Rade Serbedzija

Born: July 27, 1946

Number of Roles: 155

Best Known for Playing: Russian scientists, military officers and politicians

First Appearance: Mladic Branka in Illusion (1967)

Most Recent Appearance: Nebojsa in The Land of Blood and Honey (2011)

Can Be Seen/Heard in:

• X-Men: First Class
• The Saint
• Batman Begins
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• CSI Miami
• My Own Worst Enemy
• Fallen
• Snatch
• Mission Impossible II
• 24
• Surface
• The Fog
• Space Cowboys
• Mighty Joe Young
• Thick as Thieves

• Battle Royale coming to Blu Ray in March: The cult classic about Japanese school kids who are forced to battle each other to the death will arrive to North America for the first time officially in a special edition Blu Ray set from Anchor Bay.  The set will include the theatrical and director’s cut of the movie along with Battle Royale II and a ton of special features.
• James Bond 22 Film Blu Ray set coming later this year: As it’s the 50th year of Bond on film and with a new Bond movie coming later this year, MGM & Fox are releasing a massive box set of all the previous Bond movies, from Dr. No to Quantum of Solace.  Nine of the movies have never had an HD release before and the set will include hours of bonus material.
• Mad Men returns March 25th:  Finally.
• Police Academy reboot in the works:  Scott Zabielski, co-executive producer of Tosh.0, has been hired by New Line to direct a remake/reboot of the first Police Academy.  The original 80′s movie has become a pop culture classic, being referenced by numerous other movies and TV shows and launching the rocket that is the career of Steve Guttenberg.
• Goodfellas TV show coming to AMC: A television adaptation of the Martin Scorsese classic gangster movie, Goodfellas, is coming to AMC sometime in the future but details are few and far between.  The author of the original book the movie was based on, Nicholas Pileggi, will be a writer on the show.
• Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Man debuting April 1:  DisneyXD is launching a block of programming in April called Marvel Universe that will feature the second season of the amazing Avengers: EMH cartoon and also see the debut of Ultimate Spider-Man, based on the fantastic series by Brian Michael Bendis.  Ultimate Spider-Man will seemingly tie in to the Marvel movie universe as Nick Fury and Agent Coulson will be recurring characters (with Chi McBride and Clark Gregg voicing respectively) and JK Simmons will reprise his role as J. Jonah Jameson.  Drake Bell will voice Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
• The Dark Knight Rises IMAX Tickets on sale now: It’s months away but AMC is pre-selling tickets for midnight IMAX showings of The Dark Knight Rises in select theaters in select cities.  By all accounts, they are going extremely fast.
• 24 and Party Down could be filming by Summer: Keifer Sutherland announced at the recent Television Critics Assosciation press event that the 24 movie should hopefully begin shooting by the end of April, early May and that will be a direct continuation of the show, picking up six months from the end of Season Eight.  Jack Bauer was on the run after going on a murderous rampage in NYC that involved several high ranking American and Russian officials.  Party Down, the cult Starz comedy, might also begin filming in the spring, according to Megan Mullally, and will pick up after season two of the show.
• Arnold Schwarznegger might be joining Stallone in The Tomb:  One of Sly Stallone’s upcoming projects is the prison thriller, The Tomb, where Stallone plays a prison security expert who is wrongfully imprisoned and must use his knowledge to escape.  The latest news is that Arnold has been approached to co-star which would be the greatest Stallone prison team up since Tango & Cash.

Alan Dale

Born: May 6, 1947

Number of Roles: 63

Best Known for Playing: Humorless, powerful businessmen

First Appearance: John Forrest on The Young Doctors (1978-1983)

Most Recent Appearance: Detective Isaksson in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Can Be Seen/Heard in:

• Lost
• The Neighbours
• Ugly Betty
• The Killing
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Entourage
• Undercovers
• Priest
• Burn Notice
• Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
• E-Ring
• NCIS
• The OC
• 24
• The X-Files
• Star Trek: Nemesis

Born: November 15, 1945

Number of Roles: 114

Best Known for Playing: Military men, usually retired, political advisors

First Appearance: Sal Naftari in Rollover (1981)

Most Recent Appearance: Mr. Kaufmann in How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2011)

Can Be Seen/Heard in:

• Demolition Man
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls
• 24
• Royal Pains
• The Lincoln Lawyer
• World War Two: Behind Closed Doors
• Dead Silence
• Fracture
• Desperate Housewives
• Iron Jawed Angels
• Peacemakers
• Greg the Bunny
• The Outer Limits
• JFK
• Patriot Games
• Broken Arrow

Fun Facts:

• Served in the Army during the Vietnam War and won the Bronze Star and Vietnam Service Medal
• Has won two Tony Awards for his roles in Evita and Sweeney Todd

