The Jack Attack: Hours 23 and 24
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.