24- Season 8.22: No Smoking in the Limo

1pm

I finally figured out what enables Jack Bauer to keep going and going like a sociopathic Energizer Bunny with a sack full of weapons. He’s been stabbed, shot, beaten, tazered, tortured and stabbed again tonight. And yet he keeps getting back up and killing people. It did not hit me until he donned that black hockey mask and stormed Logan’s limo. He’s Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th. Each “Day”, or season, of 24 actually takes place on a Friday the 13th. CTU really stands for Chrystal Lake Terror Unit.

Not buying it? Well, if you think back to seasons past, he has been beaten to the brink of death so many times, and actually died for a moment or two here and there, and always gets back up. So we have to consider the possibility that he is at least related to Jason. Remember, Jack’s brother and father turned out to be pretty bad characters, so it would not be so farfetched. But once again, I am getting ahead of myself.

We pick up with a giddy Charles Milhous Logan watching the announcement on the news about his part in the peace process. He’s ready for his close-up. But Hassan’s wife is suspicious of him. Logan gets an update on Jack’s evisceration of Pavel and the likelihood that Meredith is heading straight to her publisher. So Logan advises Madame President to order the publisher to muzzle the story. She is appalled by this notion but as usual, gives into Logan’s suggestion within 30 seconds. (When this is all said and done, I hope she has to share a cell with her daughter.) She calls in her lackey Tim and orders him to find Meredith and seize the evidence. Even Tim thinks she’s bananas and he doesn’t even know the half of it. .

Meanwhile, Chloe and Arlo get a magic video feed from Pavel’s crime scene and identify his rifle as Agent Logan’s murder weapon. As the Church lady might say, “How convenient.” Now that they know Jack is on the right side of this equation, they proceed to track down his partner in crime, Jim Rickers, who we learn was burned in a chemical fire and is currently presumed dead. But that can’t prevent Chloe and Arlo from finding his true identity and current address in about two minutes.

Meanwhile, Jack sends Meredith the Reporter off with the video card of evidence and sends Rickers back to the hideout to pinpoint Logan. Both are very leery of Jack’s plan, but go along with it. Rickers warns Jack that going after an ex-President is a losing proposition, and Jack acknowledges that he does not expect to comeback from this one. Like Bon Jovi, he’s living on a prayer and going down in a blaze of glory. But it’s his life. It’s now or never… and he ain’t gonna live forever.

So Jack dons his Dark Avenger costume, complete with black body armor and hockey mask, and descends on Logan’s limo while it’s stuck in traffic in a tunnel. Jack Bauer pulls off a one man version of the shootout in Heat. (Once again, 24 waits for its final hours to pull off some of its best moments.)

The Dark Avenger stops traffic by shooting at the cars in line. He picks off Secret Service Agents left and right, but they are sure to mention that he uses non-deadly force. At this point Logan losses it and spins into a hissy fit for the ages. Let’s just say someone is going to have to clean up the backseat of that limo, if you know what I mean. But he at least takes solace in the fact that the car is bullet proof and Jack can’t get it. But Jack climbs on the hood and blasts the windshield until there is enough of a hole to drop some tear gas in. Then he plugs the hole with his foot. I love his attention to detail. Once the car door opens, he makes off with Logan just before reinforcements arrive.

Once they are alone in the catacombs, Jack puts the screws to Logan and Logan weeps like a little girl. You gotta love the actor who plays him, Gregory Itzin. He is the best. No one plays the wimpy weasel like this guy. After a few gun-in-the-face threats and a punch or two, Logan finally spills the beans on who is behind the murder of Hassan Chop. It was Mikhail Novakovich. Once Jack has what he needs, he puts the sleeper hold on Logan and takes off just before Jason Pillar arrives. Wow. Logan has survived his encounter with Jack. Who’d a thunk it?

Meanwhile, Meredith’s publisher is confronted by the FBI, but he manages to warn her. So she calls Hassan Chops wife Dalia to tell her about the Russians. But she talks to Hassan’s daughter instead, so the news won’t reach Momma Hassan until next week. The FBI swarms in and arrests Meredith. The $24,000 question is, what will Madame President do with that video card?

Now wait… did you think Jack was done? Not quite yet. He abandons his Dark Avenger costume and rushes off to confront the Russians. First he takes a goon in parking lot and learns the lay of the land, and then he makes his charge, shooting Russian goons left and right. Using a stolen key card, he summons the private elevator. But just as the door opens one of the goons jumps out and stabs Jack. But as we know, that only pisses him off. (Logan calls things like that “just stirring up the hornets’ nest”.)

Later, when Pillar calls to warn the Russians, we see what Jack has done to them off camera. It’s a slaughterhouse and Mikhail Novakovich is stuck like a pig with a fire poker. Only one wounded bodyguard remains alive for exposition purposes.

The show ends with Logan calling the Russian President, Yuri Suvarov, to warn him about Bauer. Yuri asks if Bauer knows that he was really behind the assassination of Hassan, and Logan assures him not.

However, Jack has tapped the line and now knows everything. He heads out of an alleyway to finish his business, and leaves a blood stain on the wall, much like Dally (Matt Dillon) at the end of The Outsiders.

So next week we head into the two hour golden sunset of the 24 series.
Stay golden, Bauer Boy.
Stay golden.