This is it people, the final hours of 24 ever and it was a satisfying way to end the season and leave it open to possible future Jack adventures.

We began as CTU was getting footage from Jack’s attack on Novakovich’s apartment.  Despite the bloodbath, Chloe still thinks she can talk Jack down.  Cole arrives at Jim’s place but triggers his security system, which starts an automatic wipe of his systems.  Cole busts in and after a quick Mexican stand off, Jim tells him that Jack is going after Suvarov, since his overheard his and Logan’s conversation.  Jack also has the only remaining copy of the recording of that conversation.  Cole tells this to Chloe and then heads out to meet her at the mobile CTU HQ outside the UN.

At the site of Jack’s assault on Logan’s limo, Logan calls President Taylor and informs her of the whole situation, including Suvarov’s involvement.  Taylor is horrified but Logan is confident that the situation is resolved since they have both the video evidence and Jack thinks he’s killed everyone involved.  Pillar heads out to drive back to CTU but finds Jack waiting in his back seat, who forces him to drive to the UN.  Upon arrival, Jack tells Pillar to go the parking garage across the street and then forces him to sew up his stab wound.  Jack then knocks him out and heads into the building across from the UN to find a sniper perch.  He finds one in a utility room that overlooks where Suvarov will make his press conference.

Inside the UN, Dalia Hassan and President Taylor go over the final details of the signing ceremony and afterwards, Kayla tells her mother about Meredith Reed’s phone call.  The pair try to call her back but cannot reach her anywhere.  Dalia goes to ask President Taylor for help, who tells Dalia that she had her arrested because she was going to publish a sensational rumor about the Russian involvement.  Dalia tells Taylor that until she knows for certain, she will not sign the agreement.  Taylor then confesses the truth, which makes Dalia furious and she announces the peace agreement is over. Taylor counters with a threat of revealing evidence about the former IRK agents who were involved in the attack on the city and that will give the US all the reason it needs to invade the IRK.  Dalia storms out and Taylor is fuming.

Chloe and Cole learn about Jack being inside their security perimeter from Arlo getting a hit off of the reflection in one of the building’s vending machines.  Chloe tells Cole she will go in and try to convince Jack to stop his killing spree by giving him another option, they will flood his recording to every media outlet and government agency in the country.  Cole give Chloe a gun just in case and she goes in to find Jack.  She finds him in the utility closet but Jack is in no mood to hear her alternate plan and puts her in a sleeper hold.  Chloe told him that if she didn’t check in in ten minutes, Cole would send a security team in so Jack changes his plan.  Calling Logan on Pillar’s phone, he pulls a Phone Booth and tells Logan he has a sniper rifle pointed at his head and the only way to live is to call Suvarov up to his office.  Logan complies but before Jack can pull the trigger, Chloe wakes up and convinces him to stop, saying Renee wouldn’t want him to start a war in her name.  Jack agrees to Chloe’s plan, but only if she does everything he asks.  His first order is for her to take the recording, the second is for her to shoot him so they don’t suspect she’s helping him.  Chloe can’t so Jack shoots himself in the chest.  Cole had sent the security team in and they arrived a few seconds after Jack’s shooting.

Inside the UN, Dalia had gone through the motions of the signing ceremony but refuses to acknowledge Suvarov or Taylor.  The opening press conference begins as the UN Secretary General talks about how this peace agreement will usher in a new era of honesty and trust.

Chloe is interrogated by the recently recovered Pillar and he searches her for the recording.  She’s clean but Chloe hid the recording in her phone.  Pillar is still suspicious because Jack’s wound is about the best gunshot wound you could want to get.  He order Chloe locked down but Jack whispers something, causing Pillar to lean down, at which point Jack bites off his ear.  Chloe and Cole frantically try to upload the data to Arlo but are stopped by CTU agents.  They are arrested and transferred back to CTU for detainment while Jack is being sent to CTU medical facility under heavy guard.

Back inside the UN, Logan gives Taylor the data card but warns her the as long as Jack is alive, the peace agreement will be in jeopardy.  He says he has a plan to eliminate them and takes Taylor’s silence for approval.  Taylor watches file on the data card, which is actually Jack’s final message to Kim and his feeling that the peace agreement cannot simply be political but must be built on honesty and understanding.  Taylor finally sees what she had let herself do and, at the signing ceremony she refuses to sign the agreement, declaring that horrible crimes have been commited today in the name of the peace treaty and she will explain later.  She then frantically tells Tim Woods to release Chloe and Cole and to have them use all of CTU’s resources to find Jack.  They then go to confront Logan to find Jack’s whereabouts but Logan, realizing he’ll be going down all over again, kills Pillar and then tries to kill himself.  He survives his suicide attempt but will probably suffer brain damage, making him useless.  Chloe, Cole and Arlo try to backtrack the ambush on Jack’s ambulance and follow the van that took him.

Jack, meanwhile, is brought to a construction site by Logan’s mercenaries.  Fortunately, just before they are going to execute them they get a call from Taylor, ordering them to stand down and turn themselves in to the FBI or face the drone’s Hellfire missiles.  The mercenaries comply and Taylor asks to speak with Jack.  She apologizes for everything that happened and she says they’ll both have to live with the consequences of what they’ve done.  For her it means resigning, losing the peace treaty and then turning herself over to the Attorney General and for Jack it means he’s on the run once again.  Jack makes a final phone call to Chloe, telling her to keep Kim’s family safe and thanking her for backing him up all those years.  He then runs off while Chloe order the drone shut down and the video eliminated.  The timer then ticks down to 00:00:00.

So last night’s 24 was easily one of the best episodes in the show’s history, as Jack was in completely unleashed bad ass mode.

After eviscerating Pavel, Jack, Jim and Meredith returned to street level.  Jack asked Jim to do him one more favor and track the location of the last placed call on Pavel’s cell while he escorted Meredith to a pay phone.  Jack told her she had to expose the conspiracy if he didn’t make it and that she had to find someone she could trust and lie low until the story was out.

Jason and CTU arrived at the scene of Jack’s interrogation of Pavel and Jason called Logan asking him again to distance himself from the situation.  Logan said it was too late however as President Taylor’s press secretary was making the announcement about his key role.  Logan then went to tell President Taylor the bad news about Jack’s most recent escape and she was furious but Logan turned the screws and told her it was all her decisions that had gotten them to this point, he just made suggestions.  His latest suggestion is that Taylor needs to lock down Meredith’s paper to keep the story from getting out.  He then smugly headed out to meet Russian President Suvarov, who is arriving shortly.

Jim gets the location of Logan’s phone for Jack and tells him this is the last favor.  Jack agrees and, after seeing where Logan is heading, suits up in full body assault armor (including a bad ass face mask).  As Logan and his limo enter a traffic tunnel, Jack attacks with a full arsenal of weapons, easily taking out the Secret Service guards and drowning Logan in tear gas.  Logan collapses and Jack drags him off into a service tunnel.

Back at CTU, Chloe and Arlo finally figure out who Jack’s contact is and Chloe decides they need to question him about Jack’s whereabouts before Jason and his men can kill him.  Chloe goes to Cole and asks him to go question Jim, which he agrees to do.

On orders from President Taylor, Tim Woods orders the FBI to ransack Meredith’s paper, locking everyone down and forcing her to flee to a hotel.  She then tries to call Dalia Hassan but is answered by Kyla, who is rightfully pissed but after hearing the Russians may be involved, agrees to have her mother call her when she comes back.  However, Meredith is quickly arrested by the FBI, who recover the video file on the data card.

In the service tunnels, Jack holds a sniveling Logan at gunpoint and demands to know who the Russian in charge of the conspiracy is.  Logan tries to convince Jack that he had nothing to do with anything but finally cracks and admits that Novakovich is the head of the conspiracy.  Jack hears Jason and his recently arrived CTU team closing in and puts Logan in sleeper choke, then escapes.  Ditching the body armor, he heads to Novakovich’s penthouse and kills the guards guarding the elevator, taking a stab in the midsection in the process.  He then rampages through the penthouse (although we don’t see it), killing Novakovich with a fireplace poker and leaving only one surviving guard, who informs Logan of what happened.  After recovering from Jack’s attack, Logan calls Suvarov and tells him what happened.  Suvarov is worried that Novakovich might have talked, since Suvarov was the one who ordered the hit on Renee and wanted to end the peace talks.  Logan assures him that Jack killed everyone without questions but is unaware that Jack placed a listening bug on his collar, so he knows everything.  Wounded, Jack heads off to execute his final play.

