24 Day 6 - Hour 21-24
From Frikipedia
Obviously, there's loads of spoliers here. Don't blame Friki if this ruins the series for you.
Contents |
Hour 21 (2am - 3am)
Heller takes Audrey away, vowing to impose a restraining order against Jack. Despite still being under arrest (3 times in 2 hours! woo!), Jack begs Nadia to let him lead the team to the Bloomfield place, saying that he promised the President he wouldn't let the plot device get into enemy hands. "Give me a chance to keep my word," he emotes. Err, Jack, it already is in enemy hands. Needless to say, Nadia says no, because despite her moment of strength against the doctor last episode, she is still rubbish.
All the arguing has finally made Chloe and Morris split up. Aside from the fact that they were divorced. Yawn. Bad Jack prepares to lead the teams, and he spends a few seconds metaphorically charming the pants off of Nadia, much to the folorn Milo's dismay, who Nadia totally blanks. Chloe goes and tells Marylin and Josh the Poo-er (remember them?) about Audrey, even though nobody asked her to.
Meanwhile, from wherever they are, Cheng assembles some gang of goons, who are dressed a bit like the foot soldiers that Shredder commanded in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons. Cheng tells them to attack the "target" in fifteen minutes, to get the person to fix the component.
Lisa the Slag calls hunky bloke and suggests that maybe he, y'know, gets down to some work in the Oval Office. Daniels and Tom listen in like a pair of dirty old men, and then Tom hands over a PDA full of fake stuff which infers CTU aren't in the process of making an utter cock of everything, which she has to make sure hunky bloke gets his traitorous mitts on.
Cheng reminds his team of foot soldiers to "obtain the package", so their job isn't too dissimilar to Lisas then. Hyuk. Meanwhile, Bad Jack and his team of extras storm the Bloomfield place, but find it empty, save for a load of empty boxes with "Guns" written on the side. Bad Jack tells Nadia that Cheng is preparing for an assault. Uh oh...
Lisa enters hunky bloke's apartment, and places a massive handbag with a video camera hidden inside rather unsubtley down onto a table. Hunky bloke is too busy thinking about the words "rocks" and "off", so doesn't care, and starts turning on the moves of the sex. Lisa claims that she needs another shower, which is the laziest excuse ever. As hunky bloke points out, she had one about half an hour ago. Fresh out of better excuses to leave him alone with her PDA, she simply lies back and accepts the rutting right there in front of the camera that Tom is keeping tabs on. Erm, this whole subplot has now switched from tense prime-time drama to tawdry late-night soft porn.
Meanwhile, in something a bit less weird, the foot soldiers are underneath their target. Bejesus, it's only bloody CTU! The foot soldiers blow up a bit of sewer to get in to the building, and Nadia and Milo suddenly realise that they can't use the phones. Run, run! The foot soldiers start shooting random crap security guards, and Jack begs his guard to let him out, which he does, and then gets shot. Jack takes his gun and is off on another killing spree.
Zhou, the leader of the foot soldiers, finds the CTU hostages and asks who's in charge. Nadia totally bottles it, and Milo, now seemingly willing to do anything to get a shag, stands up and says he is. Ten out of ten for effort, Milo, but sadly all he receives for his bravery/stupidity is a bullet in the head. Dead. Why Zhou does this is a mystery, as when he later finds out Nadia is really in charge, he actually needs her to do stuff. Meh.
Jack rescues Marylin and Josh, and he helps Josh escape through an air-con vent thing, but Jack and Marylin are captured. Bad Jack tries to ring in and Zhou has Nadia tell him to calm down and that everything is fine. Which she does, the daft mare. Zhou then announces over the PA system(?) that he wants Josh to come out. He is "the package". If he doesn't come out and stop poo-ing, he'll kill his mother.
Josh predictably turns up a moment before Marylin joins Milo on the deck, and Zhou tells Cheng he has him. Surely Josh can't be the one they need to reprogram the plot device?
Aaaaah, no. Now Cheng gets on the blower to......Daddy Bauer! Who disappeared from any plot thread ten hours or so ago. He wants his grandson, and in return, he'll give Cheng the newly repaired plot device...
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 22 (3am - 4am)
As Josh is taken away, the CTU hostages are divided into two groups and led away to "secure rooms". Cue much action! Jack breaks Zhou's neck, Morris knocks another foot soldier out, hell, even Nadia manages to knock down one of the guards, who must have had a heart condition or something. Just after the nick of time, Bad Jack shows up and starts working with Jack to get Josh back. Nadia points out that Jack is still under arrest, but realises no one cares about that anymore and so assigns him to Bad Jack's team. She also points out to Bad Jack that Milo bit the bullet, and is then congratulated for being so brave by everyone. Erm, what did she do? Apart from being not brave enough to admit to being in charge, hence getting Milo killed?
