24: FINALE (FINALLY)!

Let’s get right to it, because there’s two hours of action and a pant-load of images…after the JUMP!

Greetings Gasmii! I need to apologize for the lateness of this recap. Life took a turn for the busy on me and then my blogging software decided to rebel and make my life even more miserable. This week was filled with numerous crashes in which all of my images were lost..repeatedly! The image above was taken at St. Flipit’s pad while he patiently awaited my late-ass! So sorry, Flip!

It’s 6AM and Lil’ Ho-Livia awaits her Department of Justice interrogation in front of 3 flat panel monitors flashing a Cisco TelePresence Logo. Product Placement rocks! The dude in the middle screen (the Deputy Attorney General, as it turns out) informs Ho that the chick to his right and the dude to his left are from DOJ and inquiring after the Hodges murder, while he is there to protect her “interests.” Olivia’s all: “Why in the world would I need protecting”? The dude tells her it was a poor choice of words, and this whole interrogation is merely a formality. This seems to calm nervous/fidgety Ho-Livia down a bit.

Outside the underground War Room, Madame Prez is heading into a briefing with the Joint Chiefs and stops to ask Tim where Olivia is. Woods informs her that Olivia is tied up giving her interview/statement and won’t be joining the briefing which prompts a little pout on Ma Taylor’s part. She inquires after the whole interrogation thing, and Woods tells her they are still working on it…but that the list of people who were in the know was decidedly short and it HAD to have come from inside. After her second pout of the conversation, Ma Taylor strides in to address her crew.

Madame Prez starts out by acknowledging that everyone would probably like to leave the war room and get a little shut-eye after one CRAZY day, but she feels it’s important to bring them up to speed. Even though the final canister has been recovered/neutralized, she feels the threat from the Shadow Gang of Private Military Contractors is not over. While she speaks, a helpful power-point presentation runs behind her. It shows Crazy Pants Jonas with a red “DECEASED” label and NOT-Patty/Cara in her Blonde Patty disguise from the White House. Admiral Smith is, once again, the only person in the room with a speaking role, and asks which firms/individuals are involved. Madame Prez is all: “Hell if I know!” The hope of the US Government falls solely on the shoulders of Evil-Almeida, who is currently in custody. Uh-Oh!

Speaking of Tony, he’s still in the back of that FBI van with Jack, Renee, a random FBI Agent, and a bunch of other vehicles/choppers in tow! Renee is feeling pretty confident that a secure “corridor” has been established to get Tony to HQ and through the West Entrance. Just then, Cara pipes in over Jack’s earpiece and tells him the window is shrinking and he’s got about 4 minutes to shake the rest of the feds when they take Exit 70! As if he needed reminding, she mentions imperiled Kim with her operatives and that she’s “watching her” right now.

Kim is still in the airport hanging out with Parker Posey’s Mom and the Long-Haired Hippie Hubby dude. Kim is fidgety and worried that she won’t get on the flight, as she’s flying stand-by. Hippie Hubby helpfully reminds her that she’ll be OK because people are probably spooked about flying after the two flights that went down today. That elicits a vaguely confused/suspicions look from Kimbo. A gentleman approaches the merry trio and asks Hippie Hubby to clear away his laptop that’s positioned directly in front of Kim so his elderly Mom can have a seat. When Hippie Hubby appears reluctant, it brings about Suspicious look #2 from Kim. #3 follows shortly when kim notices the big bleeding scratch on HH’s neck! Mrs. Posey tries to cover mentioning that Hubby hit his neck on the door of the cab earlier. He heads off to find a “band aid” while Kim looks around slightly unsettled. Nothing that happened in the entire last hour clued her in to the creeps she’s hanging out with, but the Bauer Genes kicked in and in 30 seconds, her Spidey Sense started to tingle!

Turns out the “band aid” thing was just another of Hippie Hubby’s lies, as he heads away from Kimbo and calls Cara. He’s a little worried that she’s getting suspicious and might “make” them. Cara’s helpful advice is to hold his damn horses and, whatever he and fake wifey do…they CAN NOT be taken alive.

Back in the FBI van, Jack makes his move. He starts out by asking Renee to be a bud and let him borrow her communications device, which she unquestioningly hands over. After disabling her device, Jack pulls his weapon and starts barking demands at everyone. Renee is super duper confused and gives Jack a “WTF?!” look. Jack demands their weapons, or he’ll be forced to shoot. Renee calls bullshit, so Jack proves his point by shooting the random agent in the leg while Tony smirks! Renee, of course, would like to please know WTF is going on, but Jack is too busy instructing the driver to cuff himself to the steering wheel and ditch the rest of the convoy by taking a quick exit from the highway.

