24: How They Roll!

Greetings Gasmii! It’s Episode 22 and we’ve only got one week left after this! Can you believe it?

This week on ’24′, everyone reverts to type. Jack springs into badass/action mode and ultimately turns on the Feds to protect his family…cuz that’s how he roll! Evil-Meida tries his hardest to kill a lot of people and then smirks at the good guys…cuz that’s how he roll. Kim Bauer and Olivia Taylor royally screw everything up…cuz that’s how they roll. And we ’24′ fans start to get excited about the upcoming finale…cuz that’s how WE roll!

I’ve got it recapped for you…follow me after the JUMP!!

It’s 5AM in an underground bunker somewhere (there sure are a lot of those in DC!). NOT-Patty (who interestingly enough, my closed captions finally identified as “Cara”) is calling in to her shady boss to update him on the operation. The gist of it: Everything is going well. They are estimating that between 8,000 and 10,000 poor commuters will be exposed to the bio-weapn. The poor saps! As if needing to be in a downtown DC subway station before 6AM weren’t bad enough! Bet they’ll re-think the workaholic thing after this! Cara’s boss wants to make sure that Jibraan is going to be an appropriately compliant Patsy, and she confirms he’s fixated on saving his brother and shouldn’t be a problem. After hanging up, some dude in a HAZMAT suit that’s been playing with the canister in the background during their little chat informs NOT-Patty that the trigger mechanism is working and they are ready to roll!

In the back of Tony’s Black van of Evil, he gives Jibraan a swanky ear-piece that will both allow them to track his every move and let them communicate. I’m jealous! I’ve been wearing expensive digital hearing aids for greater than 2/3rds of my life, and I still have a hard time hearing the doorbell and waiters in restaurants. Maybe I need to hook up with a para-military-tech-savvy crew of my own? Anyhoo, Jibraan starts asking questions again about WTF is going on, what the plan is, why they want to hurt people, and where babies come from. Tony tells him to shut up, think of the safety of Lil’ Hamid, and get his ass on the Red Line and take it all the way to “Washington Center.” Jibraan does what he’s told and we see him walk to the “Woodward Metro Station” sadly. He keeps looking back, but ultimately starts heading down the escalator. (On a side note, I’ve sort of given up griping about “fake names” for DC neighborhoods and geographic impossibilities in these recaps. But this scene got me thinking again. As I’ve probably mentioned, I lived in the DC area for about 6 1/2 years, and I’m familiar with the metro system. There’s no such stations! There’s a Woodley Park station a little North of the Adams Morgan district, and there’s a Metro Center station in the heart of downtown. Why can’t the show just call them by those names? Is it a legal thing? Any lawyers out there care to edu-ma-cate me?)

Tony jumps back in the van and pulls out some high-tech mini computer thing displaying a grid of DC and a flashing yellow light which must be Jibraan. Meanwhile, NOT-Patty (Mistress of Disguise) puts on a scary Elvira wig and glasses in the underground bunker and then loads the canister into a bowling bag. Now I get it! There’s a Srike! bowling alley in the MetroCenter area! She’s gonna fool everyone because it’s totally normal to see chicks dressed all in black going bowling at 5AM! Smart thinking!

Back in the Super Muslim-o Bros. apartment…Jack frees Hamid from the cuffs and apologizes/comforts him before sending BFF Imam Gohar in to counsel him. The poor kid supplied Jack with no useful Intel, so the only hope of saving the day lies with the badly-injured member of Tony’s crew. An EMT (who I think is the SAME exact one Jack clashed with before “interrogating” an injured Dubaku? Triple shift day? Sucks for him!) is about to administer some morphine, and Jack tells him to wait a pansy-pickin’ minute! Morphine will only interfere with the torture! After brushing the EMT off and getting the “do whatever you need to” go-ahead from Renee…Jack tortures the shit out of the dude! He digs his finger into his neck wound (gross!) while demanding information. It’s all gruesome and drawn out. The happy torture result: Dude totally gives them Tony’s “only in emergencies” cell phone number. Score!

