Last night's episode of 24 contained two important revelations.
1) There is a mole, because we can't get to episode 6 of any season of 24 without a mole. More on that in a bit.
2) For the past two years, while Jack has been off the grid, he's been playing vigilante and taking down criminal masterminds while working undercover for a terrorist arms dealer. Somehow, nobody has noticed that these criminal masterminds keep disappearing, and everyone in the underworld just trusts Jack.
"This time I've been doing it for me," he tells his new partner Kate Morgan. Shades of Walter White, except instead of making meth he shoots people in the knee.
The bulk of this episode—a great one!—involves Jack convincing his former arms dealer boss to log into a bank account and inadvertently upload a virus that Chloe will use to track down his connections to Lady Big-Bad Terrorist Catelyn Stark. To kick off this crazy plan, which, like most of Jack's plans, involves TAKING THINGS TOO FAR, Jack decides to pretend he has kidnapped and drugged Kate, who, being a team player, goes and sticks a propofol needle into her own neck. This is a serious turn-on for Jack, who immediately has to unload some steam by killing two terrorists.
Jack does his thing with Terrorist Arms Dealer and convinces the terrorists he's back undercover with them. (Just like in season 2, and 3, and 4, and...) There's a tense exchange where Jack has to do some hardcore bluffing, but he rolls a 20 and nails it. While this is happening, some thugs interrogate Kate for a while, because she'll never really evolve into the true Lady Jack Bauer without getting tortured a few times.
Then the British come by and ruin everything, because as South Park pointed out back in 2007, they're America's oldest enemy.
British agents try to apprehend Bauer, fail, and get blown up. In the other room, after a few gross torture scenes, Kate pulls out the ol' Jack Bauer Leg Choke and takes out one of her interrogators in truly suave fashion. Then Jack gets the virus uploaded so Chloe can help him track down the terrorists before the drones blow up all of London. He and Kate get the hell out of dodge while the British soldiers are all asleep/unconscious/dead.
MEANWHILE, a couple of other, significantly less interesting things are happening.
Lady Terrorist is being ice cold to Terrorist Daughter—again—this time telling the poor chick to kill her dead husband's sister and her dead husband's sister's child, because apparently forcing Terrorist Daughter to watch her husband get executed wasn't enough for nasty old Catelyn Stark. Then Terrorist Daughter gets hit by a bus.
President Heller is forgetting things and repeating words, which leads British Prime Minister Voldemort and his hot blonde assistant to betray the Americans and send their own troops to interfere with Jack Bauer's plans, which is kind of like stepping between a lion and a hunk of raw meat: you might think you can pull it off, but you're probably just gonna get eaten.
The Russians, led by a bald man with a ridiculous mustache, still want Jack's head on a plate, because they just can't get over that one time when he murdered like 40 of their agents. I mean, come on. That was like four years ago. Deal with it.
Also, CIA analyst Jordan, who is somewhere between Edgar and Milo on the Analyst Coolness Scale, is doing sketchy things and generally throwing up "I'M A MOLE" signals all episode, which means, of course, that he's not the mole.
Then it turns out the mole is actually—DUN DUN DUN—CIA boss Steve Navarro. This doesn't seem to make much sense, but hey, who ever watched 24 because it makes sense?
Stray observations:
- Terrorist Daughter is really not a good actress.
- The strongest part of last night's episode was the Jack/Kate partnership. I'm becoming convinced that Jack and Kate need to get their own spinoff show. I'm already writing the fanfiction.
- "There's no Metsker at the bank." GOOD CALL, JACK.
- Kate's gradual evolution to Woman Jack Bauer might be the greatest thing that 24 has ever done. Renee didn't even compare. "Just make it count."
- Sign #230492353 that this is still 24: Jack saying "I don't have time to explain."
- Is Mark gonna turn out to be a good guy after all? He reminds me of that one advisor in season 6 who seemed like a dick but then turned out to be a decent dude by the end of the day. You know—the guy from Ally McBeal.
- I'm not sure if I like this whole "president Heller has Alzheimer's" subplot. How can they conclude it? He's gotta die, right? Or resign? He can't just keep running the country like this. Homeboy's gonna forget where he put all the nuclear launch codes.
- If the next plot of this season is Heller forgetting where he put all the nuclear launch codes, I'M DONE.
- "Didn't you hear what I said? Farah's completely in the dark."
"And you also said Naveed could be trusted."
"She has her daughter with her."
"Then you have two loose ends to take care of." - Seriously, how is Steve Navarro a mole? And who was he talking to? WAS IT TONY?
- NOTE: I'll be in Los Angeles next week for E3, so there will be no recap then. Expect your weekly 24 recaps to resume on June 17.
Mole Count: 1. WE HAVE A MOLE. I REPEAT: WE HAVE A MOLE.
Jack Bauer Kill Count: 2 (Arms dealers n' shit)
Jack Bauer "Dammit" Count: 0.
Ridiculous Jack Bauer Quote of the Week: "Mr. Boudreau, if I live through today—which, by the way, is highly unlikely—I'm going straight to prison. I'm the last thing you need to worry about."