After revealing his true intentions at the end of last week’s episode by murdering Dana, Jack began his revenge in earnest this week.

Starting out though, Cole was arrested by the NYPD and brought to the crime scene to identify Dana’s body.  The police informed him of the proximity of the gun used to kill her, proving she was executed by Jack.  Cole was then returned to CTU and interrogated by Pillar, who tried to appeal to his sense of soldier duty.  Cole wasn’t having it and refused to say anything.  Pillar and his assistant Eden then announced that all CTU resources not devoted to UN security were to be devoted to finding Jack.

Jack, meanwhile, was on his way back to his buddy Jim’s hideout and got a look at the video file.  It showed Dana talking to Novakovich’s right hand man/assassin Pavel.  Jack asked Jim to identify the man in the video, which Jim agreed to after Jack told him his true mission, avenging Renee.  They learned Pavel’s identity and that he was in the US on a diplomatic visa.  Jack then put in a call to our old friend Meredith Reed, the reporter who was accused of planning to kill Hassan the day before.  Jack asked Meredith to meet him at a department store to see the evidence and then expose it to the public.  Jack’s call was intercepted by Arlo based on a number of keywords and it was immediately transferred to Pillar, who listened to the whole thing.  He briefed Logan and Novakovich, who was sending a team with Pavel to the store to kill Jack and Meredith.  Chloe and Arlo decided they had enough of Pillar and, using a handy Sprint 3G mobile WiFi hotspot, they created their own private network and hacked into the security cameras of Cole’s holding cell.  Chloe then asked him if he knew where Jack was, and after moping about who was right anymore, he gave Chloe a clue that Jack had to have a contact in the city to get the equipment he had.

Logan then took the news of Jack’s imminent demise  to try and get his moment back in the limelight from President Taylor.  The President said her press secretary would makes some announcement about his involvement in time for the 1 o’clock news, since that was their deal.  She then went back to finalize the peace treaty with Dalia Hassan, as the signing was about 2 hours away.

Meredith arrived at the department store and Jack arrived shortly after, using his training to sneak almost undetected to the meeting point.  Pavel had him in his sights but was apprehended by Jim and taken hostage.  Jack moved Meredith out of harm’s way and proceeded to eliminate the Russian covert team.  He and Jim then took their company to a nearby, seemingly abandoned building.  Jim took Meredith into a side room to see the evidence while Jack went to work on Pavel in probably the most brutal interrogation in 24 history.  Jack used pliers, a blowtorch, a knife and splashed some sort of liquid on Pavel, but he still refused to talk.  Jack regrouped and saw Pavel’s cell phone but it was missing the SIM card.  Jack realized Pavel had swallowed it and decided to cut it out of him.  Retrieving the SIM card Jack tried the last received number and got Logan’s voice mail, giving Jack his next target.

From the previews for next week it looks like there’s no limit on what Jack is willing to do to get revenge, including donning some bad ass full body armor and storming the UN.  With only three hours left things are going to get intense.

We’re almost done as there’s now only 4 hours left of 24.  This week we came in during Dalia Hassan’s speech to the press.  Jack and Cole, meanwhile, were staking out the safehouse that Dana was being held in by Logan’s private security contractors.  The contractors were busy waterboarding Dana for the location of the evidence, but she was not cooperating.  Jack and Cole snuck their way around the back of the building and onto the roof.  After taking out the lookout, Jack and Cole managed to get inside and freed Dana by taking out the goon in charge, who gravely underestimated Jack’s shooting ability.  The trio stormed their way out and hit the road.  Dana wouldn’t reveal the location of the evidence to Jack either but he proved he wasn’t screwing around by pulling over and threatening to shoot her.  Dana believed him and told Jack she had a safe deposit box at a bank that had a flash card with a video file of all the people involved on it.  Jack headed back to the car and Dana tried to convince Cole that Jack only wanted the file to get a list of everyone involved and then kill them all, starting with her.  Cole brushed her off and the group headed to the bank.

Back at the UN, President Taylor got word about Jack’s snatching of Dana and confronted Logan about it.  Logan had yet another contingency plan which involved sending his aide Evan Pillar over to CTU to head up the search for Jack.  Pillar was apparently some big shot with the DEA during the Daniels administration.  Pillar and his assisstant rolled into CTU and immediately acted like they owned the place, commandeering all the resources and shoving Chloe aside.  Pillar also changed Jack’s status to armed and dangerous and authorized any force.  Pillar was also giving intelligence to Novakovich and his sleepy looking assistant, who would use the information to send a Russian kill squad to take out Jack.

Jack, Dana and Cole arrived at the bank and, while Jack stood guard, Dana and Cole got Dana’s box.  Cole opened it and found a gun, passports, money and a flash bomb, which went off and allowed Dana to knock out Cole and take out the bank employee who brought them the box.  Dana took a wad of cash, a passport, the gun and the evidence and made a call to 911 telling them about Jack.  She then snuck out while Jack got stopped by a pair of cops.  Jack took one hostage and shot the other in the foot and took off after Dana.  After a chase through the streets, Jack and Dana got into a shoot out in a building under construction.  Dana ran out of ammo and got cornered by Jack on the second floor.  Jack demanded the evidence and Dana wanted to know if there was anything she could do to get a deal.  Jack said there was nothing and then straight up murdered her, seemingly proving her right about Jack being out for revenge rather than justice.  How far is Jack going to go to avenge Renee and how is the series going to end?

I was a little busy last week and so we missed a week on The Jack Attack but fortunately it was a build up episode.  All you need to know is that Dana claims to have evidence about who in the Russian government was masterminding the attacks and Logan convinced President Taylor to cover it up to protect the peace treaty.  Jack was being sent to McGuire Air Field so he couldn’t interrogate Dana but he stole a helicopter from CTU and took off toward the city.

This week’s episode found Jack being pursued by a pair of military choppers.  After landing on a nearby helipad, Jack managed to evade the NYPD and bought some cell phones from a corner store.  He first called one of his old contacts, Jim, who apparently owed Jack a favor and Jack was collecting by demanding a cache of weapons and gears.  He then called Chloe to try and get access to Dana.  However, Dana was being moved by a private security firm hired by Logan.

President Taylor started to doubt her decision to cover up the evidence and after talking it over with Ethan, she decided to cancel the peace talks and investigate the Russians through back channels.  Logan had another scheme up his sleeve though; President Taylor could label Dana an enemy combatant and they would be free to move her to a private detention center and “extract” the evidence.  After getting guilt tripped about the peace by Logan, Taylor agreed.  Ethan was appalled and tendered his resignation saying he wasn’t needed since Allison had Logan now.

Chloe fell back to her old Jack helping ways, stealing the contents of the security team leader’s phone, however she decided against it and instead set up a sting operation with Cole.  CTU would lure Jack to an old laundromat where Cole and his team would take him down.

Jack arrived at Jim’s and got his equipment.  He also called Chloe and got the location of the laundromat and promised to give him schematics when he got there.  Jack arrived and snuck around the back.  He knocked out the rear guard and moved into the building.  He managed to take one of Cole’s men hostage and ordered them all on the ground, with the exception of Cole.  He took Cole aside for a pow wow and said he knew it was a set up but he risked coming because he wanted Cole’s help to get Dana.  Cole agreed and the two headed out.

Meanwhile, the security firm arrived at their secret headquarters and started to extract the information from Dana with a little waterboarding.  They also got orders from Logan’s aide that after they got the evidence Dana was expendable.

Closing out the episode was President Taylor starting her press conference to announce that the peace talks were still on with Dalia Hassan as the new president of the IRK.  It was kind of another building episode but with only five hours left hopefully they have a big finish in the works.

Some new enemies emerged last night and an old one came back.  First things first, Jack reported in to President Taylor, who told him not to blame himself for Hassan’s death.  Samir was the only one to survive Jack’s raid but he was in critical condition.  Cole ordered him brought to CTU but missed a sketchy EMT inject something into Samir’s neck.  The EMT then beat a hasty escape but not before brushing past Renee, who seemed to recognize him.  Jack told Cole that with everything wrapped up, he was going home.  Cole said that Hastings would probably want to debrief them but Jack said Hastings knew where to find him and then he and Renee headed back to Jack’s apartment to do a “debrief” of their own.  I don’t think Jack has gotten laid since the Season 4 prequel so good for him.