Jack tells the EMTs to give the baddie just enough morphine to take the pain out of his voice, and nothing more! That shouldn’t be too hard. I’m sure there’s a handy “cc’s to specific bodily functions” conversion chart somewhere. He also barks at the injured dude to come up with a plausible lie/reason for calling Tony ASAP!

Meanwhile, Renee calls into HQ and tells Janis to have CHLOE set up a trace on the Baddie’s cell phone. Poor Plum Puddin’ gets defensive and reminds Renee that she can do it. Renee diplomatically tells her that Jack specifically asked for Chloe to run point. With a casual sideways glance over at poor Janis, Chloe starts taking charge of things and asks for the # of the cell.

What follows is pure comedy gold, mixed in with a little techno-babble. Alpha Geek Chloe takes charge and tosses Janis a little bone in the form of a side task. Janis tells Chloe she’s going to connect to “inter-sat” and Chloe does her bitchy condescending thing and asks why she would do that, since “VPNs” are better! Defensive Plum Puddin’ is all, “I didn’t know we could do that” and Chloe’s all “uh…that’s interesting since we’ve had the capability for two years!” It’s the Tech Goddess Bitch-fest they’ve been hinting at all season, and I’m f*cking loving it! Janis kowtows to the HBIC and tells her “it’s obvious” she’ll never be able to live up to CTU standards…all she asks is that Chloe not make her feel like a f*cking moron in the process. Chloe’s response: “All right”…and I think I just TVGasm’ed in my pants.

With the trace established, Jack holds the cell to the Baddie’s ear and makes the call. Tony is pissed and wants to know why the dude is calling…and he makes a pretty plausible little story about noticing a glitch in the bank transactions. Tony tells the dude how to fix it and informs him to call their “man in Zurich” before asking if everything else is OK. The Baddie lies and tells Tony everything is AOK and he just wanted to get authorization.

When the call ends, Jack ask Chloe if she got the location. She’s got a general location in Adams Morgan, but needs to do a little more hacking to get it all. Jack whines that “Dammit Chloe!” that’s not good enough! She pouts that she needs to get off the phone and get to work, so Jack starts barking orders at Janis about calling DC PD and coordinating their teams to the area.

In the “Woodward Metro Station” a skittish Jibraan removes his earpiece and quietly implores a completely unhelpful metro worker to help him out! He tells her about the “terrorists” and his hostage brother, and she helpfully tosses it over to a cop nearby before going back to her crossword puzzle, or whatever.

Jibraan relays his tale to the cop, who tells him in a creepy voice to “put the ear piece back in.” Sad/confused Jibraan does as he’s told, and Tony tells him that he knew he had to try…but don’t do it again! They’re watching…”always watching.” A sobbing/confused Jibraan accepts a helpful MetroPass from the cop and heads to the train, as we cut to break!

Five minutes later, Ho-Livia Taylor is hanging out all by herself in “Pershing Park” in the wee hours of the morning. Smart! She gets an angry phone call from daddy Agent Aaron Pierce, who is definitely NOT amused. Apparently, the Justice Department is looking into the Hodges murder since only 11 people (Olivia included) knew he was still alive. Everyone at the White House is looking for her, and she needs to turn over her phone/internet records. Aaron wants to know where the hell she is, and she tells another of her sketchy little lies that she had to run a “personal” errand, which is a SERIOUS breach of protocol. She sweet talks the visibly irritated Aaron into “covering for her” until she gets back, and promises she’ll be there soon.

