24 Day 6 - Hour 1-4
From Frikipedia
Obviously, there's loads of spoliers here. Don't blame Friki if this ruins the series for you.
Contents |
Hour 1 (6am - 7am)
Here we go then. We start with a bus driver not letting a cheery Muslim bloke with a rucksack onto a bus. He's been watching too much Fox News about the recent spate of terrorist attacks on US soil, so assumes this guy is a bomber and not just someone trying to get to work. Sadly, it turns out that the terrorist is just some normal bloke already on the bus. Ka-boom, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the guy with the backpack shouting "Serves you right!" in the background.
There's the terror threat introduced, now we need Jack back. When we left him, he was being taken to China to be nastily tortured. Jack returns, with a beard of impressive length, and is immediately told that he's only been brought back so CTU can hand him over to some "reformed" terrorist called Fayed, who has information on the location of the guy supposedly behind the bombings, Hamri Al-Assad. This Fayed bloke wants to kill Jack, for a reason never really explained.
Meanwhile, some local yobs in suburbia are prevented from beating up some random Middle Eastern kid by a kindly group of neighbours, who are horrified that they would pick on him just because he was a Muslim. In true Fox style, to prove why the yobs were right, this kid is actually evil.
Jack is handed over, despite Chloe trying to ruin everything, and Fayed, in true bad guy style, doesn't just kill Jack straightaway, but decides to exposit his evilness to him, explaining that Al-Assad is actually in the US to defect to the west and it is actually Fayed himself who is blowing up random commuter coaches. Satisfied that Jack now has a reason to escape, he walks off and leaves a token henchman to guard him. Jack sees him off with a swift vampire bite(!) to the neck, and - wahey! - he's escaped!
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 2 (7am - 8am)
Jack is pursued by Fayed and his men down some underground tunnels for all of around a minute before they decide that they didn't really want to kill him anyway, and return to their evil scheming. Jack gets outside and warns CTU that Assad is really on their side, and by raiding his secret house, they'll be doing all kinds of wrong. Predictably, President Palmer says no, despite the fact that Jack is always right, so Jack decides to go and rescue him before the air strike hits the little suburban shack where they're staying. Why such a tiny target requires an air strike to destroy it is not fully explained either, but at least it sounds good.
Meanwhile, at CTU, new-old guy Milo annoys Chloe and is shouted at by Morris. Boring stuff, but this is probably the most interesting thing any of these people do for at least the next six hours. In suburbia, the middle class family try and find out why their neighbours dad has been arrested, while the creepy fat kid is called by Fayed, who asks him if he has "the package". Ahmed doesn't because he's rubbish, so he tries to leave the kindly neighbours house, ending up getting attacked by one of the goons from earlier as he tries to get the package from his house, who he ends up shooting.
Jack does his thing and gets to Assad, and whilst everyone is pointing guns at everyone else, he shouts a warning about the air strike. Assad believes him, but because it would be too prohibitive to the plot if Jack rescues all his helpers, only he and Jack escape before the house gets levelled, dragging Fayed's inside man, Omar, along with them. CTU turn up, can't find Assad's body, and Wayne Palmer mopes.
Jack pokes a biro into Omar's wounds from the explosion until he coughs up some info, telling Jack and Assad where Fayed is, and that there is to be another attack, this time on the subway. Which is rather a tasteless thing to broadcast in the UK after July 7th 2005, but never mind. Jack suddenly remembers he's been locked up in China for the last 20 months and has a bit of an existential crisis, but Assad plays the kindly reformed extremist role, and helps him through his wobble.
Jack gets on the same subway train as the bomber. His cover is nearly blown when a ticket inspector corners him, but he whispers he's from CTU and there's a bomber on the train. Is that all Friki has to do to ride the tube for free every day? Presumably Friki would also need to kick the bomber out the back of the carriage seconds before he "goes off", as Jack manages to do. Woo!
Chole proves Fayed is behind the attacks. President Palmer says "I should have trusted Jack!" for the 175th time in his life, and Jack and Assad are off after the bombers helper, who will lead them back to Fayed.
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 3 (8am - 9am)
Fayed calls President Palmer with some demands. He wants a load of "freedom fighters" released from something that sounds identical to Guantanamo Bay, but isn't Guantanamo Bay. Wayne moans some more, but Fayed hangs up, so he has to order that they begin to prep the prisoners for release.
Jack and Assad are still on the tail of Fayed's man. Jack calls Chloe, who is busy breaking up another pointless Milo/Morris argument. As ever, it will take too long for CTU to get a satellite trained on the car they're chasing, so Jack must improvise. He cleverly nicks some guy's 4 x 4 and drives into the terrorist's car, breaking it. The terrorist shouts, then accepts the offer from Assad to give him a lift wherever he needs to go. You'd have thought that Fayed's men would all know what the guy they've been trying to stitch up for the last few weeks looks like, but obviously not.
