Well, suddenly raging guitars filled the soundtrack as Mandy approached her front door. Oh no! What would happen? Would she kill Tony? Would she escape into the night? Turns out neither. All she did was... put on lipstick? Oh, I get it! The show's telling us that sexy women are dangerous! Phew! For a moment there, I was afraid I'd have to stray from my gender stereotypes.

Anyway, once she was all purdy and such, Mandy headed over to the neighboring apartment where a guy and a girl greeted her happily. Apparently, she actually knew these people. They asked if she was okay, and she said yeah, but then asked if "Joss" was around. Huh? Joss? Moments later, a fat dude poked his head out of the bedroom, and before we could even contemplate if this was Joss, Mandy had already shot him down, sending the other girl cowering in the corner. Uh, what exactly is going on here? Who are these people? Why is Mandy killing random jerks named Joss?

The mysterious, short-lived, and utterly unexplained Joss.

Of course we didn't get an answer because we cut to commercial, and when we returned, we were back with the Prez who had nothing but bad news. "I just got off a very disturbing phone call from the Chinese foreign secretary," he said, elaborating: "He plans to vote for Carrie Underwood. I just don't understand." Actually, turns out the Chinese were still mad about that whole consulate mess and now were waving around those photos of stupid Howard Burn. This of course led President Logan to go nuts and yell at Palmer, eventually spouting out a Chicken Little-ish "We're gonna die! We're all gonna die!" type rant. "Don't say that!" reprimanded Palmer in one of his rarely seen growls. Eventually he calmed Logan down and told him, "Remain presidential," adding, "Maybe now would be a good time to discuss insurance alternatives with Allstate. Here, let me stand in the middle of this road and talk about it."

Meanwhile, Howard Burn -- last seen exiting CTU via helicopter two episodes ago -- made his triumphant return as he landed on a rooftop in San Diego. He checked in with Buchanan, and with everything seeming fine and dandy, he hopped in an SUV where (SURPRISE!) Chang, the Chinese security official, was waiting. Turns out this crafty guy had taken out Burn's CTU escort (there's a shocker). And how did Chang know to do that? Well, before he made his little visit to Buchanan two hours ago, the Chinese government started pulling satellite imagery on CTU and noticed a helicopter leaving with Burn. So of course they followed it all the way down to San Diego. Still doesn't explain how Chang got there so quickly. In fact, all the logistics about this particular twist made absolutely no sense (how did the Chinese intercept CTU before the helicopter landed? How did Chang have enough time to get off his helicopter and get into the CTU vehicle? How did Burn not notice ALL THE ASIAN MEN IN THE SUV???). Oh well, it's one of the many time-bending mysteries of 24.

Back at CTU, Michelle was freaking out again as the sting operation on Mandy neared. With little else to do, she took out her rage on poor Edgar Stiles as she impatiently asked "Can't we multiplex?" I don't get it. Does she want to go to the movies? Oh wait, never mind. It was just typical CTU techno-babble. Apparently Michelle wanted to multiplex the triangulation of the blowfish algorithm in order to generate enough gigawatts for the flux capacitor. Makes perfect sense.

Anyway, as a random rain storm (or as it's known outside of Los Angeles: rain) descended on the scene, Mandy called Michelle to say that she was leaving the buildiing. Uh, before you do that, could you explain your little scuffle with Joss? No? Okay, fine. Anyway, as Mandy continued to talk on the phone, a man and a woman fled the apartment complex. Surely this was Mandy and Tony, but wait! We couldn't get a good look at the couple. Uh oh. I smell a decoy! Suddenly, the duo hopped into a car, and as the field agents swarmed, the vehicle exploded in the now customary weekly fireball. This has fakeout written all over it.

Alas, everyone at CTU fell for it (except Jack, but we'll get to that later). Michelle let out a heart-wrenching "NO!!!", and with Mandy believed to be dead, Palmer said CTU should focus its efforts on post-nuclear-disaster management. Of course, Logan went nuts -- again -- and chewed out Palmer... again. "You failed me, David. And you failed your country," he complained. Hey, quick call of hands. Who screwed up CTU's chances of apprehending Marwan about four or five hours ago? Oh that's right, you did, LOGAN. Ah, but there I go again, yelling at fictional characters. But seriously, this guy has more mood swings than Courtney Love in menopause (it hasn't happened yet, but man, do I fear it).

Later, as MIchelle stared vacantly in an empty room, Buchanan comforted her with a few reassuring words. Oh I see the way this goes. Wait till her man's died and then you swoop in to get a piece. Real clever, Buchanan. Real clever. Meanwhile, out in the field, Jack's super intuition was telling him that Tony wasn't dead. He reviewed the video footage of the explosion over and over again, trying to match it with the audio of Mandy's phone call. Funny. There didn't seem to be any trace of an explosion on Mandy's call. You'd think there would be, considering she, you know, claimed to be in the car. Huh. Maaaaaaybe she wasn't in the car! Still, you'd think she'd try to make an explosion noise for congruity. At the very least, say "Ka-boom! I'm dead now."

Posted by B-side on May 24, 2005 1:11 PM