No sooner has she hung up, than Gay Martin creeps up on her in the park. She doesn’t need to worry about getting raped, because she isn’t a 22 year-old Brazilian boy. Olivia rips into him right away. She wants to know WTF happened, since she called off the hit and is freaking out about the Justice Department investigation and her phone/internet records. Martin calmy explains that the hit man went through with the hit (even though she hadn’t transferred the funds) because he gave the authorization and told the hit man Olivia was “good for” the money. He reminds her about how she assured him that she would not change her mind, and looked him in the eye telling him she wanted Hodges dead! Gay Martin goes on to remind her that the time for soul searching was BEFORE she set this little plan in motion. NOW, she needs to worry about covering her ass and protecting them both via a little program he’s going to send her that will erase her tracks. Before he takes off, he reminds her that failing to calm down and get this cover-up underway will result in both of them losing “everything” as well as the destruction of her Mother’s administration. She agrees to do what’s necessary, and Gay Martin saunters off while Ho-Livia sits on a bench for a moment and quietly freaks out.

Meanwhile, at the airport, Kim calls her little Hubby in L.A., who’s having a rough night with baby Teri who “misser her mother”…aww. Kim informs him her flight has been unexpectedly (or TOTALLY expectedly in ’24′ world) delayed, and that she won’t board for another couple of hours. Her Hubby gets all feel-good and new-agey on her…mentioning that this may be a sign from the universe that she’s meant to spend more time with her dying Daddy. Kim shuts him down, after all Jack made the call to die alone and if Hubby-wubby actually KNEW her father, he’d understand that there’s no convincing him otherwise. They make a little sweet talk and agree to meet at the airport. When Kim hangs up, she notices a large ethnic-looking dude dressed all in black watching her from a distance! Oh-no! She’s startled enough to bump into some lady who looks exactly like a slightly older Parker Posey. Being shadowed by shady dudes, bumping into “random” strangers who probably mean her harm…Great! Kim Bauer, who’s been in the season all of 10 minutes or something, is now in prime position to royally f*ck everything up again! I can’t wait!

On the metro, NOT-Patty/Cara walks through Jibraan’s train car, opens her bowling bag to activate the device, places it under a seat, and promplty makes her exit at the next stop. Jibraan notices the woman in the bad wig exiting the car, and the wheels start turning a little in his head. He seems to recognize her, but isn’t quite sure where he knows her from. Hey Jibraan, think “firecrotch!” That’ll snap the puzzle into place! Anyhoo, Cara calls into Tony and tells him everything is set and she’s headed above ground. Evil-meida tells her he’ll be there to pick her up shortly.

Just then, Chloe gets a bead on Tony’s exact location and calls into Jack and Renee! As luck would have it, Tony is not that far from them and getting closer! Jack sees Tony’s sketchy black van take a turn right in front of them (how lucky!) and Renee is ready for hot pursuit! Jack tells her that letting things turn into a pursuit would be a mistake, and takes the initiative to side-swipe the van and then rear-end it in reverse…trapping it! As the Feds swoop in, Jack and Renee jump out of their car and remove Tony from the van while he tries to destroy his mini computer. Jack puts Tony in his patented sleeper hold, but doesn’t bother telling him to “hold still”…instead, he just tells the Feds to secure the “piece of crap”!

Jack and Renee examine Tony’s sweet little mini computer, which has gone dark and has a crack on the screen. He tells Renee to get the Tech-Geek-Goddesses working on it while he sweeps the van. As he enters the van, he has one of his little mini-wincing-seizures…and we cut to break again!

Five minutes later, Jack and Renee are anxiously huddled over the damaged mini computer while Chloe Kvetches about how she can’t hack into it. Jack reminds her they need anything they can get from it, and Chloe (with a hint of defensiveness in her voice) tells him she knows! Janis over-hears all of this and asks Chloe to send her a copy of her “screen.” Dismissive-Bitch-Face Chloe is all “Why?” and Janis awesomely tells her “Why Not?” Round two is ON! Janis instantly detects a way into the device using PROM modules, or some such Tech-nonsense. Chloe is all pissy pants about it and tells Janis it can’t be done, and Janis says “really?” (her voice dripping in bitchiness, revenge, and condescension). Chloe looks legitimately worried that round two is going to Plum Puddin’!