Most of the episode was focused on President Taylor.  She was sadly going to announce the end of the peace summit when Jamal, one of Hassan’s top advisors, came to her with another option.  After a ton of convincing, Dalia Hassan agreed to take her husband’s place as president of the IRK.  This didn’t sit well with shifty Russian delegate Novakovich, who it turns out was in on the day’s events with Samir and now this mysterious EMT/assassin.  The assassin, who looked and talked like he overdosed on Valium, told Novakovich that he recognized Renee from when she was undercover with Vladimir.  Novakovich told him to just follow Jack and Renee but Sleepy went across the street to an office building and set up a sniper rifle.  Novakovich told Taylor that Russia didn’t believe the peace agreement could go through without Hassan so they would be pulling out.  President Taylor went to confer with Ethan, who told her that he had been getting some calls from Charles Logan, who said he might have information that could help.  President Taylor agreed to meet with him and Logan revealed that he had information from his friends in Moscow that would pressure the Russian delegation to remain in the peace talks.  After some stern words, President Taylor allowed Logan to do his business.  Logan said he was going to go meet with Novakovich.

The peace summit was set to return to the UN but Homeland Security Tim had some concerns about CTU’s ability to handle security.  Hastings was given the brunt of the blame for allowing Dana into CTU and allowing President Hassan to be killed.  Tim called Chloe and told her that she would be the provisional head of CTU until a replacement could be found.  Hastings gave her a pep talk and headed to Division to make his final debrief.  Almost immediately Chloe’s leadership skills were tested when Samir went into cardiac arrest.  CTU’s medics were unable to save him and Chloe ordered an immediate tox screen, which revealed he was poisoned.

Back at Jack’s, Jack was getting himself and Renee a drink in the kitchen when his cell started to go off.  Renee saw that it was Chloe and got caught up to speed about Samir.  Renee mentioned that she recognized the EMT and told Chloe to gather all of her files from her time undercover.  Unfortunately, answering the phone made Renee vulnerable to Sleepy, who shot her in the chest and then unleashed a barrage of fire to try and hit Jack.  Jack made it through unscathed and grabbed Renee, who was barely hanging on.  Both Jack and Sleepy moved down to the street, with Jack getting into a taxi and Sleepy trying for one more shot but he was too exposed.  Jack rushed Renee to the hospital but it her injuries were too great and she died.  Right before, Chloe called Jack and told him about what Renee had said about the EMT and that they had tried to track the sniper.  Although he says he isn’t in the preview for next week, I think it’s a safe bet that Jack is going to be out for revenge and god help anyone in his way.

The annual big event before the end game occured last night as Jack and co. had to deal with the abduction of President Hassan.

Jack and Renee were trying to reach the streets of NYC so they could get the Hassans to the air base and have a clear signal to contact President Taylor about the mercenary ambush.  Hassan was upset that he was considered more important than thousands who would die from the radiation bomb so he knocked Jack out with a piece of rebar and forced everyone into a storage room.  He then went with the remaining merc, Bishop, and the two took an SUV to the rendezvous point.  When Jack came to he called President Taylor, who was not at all happy that Bruckner and Rob went behind her back.  She had both of them arrested for treason and also just barely saved Ethan from dying after his heart attack.  Rob refused to give up the location of the rendezvous, which earned him some “Damn you, Rob”s and a slap to the face.  However, a text came through that revealed that Bishop had recovered the bomb and Tarin had taken the SUV with Hassan.  The President asked Jack to head up the operation to get Hassan back and Renee arrived shortly after with Kayla and Dalia Hassan.  President Taylor gave Renee a heartfelt thanks and Renee headed back to CTU.

CTU’s plan to get Hassan back was for Jack to pursue Tarin while an ambush team set up further down the road.  They would disable the SUV and kill Tarin while Jack grabbed Hassan.  However, Dana, who was looking for an opportunity to warn Tarin, finally managed to under the pretense of checking the trunk line.  She was almost caught by a nosy Arlo, who almost became the second victim of the CTU Strangler.  With Dana’s warning, Tarin drove into a nearby parking garage with Jack in hot pursuit.  With nowhere to go, Tarin drove to roof and jumped the truck off, killing himself and everyone thought Hassan as well.  However, Hassan was drugged and dumped into the Prius of the terrorist’s female accomplice (How awesome would it have been if it was Mandy?).

Jack quickly figured that there was yet another mole in CTU and recovered Tarin’s phone in order to find out who it was.  Renee and Chloe set up a secure data feed and Chloe was able to discover it was Dana.  Dana was attempting to flee CTU after hacking Hastings computer to change her card to allow her leave the premises.  She was instantly flagged as “apprehend on sight” and proceeded to shoot her way to the parking garage.  A pissed off Cole chased her down and shot out her tires, stopping her escape.  He almost strangled her but Hastings called him off.  Hastings wanted answers but Dana said she would only talk to Jack.

Hassan, meanwhile was brought to the terrorist’s current base of operations, an apartment building and Samir revealed that he wanted Hassan to renounce the peace agreement and then his crimes would be read and he would be killed.  Hassan refused to cooperate, even under torture of drugs and tasers.  Samir revealed he had another way and a live internet feed was started.

Before that, Jack returned to CTU and did his interrogation business with Dana.  She demanded immunity and in exchange she would tell CTU where Hassan was and who was in charge.  Jack, Cole and Renee headed out to join the assault team but they only had a few minutes before Samir’s video would end and Hassan would be executed.  Cole and a CTU sniper took out the rooftop lookouts while Jack and Renee led the team into the apartment building.  Jack took out one terrorist and they found the room Samir was in thanks to an audio surveillance tool.  Jack and Renee entered the apartment and found a child and his mother.  Despite their attempts to keep them calm, the kid freaked out and Renee tossed him into the hall.  Jack found a hidden door in the back of the apartment and he went in while Renee watched the mother.  However, it turned out that the woman was the female accomplice, which Renee realized just in time to cap her before she capped Renee.  Meanwhile, Jack rolled into the terrorist’s room and took them all out but was shocked to see that the internet video was pre recorded and Hassan had already been executed.  Jack felt like he failed and CTU and the President were stunned.  Now that Samir and his cell are taken care of the question is who was paying Dana, what’s going on with the Russians and what does Charles Logan have to do with everything?  We’ll have to tune in next week to find out.

Things are moving toward the end game in this now final season of 24.  Jack took a quick medical break but despite warnings of broken ribs and a collapsed lung, he quickly got back to work.  Cole, meanwhile, was in pursuit of Samir and Tarin, who escaped with the rods in a cab.  CTU had satellite coverage back and were on top of the terrorists until mole Dana crashed the system for 30 seconds, allowing the nefarious duo to blend into cab traffic.

The noticeably absent President Taylor returned this week after being evacuated to a military base in New Jersey.  She was updated on the situation by Hastings and promised any and all resources to CTU.  She then moved onto the business of getting Hassan evacuated from the UN.  Because of the importance of the operation, she called Jack to have him personally escort Hassan and his family.  Jack agreed and he and Renee headed out.

Samir and his men were getting ready for the final strike.  The radiological dispersal device was set up and Tarin was taking over as driver for one of the men killed in last week’s dock shootout.  Samir also demanded that Dana give him the layout of the NYPD roadblocks and she mentioned something about her employer.  Samir then called Homeland Security Tim and demanded to speak with the President.  President Taylor was in the middle of a national security briefing but took the call.  Samir demanded that President Hassan be turned over to his group to face trial for his crimes against the IRK.  President Taylor refused and Samir threatened that in one hour the dispersal device would be activated and 40 blocks of Manhattan would be contaminated.  President Taylor still refused but Rob and some of the other council members were of the mind that giving up Hassan would be worth the cost to avoid thousands of American deaths.  President Taylor delivered a speech that seemed to end the discussion but General Bruckner (played by That Guy who’s always a douche) offered Rob an alternative option.  If Rob got the itinerary of Hassan’s evacuation then Bruckner would send in a “wet ops” team to kill everyone and deliver Hassan.  It would seem like the terrorists ambushed the escort team and America wouldn’t lose face.  Rob agreed and the pair broke into Ethan’s office to get the intinerary.  Ethan interrupted them and tried to appeal to their senses.  Bruckner blocked the door and Rob refused to cooperate.  Ethan’s heart condition chose this moment to complicate matters and Ethan collapsed.  Bruckner told Rob to not call medics because the the first thing Ethan would do would be to rat them out.  Rob almost Sherry Palmered Ethan but did give him one pill, which didn’t seem to do much as Ethan was comatose for the rest of the episode.