The rest of the vehicles and chopper start freaking out and asking Renee to please tell them what the freakin’ heck is going on?! Renee, communications devise disabled, does not respond. At HQ, we see Janis with a worried expression on her face, and Chloe with a “oh man…not again!” expression.

Even Chloe’s worried eye-rolls are somehow offbeat!

Thankfully, we aren’t subjected to a drawn out sense of confusion and later reveal between Jack and Renee. As the van speeds toward Cara, Jack answers Renee’s “Why!?” questions by filling her in on the whole Agent Franks dead and Kim in the hands of Tony’s dirty operatives stuff. Renee turns her wrath in the right place, calling Tony a “sunovabitch!” while Tony barks at Jack to stop spilling the beans!

While the Feds scramble to maintain a visual and reconnect with the wayward van, Jack orders the driver to swerve into a tunnel where they pull up to Cara’s waiting vehicle. Renee pipes in again with “you don’t have to do this!” and Jack, realizing she hasn’t been around for the first six seasons, informs her that what he can’t do is let Kim be harmed! While he and Tony cuff the Feds, Jack whispers in Renee’s ear that they have a camera on Kim at the airport, and he doesn’t trust them to let her go. Once he disappears with the star witness he needs her to pwetty pweeze put all of her energies into saving his daughter! He probably was about to apologize for the “shooting her agent in the leg” bit, but a dirty look from Tony gets him moving.

Tony exits the van, taking Jack with him as a little souvenir/hostage. Jack takes the opportunity to advocate for the Baddies letting Kim go, but Tony tells him to shut up and get in the car. Cara’s a little pissed off because taking Jack hostage wasn’t part of the plan and could he please just shoot the dude and get it over with so they can make a clean escape?! Tony tells her she’s not seeing the big pictures, and despite losing the last canister, they now have Jack, who is full of the pathogen and can be used to reconstitute the weapons once he kicks the bucket! Apparently, that was Evil-Meida’s plan all along, and why he had the operatives placed on Kimmie. Not Cara smirks approvingly at her Evil Genius boyfriend and they speed away with hostage Jack while Renee looks on from the back of the van. And we cut to break!

Five minutes later, Agent Aaron Pierce and Former Chief of Staff Kanin are walking through the White House. Ethan wants to know whassup, and Aaron tells him a little about Hodges murder and his suspicions of Ho-Livia being involved. To his credit, Kanin expresses that Olivia may be a heinous little bitch, but he doesn’t believe she’s capable of murder. Aaron fills Ethan regarding Olivia’s “wanting Hodges dead” rant, as well as the super secret meeting with Martin Collier, the evil sodomite! Kanin is STILL a little reluctant because the writers are working over-time to not bring him down to heinous little Ho-Livia’s level. Ultimately, he reluctantly agrees to help Aaron and suspenseful cloak and dagger music plays while he enters the Chief of Staff’s office to retrieve the recording from a device hidden behind a picture on the wall.

Speaking of the heinous Ho-Bag…she’s wrapping up her statement by being a vile little bitch and snarking at the prosecutors about their questions. They respectfully end the call, and she breathes a sigh of relief before storming back toward her office.

The cloak and dagger music plays again, while Pierce hears she’s on the way back! Kanin starts hilariously fumbling with the recording device and trying to cover his tracks, while Pierce heads into the hallway to stall Ho-Livia. The stalling fails spectacularly, as Aaron barely gets out that he needs to tell her something, before she bursts into the office and freaks out when she discovers Ethan there! Ethan and Aaron concoct a story about Kanin forgetting some files, which he came back to retrieve. Olivia demands to see them. Convinced they are harmless memos, she let’s Kanin leave while she gives him the stink eye. Pierce walks out with Kanin, and Ho-Livia calls him back in. (He’s fidgeting with his cast when he reenters). She starts bitchily ripping Aaron a new Asshole about letting people into her office when she is suddenly stunned silent by discovering the slightly ajar picture and recording device! She freaks out trying to open the device, and calls security to have Ethan detained when she can’t get it open. Aaron plays innocent and asks what’s going on, and Olivia tells him that Ethan stole her property!

Meanwhile, Ethan is high-tailing it out of the White House while the Cloak and Dagger music plays yet again! He’s nearly in the clear when the Secret Service detains him on the “Acting Chief of Staff’s” orders. Ethan plays stupid and goes along with them.

