24: Change of Heart!

Greetings Gasmii! It’s time for a little ’24′ recap action! This week, everyone has a change of heart and exhibits behavior unusual for them. Olivia changes her mind about being a blood-thirsty bitch, Jack changes his mind about Dirty Muslim Imams, Jonas Hodges changes his mind about witness protection after receiving an awful name, and poor little Hamid changes his mind about his big brother!

Follow me…it’s all recapped for you after the JUMP!

It’s 4AM in Jibraan-Al-Stock-Muslim-Working-Class-Immigrant’s apartment. Evil Tony, NOT-Patty, and the rest of the evil Baddie black-clad crew are finishing up their frame-job, which includes explosives in the underwear drawer and falsified bank transactions and internet activity. Jibraan voices his personal frustration (and that of the viewers) when he asks BadTony WTF is going on and what they want! Tony Villony goes all Jonas-Hodges-style psycho on Jibraan and tells him to shut up, read a Jihadi propaganda statement, and do whatever they say…or they will kill little bro and then kill him. Tony drives the point home and convinces Jibraan that he’s totally “for serious” by poking him in the forehead.

Over at FBI HQ, Jack gives Chloe a few helpful managerial suggestions to use the recently reinstated CTU servers to pull up any and all information on dirty muslims in the greater DC area. Janis takes offense and freaks out about the “racial profiling” because she’s a pain in the ass, and Fox is totally paying lip service to the new realities/politics of the world. Anyhoo…Jack shuts her down by calmly explaining that Crazy-Pants Jonas and his mysterious cabal were going to offload blame to the scary muslims. So racial profiling makes perfect sense in this situation! No arguing with sound logic, right?

Liberal-Pansy-Pants issues shut down…Jack starts dictating new orders to Chloe but loses his train of thought and takes off to free-base his anti-shakey drugs. Chloe freaks out. Janis and Renee let it slip that Jack is infected with the Prion Variant. They’re also kinda surprised that Chloe didn’t know about it.

Chloe storms through FBI HQ and finds Jack in a quiet corner w/ his little druggy kit. She does the whole indignant “you didn’t tell me and I’m your friend” thing. Jack reminds her that getting dirty-f*cking-Almeida is the priority, and there’s no hope for a cure anyway. She cries while he shoots up. I totally respect Mary Lynn and Kiefer for keeping straight faces during this scene. I wonder if knowing he’ll be getting $500,00 per episode next season made it harder to play sad/resigned to death? At any rate, he implores her to go back to work and focus on the task…which she does.

Back in Jibraan’s apartment, the Almeida Baddie Crew are filming a “F*ck You, America!” video starring their helpless patsy. The production is interrupted by a couple of DC’s finest. Everyone freaks out, but Jibraan does an admirable job (at Tony’s gunpoint behind the door) of convincing the cops the domestic disturbance call was a case of a Muslims Gone Wild house party gone wrong, but he took care of it and sent his friends home. Once the Po-Po are gone, the Baddie Crew gets back to filming…and we cut to break!

Five minutes later, Chloe discovers the Almeida Crew manufactured Jibraan bait. She informs Jack and Renee about the $2Mil in bank transactions and fundamentalist web activity. Since Jibraan is an illegal immigrant, they have no address or contact info other than an Imam named Muhtadi Gohar in Georgetown that he listed as a reference. Renee pulls Jack aside to make sure he’s OK, for the umpteenth time in the last few episodes, before they head out to find the dirty Muslim Priest Dude.

Meanwhile, in the White House, Aaron escorts Gay Martin into Ho-Livia’s office. Martin’s specialties include political espionage, intrigue, and butt-sex. Olivia fills him in on her secret little plan to whack Jonas Hodges. Gay Martin tries to talk her out of it. In the process, he confirms that the two of them were responsible for “digging up dirt” on prior President Noah Daniels during her mother’s campaign for the presidency. All things considered, Ho-Livia is ready to take the flying leap to the dark side and gives Gay Martin the itinerary for Jonas Hodges’ transfer to witness protection. She wants the dude dead! It’s revenge for her brother and all the other innocent civilians and yada yada. As Gay Martin leaves the office to make the arrangements, Aaron Pierce glares at the sketchy, political intrigue and butt-sex loving duo. Daddy Pierce may not know what’s going on…but he most definitely does not approve!

Over at FBI HQ, Janis escorts US Marshall Sullivan into Jonas Hodges’ interrogation/hospital room. Hodges calls Janis “young lady”, and she admirably does not go all femi-nazi on his ass before leaving the room. Sullivan gives Hodges a file containing the basics of his new identity. Jonas, in addition to hating the whole idea of witness protection, is not happy with his new name of Robert Tippett. He grumbles that the name sounds like a dog breed. Poor Jonas, his one-liners are slipping along with his health. Jonas starts pontificating about “family” and “company” and how he did nothing wrong. Sullivan, unwilling to engage Jonas in the ego stroking, is all business. He coolly leaves the room, which prompts Jonas to throw a file at the door!