Back at the UN, Jack and Renee met up with the Secret Service team and the group moved out.  Jack recieved a call from Ethan but his attempts to call back were met with no answer.  Jack grew suspicious and even more so when Rob answered one of Jack’s calls, acted pissy, and then hung up.  The group was almost to their vehicles but Jack decided to turn back.  It was too late however as the wet ops team attacked and killed most of the secret service team.  Hassan’s security team and the female head of the secret service team held off the attackers while Jack and Renee moved the Hassans back down the tunnel.  Not one’s to miss a good cliche, Kayla Hassan twisted her ankle and Jack and Renee had to make a stand against the wet ops team.  President Hassan demanded a gun as well and Jack obliged and then threw out some smoke grenades to cover them.  Jack and Renee took out the wet ops team fairly easily although the last man almost had Jack until Hassan got the assist.  Jack captured one of the team members and learned it was Bruckner who sent them.  Jack then led the group toward the surface so he could call President Taylor.

With the NYPD layout in hand, Tarin drove to a target area and, when Samir learned that President Taylor would not relent, he activated the device, which is set to go off in less than 15 minutes.  We’ll have to find out if it does during next week’s double dose of 24.

Hastings and co. were scrambling to get CTU back up and running.  Analysts were reduced to to writing with pens and paper and everyone was carrying around mini flashlights.  Thankfully, after a call from Jack, the NSA sent over a team of engineers with a fresh batch of cell phones and a plan to get the servers running.  Chloe overheard their plan and thought she had a better way, instead of manually removing and replacing all the motherboards they could tap directly into the trunk line.  NSA engineer Haymen was a major douche and told Chloe it was too dangerous.  After calling Renee for some support for both her and Jack, Chloe cowboyed up and took over the server room at gunpoint and went about tapping into the trunk line.

Jack and his team were heading toward the East River as, with the NSA shutting down bridges and tunnels, it was the only way for Samir and his men to smuggle the rods into Manhattan.  Unfortunately the CTU team ran into an ambush and Jack crashed the SUV trying to escape.  A firefight broke out with the CTU team pinned down by snipers while Samir and Tarin escaped by zodiac across the river.  Communications were being jammed and Jack figured the only way to get help was to make it across the dock yard to a call box.  Jack Macgyvered up some armor panels and the team made their way across the yard.  Everything was going fine until Agent Red Shirt freaked out and broke formation, taking a bunch of shots as a result.  Owen, Jack and Cole ducked behind some shipping crates and tried to figure out their next move.  Red Shirt continued to take shots until Owen disobeyed Jack and tried to drag him to safety, taking a shot to the neck for his efforts.  Both died soon afterwards and it was up to Jack and Cole to take on the remaining terrorists themselves.  Jack ordered Cole to make a run for the call box while Jack drew fire.  The plan worked but Jack took a couple rounds to the bulletproof vest and was knocked out.  Just before getting sniped, Renee saved the day and took out most of the remaining terrorists in about 10 seconds.  Cole joined the NYPD in a chopper to hunt down Samir and Tarin while Jack got medical attention for a possible collapsed lung.

Back at CTU, security broke into the server room and Chloe’s repairs were halted.  Making a last ditch appeal to Hastings, he agreed to let her finish and she got communications and satellite back on, much to Haymen’s chagrin.  Oh, Kayla Hassan was reunited with her parents and the Presidential family was finally being evacuated underground to meet with President Taylor at a secure location.  Kayla was also going to help CTU try and identify her kidnappers.

Finally, we get to what is becoming THE STUPIDEST SUB PLOT IN 24 HISTORY.  Dana, thinking she caught a break due to the EMP, told probation officer Praty that the video of the robbery was destroyed.  Despite non-essential personnel being evacuated, Praty managed to stay behind and wanted to meet with Hastings.  Dana confronted him again and he told her that he knew she had something to do with the robbery and he was going to take her down.  Dana retorted by strangling him with a cord and then dumping his body in the suspiciously large CTU floor vents.  If this whole thing wasn’t stupid enough, we then find out that Dana is somehow a mole for Samir and is going to help him avoid detection in Manhattan.  I’m longing for some Kim and the cougar action right about now.

We’re halfway through the season and the shit is hitting the fan.  Picking up where we left off, Kayla Hassan was trying to stall in the bathroom as she just found out her boyfriend Tarin was actually in league with Samir and the terrorists.  Tarin was getting impatient but he really got impatient when he saw a SWAT team moving on the hotel.  This was in spite of Jack’s orders to wait until they arrived so the SWAT commander shouldn’t have been too surprised when Tarin killed him and a couple of his men.  Tarin then tried to fake out the cops with a Hans Gruberesque American accent but Jack didn’t buy it so he just booked it out of the hotel and caught a cab, which happened to be driven by another terrorist.  After some fancy maneuvering under an underpass, the trio disappeared and Jack had to switch into kidnap mode.

Heading back to the UN, Jack and Cole briefed the Hassans about what was happening and told them to expect a call from the terrorists.  Samir called shortly afterwards and gave the group an IP address which was a webcam showing Kayla tied to a chair.  Samir then appeared on camera and demanded File 33 from President Hassan and pulled a move from Jack’s playbook and started choking Kayla with a plastic bag.  President Hassan agreed to hand over the file, even though he denied knowing what it was.  It turns out that File 33 is Karmistan’s analysis of the weaknesses in America’s defenses, including their radiological detectors.  If the terrorists got this file it would give them free reign to do whatever they wanted, like bringing the fuel rods into the city.  Jack was willing to sacrifice Kayla to keep the file out of enemy hands but Chloe offered an out in that Arlo picked up some subway sounds in the background, giving CTU a general idea about where Kayla might be.  Jack and Cole headed out, with President Hassan ordered to stall until they could find Kayla.

Kayla, meanwhile, was pleading with Tarin to let her go and he caved, helping her escape to the streets and getting her into a car, only to take a bullet from Samir.  Kayla drove off and frantically called CTU, who were then able to pinpoint her location and Jack and Cole headed to an abandoned bank to try and catch the bad guys.  The terrorists had already cleared out via a tunnel system nearby and Jack and Cole pursued, only to have the terrorists double back and make it to the streets.  Arlo and his drones were set to track them and ID’d one of the terrorists as…Tarin Faroush.

Just a quick update on the continuing Dana saga before we get to the explosive finale.  Parole officer Praty arrived at CTU and Dana tried to lie about knowing Kevin, saying she had a one night stand with him after a night in a bar.  Praty proved to be smarter than he looked by dropping some information about the police evidence lockup robbery and produced an interagency data request for the tape of the robbery.  Dana realized she was screwed and was prepared to give herself up but she was saved by an unlikely source, the terrorists.

Jack, hearing about Tarin, realized they let Kayla go because they knew they would never get the file but they could take out CTU.  Kayla arrived and was swarmed by security and Hastings, who found an EMP in her backseat, with only :17 to detonation.  A CTU guard tried to back the car away from the building but it was too late, the EMP went off and CTU might be down for the count.

We all know that Jack can be extremely convincing but he had his work cut out for him last night as he spent most of the episode trying to negotiate with young terrorist Marcos.  Marcos, with his detonator disabled by CTU, was furiously trying to rewire his bomb vest and kill himself to avoid capture.  Jack tried to reason with him but Marcos was too fanatical to listen.  Chloe and CTU got a work up on Marcos and found that his mother lived in NYC and Hastings dispatched the recently returned Cole to retrieve her.  Hastings chewed both Dana and Cole out and demoted Dana to reporting to Chloe, previously it was the opposite.  Just when Dana was about to finally get back to work, Kevin’s parole officer Privey called and wanted to know where Kevin was.  Dana tried to lie but was caught by Privey’s phone records stating that he called Dana numerous times.  Privey wanted to meet and Dana agreed.  Dana tried to call Cole for support but he just said to lie, “because you’re good at it” Burn!

At the UN, Hassan and his wife Talia reunited but only for the purpose of finding their renegade daughter.  Talia tried to reach Kyla on her phone but she was “busy” with Tarin and ignored the calls.