Meanwhile, the Feds have finally caught up with Renee and the wayward van. She informs Janis and Chloe about Jack’s desperate jailbreak of Tony to save his poor daughter. Oh, and lest they put Kimmie in more danger, everything needs to be handled super-smoothly! In other words, no airport cops! Janis offers to call the White House to bring them up to speed, while Chloe calls Kim’s departure gate in an attempt to fill Lil’ Kim in.

At the terminal, Kim gets called to the ticketing desk for a standby ticket while the evil couple eyes her evilly. Once at the desk, the agents put her on the phone with Renee who informs her she’s in Stranger Danger from Tony Almeida and his crew. Kim recalls the spooky Hispanic man from earlier, but Renee tells her that was a Federal Agent and he’s been murdered. She mentions the live feed, and want to know if Kim has noticed anyone with a camera, cell phone, or something? Kim says “or a laptop” and the pieces all click into place! She tells Renee about the nice couple who’ve been hanging with her and starts to describe the man, when he pops up right behind her! Yikes! She covers and tells him the call was from security who had to break into her luggage because she left her “electric toothbrush on.” Is that what they’re calling them these days?

Renee senses the danger and calls in an alert to have the terminal locked down…but try not to be too obvious about it, mm’kay?

Meanwhile, Kim tries to divert the couples’ attention from the phone call by showing them pictures of Little Teri. Unfortunately, the airport PD are being pretty indiscreet about swarming the terminal, and Hippie Hubby gets the Heebie-Jeebies! He tells his wifey to “take” Kim, which she does at gunpoint while he starts blasting at the Po-Po with a gun! (How’d they get a gun and knife through security, anyway?)

Hippie Hubby takes out a bunch of cops, while Mrs. Posey holds Kimmie hostage with her knife at her throat. Kim finds a ballpoint pen in her pocket, and stabs Mrs. Posey in the leg, freeing herself! The cops quickly take the Evil woman out, while Hubby keeps blasting away! He’s about to shoot a helpless Kim, when one of the cops finally gets a good shot in and gets Hubby in the leg. He high-tails it out an emergency exit with his laptop while Kim calls Renee and lets her know what went down. Renee starts to tell Kim that they need to dude to find her father/Tony! She probably meant to tell Kim to just figure out which way he’s heading, but Kim’s phone cuts out (damn low battery!) and she takes that as a cue to chase after Hippie Hubby in her heels as we cut to break!

Five minutes later, Olivia oozes into Kanin’s holding room and demands he fork over the data card from the digital recorder, and threatens him with a strip search in the process! He does his best to reason with her, and fibs a little about the recording being a personal account of his final days in office and that he feels entitled to it. She tells him that nobody is entitled to remove sensitive materials from the White House, and it’s a matter of National Security (not selfish, entitled ass-covering). He tells her she’s overstepping her authority and he’s worried she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into! She calls a waiting agent into the room and has Kanin searched, lying the whole time about how her Mother knows exactly what is going on and chooses not to be involved. The agent retrieves the data card, and a satisfied Ho-Livia orders him “processed out”, while she destroys the card and sighs with evil relief!

While being escorted out of the White House, Kanin is intercepted by Pierce who tells the agents he’ll take it from there. Once outside, Ethan tells Aaron that Olivia is DEFINITELY hiding something, and they’re both lucky that Kanin is a paranoid sunovabitch! We’re not guessing what that means for long, as Aaron pulls the REAL recording out of his cast. (Yay!) Aaron starts mumbling something about sneaking Kanin into the Communications Office, but Ethan came prepared with a player in his car, since you can never be too prepared when dealing with the likes of Ho-Livia. He heads off to find out what’s on the data card and informs Aaron he’ll let him know if he finds anything.

Meanwhile, Tony and Cara arrive in a deserted warehouse somewhere and hand Jack over to a sketchy looking medical team in a pretty unsanitary-looking makeshift medical set up. Jack, through his twitches and general freaking out, demands to know what they’re doing? Tony cooly informs him that they’re going to use him as a human Petri Dish to reconstitute the bio weapon! While Jack screams and protests, they strap him down and the doctors inform Tony it’ll take about 15 minutes to determine the level of pathogen in his spinal fluid. Jack, still twitching, calls after Tony who ignores him while heading out with Cara. The head Doc gives Jack a shot in the neck to control his twitching and Jack immediately enters a limp stupor! That’s some strong stuff!

