of cadets, including the wide-eyed Agent Owen. As they pull in, the bad guys jam their transmissions and ambush our heroes. Jack manages to back up and get them to cover, but they are pinned down. With the cell phones down, their only hope is a landline across the parking lot. But with those snipers, there’s seemingly no way they can get to it. And does anyone have a dime?
Back at CTU, the gang is reduced to using paper and pencils to get their work done. They should have done this years ago, you can’t hack into a steno pad. Then some pushy NSA guys show up and pull a Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy routine on Hastings and Chloe and head down to fix the server. Concerned that the NSA guys are moving too slow, Chloe implores them to tap into the trunk line, but to the NSA guys, this seems as dangerous as crossing the streams to the Ghostbusters. Surprisingly, Denny backs up the NSA guys and not Chloe. But Denny has a lot on her mind. Parole Officer Bill Prady is still poking around CTU, and threatening to talk to Hastings.
Concerned for Jack, Chloe calls Agent Walker, who is chilling at Jack’s place. Renee tells Chloe to do what she has to do, or “Git-R-Done” as Kevin might say. So, Chloe goes down to the server room and after one more try at diplomacy, pulls a gun on the NSA guys and locks herself in the room. Move over! Nobody out-Nick Burn’s Chloe O’Brien. She works feverishly while Bubba Hastings and the security guys work on opening the door. When they get in, Chloe apologizes for pulling the gun and explains that she doesn’t even really like guns. She also mentions that she is ten minutes away from restoring the system. Since the ends always justify the means at CTU, Bubba agrees to forget the whole little gun incident. Bubba is all about results, so if this Jack Bauer method of computer maintenance works, then so be it. Git-R-Done.
Meanwhile Jack and the Prince are still pinned down, but they decide to walk across the parking lot using the SUV’s armor as a shield. (Captain America would be proud.) But despite Jacks strict orders to go slow and not panic, one of the rookies decides to go fast and panic. Naturally he gets shot while the rest of the gang scuttles to safety. So now the cadet is lying out in the open, bleeding and suffering while all our heroes can do is watch. It’s a lot like the “I want to help my injured buddy, but I am helpless because there is a sniper” scenes in Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Ryan. (Remember Vin Diesel’s death in Private Ryan?) Wide-eyed Agent Owen can’t stand seeing his colleague suffer, and valiantly runs out to save him. Naturally, he is also shot immediately. Ever the gentleman, Jack holds back his “I told you so” as Owen dies in his arms. To his credit, young Agent Owen lasted way longer than anyone expected. Most thought he’d be dead within the first hour we met him.
Chloe successfully taps into the trunk line, getting CTU back online. I wonder if she can tap a trunk line and make maple syrup too. That would be cool. Anyway, Jack and the Fresh Prince are closer to the phone, but still pinned down. Jack offers to divert the enemy fire so Fresh Freddie can call CTU and alert them to the location of the bad guy’s boat and the rods. It’s suicide, but like tapping the trunk line, it’s what needs to be done. Jack runs out and starts firing and takes out a few bad guys before he is shot down. The Fresh Prince makes it to the phone just as one bad guy gets Jack’s head in his scope. Suddenly, a shot rings out and the bad guy goes down. Sexy Renee Walker has arrived just in time. Freddie Prince makes the call and CTU sends choppers out to find the boat. But is it too late for Jack?
Back at CTU, things are coming back up, and Denny goes into the holding room to confront Bill Prady, who is waiting to talk to Bubba. He knows she’s lying and he’s going to get to the bottom of this. Suddenly, Denny attacks Prady and chokes him… to death. Holy crap, has Agent Dana Walsh finally snapped, or was Jenny always really this vicious? Denny hides Prady’s body in a convenient, oversized air vent and heads out. Then she makes a call, but it’s not to her fiancé, the Fresh Prince, it’s to Samir, the leader of the bad guys. Holy crap, Dana is a Cylon… I mean a mole.
Well, that explains a lot now, doesn’t it? Naturally, we all knew eventually there had to be a mole. CTU is like Cindy Crawford’s face… it’s just not complete without a mole. And while this just made Denny a whole lot more interesting, it also raises a lot of questions. Like, if she was a bad guy the whole time, why didn’t she just kill Kevin right off the bat? Or have her terrorist buddies take care of him?
Whatever, I am over thinking this. Let’s just be grateful that they have salvaged the Dana character and now her plotline will be interesting and not ridiculous, like it has been all season.
Back at the docks, Jack seems dead, but only for a moment. His flack vest held and he only got the wind knocked out of him. You gotta love this guy. He’s been stabbed, beaten, shocked and shot today, and he just keeps going. Meanwhile, I rake leaves for an hour and I need two Advil and a nap.
Next week, Madam President calls Jack Bauer… again. And Agent Dana Walsh goes into full evil mode. Any guesses as to how long before someone finds Prady’s body in the air vent?
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