Into the sewers go the Jacks, while Cheng puts Josh on the phone to Daddy Bauer. Josh is unconvinced as to his motives, seeing as the last time he saw his granddad, he was going to kill him, but Daddy Bauer explains that they are going to China so he can provide Josh with a future in a country that with "soon surpass America". What? Cheng backs him up by telling Josh that "Your grandfather is a visionary.". A mentalist, more like.
The Jacks appear and fire at the remaining foot soldiers. Cheng grabs Josh and runs, pursued by Good Jack, towards the roof. Josh manages to escape and Jack corners Cheng. But the Josh acts the mong and falls, hanging precariously over the side of the building. As Jack is distracted, Cheng escapes. He could have just shot Jack, but he's rubbish too. Bad Jack arrives and Josh tells them about Daddy Bauer and the Chinese. Bad Jack wonders what the link is, Jack replies "I’ll ask him when I find him.". Yay, badass Jack!
Brilliantly, we now cut back to Tom and the surveillence team, who are still watching Lisa and hunky bloke make the beast with two backs. Friki has to admire hunky bloke's stamina, it's been going on for an hour. Fatty Daniels never stood a chance. As hunky bloke finally rolls over and makes to fall asleep, Lisa finally thinks of a good excuse to let him nick her forged PDA and goes to the bathroom. He looks at the PDA, but somehow deduces from nothing that something is wrong. Lisa returns and flips out, whacking him with a wine glass and screaming at him for betraying his country yadda yadda. He responds by hitting her good. Treason, domestic violence, this relationship has everything. Tom and the team have obviously polished themselves off and race in to arrest hunky guy, ordering him to upload the phoney PDA info, lest he be put on death row.
Daddy Bauer is angered that Cheng stupidly lost Josh, and re-iterates that he won't hand over the plot device unless the Chinese get his grandson back. Meanwhile, a team from "Division" arrive to sort out the chaos of Nadia-led CTU. Their lead man gives her an earful, but Morris lends her support. Again, based on nothing.
The fake PDA stuff has been sent to the Russians. Also, apopros nothing, Lisa has suffered "some" brain damage as a result of hunky guy's smacking. Daniels scowls some more, hell, he scowls twice, but Karen convinces him to focus on the Russian issue for a moment. And we never hear from Lisa the vegetable again either. Their gambit totally fails, because Suvarov also had surveillence cameras in hunky guy's apartment. Just how many major military organisations were watching him bump uglies anyway? Daniels scowls again. Now they have no choice, the Russian forces are massing in "central Asia", and Suvarov rather conveniently gives Daniels two hours to successfully recover the plot device.
Suddenly, Tom gets a call. It's Daddy Bauer no less, wanting to swap sides and make a deal with Daniels. Safe passage out the country AND Josh, for the plot device. Despite the fact that he's proved himself utterly untrustworthy around 17 times in the last 24 hours, Daniels agrees.
Jack is consoling the straining Josh. “I promise you he will never threaten you or your mother again,” he growls at the blond annoyance. Which is an utter lie, because 11 seconds after he says that, Bad Jack is dragging Josh towards a helicopter, while Jack is restrained by CTU goons. The trade is on.
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 23 (4am - 5am)
In the helicopter, Bad Jack explains to Josh the foolproof way that CTU will make sure Daddy Bauer doesn't keep him. Yes, it's one of those useless tracker things again. Presumably, Josh has been following the story so far, so this dubious course of action fails to convince him, and he gurns.
Meanwhile, Jack pleads for the guards to let him go, but yes, he's being arrested AGAIN. Jack sneakily calls Chloe while the guards are checking the tyre pressures of the car or something, and tells her he knows his father has no intention of giving up the plot device. Even Friki could have told her that.
Jack is patched through to Karen Hayes, and re-iterates his belief that his double-crossing traitor of a father is probably not 100% trustworthy. Karen agrees and decides to go behind Daniels back. By calling Buchanan, who is standing around at home while some men in crash helmets paw through his belongings. Much though he doesn't like his wife right now, he agrees to help Jack however he can.