Outside the “medical chamber,” Tony demands that NOT-Patty call up her little balding boss and get him a larger role in the operation. She tries to explain that the Big Baddies seldom take kindly to ultimatums, and that he needs to be invited to the inner circle. Tony calls B.S. and reminds her of all the hoops he’s jumped through for them today, and how he’s seen her work her magic and “convince” the Big Boss Alan to do her bidding. She tells him that this is different, and he awesomely says “That’s right…because this time you’re doing it for me” before walking away.

Back in the medical chamber, the team pulls out an EXTREMELY scary looking gigantic needle and proceeds to stick it in Jacks spine. That dazed stupor? It doesn’t last long, as Jack screams out in agony as we cut to break! Ouch!

Five minutes later, Ho-Livia is on the phone having another panicked conversation with her gay BFF Martin. He does his best to talk her down, reminding her that the most Ethan has on her is pure suspicion if she destroyed the data card. She reminds him that she destroyed Ethan’s career and is worried he’s going to stop at nothing to taker her down. Martin reminds her of the whole “being the President’s daughter” thing, and that nobody in their right mind would act in those circumstances under pure suspicion. Just then, Tim Woods interrupts the surreptitious chat to let Ho-Livia know that Mama Taylor wants to see her in the Oval Office. Olivia nervously asks what it’s all about, and Tim tells her it’s a briefing on the airport situation. As she starts heading to the Office, Tim stops her to make sure everything OK, and she lies and tells him it’s all fine. He glares at her with a cocked eye-brow as she storms off. Add Tim Woods to the list of skeptics! Olivia’s House of Cards is crumbling, and I am loving it!

At the airport, Renee and the Feds fan through the gate. A quick chat with a wounded cop, in which he basically says “I don’t know what the hell is going on!” before screaming out in agony, tells Renee everything she needs to know! She calls into Janis and tells her the male operative is still at large and Kim is missing. She accurately elaborates that Kim either went after him, or was taken hostage. Either way, they need to call in their bazillionth “priority alert” across all channels of the day!

“Are you serious, FBI lady?! No, I didn’t see where they went! I was too busy being shot and lying in a pool of my own blood!”

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the airport, Kim is in hot pursuit of the limping Hippie Hubby. She wisely keeps a safe distance and watches as he runs up the stairs of a parking garage. Kim wisely opts not to follow him up the stairs and instead runs to the exit of the garage and tells the cops who she is, that she’s following the shooter, and they need to get Renee Walker on the horn STAT! The fact that Kim is taking on a heroic/non-victim role AND making smart choices is totally shattering my world view right now. Next thing I know, someone’s going to tell me that birds swim and fish fly!

Anhoo, she tells Renee the dude is in the garage and she’s wisely hanging out at the exit with the cops. Oh yeah…and Renee…please HURRY! No sooner has she gotten the sentence out than Hippie Hubby approaches the exit gate in his getaway car and starts firing on the cops while Kim dives for cover. He manages to take out both cops, but not before one gets a good shot in through the windshield. Hippie Hubby, shot in the neck, loses control of his car and it flips before catching fire!

Kim, noticing the wreck, wisely chooses to ignore the injured cop in order to get the dude’s laptop out of the back of the burning car. Like Daddy, like Daughter! However, she UN-wisely chooses to not take the wounded cops gun with her. That backfires on her, as Hippie Hubby totally grabs her arm and attempts to keep her from escaping the burning vehicle with his laptop! Kim’s solution is to hold both of their arms over a flame. It serves the purpose of getting Hippie Hubby to let her go, but it also catches her arm on fire!

Kim gets out of the car just in time. It blows to smithereens as Renee and the Feds run up to meet her. Kim, sporting a nasty burn on her arm and triumphantly holding the laptop, tells Renee to forget medical attention! The laptop contains the camera they were sending a feed of her on. With a D-11 server, or some such nonsense, they can back-track the signal and it will lead to Tony’s operatives/her Father. Renee gives her a hilarious sideways “Where the HELL did YOU come from and what is UP with this family?!” look. Kim calmly tells her she used to be a CTU operative, but leaves out the part about sleeping with gross older men while she did it. She tells Renee to get Chloe on the horn, as we cut to break!

“If she says ONE more intelligent thing, I’ll know for sure that she’s an imposter and I’m going to rip that Kim mask off of her Scooby Doo Style!”

