As for things in CTU, well, it was business as usual. And by that I mean lots of furtive glances, courtesy of Chloe, Spencer, Edgar, and Audrey. Who to trust? WHO TO TRUST???

Back at the presidential compound, our old buddy from the Secret Service, agent Pierce, had arrived to escort Martha to the Garden room. But, um, you see, Martha was kind of not where she was supposed to be. Evelyn managed to throw Pierce off her scent, at least temporarily, by saying that the First Lady was in one of her "moods" and couldn't be disturbed. Well, Martha may have been in a mood, but she was also in the men's bathroom where she had cornered some peon by the urinals. Awwwkward. Anyway, the guy had access to the archive room that had written transcripts of every phone conversation in the White House (or presidential compound, as it were). Martha simply wanted to use his keycard to access the room. Yeah, well, she may have been the First Lady, but she hardly had clearance to just waltz into the archives. That's right, girlfriend. You best be returning to Evelyn. The guy tried to politely rebuff her, but Martha suddenly honed her inner Sherry Palmer as she unbuttoned her blouse and threatened to cry for help. Without hesitation (or washing his hands!!), the guy handed over his keycard and off walked Martha, ready to do some dangerous snooping.

Hilary never did this, did she?

Ew, he just touched his penis...

Meanwhile, time was ticking down for wee Derek. The gun was pointed at his head, and all signs were pointing to another execution. Jack had to act quickly! It seemed like his plan was to remotely detonate one of the terrorist's explosive vests, but dammit, he had to flush the RAM!! Hurry! HURRY!!! Just when we thought Derek was a goner, there was a mighty boom, and yes, Jack just blew up a terrorist! Excellent! I had a feeling Derek would survive! What a joyous moment. The only thing bringing it down was that new guy Spencer and all his mysterious glances. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was up to no good! Either that, or he's the classic 24 bad guy who's really a good guy. That's probably it.

Later, Logan wanted to know what the hell was up with that explosion. Buchanan explained that it was caused by an independent acting agent, and oh yeah, "You should know, Mr. President, the man we're talking about is Jack Bauer." Wha-wha-whaaaa? You could practically hear the needle scratching in Logan's head. Well, he did not like being kept out of the loop, and so he launched into one of his douchebag tirades, eventually barking, "You tell me everything!!!" Settle down. Just go do your stupid summit and shut up.

Meanwhile, Agent Pierce had grown tired of waiting for Martha. "Mrs. Logan is due in the Garden Room right now," he told Evelyn through the door. He LOVES going to the Garden Room! Evelyn tried to keep the carrot topped agent at bay, but it was no use. He picked the lock on the door and entered the chamber, causing Evelyn to meekly say, "How dare you barge in here." Way to be intimidating, Evie. Well, Pierce could tell something fishy was going on; so he happily noted that if anything bad were to result out of this, it would all be on Evelyn's shoulders. Great. Worst assistant job ever. Meanwhile, Martha was busy scouring through files in the archive room and making the chaotic mess only a semi-insane person could make. Seriously, how did she manage to scatter so many pages in such little time?

Well, Pierce soon arrived in the archives, and while he escorted Martha back to her room (don't worry, she got what she was looking for), we then caught up with Mr. Mole himself, Walt. In fact, he was busy doing mole-ish activities at that moment -- you know, like telling that mysterious foreign man standing amidst all those TV monitors (probably just a Best Buy with the lights off) that Jack Bauer was in the airport! Uh oh. Don't you just hate when moles ruin things? Sure enough, Mysterious Villain alerted Anton that Jack was lurking around, and after silencing Jack's radio transmissions with a deafening feedback sound (which Fox was sure to crank up high so as to make all the viewers at home lurch back in pain as well), Anton then called out Jack on the PA, saying he would kill Derek if the super agent did not reveal himself. Blast! Well, Jack quickly showed himself, surrendering his gun in the process. As for CTU, with Jack cut now cut off, Buchanan had no choice but to abort the rescue operation that he was just about to launch. Funny how shit always goes down at the top of the hour.

Would Jack be able to save Derek? Would the hostages all die? Would Martha Logan yell at Evelyn about wire hangers? Normally, we'd have to wait a whole long week to find out, but thankfully, there was a fresh new hour waiting for us just minutes away. Yup, it's off to hour two of the night!

Now, while I'm at this small intermission, I'd like to say that this was the first time in years that I opted to watch something else other than the Golden Globes. That's just a testimony to how good 24 is. But if you're reading this, chances are, you're already on board. And by the way, I did watch the awards (after 24, of course. m_ruv will be providing his full analysis, but seriously, Gwenyth Paltrow, SHUT UP with the "Antony Hopkins" shit).

Posted by B-side on January 17, 2006 3:46 AM