Five minutes later, Jack and Renee pull up to a Mosque in Georgetown. Renee senses that Jack is in full-on aggro mode and tries to remind him of the whole “innocent until proven guilty” concept. One-Track-Jack reminds her that Hodges alluded to “sleeper cells”, so there’s no such thing as “innocent” with these dirty Muslims!

They wake up the poor Imam, who doesn’t seem all that surprised to be getting visit from the Feds and recognizes Jack from the televised hearings earlier this season today! Once inside, Renee presents all of the Almeida-Crew-Manufactured evidence and the Imam in justifiably skeptical/un-cooperative. Jack freaks the f*ck out! He tells the Imam to look at the photo of Jibraan and gets all up in his face! There’s a tense debate/stare-down. Jack is all “We need to racially profile, interrogate without warrants, and do whatever is necessary to save lives!” The Imam is all “Screw that! This is a free society. The dude is harmless, you have no evidence, and I want to see a warrant!”

In the midst of the pissing match, Renee gets a call from Janis. The DC cops that visited Jibraan’s apartment earlier recognized him on the APB and his address is known! So, crisis averted and Imam-bothering over? Not so much…Jack decides to arrest the Imam anyway (despite Renee’s protests) lest he have the opportunity to “warn” Jibraan.

Speaking of Jibraan…the Almeida crew is wrapping up their fabrication of guilt and ready to roll. There’s just one last little loose end…convincing little bro Hamid that Jibraan is a dirty-f*ckin-terrorist! Tony psychs Jibraan up for the lie (with the threat of death, of course) while his team revives Hamid with some smelling salts. The brothers have a little conversation with Jibraan toeing the Almeida-Baddie-Crew line of “I’m a dirty terrorist and these are my friends. I hid it from you, but am telling you now.” Hamid is all confused because his brother was totally normal and not a weird fundamentalist jihadi up until about an hour ago. Poor Jibraan has to keep spewing the Almeida-Crew-Crap…and then says good-bye to his little brother while kissing him in the forehead. But spunky little Hamid isn’t having it! He spits on Jibraan’s face and reminds him about the “it’s a bad day to be a Muslim” conversation from the last episode…and tells Jibraan “it’s an even worse day” to be his brother. Awww…

Five minutes later, Ho-Livia is having a little chit-chat via cell phone with some mysterious dude that Martin Collier put her in touch with. The dude tells her he’s ready to roll as soon as she transfers the fee of $250,000 smackers into his account. Ho-Livia is curious about all the details, but the dude hilariously tells her they’ll have no need for further contact after the funds are transferred and hangs up on her. She’s about to transfer the funds when Aaron comes in and tells her that First Hubby is back at the White House and wants to see her! Either the thought of her father’s disappointment if he ever found out what a heinous little bitch she is, or second thoughts about all the reporters she can buy off with $250,00 gives Lil’ Ho-Livia a change of heart, and she can’t bring herself to click the EXECUTE (pun intended?) button and cancels the bank transaction instead.

Olivia heads out of her office to see Daddy, and uses her cell-phone to call Gay Martin and tell him she “couldn’t go through with it” and could he pretty please call her right away?

“Hey darling! Remember that whole conversation we had about offing the dude who killed my brother? I changed my mind. Oh, also, I’m thinking of going blonde. Thoughts? Brunch Sunday? Call me, sweetie! You’re fab-u-lous! Mwah! It’s Olivia, by the way.”

Jack and Renee are zooming along with their illegally-detained Imam when Chloe calls in with some interesting intel. NOT-Patty’s computer frame-job on Jibraan was no match for Chloe’s tech wizardry and she discovered all the “back dating” shenanigans. Jack relays the information to Renee and the Imam, calling himself “stupid” for not realizing it made more sense for Tony and crew to use an innocent Patsy rather than trust the execution of details to a sleeper cell.

The Imam is SHOCKED, not by the frame-up…but that the Feds actually admitted they were wrong instead of covering their asses on the Jibraan front. He tells Jack that he forgives him for the whole illegally-detained business and Jack tells him to keep his forgiveness for the other pansies and religious folks. Imam dude tells Jack it’s never too late to turn to God, and Jack either bites his tongue to avoid saying something mean or has the onset of one of his shakey attacks. It’s hard to tell.

In the White House, Mama Taylor is hanging with First Hubby and holding his little sippy cup for him. Apparently, she just finished explaining what’s been going on and her rationale for pardoning the Evil bastard that killed their son. Unlike Ho-Livia, he’s cool about it. After all, she’s the President and doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. Ho-Livia walks in about 10 seconds too late to hear what being a proper/supportive family member is all about.