Meanwhile, Ahmed is still being rubbish. He now has the middle-class family held hostage and, because he's now too injured after his fight with the yob, he orders the father, Ray, to go and sort out the "package" or else he'll shoot his wife and son. Ray, who sucks, agrees, and manages to get a "component" from some random guy.
Curtis sets off to help Jack, while the rest of the CTU staff continue to bicker. SHUT UP!
As Curtis reaches Jack, they finally have satellite tracking, and Assad has his mobile phone on, so they can listen to him casually ask questions of his passenger like "where are you going?" and stuff, to try and find out, well, where he's going. Assad drops him near a set of garages, and Jack and Curtis catch up. Curtis gets well pushy with Assad, and he clearly has issues with this bloke.
Jack realises Fayed isn't here, and the bloke is just picking up a laptop from a garage. CTU's idiot sniper unit turn up, and are immediately seen by the terrorist bloke, who blows himself up rather than get kidnapped. Another lead successfully obliterated, it seems the "freedom fighters" will have to be released. Jack finds a bit of burned hard drive from the laptop, and Chloe picks off enough wordpad files to work out there's some pictures of nuclear devices with Russian captions on it. Woah!
Apparently there were a load of Russian "suitcase nukes" now knocking around in the 1980's, and one got in the hands of an evil scientist. Turns out, this evil scientist is one of the people due to be released from Not Guantanamo in a minute or two. Jack warns CTU, who warn the President, who warns the workers at Not Guantanamo, but it's too late, one of the guards is working for Fayed, and he helps the mad scientist escape!
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 4 (9am - 10am)
So, mad scientist is out. And OH MY GOD, if there isn't another pointless scene of bitching between Morris and Milo. Friki's losing it's patience with both of those "characters" now.
President Palmer is told about the suitcase nukes, and he immediately starts pouting for his country. The stock White House "killness" graphics spell out that "thousands" would be killed if one were to explode. But that would never happen, surely? Wayne calls Jack and tells him to sort everything out. Jack has another wobble, but Wayne massages his ego enough to convince him to do it. Your country needs you, yadda, yadda. Meanwhile, Curtis continues to act really surly towards Assad, but Jack doesn't get round to asking why, though does ask Chloe to check for him.
Mad scientist arrives at Fayed's warehouse and starts tinkering with the nuke, which he can't arm until useless husband Ray gives them his"component". Again, because Ray sucks, he does exactly that. Though he does at least convince Ahmed to let his wife go, leaving only his son as a bargaining chip. Despite being told not to call the police, lest her son gets shot, the first thing she does on leaving the house is call the police.
ARGH! Milo and Morris are arguing AGAIN! We finally get a blunt explanation from Chloe, who reveals herself to be the office bucket, having had a thing with Milo before she married Morris. Now she's no longer going out with either of them, so why they're getting all shouty about it is still not really clear.
Buchanan tells Jack about the pleas of Ray's wife, and he, Curtis and Assad head for the house where Ahmed is holding her son. They burst in just before he shoots the increasingly annoying son, and once again, the spazzy CTU assault team goes and kills their only lead on Fayed. Jack manages to get a location out of him before he snuffs it though, and another bunch of rubbish non-Jacks are sent to sort it out.
Suddenly, Chloe works out that Curtis is pissed off because he fought in Operation Desert Storm (?) and Assad's men killed loads of his mates. As Assad signs a presidential pardon and is escorted outside by Curtis, Jack realises what's about to happen and runs after them.
Curtis loses it, and points his gun at Assad, shouting about everything. Jack arrives, and takes aim at Curtis, telling him he can't allow him to kill the USA's best chance for peace with the terrorist masses. "I can't let this animal live!" Curtis screams, finger on trigger. Jack makes his call, and shoots Curtis in the neck, saving Assad at the cost of killing his mate. Jack stumbles away, throws up a bit and starts to cry. "Tell the president I can’t do this anymore," he sobs at Buchanan down the phone. Aw, Jack, stop it. You'll make Friki cry!
The crap CTU team again messes up, spraying bullets wildly around the warehouse, but not killing the mad scientist, who manages to flick the trigger on the nuke! BOOM! Goodbye useless Ray, farewell crap CTU people, so long, most of Los Angeles.
The sobbing Jack looks up to see a mushroom cloud rising on the horizon, and CTU work out that was merely one of five bombs Fayed has possession of.
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