Bad Jack and Josh arrive at the trade point, on a beach somewhere, and Daddy Bauer calls Bad Jack, asking him to shut down CTU's satellite tracking and "lose the chopper", which Bad Jack does. Satisfied, Daddy Bauer orders two goons to go pick up his grandson. Nadia and CTU try to work out why he knows they were tracking him, but they won't work it out so who cares. Incidentally, Bad Jack is reassured that he can verify the plot device because it will plug into a port in the back of his PDA(!). So as well as leaving the codes to all their nuclear weapons inside a random suitcase bomb, the Russians also make sure it is compatible with all standard Western electronic devices. As nuclear superpowers go, Russia certainly ranks high on the "user friendliness" test.
Karen calls CTU and requests satellite coverage of the car transporting Jack. For once, Nadia's rubbishness pays off as she just lets her have it. Karen talks Buchanan to his position, where he drives the 4 x 4 off the road and helps Jack escape from CTU custody for what feels like the 16th time since midnight.
Because the episode clearly needed padding, Milo's brother randomly gets let into CTU headquarters right in the middle of the defining operation of the day to pick up Milo's stuff. Chloe, Morris and Nadia all just get up and leave the whole beach swap monitoring stuff to go over and talk crap to him. He responds by telling Nadia that Milo loved her, which really didn't need pointing out so bluntly. With that massively important scene out the way, it's back to the whole plot device/Josh tradeoff triviality.
Karen has been found out, and is placed under arrest for going behind Daniels back. CTU find out about Buchanan and Jack and Nadia sends a squad of useless assault teams to intercept. Which they never get round to doing, as they'd blow the whole gaff with Josh and Bad Jack. Bad Jack reassures Nadia that he can handle Jack. Don't make Friki laugh, Bad Jack.
Josh mopes and begs Bad Jack not to give him over, and again Bad Jack's rudimentary conscience is pricked. But he does nothing other than confirming with Nadia that there isn't anything else they can do. Way to go. Daddy Bauer calls and asks him to walk with Josh towards the sea. A boat emerges from the water, with two goons inside.
One goon places the plot device on the sand and Bad Jack picks it up. Mistake. It's a bomb! Bad Jack's face is taken off, just as Jack and Buchanan come tearing down the beach, firing randomly. The other goon grabs Josh and they take off in their boat. So Jack was right. Again. Bad Jack moans from what's left of his face, and Jack shouts at CTU for a "MEDIC!".
The flawless tracker in Josh's hand is deactivated by the goons within 30 seconds of them locating it, much to Chloe's annoyance. Nadia doesn't care though, she's far too interested in getting the details of how badly Bad Jack was hurt. And they say men only think with their genitals.
The MEDIC! turns up and Jack is informed that Bad Jack will be blind in "at least one" eye. Nadia becomes part of an elite band of 342 high ranking officials when she says the immortal words "I should have listened to you, Jack," and Jack asks whether there are any oil platforms near their position. Happily, there are, and this is where Daddy Bauer is.
Finally, in an unnecessary moment of dull drama, Chloe faints for no reason. That is your cliffhanger for the finale, ladies and gents.
Bip-bip-bip-bip...
Hour 24 (5am - 6am)
Thank Christ for that. End of the road. It's been dragging since about hour 15, truth be told.
So, Daddy Bauer has Josh, who is probably upset but just looks the same as he always does. Cheng tells Daddy that the Chinese submarine they ordered will pick them up....within the hour!
Chloe and Morris exchange pleasantries. Morris becomes frustrated that the doctor won't give him her test results. Test results that will be ready....within the hour!
CTU tracks the right oil platform and inform Daniels, who decides that there's been more than enough fannying around for one day, and decides on an air strike rather than a ground (sea?) assault, to destroy everyone, everything and the plot device once and for all. The planes are scrambled and they'll be in range....within the hour!
Jack finds out that Daniels has dismissed Josh as collateral damage (fair enough if you ask Friki) and is angry. For the final time today, he decides to go against orders and fly to the platform on a helicopter. Buchanan offers to help after remembering that part of being director of CTU required him to hold a valid pilot's license. Whatever. They leap in and pull a gun on the pilot. "We’re commandeering your helicopter," Jack growls, which is actually a really funny line.
Daniels begs President Suvarov to hold off his "central Asian" troop deployments for a bit. Suvarov somehow gets hold of some intel on the Chinese submarine and believes his sob story. But warns him that if it fails, the troops are ready to attack....within the - gah, you get the picture.
Morris finds out about Jack and Action Buchanan's mission, and Nadia radios them to tell them she can't authorise it. Not as that really makes much difference to anything. Buchanan tells her they're doing the right thing, so Nadia relents and authorises it. Again, not as that matters, but so long as she feels like she's part of the team, it can't hurt.