Back in Adam’s Morgan, Jack is informed that Tony is awake and subdued. Jack heads over to the stoop where Tony sits defenseless and handcuffed, telling the agents guarding him to “walk away”…pwetty pweeze, so he can beat the bejeezus out of his ex-BFF-boyfriend. The guards comply, and holy-smack-down-aroni does Jack let Tony have it! It’s brutal and angry! Blood is gushing out of Tony’s mouth and nose while Jack lands punch after punch. Almost as an afterthought, he keeps demanding to know where the bio-weapon is while he’s beating Tony. The whole time, he knows that Evil-meida will never spill the Mexican Jumping Beans, so Jack finally asks the REAL question…”why did you betray me?!” Cold-Hearted Tony holds back and doesn’t mention he betrayed Jack because he found a MUCH hotter piece of ass in NOT-Patty/Cara. Instead, he remains silent. Jack pulls a gun and tells Tony that he has no reservations about shooting him dead, since he has nothing left to lose! Tony kinda smirks at him and is all “Oh REALLY, Jack? Nothing left to lose?”…because Tony totally knows that Kim Bauer is somehow going to f*ck everything up, again…and will most likely f*ck everything up in Season 8 as well. That’s how she roll!!

Meanwhile, Janis works her magic and hacks into Jibraan’s tracking device. Since he’s moving steadily down Connecticut Avenue and passing through traffic lights and landmarks (St. Matthew’s shout-out! I was just in a wedding there last year!)…they correctly infer that he’s on the metro and that “Washington Center” must be the target! Jack and Renee mobilize and, on the way to “Washington Center” Jack hypothesizes that Tony had to be in communication with Jibraan somehow and to keep looking on the mini-comp. Jack has barely finished the thought, when Plum Puddin’ finds a “K-Band” and patches Jack through. Chloe gives a little frustrated side-smirk-lookie-thing. Round 2 1/2 goes to Plum Puddin’!

Jack, patched into Jibraan’s ear-piecy-thing, starts talking to him and tells him he’s one of the good guys! After everything Jibraan has been through today, it’s amazing how quickly he accepts this to be true (especially with the creepy cop thing that happened 15 minutes ago…remember that?) Anyhoo, Jack tells Jibraan, his brother is safe and they need him to NOT bomb the subways station…pwetty pweeze!? Jibraan would love to help out, but he doesn’t actually HAVE the bomb! Jack and Renee correctly hypothesize that it’s somewhere on the train, and Jibraan recalls the scary woman from his apartment earlier who later showed up in his subway car with an Elvira wig! They tell him to wait until everyone gets off the train and then start looking for any abandoned luggage, briefcases, or bowling ball bags! We are treated to a supremely awesome cutaway of a white, buttoned-up, business suit dude who seems a little freaked out by the sweaty Muslim guy talking to himself on the subway. Ha!

The train arrives at “Washington Center”, and all the passengers depart. White-Buttoned-Up-Dude gives Jibraan some serious stink-eye on the way out. Normally I’d call WBUD a racist…but in this case, he’s totally right! Anhoo…after everyone leaves, Jibraan tracks down the bowling bag, and Jack tells him to open it up and get it the f*ck out of the subway! Jibraan awesomely asks why HE needs to do that, and Jack explains he’s their only hope. He opens up the bag and tells Jack that it looks like a bomb and there’s only 1 minute and 18 seconds left on the counter! Oh no! (On a related note…my captions said 2 minutes 10 seconds left on the counter, but my roommate swears the audio said “1 minute 18 seconds”…f*ck you captioning services! We deafies have rights too! Accuracy counts!)

Anhoo…Jack tells him to get that thing out of the subway, STAT…do whatever “you need to do”! Jibraan starts running out of the subway clutching the bowling bag like he’s late for the World Championships, or something. WBUD dude is talking to a cop, and points out the scary/sweaty Muslim running with a bag. The cop confronts him, and Jibraan pulls out the canister and tells everyone he has a “bomb”! Mass hysteria! It’s kinda funny, actually. Anhoo…Jibraan makes it outside just in time to pass to canister to Jack, who runs the football canister into a HAZMAT trailer and tosses it in a lockdown/containment chamber just before it blows! Crisis Averted! Yay!