Stephen Root

Born: November 17, 1951

Number of Roles: 164

Best Known for Playing: Milton in Office Space, Bill on King of the Hill, Jimmy James on Newradio

First Appearance: DEA Agent in Crocodile Dundee II (1988)

Most Recent Appearance: Junjie in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (2011)

Can Be Seen/Heard In:

• Justified
• 24
• No Country For Old Men
• Batman: Year One
• Thundercats
• Batman: Brave and The Bold
• Red State
• The Conspirator
• True Blood
• Pushing Daisies
• Tripping the Rift
• Drillbit Taylor
• Idiocracy
• Cedar Rapids
• American Dad
• The West Wing
• Kim Possible
• Dodgeball
• Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Seinfeld
• Surviving Christmas
• Jersey Girl
• Mad Money
• Ice Age: The Meltdown

Fun Facts

• Had scenes in the trailers for White Oleander and Kindergarten Cop but was cut from the actual film
• Frequently receives in the mail or in person red Swingline staplers
• Donated money for an acting studio at the University of Florida which is now named the Stephen Root Acting Studio.

Hulu launched another series with a 24 alum this week as Xander “George Mason” Berkeley stars in The Booth at the End. Berkeley plays a mysterious man who has set up shop at a diner and takes meetings with people who have wishes or problems that need to be solved.  This man promises to help, but only if his clients perform certain tasks for him, some of which are especially horrible or dangerous (for example, one man wishes to save his son from a terminal illness but he has to kill someone else’s child to save him).  It’s got a very Twilight Zone feel and it’s extremely interesting, even though the action never leaves the booth at the diner.  There are 62 short episodes but Hulu is going to be combining them into 20 minute or so episodes and releasing them every Monday till August 8th.  Check out the first episode below.

Joaquim De Almeida

Born: March 15, 1957

Number of Roles: 104

Best Known for Playing: Latin American drug kingpins

First Appearance: The Soldier’s Force in The Soldier (1982)

Most Recent Appearance: Hernan Reyes in Fast Five (2011)

Notable Roles

• Ramon Salazar on 24 Season 3
• Col. Felix Cortez in Clear and Present Danger
• Bucho in Desperado
• General Santa Anna in The Mask of Zorro
• Admiral Piquet in Behind Enemy Lines
• Reynaldo in No Vacancy
• Bane on The Batman
• Captain Manuel Valenza on Wanted
• President Rene Barrientos in Che: Part Two

Fun Facts

• Speaks five languages fluently
• Dual Portuguese and American citizenship

It’s been a year since Jack Bauer saved America for the last time (at least until a movie gets made) and with it’s absence there’s been an open space on television for an action show with a very special set of characteristics like a bad ass main character, ridiculous technology, increasingly ridiculous plot points, constant action and unnecessary character subplots.  I got to thinking if there’s any show that lives up to some, if not all, those characteristics and the result may surprise you.

Before I get to the show I think best fills the void left by 24, let’s talk about some of the shows I looked at but decided, for one reason or another, aren’t quite the 24 successor.  Fox seemingly had an action show all set to go with last year’s debut of Human Target.  Mark Valley was a fun, ass kicking hero and he had support in the form of Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley.  During the first season the show featured some great action in a variety of exotic locations like a monastery and a bullet train.  It was much more formulaic and straight forward then 24′s labyrinthine government conspiracies though but in terms of taking up the action baton, it seemed ready to go.  Then season two started and my hopes were shattered when they introduced two of the most annoying characters in television history and lost pretty much all the charm and excitement they built from the first season.  Instead of going to say, the Alaskan wilderness, now the most exciting place the crew went was generic office building or Mexican town.  So, scratch that off the list.

In terms of competing with the bad assness of Jack Bauer, I think currently Raylan Givens of Justified is our current BAMF.  Raylan is much more layed back than Jack however and, lucky for him, the ladies he sees usually don’t end up dead or insane.  Ultimately, I think Justified might be too good to be the next 24, as it features brilliant writing, acting and sane, fantastically paced plots.  As much we love 24 here at Everything Action, there were times when it was almost daring us to keep watching by focusing on terrible characters and subplots, (last year’s stupid Dana subplot, Kim’s adventures in babysitting during season two and all of season six for instance)

One last show I considered was Burn Notice and it definitely features 24′s love of crazy government conspiracies and Michael Westen could probably give Jack a run for his money but I think, due to it’s nature, it’s too formulaic (there’s always an over arching plot but the meat of the show is the “client of the week”) and the Burn Notice gang, for the best, doesn’t have any unnecessary character subplots and they rely less on technology and more on crafty spy knowledge and conning people.

Ultimately, the show that I think best encapsulates most of the things that made 24, 24 is…*drum roll* Hawaii Five-0.