After the break, Ethan finally arrives at his car. Either he parked an awfully long way from the White House, or he stopped to do a naked jig of joy on the National Mall to celebrate Ho-Livia’s downfall. He pops the trunk and swaps his briefcase for a little back containing the listening device. His gym bag remains untouched in the corner of the trunk…and all the tourists that were treated to his naked jig silently shake their fists to the heavens that he doesn’t work out a little more often. Anhoo, Ethan pops the data disk in and does a little rewinding. He hits play smack dab in the middle of Ho-Livia and Martin’s shady conversation. Too his credit, once again, Ethan has a look of slack-jawed disbelief upon hearing first-hand confirmation that Ho-Livia is an evil, lying, manipulative little bitch.

Back at the warehouse, Tony saunters into the medical chamber to hear the “good” news that Jack is a viable host and they should be able to reconstitute the weapons using his organs! Holy crap balls! Tony notes that Jack isn’t looking to good and inquires after his condition. Not that he gives a crap, mind you, he just wants to make sure they harvest his organs before he kicks the bucket! COLD.AS.ICE! The Doc tells him the pathogen should survive for a couple of hours after death, and only burning Jack’s body at 5,000 degrees or hotter will destroy it. Tony seems pleased with the update and heads out.

Someone didn’t get the memo that Baddies are supposed to scowl a lot and sneer. It’s the hapless supporting law enforcement types that are allowed to be weirdly perky.

Meanwhile, Cara schmoozes Boss Allen on the phone. She updates him on the Bauer/Pathogen-recovery thing and does her cheerleader routine for Almeida. Allen is skeptical about bringing Tony into the fold, but Cara persists. She sings Tony’s praises to High Heaven and pretty much begs Allen while reiterating how super awesome Tony is at everything. Allen relents and agrees to head to the warehouse to meet Tony in person and supervise the Bauer/Pathogen stuff! Tony seems pleased and he and Cara share a little snuggle.

Back in the medical room, the “doctors” prepare Jack for stransport, no sooner have they removed the strap holding him down, than Jack springs the heck back to life! He splices one dudes throat with a scalpel, stabs another in the neck, and chokes the third with his handcuffs! Holy crap, Jack! Once all three “docs” are dead as doornails, Jack high-tails it out of the warehouse and runs out into the daylight.

We’re treated to a little split screen action of everyone sort of going about their business while the sun rises again on Season 7.

Tony and Cara discover the dead docs and open door of the warehouse. Tony notes that Jack is too weak to have gotten far, so they split up and take off in hot pursuit!

Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum!

It’s 7AM and Renee is hanging out with Kim Bauer outside the parking garage of the hospital. It was pitch black when last we checked in on the girls, but the sun is UP now and blazing like high noon. While Kim paces in the background, Renee calls Chloe and tells her to hurry up w/ the laptop business and find those baddies! Chloe spews a little tech-babble about how hard it’s going to be, while Kim freaks out about finding her sick daddy.

“I don’t care if I’ve been a useless distraction for 6 out of 7 seasons! I just had one good/empowering episode, so now I’m going to get all uppity and boss you around. Got a problem with that Ginger?”

Speaking of sick daddy, he’s still on the run from Evil Tony and Cara. He finds a taxi garage w/ a conveniently slightly-open door and wiggles his way in with much exertion and groaning. While rooting around in the garage and busting a window of a cab, he makes a giant racket and Tony pops his head under the door. Tony fires a few shots at Jack and the cabs before Jack manages to close the garage door. Jack, trapped, notices the cab leaking gas and decides to attempt a flaming suicide, lest the baddies get the germies in his body. Tony puts a stop to that little plan (after opening the garage door with a freakin’ fork lift) by kicking the flare out of Jack’s hand and knocking him out cold with the butt of his pistol.

At the White House, Ethan Kanin awesomely bursts into Olivia’s office unannounced. He’s followed by a scowling/brooding Aaron Pierce. Olivia freaks out and tells Aaron to get Ethan out of the White House, but Agent Pierce tells her he is NOT going to do that. While Olivia attempts to call security, Ethan presses play on his portable audio device and Olivia freaks out listening to herself order the hit on Hodges! Ethan tells her the disk she destroyed was a blank and Pierce had the real one all along. Olivia asks Aaron how long he’s known what heinous little bitch she is, and he tells her he had been suspicious for a while, but was hoping he was wrong. He’s clearly disgusted/disappointed with her, and leaves the office so the former and interim Chief of Staffs can have a little chat.