Jack sighs, exits the trailer, and tells Jibraan he did a GREAT job! Jibraan wants to see Lil’ Hamid, but first-things-first…he needs to give a statement. As Agent Moran leads Jibraan away, Jack and Renee have a moment. They stare at each other, half-smile, and congratulate themselves on a job well done. Jack, unfortunately, goes into one of his seizures…and Renee tells him to shoot up. He tells her that he already did 20 minutes ago, but the drugs aren’t working anymore. Renee, being new to the series and not realizing how the whole “24 hours” thing works, tells him it’s OK. The world has been saved and now he can “rest”. Yeah, right! We cut to break.

Several minutes later, back at the airport, Kim Bauer is hanging out in the waiting area keeping a nervous eye on the vaguely-ethnic-dressed-in-black dude that keeps looking in her direction. She decides to head over to the aging-Parker-Posey lady, who’s sitting nearby with her long-haired “husband” and try to befriend them. In theory, it seems like a good idea…but knowing Kim, she’s heading into the eye of the storm. Kim exchanges pleasantries with the couple about living in California, and then quickly changes the topic to checking out the sketchy dude keeping tabs on her. Parker checks out the dude for Kim, and notes that he’s moving away…which puts them all at ease.

Ethnic Dude is moving away because he just got a call from Jack! Turns out he’s one of the god guys and keeping tabs on Kim at her Daddy’s request. Jack tells the dude the bio-threat is over, but still wants him to keep an eye on Lil’ Kim until she boards the plane. After hanging up, he barks a few more orders at some FEDS, while staring forlornly at his ex-boyfriend Tony in the back of a police cruiser. Zombie Spice Renee comes up and informs Jack that Hodges has been killed. Jack assumes that Tony is next on the bad guys’ “covering their asses by killing all witnesses” checklist…and requests a full armored detail to escort Tony to custody. He’s not going to “lose” him again!

Still clad in her Elvira wig and Danny Gokey glasses, NOT-Patty/Cara is observing it all from the crowd. She calls into her boss “Alan” the CPA-clean-cut looking dude and fills him in on the massive failure of the mission. Alan: Not Happy! Cara tells him that, in addition to stopping the whole attack thing, the Feds also got their hands on Tony. Alan’s instinct is to cut Tony loose and have someone take him out, since he knows too much. (s)Cara tells him that won’t be necessary, since they have another “play”. Boss Man hopes she knows what she’s doing, for the sake of all the Baddies!

No sooner has the conversation ended, then we cut to Kim and her new BFFs at the airport…all but confirming she’s being set up as the sacrificial lamb for the end-game of the season. Anyone who didn’t see that coming? Raise your hands! Nobody?! Yeah…me neither. Her character is always dragged out for the sole purpose of royally f*cking things up. What pisses me off the most, is that the producers swore in pre-season interviews that they weren’t going to bring her back for more of the same this time. So much for that!

Anyhoo…there’s some announcement at the airport about the the flight being on it’s way, and the weary travelers all breath a sigh of relief. Long-haired-Hippie-Hubby offers to go on a coffee run, noting that his wifey likes decaf. He asks Kim if she wants anything, but she’s smart enough not to accept beverages from strangers. Hippie-Hubby takes off for the coffee and Kim asks Mrs. Posey to watch her bags while she pees.

Ethnic-Black-Clad Agent dude watches Kim head into the ladies room before hitting the urinals. We’re treated to some fancy camera work, in which an “unknown” dude washes his hands for about 5 seconds while the agent relieves himself. It’s the Quickest.Piss.Ever! as all of the sudden the agent emerges from the urinals and is jumped by “mystery” hands…which turn out to be Hippie-hubby. (All together now: “Duh!”).