Back at the hospital, Jack had the recently arrived mother try and talk her son into giving himself in but Marcos, while almost breaking, refused.  Samir had two of his men tapped into the surveillance feed of the hospital and they were monitoring Marcos’ progress.  When his mother obviously wasn’t going to convince him, Jack turned it up a notch and stole a play from season 3.  He told Marcos that if he blew himself up, first Jack was going to make his mother clean up the mess and then Jack would bring her to the site of the attack and intentionally expose her to radiation.  Marcos finally caved and came out of the pressure chamber.  Samir’s men saw this and activated a fail safe on the vest, giving Jack sixty seconds to disarm the bomb.  Jack couldn’t do it in time and barely got Marcos back into the chamber before he exploded.  Jack was able to get a name out of Marcos before he died however, Tarin Faroush, and it turns out Hassan wasn’t as crazily paranoid as we thought.  Jack contacted Hassan and Talia finally reached Kyla.  Kyla refused to believe it at first but Talia convinced her and CTU got her location, so Jack and Cole were off.  Be sure to come back next week as the preview promises some sort of huge, shocking twist.

Jack is back to his old self whether he’s yelling at medics to keep a suspect stable or getting one step ahead of the terrorists.

We didn’t open on Jack however but everyone’s least favorite murdering couple, Dana and Cole.  The pair set about getting rid of any evidence concerning what happened to Nick and Kevin and dumped their bodies in the nearby lake.  Cole was fuming and the wedding might be delayed a bit.

Back to Jack, he led a CTU tactical team to the area where Farhad was hiding.  While on the phone with Hastings, Farhad decided he couldn’t stay in one place any longer and tried to run but was gunned down by one of Samir’s men.   Jack and Co. arrived seconds later and the gunman fled with Farhad bled out, despite Jack’s yelling and the medic’s best efforts to keep him alive.  Jack had planned to show Farhad classified profiles of covert Karmistan operatives who are operating in the US in an attempt to track the terrorists down.  With Farhad dead, Jack thought up a plan B which involved luring the terrorists to a nearby hospital with news that Farhad was still alive, broadcast thanks to the local Fox affiiliate.  CTU rolled out and got ready to spring their trap.

At the UN, President Taylor and Rob were brought up to speed about the situation.  President Taylor agreed to try and convince Hassan to give up the classified files (which he did when Taylor threatened US retaliation if the attack occured) and Hastings finally grew a pair and basically told Rob to fuck off.  Former head of security Tarin was about to be transferred but recieved a visit from Kayla Hassan and he revealed that he had a man still loyal who was going to slip him handcuff keys and a gun.  Tarin was hauled off but put the keys and gun to good use in transit, hijacking the SUV and locking the agents in the trunk.  He then headed off to a nearby hotel to meet Kayla where the two did the vertical rumba for the rest of the episode while they waited for a lawyer to arrive and help them get asylum in the US.  Hassan got the news of Tarin’s escape from his agents and was furious, but more concerned that Kayla was somewhere in NYC with a potential dirty bomb going off.  He called his estranged wife and she agreed to try and find Kayla. Meanwhile, President Taylor, after conferencing with Homeland Security Tim and other experts, decided to evacuate the UN because of the dirty bomb threat but Hassan refused to leave until Kayla was found.  Taylor relented but said they would talk soon.

At the hospital turned terrorist trap, Jack and his team spread out and waited for the terrorists to make their move.  Their move was sending half Karmistani half American Marcos, strapped with a bomb vest but with a potential weakness in his mother.  Chloe spotted him on the security feed thanks to facial recognition and also figured she could stop the vest from detonating by identifying the detonator and then jamming it’s signal.  Marcos was lead to Farhad’s fake recovery room by nervous Cole replacement Owen, who Jack told to stay calm and that he was completely covered.  Chloe nailed down the detonator type but needed to see the vest to disarm it.  Owen managed to call Marcos’ bluff and got him to show the vest and Chloe and Arlo sent about jamming it.  Arriving in Farhad’s room, Marcos tried to detonate the vest but, seeing it not work, used a gun stolen from Owen to make Farhad deader.  Jack and company arrived shortly afterwards and Marcos threw himself out the window and, despite probably breaking most of his bones, managed to evade Jack and locked himself in some sort of pressure chamber.  Jack tried to talk him out but Marcos wasn’t having it and instead called Samir to find out how to detonate the vest manually.  It looks like Jack is going to have to really turn the screws on Marcos next week and what does Stephen Root want with Kevin (maybe he stole his stapler?)

We’re entering the second act of the season as Jack and co. continue to try and recover the rogue nuclear rods.

Jack and Sergei called Josef in an attempt to get him to return with the nuclear rods.  When he hears about the immunity deal, Josef agrees to head back but is sniped by Farhad and his men before he can.  Jack hears a bit of the terrorist’s plan over Josef’s phone but not enough to get an idea about where they are; they mention that they can’t can’t go to the docks anymore.  Jack heads back to CTU with Sergei, where Sergei will be interrogated.  Jack also checks on Renee and gives her a little positive boost when he says the when she has him, he meant it like it sounded.  Jack certainly has a way with the ladies, hopefully Renee fares better than Teri or Audrey.  Renee’s good feelings don’t last long though as Hastings recieves a call from Rob Weiss, who says that someone has to pay for the operation’s screw up and he wants to pin it on Renee.  Hastings folds and agrees to let a Justice department rep question Renee.

Back at the new terrorist HQ, Farhad and his number two, Samir, discuss their options and, with the authorities on to them, their only course of action is to turn the rods into a weapon and detonate them in NYC.  The men plan to head out and gather supplies, with Farhad saying he’ll go and talk to an electronics professor who could make a detonator for them.  On his way out, Farhad attacks his escort/henchmen and runs off into the woods, but not without getting a beating himself.  Apparently he has no problem restarting his country’s nuclear program and killing his brother but this is crossing the line.  He calls CTU and requests that they help him and he’ll tell them everything.

Meanwhile, in kind of stupid side plot land, Dana has been staking out Kevin’s van and pulls a gun out of her purse.  When their female “friends” leave, she screws on a silencer and starts stomping over but is stopped by the arrival of Cole, who had Arlo track her phone.  Dana finally explains everything and Cole is upset but he takes Dana’s gun and threatens Kevin and Nick himself.  He tells them they can either go to jail or take the money and leave.  Kevin agrees to the second option but Nick says their just getting started and pulls out a knife and gun to go kill Cole.  Kevin tries to talk him down but gets a knife in the gut for his effort.  Nick is about to pop Cole when Kevin yells out a warning and Cole blasts Nick with a shotgun.  Dana runs over to Kevin and he dies in her arms.  Cole and Dana have a little bigger mess to clean up than they thought they would.

Back at CTU, Jack arrives back and learns about Renee getting questioned.  He beats the shit out of the guard and threatens and chastises the Justice department rep.  He and Renee try to escape but CTU pulls out Jack’s only weakness, a taser, and they’re both stopped.  Jack is brought to Hastings office and is chewed out and told to leave.  It’s then that Farhad calls.  With Cole missing, Hastings asks newbie Owens to lead the rescue operation but Jack pokes holes in the pretty much every aspect of the plan and Hastings, seeing how incompetent he is, asks Jack to come back and stay until the situation is completely resolved.  Jack agrees on the condition that Renee is cleared of all charges.

Jack found himself in a familiar but not very pleasant situation last night on 24.  After their undercover operation went badly, Jack decided the only way to salvage it was for Sergei’s men (although he didn’t know who they were at the time) take him and then have CTU follow them to get the location of the rods.  Unfortunately, Sergei’s men took Jack through an underground tunnel and CTU had no idea where they were.

Arriving at Sergei’s restaurant/headquarters, Jack maintained his cover of being arms dealer Ernst Meir but Sergei wasn’t buying it and he had his enforcer Dmitri go to work on Jack with some jumper cables.

Back at CTU, Dana got through to Kevin, who was celebrating his recent windfall at a strip club.  In a move that was not surprising in the least, Kevin stated that he wasn’t going to get rid of his new golden goose so easily and that Dana was going to help them hit some more places.  Arlo confronted Dana about who she kept talking to but she denied it.  Renee and Cole arrived back and while Cole helped Arlo with the UAVs, Renee was supposed to write down her statement about what happened with Vladimir and then undergo a psych evaluation in CTU’s medical office.  Dana tried to tell Cole what was going on but he was called away before she could, but it apparently helped her decide to do something about it.

At the UN, Hassan’s daughter Kayla tried to talk some sense into him but he continues to grow more paranoid and more crazy.  He refused to release Tarin, even after Kayla told him they were romantically involved.  Hassan figured this was the perfect way for Tarin to get at him and told Kayla not to bother him again.  Kayla then went to where they were holding Tarin and convinced the guard to let her see him before they transferred him to the embassy.