If you’re freaking out, please keep in mind that I’m not saying that 5-0 is better than 24, I’m just saying that 5-0 has the same specific lovable ridiculousness that we loved about 24.  Speaking of ridiculous, 5-0, although a procedural, has both crazy episode plots and an increasingly insane over arching plot.  Past episodes have included the 5-0 team trying to catch a group of bank robbing tri-athletes, an evil Irish terrorist running amok and a surfing company CEO getting killed while catching a wave.  Similar to 24 as well is the increasing character subplots such as McGarrett’s trouble making sister, Danno’s constant attempts to gain more time with his daughter and Chen’s getting kicked off the force for corruption accusations and his recently introduced ex-wife (coincidentally played by 24 alum Reiko Aylesworth) Along with those, there’s the overarching plot of Steve McGarrett trying to figure out why his father was killed and what case he was working on, the evidence of which is stored in an old toolbox.  Recently we’ve learned *spoilers* that the Japanese Yakuza is involved and were probably responsible for blowing up McGarrett’s mother in a car bomb.  There’s also one, if not many corrupt cops on the Honolulu PD, does that sound like a certain Counter Terrorist Unit to anyone else?

Speaking of CTU, the Five-0 task force seems to have the same amount of vague power as they are able to commandeer any investigation and are able to solve cases through any means necessary.  Five-0 also shares CTU’s love of unrealistic, seemingly magical, computer technology.  In Five-0′s massive headquarters, for only four people, they have a massive touch screen computer that the group is able to “toss” images and files off of onto their numerous hanging monitors.   McGarrett also frequently gets help from his sexy Navy friend, who manages to Chloe such things as using Navy satellites to track suspects, isolating a specific radio frequency on the island and find out where it’s broadcasting from and hacking into a phones to get conversations.

Living up to Jack Bauer is a tall order for anyone and, while Steve McGarrett would probably last 2 minutes against Jack, he’s still an OK substitute.  He definitely shares Jack’s taste for over the top questioning methods.  Steve has hung a guy off a roof by his ankles, dropped a guy into a shark cage and tied a guy to the hood of his car.  Steve also shares Jack’s lack of humor and his sense of intensity and urgentness.

Finally, Hawaii Five-0 definitely shares 24′s sense of action, as there’s not an episode that doesn’t involve at least one shootout and/or car chase.  The pilot kicked off the series action sensibilities with a fantastic sequence that involved Steve McGarrett’s Navy convoy getting attacked by an attack helicopter and that episode ending with Steve and Danno storming a ship to stop the evil Irish terrorist who killed Steve’s father.  Time will tell however if there will ever be such memorable sequences as Jack’s attack of Victor Drazen at the end of Season One, Jack’s attack on Logan in Season Eight or the rescue of Secretary of Defense Heller in Season Four.

Hawaii Five-0 is the show that best lives up to 24′s legacy of great TV action combined with wonderfully ridiculous plots, magical technology and characters that are able to do whatever they want with little to no ramifications.  Agree or disagree?  Let me know your thoughts.

Despicable Me

The A-Team

24 Season Eight

24 The Complete Series

The Other Guys

The Town

The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole

Nanny McPhee Returns

Cyrus

Married with Children The Comlete Series

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus/Mega Piranha Pack

True Grit (Blue Ray)

Arnold Vosloo

Born: June 16, 1962

Number of Roles: 59

Best Known for Playing: Extremely cocky villains

First Appearance: Boetie in Boetie gaan border toe (1984)

Most Recent Appearance: J.T. Waring on Psych (2010)

Notable Roles:

• Imhotep in The Mummy and The Mummy Retruns
• Habib Marwan on 24
• Zartan in GI Joe: Rise of Cobra
• Colonel Coetzee in Blood Diamond
• Pik Van Cleef in Hard Target
• Darkman in Darkman II and III
• Molay in Agent Cody Banks
• Mr. Zisman on Alias
• Vincent on Chuck

Fun Facts

• Got mistaken for Billy Zane when Titanic came out
• Born in South Africa and won numerous awards for his early roles in films made there.
• Lends his likeness and voice to the Revenge of the Mummy ride at Universal Studios

Xander Berkeley

Born: December 16, 1955

Best Known for Playing: Governement agent or doctor

Number of Roles: 184

First Appearance: Adult Christopher Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981)

Most Recent Appearance: Percy on Nikita (2010)

Notable Roles:

• George Mason on 24
• Agent Gibbs in Air Force One
• Tood Voight in Terminator 2: Judgement Day
• Trevor Lyle in Candyman
• Captain Whitaker in A Few Good Men
• Dr. Hodge on The X-Files (“Ice”)
• Henry Hurt in Apollo 13
• Ralph in Heat
• Alexander Willis in Barb Wire
• Lonner in The Rock
• Dr. Lamar in Gattaca
• Dr. Dylan Cotner in Universal Soldier: The Return
• Sheriff Atwater on CSI
• Stuart in Taken

