Well, these two managed to figure out the trajectory of the missile and HOLY SHIT -- it was headed for Los Angeles! I never would have guessed! Personally, you'd think the terrorists would attack Washington, but I guess movie stars can really be more annoying than politicians (case in point, watch Tom Cruise on Oprah yesterday. If that doesn't make you want to nuke Hollywood, I don't know what will).

With a missile heading towards CTU, would the military be able to find it in time? Well, the answer was yes. In fact, the national guard took out the nuke rather efficiently, thus keeping the suspense tightly confined to a thirty second duration. Again, another plot element that could have used a little more build up.

Well, Marwan was dead, the missile was destroyed, and yet we still had thirty more minutes left in the show. What gives? A second missile? A second Marwan? As I pondered these things, Tony and Michelle finally had their teary reunion while down the hall, Audrey watched Paul Raines's body get hauled out of the building. By the way, where did Heller go? He popped up last week and was gone again this week. It's the season finale. Can we get a little closure with his character? Anyway, Audrey found Jack and promptly broke up with him, saying that his home is really CTU. Wait, was she dumping him AND firing him at the same time? Wow, she really has a chip on her shoulder.

Just when it couldn't get any worse for Jack, Palmer called up to say that he was being arrested for the whole Chinese mess and apologized sincerely for his role in it. Of course, RationalJack understood completely and accepted his fate happily. But wait, was Jack going to be simply arrested? Me thinks not! Turns out that this Cummings fellow wanted Jack dead, regardless of what Logan had ordered. He called up Jack's Secret Service escort and told him to make sure there was an "accident." Uh oh, Jack better keep his wits about him! But hold on again! Good old Mike had overheard the entire conversation, and in his ongoing attempts to regain the man-love of Palmer, he reported that Jack was going to be murdered.

Well, this was unacceptable to Palmer; so he marched right in to Logan's office to fix this. Of course, at this point, Logan was happily accepting congratulations from various politicians and world leaders for guiding the country so well during this crisis. When he saw David, he let out a big smile, and I half expected him to go all DeNiro and glow "This guy! This guy! Eh? This guy! What a champ!" The mood quickly soured though as Palmer alerted him of Cummings' plan. Logan refused to step on Cummings toes and told Palmer to git. Back at CTU, we found Jack and Tony changing in the locker room (Jack had a locker? Then again, it wouldn't have been too hard to find a spare one, considering that about 95% of the field team had died that day). Palmer called Jack to say that he was entering a trap and that Logan was having him killed. Jack simply thanked the President and stared malevolently at Tony's backside. Uh oh. A little butt-rape to end out the day? No, probably something a little more clever...

Well, if Buchanan and an ogre had a love child, it would be the big neanderthal of a man that came to fetch Jack. His name was Dale Spaulding, and no sooner had he arrived that the alarms in CTU suddenly went off. Tony came running in to say that Jack cold cocked him and had escaped. Since when did escaping people ever warrant an alarm at CTU? How many times has Jack fled CTU without WWIII breaking out on the PA system? Anyway, Tony and Dale headed into a random industrial room (the CTU power plant, located next to the CTU trauma center) where Jack shot a few bullets into the air. Two things were about to happen. Either Tony was going to be in on Jack's whole plan, or Tony was about to die. Well, turns out it was the former. After some yelling and more gunfire, Tony discovered Jack lying "dead" in the corner. Both guys felt his pulse - or lack of it - and as the whole gang ran in (Buchanan, Michelle, Chloe), Jack was pronounced officially dead. "Take him into the situation room," said Buchanan as Dale left, adding "Also, make sure to clean up the Incident Room and the Occurrence Chamber."

Hey Jack, wake up. Bo Bice is about to sing!

Sure enough, as the door closed and Dale was officially out of the room, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Turns out the whole gang had worked together to fool Dale. Stupid Dale. Now they just needed to revive Jack. Tony shot him up with some epinephrine, but wait, he didn't seem to be responding! That's okay, Jack's died before. Just keep doing CPR. Sure enough, in a very Flatliners Kiefer Sutherland move, Jack came back from the other side and was ready to start his new life.

Meanwhile, with Dale gone, Buchanan broke the news to Audrey that Jack had died. Ouch. 0 for 2 with the lovers today. That's got to make you feel reeeeal good, Audrey. In response to the news, the heartbroken widow leaned against a wall and DROPPED HER FILES! Uh, you're going to pick those up right? Just wondering.

You know, maybe if you didn't drop your files, you would have seen the memo that said "Jack's alive!"

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