Back at Sergei’s, Farhad recieved a call from his men down at the NYC docks that if they didn’t receive the nuclear rods soon, then all their allies back in Kamistan would be arrested or dead and the rods would be useless.  Farhad told them he would handle it but got some bad news from Josef and Sergei.  Sergei was worried about a possible leak in Farhad’s organization thanks to what Ernst said and until they knew who Ernst was, the delivery was going to be delayed.  Farhad was none too pleased but Josef and Sergei had had enough of his crap and told him it might be better if he waited for delivery with his men.  Josef agreed to drive him and they headed out.  Downstairs, Jack, no stranger to interrogation, faked passing out and then managed to turn the jumper cables on Dmitri with his feet.  Jack then needed to figure out how to get down from the pipe he was tied on and broke it off the wall after slamming down on it with his body weight.  Back on solid ground, Jack snapped Dmitri’s neck with his legs and then shut down the power to the building.  Taking out Sergei’s men, he and Sergei got into a shootout in the main dining room.  Jack took cover under a table and Sergei stalked him with a shotgun, shooting at tables to try and uncover Jack.  Jack took out Sergei by smashing him with the table he was hiding under and it seemed like CTU might finally have everything under control.  Sergei agreed to tell CTU where the nuclear rods were in exchange for immunity for himself and Josef.  President Taylor agreed and Cole and a tactical team went to the truck waystation where the tractor trailer hauling the nuclear rods was sitting.  Upon arrival they found Sergei’s men dead and the rods missing.  It seems that Josef had his own plans for the fuel rods and went behind his father’s back to deliver them to Farhad.

Closing things out, Dana had tracked down Kevin and his pal Nick to the strip club and, judging from the gun in her purse, had a nasty surprise in mind for them.

Things reached a boiling point on last night’s 24.  Jack aka Ernst arrived at Vladimir’s garage and demanded that the deal go through.  Vladimir agreed to make some calls but Jack wanted a quick pow wow with Renee to tell her that he was pulling her out.  Renee argued that the only reason Vladimir was doing this was because of her and went back into his office with him while Jack waited outside.  CTU was ready to spring at any moment since Cole and the backup team was following close behind Jack.

Speaking CTU, Dana’s potentially career ending deal with her loser ex boyfriend/ex con Kevin was finally executed as Kevin and his slacker friend entered the police evidence warehouse and found the $120,000 in drug money that Dana had promised them was there.  Not satisfied with this however, Slacker friend started rummaging around the other evidence bins, wasting valuable time that ultimately made them get cornered by the nightly patrolman.  Beating him with a baseball bat, Kevin and Slacker escaped the warehouse but with more heat on them than Dana had wanted.

At the UN, President Hassan is growing more and more paranoid, as he continued to order arrests in his home country and was not satisfied that one of his advisor’s wasn’t working with his brother.  Tarin, Hassan’s chief of security, tried to talk Hassan into letting it go and refocusing on the peace talks but Hassan lied and dismissed him and ordered another of his security men to order the arrest of his advisor’s wife and children in order to get him to talk and also to arrest Tarin.  Tarin, meanwhile met with Hassan’s daughter and she agreed to help but their meeting was cut short by Hassan’s security, who arrested Tarin and said that Hassan cannot be bothered by anyone, not even his daughter.  President Taylor, meanwhile had managed to buy some time by convincing the representatives of the countries overseeing the peace talks to “stay the course”.

Back at Vladimir’s garage, Vladimir had run through his list of names and come up empty.  Unbeknown to him though, he had inadvertently called the man who had the nuclear rods, Sergei, who was not very happy that the information had gotten out and ordered Vladimir dealt with.  Vladimir was content to settle with the $5 million he had gotten from Ernst and having Renee back but Renee started to freak out and demanded that Vladimir call everyone again.  An arguement broke out that ended with Renee stabbing Vladimir to death.  Jack heard the commotion and came to investigate and Renee accidentally stabbed him in the gut.  Fortunately since it wasn’t a taser, Jack was fairly unfazed and even pulled the knife out and killed Vladimir’s second in command when he burst in.  Jack managed to deal with the rest of Vladimir’s men and covered for Renee when he reported to Hastings and CTU.  With their main lead dead, the only thing left was for CTU to sweep the garage for evidence.  However, Sergei’s men arrived first and Jack got the idea that he would allow himself to be taken, figuring CTU would be able to track him and they would be able to find the nuclear rods.  Renee hid in the bathroom and Jack surrendered to the goons.  Unfortunately when CTU arrived a short while later, Renee learned that CTU had seen no one come in or leave the garage and that meant that Jack was missing and would have to fend for himself.

Jack and Renee continued their quest to find the nuclear rods as Renee went back to Vladimir’s garage while Jack called CTU and again voiced his concerns about Renee, since she’s clearly unstable.  Hastings didn’t want to jeopardize the mission but Jack made a deal with him to figure out a way to pull Renee out without blowing their covers.  Cole was then sent out to meet up with Jack to set up his disguise and their back up.  Renee and Vladimir, meanwhile, ironed out the details of the deal.  Vladimir would send a few of his men to meet “Ernst Meir” who would transfer $5 million to their account as a good faith payment.  Vladimir would then make some calls and put in a counter bid for the nuclear material.  Vladimir also wanted something extra from Renee and, despite Jack’s urgings not too, she went dark and slept with him. If that wasn’t enough, Vladimir ordered his men to kill Jack as soon as they had the $5 million.

Meanwhile at the UN, President Taylor recieved news that the BBC had gotten footage of the brutal arrests Hassan’s men were conducting and also that a number of the countries supporting the peace treaty were thinking of pulling out.  President Taylor decided to address the delegates from the supporting countries to urge them to remain in the talks.  President Hassan got an update on the situation from his head of security and learned that the cousin of one of his top advisors was working with Farhad.  Hassan ordered the arrest of this man and demanded he be taken to their embassy for questioning.  His head of security was not to pleased with this and arranged to meet with Hassan’s daughter into possibly talking some sense into him.

Dana’s problems continued to distract her from the mission at hand.  She found a suitable target for Kevin and his loser friend, a police warehouse with a recent delivery of $120,000 in drug money.  She made up a fake ID card and told Kevin she would manipulate the security so they could get in and out with detection.  Wise ass Arlo was becoming suspicious and saw her meet with Kevin on the security camera.  He also provided a fantastic Chloe moment by asking if she noticed anything funny with Dana and Chloe responding that maybe she’s just tired of him coming onto her all the time and he’s lucky she didn’t call human resources on him.  Arlo then said maybe Chloe was just jealous and she came back with a sarcastic “oh yeah, I wish you would constantly stare at my ass all the time.”  and then walked away.  Arlo, of course, checked out her ass.

Jack met up with Cole and changed into his disguise, kind of looking like he was going to go hold Colin Farrell hostage, and went to meet with Vladimir’s men.  They tested his German and then Jack started the transfer.  After it was done, Vladimir’s men went for their guns but were stopped by Cole and his sniper rifle.  Jack then called Vladimir and threatened to kill his last man if they didn’t meet.  Vladimir agreed and Jack and his hostage headed off.

Wrapping things up was the saga of Josef and his radiation soaked brother.  Their hostage doctor ran some tests and prescribed a regiment of drugs that could potentially flush the radiation from his system but it wasn’t a guarantee. Josef agreed to treat his brother at their country home but before he could finish getting the instructions, two of his father’s men barged in and killed the doctor, taking Josef and his brother back to their father.  Sergei was not pleased and after beating up Josef decided to teach him a lesson.  He pulled out a gun and threatened Josef with it before killing his other son.  He then warned Josef to never disobey him again.  What will happen when Jack and Vladimir meet face to face?  Can Dana keep covering up Kevin’s plot?  Will the peace talks go down the tubes?  We’ll have to find out next week.

It was pretty much the Jack & Renee show this week as they tried to get into the good graces of the Russian mob.  Before we get to that though we should do a quick update on the other players.

President Hassan returned to the UN and, after learning about his brother’s betrayal a short while ago, immediately ordered a clean sweep of all his brother’s supporter’s in their country of Kamistan.  Farhad learned of this while arranging the transfer of funds to Russian arms dealer/restaurateur Sergei.  President Taylor asked that Hassan stop the arrests and executions but he refused to show mercy as he said the only thing the people of his country respect is power.  Hassan then went to see his family and learned that his wife Dalia was leaving after hearing that Omar confessed to an affair with reporter Meridith Reed.  Hassan tried to convince her to stay but she wasn’t having it.  One final new side story was that Sergei’s son Josef refused to let his younger brother die from his radiation poisoning and drove him to a doctor who supposedly had a treatment that could help.  Josef threatened him and his family and the doctor had no choice to help.