Olivia starts scrambling and bargaining right away. She tells Ethan she’ll resign, he can have his job back, and everything will be just peachy. Ethan calmly explains that the issue isn’t his old job, it’s the “truth.” Olivia makes a good point, that the truth could destroy her Mother’s administration. A noble sentiment that she might have expressed BEFORE ordering a hit on a Federal witness maybe? Ethan tells her that’s why it’s gotta be the President’s call whether to prosecute or cover-up Olivia’s major f*ck up. The most important thing is that the President find out the truth about her daughter, and he thinks Olivia should personally deliver the news.

Back at Tony’s Baddie warehouse, Jack is desperately begging his old buddy to please be a pal and not let his corpse be used to create bio-weapons. Tony drops a sorta expected bombshell when he tells Jack that he never intended to do that. It was all a play to get to Cara’s boss Alan Wilson. Apparently, Alan was the man behind Charles Logan, the assassination of David Palmer, the death of Tony’s wife, the sinking of the Titanic, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and he’s also Octo-Mom’s sperm donor! So Tony’s not really a terrorist, he’s just a semi-psychotic rogue vigilante out to avenge his wife’s death! For those of you keeping score at home: Aleida was good, then dead, then bad, then good, then bad, then REALLY bad, and now sorta misguidedly good again. Got that?

Jack gets a WTF face and tries to tell Tony how crazy his actions have been. Almeida gets all sanctimonious and goes on a rant about how hard he worked to bring the REAL villains down, and how he’s totally the good guy here. In Tony World, Jack’s to blame for getting in the way and screwing everything up! Jack reminds him about the whole bio-weapon attack that Tony tried to carry out a little over an hour ago, and Tony brushes that off as something he had to do. Innocent people, be damned! Jack won’t give up and pleads with Tony not to kill Alan Wilson…to let justice take it’s course, and Tony is all: “Oh yeah, about that…I’m not gonna kill him Jack, I’m just going to turn you into a human bomb so you can do it for me. Cool?” While Jack protests some more, Tony notices Cara approaching on a monitor, and shuts Jack up with a little duct tape to the mouth.

Cara pops in and chit-chats with Tony about Alan being on his way and wanting to see Jack’s medical report. Jack, all duct taped up, can only glare at the two of them, as we cut to break!

A few minutes later, Cara and Tony are still hanging out in the warehouse and waiting for Alan. Cara mentions that Alan doesn’t know she’s been boning Tony, and if it’s cool with him, she’d like to keep it their dirty little secret. Tony could care less…he just wants to know where the heck Alan is. Just then, they notice his motorcade pulling up!

Alan is rolling with a small army of security, and hangs out in the back of his limo while they search Tony and Cara for weapons. They allow Tony to hang onto his cell phone, and the amount of attention the camera pays to this little detail tells us the phone is DEFINITELY the trigger to the BauerBomb. Given the all-clear by security, Alan finally steps out of his limo. Security keeps Tony at bay, but Cara goes up to him and gives him a little peck on the cheek. The little slut is boning her boss, too!

Alan grills Tony about his desire to “play a larger role”, his voice dripping with skepticism. He has his goons retrieve Bauer from the warehouse. While Jack approaches Wilson, Tony fingers his cell phone anxiously. But wait! A helicopter approaches. It’s Renee and the Feds, just in time to save the day! The baddies, as if they weren’t already screwed, decide to open fire on the FBI.

In the ensuing shoot-out, all the Baddies are taken out one by one. All the Baddies, that is, except Alan, Cara, and Tony who manage to run into the warehouse. Convenient! Jack cowers behind a van, and Renee rides outside an SUV, gun blazing, over to him. She does a nifty leap, somersault, duck maneuver to avoid gunfire, and meets up with Jack behind the van. Jack tells her to get away from him! He’s wired with explosives! Luckily, in addition to being an expert SUV surfer and acrobat, Renee knows how to disarm that particular kind of bomb and gets to work. While she snips away at the wires, Jack fills her in on the Alan Wilson stuff and Tony’s good,bad,good,bad,psycho shifts of allegiance. Bomb disarmed, the two super-agents run into the warehouse to catch up w/ the Evil trio.

In the warehouse, Alan and Cara are sneaking around and Alan wants to know how the f*ck things got so screwed up?! Cara has no clue, of course. Tony approaches, and Cara runs up to greet him. While she starts talking about their “escape”, a gunshot goes off! Tony totally frickin’ shot her in the stomach! It’s Agent Erika DeadSlut all over again! While Cara dies and stares at Tony in shock, he ignores her and glares at Alan the whole time.

