Hey, remember Mitch Anderson? Well, since we last left him, he'd disposed of the mechanic's body, jumped into his uniform and assumed his identity. The shapeshifter assassin reported to some military guy that the plane was all ready to go. The supervisor was a bit suspicious, but Mitch flashed a grin and handed over a full report. He then added, "By the way, if you don't mind, I know I'm only a mechanic, but I'm going to hop in and fly away in the plane. Mmmkay?"

At CTU, Chloe left her busy desk to bring some forms to Audrey. We must all send the writers some thank you notes as we once again were given the gift of yet another incredibly awkward scene as Chloe yammered on about Paul being injured and Jack being lost and how hard it must be for Audrey. "Just SHUT UP!" Audrey seemed to want to say, but instead she quietly told Chloe to zip it. "I was inappropriately blunt, wasn't I?" said Chloe in what I think was the very first unabashedly obvious comedy line in the history of 24. I mean, they've had funny lines before, but never with such sitcom zest. Bravo. Bravo.

Later, Chloe and Edgar went at it again, this time after he asked her for help on something. Chloe simply snapped that what he needed done was something that the boss should be doing, and "isn't that what you think you are?" To which Edgar replied "I don't need your tharcasm!" You know, these two should just make out already. Hey, random aside: remember last year when Chloe turned out to have a baby under her desk? Man, that was ridiculous.

With the Behrooz trade impending, Division sent in a new bureaucrat to aid Michelle. His name was Bill Buchanan, and surely he exists solely to be the next great CTU asshole. Clearly Michelle couldn't be the sole authority figure in the office. We have to like her. Personally, I think they should bring back Driscoll. Alberta Watson seemed to be the only actor willing to make the CTU bureaucrat NOT a ridiculous caricature. Well, Xander Berkley's Mason from the first two seasons was pretty good too. Anyway, CTU made an official decision to trade Behrooz for Jack -- with any luck, the boy will lead them to Marwan, they rationalized. Methinks not.

As for Jack, he was futzing around with wires in his holding cell. A few guards came in to load him up in a van, but as usual, he kicked viciously and managed to take them all down. Unfortunately, more guards came and ended his little kicking spree, but hey, it was a good try, Jack. Not all was lost though. As Jack was dragged out of the room, we saw that a few wires in the wall had been cut. Oh, what tricky antics was Jack up to now??

Hey, remember Meg? Well, turns out there's a reason why she's working in the CTU basement. She's an idiot. She went through the LAPD records and found the flagged military homicides, but when Edgar told her to bring the report up to him, she copied the files onto an unlabeled CD. Bitch, use a Sharpie! To make matters worse, our techie ingenue left the CD on top of Edgar's gigantic stack of other blank discs. It's just begging to get lost. Way to go, MEG.

As the swap approached, Curtis needed to prep Behrooz. This was done by implanting two tracking devices under Behrooz's skin. Yowsahs! "Does my mother know about this?" Behrooz asked.

"Yes," replied Curtis stone-faced, adding "Well, she's going to be with us. I mean that spiritually. She's dead." Actually, Curtis didn't say that, but it didn't really matter. Behrooz was about to have the adventure of a lifetime. Once again, Habib called CTU via Edgar ("Hello, Thee-TU") and announced that he wanted to do the exchange on top of a dam. Moments later, Curtis and Behrooz were in a van driving to the "exposure point". You know, Curtis's steely facade and Behrooz's scared innocence really mesh well. I'd like to see them on their own spin-off show, driving around the country and making wrongs right. It would be like Walker Texas Ranger meets Highway to Heaven. I think.

Anyway, somewhere around here Marwan's cellphone rang, and I couldn't help noticing his extremely cheery, effeminate ringtone. Is he like a Jamster fanatic? Does he have a cellphone wallpaper that's like Sprewell rims spinning ("Bling Bling Rims", if you will)? I half expected Habib to turn to a henchman and say "You like this ringtone? It's Omarion's latest single. I believe it's called 'O'. It's quite catchy. Anyway, I got to take this. Terrorist stuff."

After much hype, the exchange finally took place, despite the fact that Behrooz felt scared. Just when the ragamuffin was in the terrorists hands, a sniper took aim at Jack, ready to take him out. Then suddenly, a CTU gunman shot out and saved Jack! Wow! A CTU security detail that actually provides security! We knew those perimeters would work someday!

Posted by B-side on March 30, 2005 2:03 AM