Daddy tells Ho-Livia that he’s super duper pleased with the whole family reconciliation thing…but could she stop being a pissy little bitch about the Jonas Hodges thing? Funny it should come up, because Ho-Livia is just itching to tell Mommy and Daddy about her change of heart and manages to kiss Ma Taylor’s ass a little in the process…talking about her pragmatism, leadership, snappy red suits, and yada yada yada. Mama Taylor is proud of her little Ho and mentions that Jonas will get his someday…maybe in the next life if not this one. Who knew she was a believer in reincarnation? I bet the Christianists would go NUTS with that info during a campaign. Shhh…I won’t tell!

Speaking of Hodges, he’s hanging out awaiting transfer and looking at pictures. Either they are photos of his wife and daughter, or Candy Spelling and her lesbian lover. It’s hard to tell, honestly. Sully comes up and they chat a little about the funny new name and how Hodges isn’t used to it yet. Sully also demands Hodges fork over his wallet and pictures, as he can’t have anything that ties him to his former life. As they head out, Hodges starts spewing his normal crazy stuff about how he doesn’t intend to be Mr. Tippett forever and maybe he and Sully can work together someday. Also, it should be noted that Sully said at one point he “doesn’t intend to be ferrying prisoners around forever.” Hmm…is HE the hired assassin?

Anyhoo, while Sully has Jonas paperwork processed by a guard, Crazy-Pants pulls out one of his pictures. He had stuffed it in his shirt in a final act of defiance to the man! There’s some sad/tingly music while he pouts at the picture, and then KABOOM! The SUV explodes and Jonas is dead dead dead! So much for calling off that hit, eh Ho-Livia?

Five minutes later, in the Oval Office, Tim Woods comes in to update Mama and Ho-Livia on the progress toward stopping the bio-attack. The situation is still not looking good! Nor is Olivia’s face when Tim gets a call about Jonas having gone on to the Starkwood Military Industrial Complex in the sky. Olivia pretends to be surprised and then fakes a cell call to get out of the office. When she’s gone, Tim theorizes that it had to be an “inside job.” Lil’ Livvy is totally gonna get busted!

While a suspicious Aaron hangs back around a corner, Olivia calls Martin and flips her shit big time! She wants to know WTF happened since she changed her mind. She keeps talking and talking, while Martin keeps telling her to shut up, shut up! It’s not a good idea to have phone conversations about stuff like that, so he tells her to get to Pershing Park as soon as she can and they’ll chit-chat face to face. She agrees to meet him. This is going to turn out really great for Olivia, I bet. She’s full of good ideas today!

Jack and Renee roll up to Jibraan and Hamid’s pad and catch up with their SWAT team buddies. They are filled in on the status of the “operation,” and that there’s a Baddie inside with a hostage. The Imam is all helpful and BFF with everyone now and identifies the hostage and Jibraan’s little bro Hamid. Jack has another of his “eureka!” moments and thinks it makes perfect sense to use a loved one as leverage…that’s what he would do to! They prepare to storm the apartment and Jack reiterates to everyone that it’s super-duper important that the hostile be taken alive, as he’s their only hope of finding Tony and crew.

Renee and her new instant-BFF Imam have a private little chat. The Imam expresses concern over Jack’s condition and Renee tells him all about the bio-weapon and how there’s no cure, and how one time she stole $5 out of her Grandma’s purse but gave it back. Seriously, WTF was the point of that conversation? Is it supposed to make the fact that Jack was screaming at and illegally-detained an innocent religious leader more palatable to the audience? I call bull-shit!

Jack and Renee lead the SWAT team as they bust open the door of the apartment and stun the Baddie with some kind of min-grenade thing that knocks him out! Hamid pulls some Bauer-esque moves and seizes the opportunity to shatter a bedroom mirror with his bare hands and then stab the Baddie in the neck with a shard. Jack yells at the boy to stand down, as they need that man alive. Hamid doesn’t quite get why he should let the man who “turned his brother into a terrorist” live. Jack tells Little bro that big bro is innocent. Renee arrests Hamid and Jack screams for a medic as the Baddie is bleeding out!

After a little split-screen check in with everyone (including Olivia silently freaking out in her Oval Office meeting…haha) we cut to Tony and Jibraan entering the back of a van. Some dude is working away on the attack details and Jibraan wants to know what he has to do for them. Tony tells him not to worry his pretty little Muslim head with details and goes back to observing some survellance footage of the DC Metro (subway) system. OMG the subway’s the target!

Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum

There you have it Gasmii! Two weeks and 3 hours left! The season flew by. What did y’all think of this week’s episode and everyones changes of heart? Was Sully the assassin? Is Olivia going to survive her little outing to Pershing Park? Is Tony going to survive the Bauer-Beat-Down coming his way next week?

Tune in Monday and find out.

See you then.

DS