After Cara hits the floor, Tony goes all berserk and runs up to Alan, grabbing him by the shoulders and ranting about how long it took him to get to this moment and how the revenge for his murdered wife will be oh so sweet! Alan awesomely plays stupid and says “it sounds like you were involved in some kind of tragedy, but I had nothing to do with it.” This REALLY riles Tony up and between a few pistol whips, he delivers a rage-filled sobbing soap-operatic tirade about how he and Michelle were just about to start a new life together, and oh yeah…she was carrying his SON! Tony finishes his drawn out monologue and is about to kill Alan, when Renee and Jack come in and poop all over his murder party. They shoot Tony in the shoulder, and then Jack shoots him again in the wrist when Tony ignores orders to please stop crawling toward his gun. (I bet Tony’s re-evaluating the length of that angst-y monologue now, eh?)

While the Feds take the wounded Tony into custody, he turns his rage toward Jack. He screams that Alan Wilson’s group of Baddies needed to be taken down, and Jack ran away to Africa! In Tony-logic, that makes Jack one of the bad guys and he has to go and bring the late Teri Bauer into it, telling Jack she’d be ashamed. Jack winces at Teri’s name while Renee glares at Alan Wilson. After Tony is dragged out kicking and screaming, Jack falls to the floor either having one of his little seizures, or in exhaustion…as we cut to break!

A few minutes later, Renee decides to conduct a preliminary interrogation of Wilson. She tells him he’s up shit creek without a paddle and facing the death penalty for all his dastardly deeds. However, if he sells out the other shadow conspiracy people, she’ll be sure to put in a good word for him. Sound good? Alan awesomely tells her he has no freakin’ clue what she’s talking about and she starts to get pissy. He further provokes her, telling her she won’t be able to find a single shred of material evidence against him. “In the eyes of the law” he’s an innocent man! Renee calls him a sunovabitch and gets all aggressive with him. Alan tells her to talk to the hand and his attorneys, and she pouts and broods while some other Fed tells her it’s time to take Jack to the hospital.

In the warehouse, Renee walks up to Jack’s stretcher for a little chat. She tells him that Alan is refusing to talk and claims they don’t have a case against him. However, she thinks she can get him to talk by torturing him/beating the shit out of him. She’s sort of asking Jack’s opinion about that, since it’s all illegal and stuff but could save lives. Jack goes into wise mentor mode and tells her that he can’t tell her what to do. For him, it’s easy because he’s wired a certain way. He uses an example of 15 people being held hostage on a bus, and how that automatically shifts him into SuperJack mode. Renee wants to know if he regrets any of the torture/coloring outside the lines stuff he did today, and his response is No Way, Jose! Then again, he’s not an FBI agent like Renee, who took an oath to uphold the law.

Renee starts to tear up, and Professor Jack goes on. He tells her bending the rules a little always starts off with baby steps, and then it’s a slippery slope to Torture-Town. In his mind, he knows the laws were made by smart, well-meaning men. Going back to his 15 people on the bus example, he tells her his mind knows he’s supposed to follow the rule of law, but his heart can’t live with it. His advice to her is do what feels right and whatever she will be able to live with. Renee doesn’t know what to say, so Jack tells her not to say “anything at all.” He touches her face, and they stare at each other while he’s carted away to the Hospital. They are totally going to bone if she comes back next season. We cut to break!

Five minutes later, a nervous Ho-Livia is pacing in the White House residences while her daddy looks on nervously. President Taylor is brought into the room and wants to know WTF is going on w/ Henry being out of bed and stuff. Olivia tells Mama Prez to take a seat and both parents look at her nervously. She jumps right into it, telling them that Hodges is dead because of her. Mama Taylor immediately assumes Olivia “leaked” his whereabouts, but it’s worse than that! She goes into a rambling explanation about what a terrible guy Hodges was, and how he killed her brother! Finally, she gets to the heart of it. She hired someone to kill him!

President Taylor explodes…finally! She grabs Olivia by the shoulders and tells her what a stupid little wench she is. First Hubby pipes in and comes to Olivia’s defense. Blah Blah Blah…Hodges was a bad guy…blah blah blah…dead Roger…blah blah. First hubby thinks the easy choice is to cover up the whole murder thing and save their daughter! President Taylor is shocked! She’s the President, and can’t disregard the law. A weird side of First Hubby that seems really out of character emerges. His balls grow about three sizes bigger and he basically tells the President that her job has destroyed their family and it’s her fault that Roger was killed. With tears in his eyes, First Hubby tells the Prez she better save their daughter “so help him”! They are interrupted by Tim Woods who barges in with “news” from the FBI. Sensing the tension in the room, he clarifies that it’s “good news.” Haha. The Prez leaves her hubby and Heinous Ho-Livia. What will she do!?