On the oil platform, Cheng hears the chopper approaching, and leads his foot soldiers to war. Daddy Bauer scarpers with Josh down to where a pathetic looking dinghy is moored to the foot of the platfrom, to escape to the sub.
And here comes Jack! He leaps from the chopper and takes out most of the remaining foot soldiers by exploding some massive oil barrels. Cheng is injured and Jack runs over to him, demanding to know where Josh is. Cheng tells him he's too late, but Jack runs after his dad, getting Action Buchanan, who actually did bugger all in the end, to take Cheng back to the helicopter.
Daddy Bauer and Josh make it to the dinghy thing, and Daddy pops the gun down on the floor to untie the mooring. Josh siezes his rather obvious chance and whacks Daddy Bauer with a wrench that was lying on the ground because, erm, someone was, anyway, it was there. He grabs the gun and points it at his grandad, who does the fateful "You're not going to fire that" speech, and gets shot in the shoulder.
He slumps to the ground in time for Jack to arrive on the scene. He makes Josh put his gun down because he doesn't want to live with the pain of taking another person's life. Ironic, but it works. Jack sends Josh to the helicopter, just assuming that all the foot soldiers are now dead, and has a final gritted-teeth stand-off with his dad.
“You are going to be held accountable for what you have done today!” Jack screams, refusing to shoot him. Daddy points out that there isn't enough time before the air strike for Jack to carry him back to the chopper, and Jack clearly agrees, because he blinks and then just leaves him there for dead.
Cut to planes, and pilots saying plane-y stuff. "Roger oscar bravo one, engage" and stuff like that. With ninety seconds left before the strike, Action Buchanan trails a rope ladder out the chopper and takes off. We know what's coming next.
Missiles locked, missiles fired, big bang, Jack leaps from the rig onto the ladder seconds before he's toast. Wooo Jack! The target is apparently obliterated, but by the end Friki had no idea who had the plot device, so it's anyone's guess really. Nevertheless, Suvarov is happy, and calls off the war. Rejoyce!
Buchanan confirms that Josh, Jack and Cheng all got off ok, and CTU smile in satisfaction. Jack lets go of the ladder and swims to shore, waving back at Buchanan. Josh, who may be a borderline mental case, doesn't understand, Action Buchanan simply explains that Jack isn't ready to go back yet.
In the White House, Daniels is told that the Chinese submarine has been recalled. He decides to leave China for another day, and why not. Tom convinces him to go all mushy and let Karen and Buchanan resign without facing charges, and like the softie he suddenly is, he agrees. Satisfied he won't be in the next series, Tom hands over the recording from earlier to Daniels.
Back to Chloe, who tells Morris that she's pregnant. Morris seems more delighted than a man necessarily should given just how many people may lay claim to being the father, but they smile and are presumably back together yet again.
And everyone's happy! Conservative Tom and Liberal Karen smile and hug, Action Buchanan returns to CTU to shake Nadia's hand and tell her she did well, which is such a lie, and Josh hugs his mother. Just about the only guy who isn't happy is Cheng, who probably has a few decades inside Not Guantanamo to look forward to.
So, that just leaves Jack, who has somehow walked to the house of Audrey and Heller. He breaks in and points a gun at Heller, demanding to see Audrey. He doesn't even break restraining orders by halves, does Jack. He's angry that Heller abandoned him in China, pointing out that "The only thing I have ever done is what you and people like you have asked of me," and omitting all the times he's gone against orders.
Heller is having none of it, mind, and tells Jack that he can never have his life back, then lands rather a low blow by bringing up Jack's dead wife. Ouch. Brave stuff to say to a crazed Bauer holding a gun to your face. Instead of killing him, though, Jack relents, and Heller leads him to Audrey.
Jack has his Kleenex moment for the series (no, we're not going back to Lisa and hunky guy) and tearfully apologises for promising to take care of her, which he clearly failed to do. "The only way I can protect you is to let you go," he sobs, making Friki's lip quiver. He says he loves her, and then has to leave her.
And there we go. We leave Jack outside the Heller residence, staring out at a new sunrise, once again utterly alone. For all his badass coolness, all Friki wants to do is give him a hug at times like this. Is there another all American hero who is given less happy endings than Jack? He never gets to just walk off into the sunset with the money, the girl and the fame, does he. Still, at least he's not been abandoned by his country to be mercilessly tortured by the Chinese this time, so that's something.
THE END