Fun Facts:

• Married 24 co-star Sarah Clarke (Nina Myers)
• Both he and 24 co-star Glenn Morshower have been sheriffs on 24 and both were in Air Force One.
• Accomplished painter, sculptor and make up artist (did his own make up during the second season of 24)

Glenn Morshower

Born: April 25, 1959

Number of Roles: 160

Best Known for Playing: Secret Service and Military Personnel

First Appearance: Orville Henningson in Drive In (1976)

Most Recent Appearance: Col. Gorman on Lie to Me

Notable Roles:

• Aaron Pierce on 24
• Chad Clarke on Friday Night Lights
• General Morshower in Tranformers and Revenge of the Fallen
• Mike Chrysler on The West Wing
• Matthews in Black Hawk Down
• Chief Petty Officer Ned Bannon on JAG
• Coach Rooney on The Secret World of Alex Mack
• Agent Walters in Air Force One
• Enign Burke on Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Ensign Taylor in Under Siege

Fun Facts:

• His 24 character, Aaron Pierce, appeared in every season of 24 except 8.
• Has had 53 roles as some kind of miltiary, police or secret service member.
• He’s a motivational speaker with his program called “The Extra Mile”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP_Oldb2VKk

Sad news today as one of our favorite character actors, Dennis Hopper, passed away at age 74 due to complications related to prostate cancer.  Hopper burst onto the scene with Easy Rider and then starred in Apocaylpse Now and Blue Velvet before finding his niche as one of the all time best villain actors.  He’s arguably the greatest thing about Speed and, of course, we have a soft spot for his role as the first major villain of 24, Victor Drazen.  He also almost made Super Mario Bros. and Waterworld watchable.  One of my favorite roles of his, however, is when he played Christian Slater’s father in True Romance and he runs afoul of Christopher Walken.  Seeing these two great character actors together is on par with the scene between DeNiro and Pacino in the diner in Heat.

Another week of just Zach and Brian and the two try to cover the deluge of TV related happenings that occured last week including season and series finales and the announcement of new shows.

• Show and Tell: Zach checks out the pilot of The Good Guys and then he and Brian give a quick rundown of the  season finales (Fringe, Lost, The Office, Community, Parks and Rec) before going in depth on the series finale of 24, favorite moments from the show’s history and where this season ranks compared to the others.
• News: The networks announced their new TV shows for the upcoming fall and mid-season time slots, Shia LaBoeuf apologizes for Indy 4 and Transformers 2, Megan Fox kicked off of Transformers 3 and the Skrulls might be the villains of The Avengers movie.  And, of course, there’s the New Release Round Up.
• Video Game Movies: Zach and Brian discuss the mostly bad track record of turning video games into movies.

If you like what you hear (or don’t) please leave us some feedback or send in a comment. Our e-mail is contact@everythingaction.com and you can also find us on Twitter @evaction or on Facebook. To not miss an episode, definitely subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes music store and give us a rating and feedback there as well.

Zach and Brian hold down the fort while Chris is off gallivanting in Hawaii and Charlie still tries to get a handle on his internet situation.  The duo talks more in depth about Iron Man 2, the latest episode of 24 (and it’s bad assery), a Steven Seagal classic, news and then lists some of their favorite Action Comedies inspired by this weekend’s release of MacGruber.

• Show and Tell: Brian saw Iron Man 2, Zach watched Poltergeist for the first time and also the Mega Man fan movie and Marked for Death.  The guys also talk about the penultimate single episode of 24.
• News: Tons of news this week including a new Judge Dredd movie on the way, Universal Soldier IV coming, Mandarin in Iron Man 3, The Adjustment Bureau trailer and Human Target gets renewed.
• Action Comedies: With MacGruber coming out, the guys talk about some of their favorite action comedies like Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys and The Rundown.

If you like what you hear (or don’t) please leave us some feedback or send in a comment. Our e-mail is contact@everythingaction.com and you can also find us on Twitter @evaction or on Facebook. To not miss an episode, definitely subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes music store and give us a rating and feedback there as well.

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.

It’s the premiere of Everything Action’s new weekly podcast, The Everything ActionCast.  Join your intrepid hosts Zach, Brian, Chris and Charlie as they talk about the week in action movies.

• Show and Tell: What we’ve been watching, playing or just plain checking out this week.
• News: “Kick-Ass”, “XXX 3-D”, the trailer for The Expendables, and the upcoming Walking Dead series on AMC
• Final Point: The boys reminisce about 24 as it concludes its final season. Also, how should the show go out?

(As always, this is the first episode so there were a few glitches: both human and technical. Look for a much sharper show next week.)

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.