Back at CTU, Dana was trying to put the finishing touches on Jack and Renee’s backgrounds when she got another call from ex-con/ex-boyfriend Kevin who demanded she come home or he would call Cole and spill everything, including her big secret that she was an accessory to murder and did time for it.  Dana finally relented and upon returning home found one of Kevin’s dead beat friends on her couch and Kevin with a plan to use Dana to access somewhere he could make some big money.  He makes a deal with Dana that if she helps with this score, he’ll disappear.

So back to the main event, which was Jack and Renee’s attempts to find Russian mobster Vladimir.  Jack was pissed because Renee had just chopped off their only lead’s thumb with a hand saw to remove his parole bracelet.  Jack insisted that Renee was unstable and that the mission was over but Renee somewhat convinced him it was the only way.  Jack then beat a hasty retreat before their informant, Ziya, could wake up and followed him and Renee as they drove off to find Vladimir.  Apparently the promise of a couple million balances out losing a thumb.

Ziya and Renee arrived at a auto shop that Vladimir was supposed to be hiding out in and it turns out that Ziya was right.  Jack finalized their background information and Renee went in to meet with Vlad.  Jack was wary that their past history might get in the way of the mission as Chloe learned that Vlad was obsessed with Renee but also beat her badly.  Renee and Vlad had a tense reunion as Vladimir grilled her about her time in Mexico.  Jack fed her all the correct answers but they almost got caught when Vladimir asked them about a corrupt Mexican official who wasn’t in the FBI’s records.  Fortunately Chloe found it in the DEA database in time and Vlad seemed to be satisified, that is until he ordered Ziya and Renee into a car trunk and refused to deal with them.  Jack chased after the car and CTU director agreed to give tactical support.  Unfortunately Vlad tricked them with a decoy and Ziya and Renee were left to fend for themselves at a nearby waterfront.  Ziya was immediately executed by Vlad gave Renee a chance to tell him the truth and she said the truth was she had nowhere to go and no one to help her and this deal was the only thing keeping her going.  She then taunted Vlad to pull the trigger, much to Jack’s horror.  Fortunately Vlad saw something to convince him that Renee was telling the truth and agreed to the deal and she and and his crew headed out with Jack following behind.

Things continued to ramp up on the final two hours of the 24 premiere.  Russian baddie Davros forced his cop buddy turned hostage to call in sick and then got suited up in his own cop uniform to take his place with his cover ID of Mike Farmer.  Meanwhile, Jack arrived where Davros was dropped off and after greasing the palms of some local basketball players, found out that he went into a nearby house.  Peeking in the window, Jack sees that Davros, of course, killed his buddy and his wife and managed to escape before Jack arrived.  After sweeping the house, Jack is trapped inside when a pair of cops come to investigate the neighbor’s claim of a disturbance.  Jack tries to head out the back and confronts the younger of the cops, telling him he’s working for CTU and there’s been a murder.  Before Jack can explain anymore, he’s hit by his one weakness, a taser, and the older and angrier of the cops thinks Jack is a cop killer and has some plans for him before taking him in.

Back at CTU, Hastings continues his interrogation of reporter Meridith Reed but she refuses to say anything.  One of CTU’s nameless agents finds a key card in her belongings, which was only issued to members of President Hassan’s family and gives access to their quarters at the UN.  Under increased pressure by Hastings, Meridith finally reveals that Hassan gave it to her because they’re having an affair.  Hastings calls chief of staff Weiss to see if Hassan can corroborate her story and, despite his brother’s protests, he does.  Chloe thinks this clears her and wants Hastings to send backup for Jack as she lost contact with him, but Hastings still isn’t convinced and there’s still the matter of the large encrypted file on Meridith’s computer, which CTU spends most of the hour trying to decrypt.

Back at the crime scene, Jack is taking a beating from the belligerent bald cop while his partner thinks they should call it in.  Bald cop tells his parnter if he can’t handle it, he should leave, which he does.  Turning back to Jack he gets slammed by Jack, who rams him in the gut with his shoulder and then slams himself onto the floor to break the chair he’s tied to.  Jack then gives some payback with a chair leg until the younger cop comes back down to stop it.  Young cop finally calls the murder in and, at Jack’s suggestion, asks what the murdered cops assignment was.

Back at CTU, Cole is heading out to coordinate the security at the UN and Dana’s ex con/ex boyfriend Kevin arrives at CTU.  Dana goes out to meet him and, for some odd reason, agrees to let him stay at her apartment for one night.

Mike Farmer/Davros arrives at the UN in time to hear Cole’s briefing and takes a call from Farhad Hassan who is slightly panicked that Hassan has told the truth about Meridith.  Davros tells him it doesn’t matter because Hassan will be dead within an hour and then arms a bomb hidden under a manhole cover.

Across town, Jack is being loaded into a cop car when the younger cop gets a call that the murdered cop was part of the UN security detail so Jack was right about it being connected.  He releases Jack agrees to help him get to the UN to stop Mike Farmer.

CTU manages to crack the encrypted file and discover that it’s schematics for a recent UN construction job and also diagrams for a large bomb that is directly under the chamber where the negotiations are being held.  Hastings issues a code red and orders a complete evacuation of the building.  Chloe is the only one not convinced but is overruled by Hastings.  Cole takes Hassan out of the building and loads him into an SUV.  He wants to know where his family is but Farhad says he’ll wait for them and get them into the next car.  Also he doesn’t want to get blown up.  Jack calls Chloe to warn her about Farmer/Davros and she patches him to Cole.  Cole decides to take things into his own hands and races out to cut off Hassan’s car, which he does but takes the brunt of the explosion himself.  Fortunately it’s an A-Team style explosion/car flip and he escapes with minor injuries.  Farther back, Farhad calls Davros and learns that the bomb failed.  Davros tells him he should run since it won’t be long until they figure out it was him who was the insider.  Farhad takes this advice to heart and runs out of the SUV, stabs a CTU agent in the neck with a pen and heads out into the night.  Cole, meanwhile, sees Davros and recognizes him as the guy who launched the rocket at the chopper earlier.  He gives chase into a nearby building but is caught by Davros.  Davros orders him to radio in and open up a hole in the southwest corner so that he can get out.  Cole radios in but tells the others that the suspect has him.  Fortunately for him, Jack arrives just in time to kill Davros and they snap some pictures of his sweet tattoos.  CTU gets them and figures out that the other men had the same tattoos and must be part of a Russian crime syndicate.  After making some calls they learn that they’re best expert is former FBI agent Renee Walker, who has followed in Jack’s footsteps perhaps a little too closely.

Jack and Cole arrive back at CTU and Davros’ body is brought to the morgue for an autopsy.  Jack thinks he’ll finally be able to head to the airport and starts working on his debrief.  In another part of CTU, Hassan gets a call from President Taylor, who tells him how happy she is that he’s alive and wants to know if they will be able to continue the peace agreements.  Hassan agrees since if they stopped, his brother would win.  He also lets Meridith go, realizing that things are too fragile for something like an affair.  Hassan then goes to find Cole to thank him for saving him and at the moment, a hazardous materials alarm goes off.  Davros body has traces of weapons grade uranium on it, which would have to have occured fairly recently.  Hassan thinks he knows why and tells Hastings that before the peace talks, his country was close to building a nuclear weapon but they didn’t have enough radioactive material.  Farhad was approached by a Russian who supposedly had access to old Soviet stockpiles.  Hassan refused but apparently Farhad didn’t drop it.  Hassan also deduces that the radioactive material Davros was near must be on American soil for it to remain as strongly.  Renee arrives by chopper to CTU and after an awkward elevator ride with Chloe, briefs CTU about the tattoos and the men.  It turns out she had been undercover with the Russian mob for two years when she was at the FBI and that all the men killed are part of a mysterious chapter called “Red Square”.  When Hastings learns about the radioactive material, he asks Renee to go back under and try to flush out the seller by getting into contact with her old associates and saying she has a new buyer.  At first it’s supposed to be Cole but Jack, worried about Renee’s state of mind, volunteers to go in his place.  Hastings agrees and Jack and Renee head off to meet with one of Renee’s old contacts. Dana’s bizarre side story continues when Kevin calls her from her apartment and tries to question her about Cole.  They get into a shouting match and Kevin yells at her to get back to her apartment.