So, Long-Haired-Hubby drags Ethnic Dude into the handicapped urinal. LHB proceeds to strangle the crap out of ED and snaps his neck, before locking the Handicapped urinal (NOT COOL, dude…said the line of wheel-chair bound travelers outside) and jumping over the divider/exiting the bathroom. Larry Craig, watching in Washington, is all…”Why didn’t I think of that?” We cut to break!

A few minutes later, back at the White House, Ho-Livia returns from her “outing” to Pershing Park. (No Gay Martin pun intended). She’s greeted by an angry Aaron, who is NOT down with the “personal errands” and general sketchiness surrounding Lil’ First Daughter. He all but tenders his resignation, telling her he’s done with all of her BS. Olivia switches into teary/manipulative mode and spins a merry tale about being overwhelmed by the day’s events and feeling overwhelmed by trying to live up to her Mother’s expectations. She tells him she simply had to get away to clear her head, and implores him to understand. Aaron backs down a little and lets the little self-satisfied-manipulative be-yotch back into her office.

To his credit, Aaron immediately phones Ethan Kanin (Hey Ethan!) who is chilling at home, wide-awake, and reading the paper. Aaron asks Kanin about the swanky-spanky-super-secret-voice-activated recording system in the Chief of Staff’s office, and whether it’s still operational. Kanin confirms that it is, but bio-metrically locked and only accessed via Kanin’s thumb-print. Ethan wonders aloud if this has anything to do with dirty little Ho-Livia, who is using his office. Aaron won’t spill anything over the phone, so Ethan tells him he’s high-tailing it to the White House! Uh-Oh! Ho-Livia’s in trouble!

Back at FBI HQ, Chloe and Janis are hacking away. Plum Puddin’ is all smugly-self-satisfied and wants to know if Chloe would like to take the opportunity to congratulate her on a job well done reconstructing the mini computer and saving the day. Chloe awesomely tells her “Oh, you don’t know me…but if you did, you’d know this is the last place you should look for validation.” Haha! Janis explodes at Chloe and wants her to admit she was wrong! Chloe just smiles at her computer as she tracks down an image of NOT-Patty.

Back in Adam’s Morgan, Jack and Jibraan review the image of NOT-Patty. After confirming she’s the chick from his apartment and train (although with a different wig each time) Jack lets Jibraan reunite with his little bro and Imam. While Jack looks on and smiles, they all hug and embrace…reunited in their hatred of pork and Jews.

In the airport, Long-haired hubby returns with the coffees, and sends a not-so-subtle message to his fake wife that he had to go through all kinds of shit to get her a “decaf”…but he “got it”. Translation: I killed the Fed! She smiles and thanks him, while they focus a web-cam on an unsuspecting Kim.

Instantly, Jack’s phone rings and NOT-Patty tells him to open the “link” she’s sending him. He does as he’s told and is treated to the web cam footage of an unsuspecting Kim chilling in the airport terminal. Jack wants to know WTF is up, and NOT-Patty tells him Agent Franks (the ethnic dude) is dead and Kim is in the hands of her operatives. All Jack needs to do is free a heavily guarded Tony, or Kim gets got! Easy Peasy!

Jack takes the bait, because that’s how HE roll!

After a little split-screen action, we see Tony, Renee, and a couple of Feds getting in the back of an armored transport. Renee tells Tony he’s going to “pay” for what he did to her boyfriend Larry. Tony awesomely rolls his eyes and kinda smirks at her. At the last minute, Jack jumps in the back of the transport with them, surprising Renee! Jack tells her he wants to “see this through” and she accepts his explanation. Over his ear-piece, NOT-Patty tells Jack that he’s going to bust Tony out soon, and if any of the Feds get in his way, he’ll have to “take care of” them, or risk the death of Lil’ Kim. Jack and Tony share a tense/knowing eye-lock.

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

There you have it Gasmii! Only one week left!? How close do you think Jack is going to get to the BIG conspiracy? Do you think they’re going to leave that hanging for next season? Also, who else is super excited to see Ho-Livia get hers next week? I know I am!

See you then!

DS