At FBI HQ, Janis informs Chloe that she won’t be able to debrief her because she needs to start processing Alan Wilson’s paperwork. Choe’s cool with it and tells her she’ll come back later, or tomorrow. Chloe also tells little Plum Puddin’ that she’s doing a Plum-Good job, considering the back-asswards systems at the FBI. Janis is thrilled that someone other than her cats shows her a little kindness and Thanks Chloe for the compliment. While Chloe heads out, she sort of smirks a little to herself, because she probably didn’t mean it, but knew she’d be saving Janis a fortune on Zoloft in the short term.

In the Oval Office, the President broods and ponders her course of action while staring at a happy little photo of the First Family when they were all alive and not criminals.

At the hospital, Dr. Macer apologizes because there’s not really anything left for her to do other than induce a coma with morphine so he’ll be comfortable until he kicks the bucket. They are interrupted by a nurse who announces that Jack’s visitor has arrived. Surprisingly, the visitor is not Lil’ Kim Bauer…it’s Jack’s new BFF Imam Muhtadi Gohar! The softer side of Jack emerges and he expresses his death-bed regrets about not having the time to make amends for all of his mistakes. Muhtadi tells him it’s never too late, and they get into a pretty deep philosophical conversation about the good and bad in men, human nature, philosophy, and how they were both SHOCKED that Adam Lambert lost to Kris Allen. Finally, they sort of pray together for the strength to forgive themselves of all their sins. Spiritually satisfied, Jack tells Muhtadi “it’s time” and closes his eyes as we cut to break!

A few minutes later, Olivia is nervously pacing awaiting the President’s decision while first hubby stares at her and tells her to chill out! Ma Taylor saunters into the room, all smiles, and kisses her husband and daughter before squeezing Olivia in a big bear hug. Ho-Livia assumes this means she’s off the hook, and breathes a sigh of relief. But wait! The Prez tells them she’s super sorry that her job has been so hard on them, but she IS the President and has a sworn duty to uphold the constitution. Therefore, Olivia needs to face the music and will be taken into custody ASAP. But she still really really loves her! Olivia and First Hubby are both super sad, and super pissed! Ma Taylor tells Aaron to cart Olivia away, and she pouts her way out of the office and the season!

After the heinous little bitch is gone, hopefully for good, Ma Taylor turns to Hubby-Wubby for comfort, but he gives her the cold shoulder and can’t even look her in the eyes. The Prez heads into the hallway, where she runs into her BFF Ethan. They chit chat a little about how she did the right thing, and she mentions Henry doesn’t think so and she’s not sure he’ll ever forgive her. President Taylor starts kvetching about how she’s lost “everyone” and Ethan tells her he’s still there for her. She asks if he’ll come back to work for her, and he says of course! They immediately get down to business and start discussing Alan Wilson.

At FBI HQ, Wilson is brought into an interrogation room while Renee stands behind the two-way mirror and glares at him. Janis comes sauntering in with the transfer documents, but Zombie Spice stares straight ahead with dead eyes. Janis is all: Whassup Renee? And Renee, turning off the camera in the interrogation room, tells Janis to get the frack out of there. Plum Puddin’ smells the torture in the air and refuses to leave, so Renee does what any boss would do, she jams the lock of the door, pulls her gun on Janis and makes her handcuff herself to a pole! Whiny-pansy-pants Janis simpers and complains and tries to talk sense into Renee. But the Bauer Force is strong in Renee now. She will not be deterred! Janis brings up Dead Larry and how he wouldn’t like this and how Renee is throwing away her career and yada yada yada. Renee ignores Janis, leaves her badge behind, and enters the interrogation room with Wilson, who has no idea what kind of Ginger Beat-Down is headed his way!

Back at the hospital, Kim Bauer arrives but Jack is already in a coma. Gohar introduces himself and tells Kim he spent the last few minutes with Jack and he was at peace with death. Kim…not so much at peace! She tells Dr. Macer she wants to go ahead w/ the experimental stem-cell treatment thingy (finally!) Dr. Macer reminds Kimmie of the risks and yada yada…but Kim isn’t hearing it. It’s her choice now, and she wants to save her daddy! As Dr. Macer heads off to make the preparations, Kim enters Jack’s hospital room.

Kim sits on the bed and stares at her father before saying “I’m sorry Daddy, but I’m not ready to let you go!” And with that, we cut to the clock and Season 7 ends!

Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum-Ba-Bum!