Across town, Farhad meets with his Russian seller, Bazheav to finalize the sale of the radioactive material.  Bazheav says that the material is on a ship and will arrive in five hours.  Farhad wants proof it exists so Bazheav takes him to the back of his restaurant to show him his son, who is suffering from radiation poisoning.  Farhad accepts this and the two head off to finalize the deal.

Jack and Renee arrive at an auto parts store where one of Renee’s old contacts works.  She wants to get him to take her to Vladimir Laitanan, who in turn should be able to lead them to the material.  Renee goes in alone and tries to seduce her way to the information.  Her contact would love to help but he has a wrist mounted device since he’s on parole and if he goes anywhere he’s not supposed to, he’s back in prison.  Renee says she knows a way to get off and clamps his arm in a vice.  Getting a hand saw she cuts off his thumb, which pisses off Jack who says the mission is over but Renee claims she’s just warming up.

Whew, 4 hours is a lot to cover in 2 posts but we’re back to our normal time of 9pm on Mondays and The Jack Attack is going to be every Tuesday right here.

24 is back for another action packed day and this year Everything Action is going to be along for the ride every week with our new weekly 24 recap “The Jack Attack”. (Spoilers abound so be warned)

It’s Day 8 and we move from Washington to New York City.  As the season opens we find a man being targeted by a pair of assassins.  Just as he’s about to be sniped, a truck passes by and blocks the shot.  Our lucky stranger makes his way through a seedy crack house until he arrives at a friend’s apartment.  Unfortunately, his friend’s shower got interrupted by a bullet and another of his associates got one as well as he find out after making a call.  He pulls a fast one and give his red hoody to a crackhead and escapes out the back.  The assassins give chase and get a bunch of shots off, with the sniper getting a good one into our man’s shoulder, but he manages to drive off.

Across town, we catch up with our man Jack as he’s babysitting his adorable granddaughter, Teri.  Kim, her husband Stephen and Teri are all visiting Jack in NYC but Kim has been tactfully pushing for Jack to move back to Los Angeles to live near them.  In a getting up to speed comment, Kim mentions that Jack is done with his treatment and is completely cured from his brush with deadly bio-toxin of last season.  Jack surprised Kim by saying that he’s thought a lot about it and he wants to move back to LA, he has a friend who will give him some consulting work and an apartment to rent.  In fact, Jack says that he’ll fly back to LA that night with them.  Kim is overjoyed but, of course, Jack can’t retire quite that easily.

As Jack is packing, our mysterious stranger arrives at his apartment.  It turns out his name is Victor Aruz and he’s one of Jack’s old informants, who helped him most notably in the Salazaar case.  Victor says a big hit is going down today as a group of Russians are planning on taking out President Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor).  Hassan, from an undisclosed Middle Eastern country, is in NYC to work out a peace agreement with President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) that could begin a wide spread peace throughout the whole region.  Jack tries to get names but Victor refuses to say anything until he’s safely at CTU.  Apparently President Taylor decided that the FBI just didn’t cut it last season and CTU is back and bigger than ever.  It looks like they spent billions on the interior designer alone as everything is glass and fancy looking.   CTU 2.0 consists of “man on the street” Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr.), UAV nerd/wise ass Arlo Glass (John Boyd), highly efficient analyst/Ortiz fiancee Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff) and big boss Brian Hastings (Mykelti Washington).  Of course, it wouldn’t be CTU without our beloved computer expert Chloe O’Brien but she seems to be a little over her head as CTU systems are completely changed (maybe they stopped using sockets?).

Jack calls Chloe and tells her about Victor’s claims.  She interrupts Hastings and after hearing the situation, agrees to send a chopper and team to meet Jack and Victor a few blocks away at a local NYPD precinct. Ortiz heads out to leave the team but suggests another team be provided for backup.  Hastings denies this and says a drone will be perfectly fine backup.

Over at the United Nations, Presidents Hassan and Taylor are going back and forth about the peace agreement.  The current issue is that Hassan agrees to stop his country’s nuclear program but wants an international inspection team, while Taylor wants a completely American team.  After taking a break with their respective teams, Taylor learns about the threat against Hassan and gets conflicting opinions from her top men.  Ethan Kanin (Bob Gunton) tells her to not tell Hassan because he might run and stop the peace talks while her new chief of staff Rob Weiss (Chris Diamantopoulos) tells her if she doesn’t tell Hassan and he finds out they knew, that would be worse.  Taylor says she’ll think about it and we also get more catching up comments where we learn that her husband Henry nastily divorced her after she sent her daughter Olivia to jail for murder.

Jack and Victor make their way to the precinct but Victor collapses before they can arrive.  Jack tries to stop the bleeding but his helpfulness looks suspicious to a nearby parking attendant, who calls the police.  The bad guys are monitoring the emergency bands so they get the location when the police radio in to try to corroborate Jack’s story.  Two of the bad guys arrive and after a quick shootout, kill both the cops and chase Jack and Victor into a nearby apartment building.  Jack is out of bullets but Jack is always resourceful.  One of the assassins notices that a fire ax is missing a minute late as Jack chops him in the chest and then throws his partner over the railing and down a few floors.  CTU finds a nearby parking garage for the chopper to land on and Jack and Victor transfer over.  Victor is handed over and Jack tells Ortiz that he did his job and now he’s done.  It’s right at that moment when main baddie Davros (Doug Hutchinson) launches a missile and blows up the chopper. Jack manages to save Ortiz but Victor is in bad shape.  Jack tries to get information but the only thing he manages to get is that there is an insider close to Hassan who is giving the terrorists information.

Jack and Ortiz head back to CTU and Jack gets debriefed by Chloe while Hastings and Ortiz have an argument about what happened.  Hastings wants Ortiz to not mention the fact that he wanted another team instead of the drone, which according to Arlo failed to stop the missile because it’s anti-ballistic software hasn’t been tested in an urban environment.  CTU meanwhile, finds that someone hacked into the UN servers and stole security details.  Doing some computer magic they learn that the intrusion originated on reporter Merdith Reed’s computer.  Reed has been doing a series of articles on Hassan and we learn that she’s also apparently having an affair with Hassan as well.  Her security clearance had been revoked by Hassan’s main advisor/brother Farhad but Hassan demanded that it be reinstated.  Secret Service jumps her before she can get close and she’s quickly sent to CTU for interrogation.

Chloe feels that all this happened a little too easily and she asks Jack to show Hastings some photos she got from a traffic camera of a man (Davros) entering Reed’s apartment building just before the intrusion and then leaving shortly afterward.  Jack wants to leave and half assedly tries to convince Hastings to follow through on Chloe’s evidence.  Hastings refuses and Jack finally thinks he’s going to be able to leave.  Kim arrives and tells Jack that she called Chloe to ask about what was going on.  Kim surprisingly tells Jack that she knows that if something terrible happened and he knew he could have done something, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.  She says she’s OK if Jack needs to stay and finish this, which Jack agrees with but promises to fly to LA the second everything is over.

Jack heads back and immediately switches into tactical mode.  He orders Chloe to track the taxi Davros used to leave the apartment and also to get him access to the armory.  Meanwhile, Hastings is interrogating Meredith and not really getting anywhere while Dana is the early front runner for bizarre side story of the year as she is getting threatening phone calls from her ex-con redneck ex who learned where she was from Dana’s trailer trash sister.  Dana also apparently changed her name from Jenny.  Chloe finds where the taxi dropped of Davros and Jack loads up on guns but is caught by Hastings as Dana and Arlo found that Chloe hacked into the UAV archives to find the taxi’s location.  Hastings is about to arrest Jack when Jack threatens to call President Taylor about his costly decision to not send backup for the chopper team.  Blackmailed, Hastings says if Jack wants to waste his time, he’s free to do so.

Wrapping up at the UN, Presidents Taylor and Hastings had a joint press conference where they answered questions and gave statements about what their positions on the peace agreement are.  In the first big twist, we learn that Hassan’s brother is the actual terrorist insider, as he gets a call from Davros.

Finally, to end the first two hours, Davros heads over to his friend’s house with a fancy New Yorker accent and an apparent job in the NYPD.  He wants to switch shifts but his buddy has a parent teacher conference so he can’t.  Davros is dissappointed and goes to plan B which is to force his buddy to cooperate by holding his wife hostage while he calls and switches.  Davros steals a move from Jack and shoots his buddy’s wife in the leg and he agrees to make the call.