You Dropped the Bomb On Me

Apparently there are still some people out there who still haven’t tuned into watch an episode of 24 during it’s most excellent fourth season. I know that many of you out there were annoyed at the second season of the show, and many people simply turned the show off during the wasteland that was the third season. But if you haven’t tuned into the fourth season because of something stupid the show had done in the past, you are even more dumb and stubborn than Brian Grazer for continuing on in life with that stupid haircut of his. Therefore, TVgasm implores you to give Jack Bauer another try. And if you’re listening Mr. Grazer, Cristophe is just down the street. Go and make an appointment already, you still have time before we once again laugh at you during the Oscars.Jack Bauer left us with a slight cliffhanger in the previous episode when his car was pulled over and he was taken into custody by the police. I call it a slight cliffhanger because we all know that they could pull a few strings at CTU and Jack would be let off without any problem. That turned out to be exactly the case, as Driscoll was so happy that Jack had executed a plan to follow Kalil that she not only had the police let Jack go, but also put him in charge of the field operations for the next part of the mission. The sheriffs sent for Jack’s car, and he was off to track Kalil in hopes of finding the base of the terrorist cell and putting an end to the transmission of Secretary Heller’s trial before it begins.

Throughout this whole time, Heller and his daughter Audrey have been fairly pragmatic through their entire ordeal when you come to think about it. Neither one of them wants to go down without a fight, but with the time of the trial, they were willing to take extraordinary measures in order to prevent the inevitable from happening. Knowing that they would likely die in any scenario, they tried to storm out of the castle in the previous hour, but were now chained together in a small cell so they had almost no chance of escape.

Secretary Heller decides that since they are not going to let him live, he must kill himself, but he needs his daughter to provide the leverage on the chains or it won’t work. Audrey refuses, but after giving it a moment’s though, notices that there is a gas line inside their cell. She realizes that they aren’t going to keep her alive either, and they decide to break off the end of a pipe in order to release the gas. Given the circumstances, you have to admit that it would be an easier way to die than say, a decapitation. The two of them shimmy their way over to the pipe, release the gas, and begin their slow wait until death.

Back at CTU, Marianne is just beginning to use her leverage on Edgar to her advantage. She is like the younger, much hotter version of Sherry Palmer. She knows how to manipulate people, and is using it to advance her career.Edgar talks tough and says he isn’t going to be anybody’s bitch, but caves in when Marianne threatens to tell Driscoll. Marianne wants a level three clearance, which basically gives you free reign to socket, firewall, and pipeline computers to your heat’s content. She gets it, but Curtis has his eye on her, and knows that something is going down between her and Edgar.

Driscoll still has to deal with Chloe, and we follow her into the cell. Now it was our dream that Chloe would rise from the ashes like the Phoenix and once again come to rule over CTU with her special type of iron fist. Alas, that was not to be the case, as Driscoll made her pay the price for her disloyalty. The CTU director did show that she is not a completely cold-hearted bitch. (After all, Chloe did help Jack with the plan that turned out to be the right one). Chloe was forced to resign, and therefore wasn’t subjected to any sorts of penalties or charged with any crimes.

I was really upset with Chloe’s departure, but sort of intrigued as well. All of this time, we been used to Chloe saying things that made others around her feel awkward. Since she was soon going to be gone for good, she must have had some great things to say, and in true form Chloe did not disappoint. First, she addressed her main rival, Sarah, and told her that she wasn’t upset that Sarah had watched her, but was appalled at the unprofessional manner she went about it. “If you had only used a Nuemann filter”, Chloe said, Sarah would have been able to spy on Chloe without being detected. It was the biggest bitchslap Chloe has doled out since her appearance on the show. But Chloe still has a warm heart. Before she is escorted out, she tells Edgar that he’s a geek, but still a good guy and wishes him luck. That’s just pure compassion.

I know that everybody was wondering just what was going on over at the Araz household. After killing her son’s girlfriend, Dina realizes that the job is not done. No, I am not talking about disposing of the body. Her husband had expected Behrooz to shoot Debbie, and if he comes home and finds out she was only poisoned, there will be no Zankou chicken for dinner that night. Dina doesn’t want anything crazy to happen, so she shoots Debbie in the stomach and gives Behrooz the gun in just enough time for his father to return and fawn longingly over his son over his first slaughter of an innocent. I guess that’s another one for the scrapbook. Behrooz is instructed to take Debbie’s car to someplace remote and make sure nobody follows him, and for real this time.

Just when you think everything is happy in the Araz household, Debbie’s mom Karen walks to the door and starts asking questions about Debbie. See, she was supposed to go to the dermatologist, and the appointment was going to take weeks to reschedule, so she wanted to talk to Behrooz and see if he knew where he was. Dina and Navi try and get rid of Karen, but Debbie’s cell phone rings, and she knows that Debbie specifically downloaded it, so there must be something screwy going on. Behrooz walks in to save the day, saying that it was his cell phone, and that he and Debbie downloaded it while they were going out. He makes up an excuse for not hearing from Debbie, and so Karen seems satisfied and leaves. The whole time this was going on, I thought that Shohreh was going to simply kill Karen and get it over with and when Navi instructed his wife to follow Karen and make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble, you know shit is going to happen in the next episode.

Jack has stayed hot on the trail of Kalil, who pulls up behind an old station wagon once he is about twenty minutes away from his destination. Like people are wont to do in Los Angeles, Kalil wait a split second before slamming his horn for the people in front of him to get a move on. It wasn’t such a good idea, as the three occupants of the car want to give Kalil a hard time for driving while Muslim (DWM). Just as things are about to get a little crazy, Kalil is saved by a sheriff who happens to drive by, and notices the confrontation. He breaks up the altercation, and apologizes Kalil for the way the acted. But, like all good police scenes, the officer has to run the plates on the car to make sure there is nothing else going on. Being that Kalil is driving a stolen car, he knows that he is toast and has almost no chance of pulling through. It must have been like the feeling Oklahoma felt after playing the first quarter against USC in the Orange Bowl.

But Kalil has Jack Bauer on his side. Knowing that it is all important that Kalil get to his destination, Jack ordered a halt on the APB that was issued for the truck Kalil had stolen. Just before the sheriff is going to slap some cuffs on Kali, he backs off and he is on his way. You would think Kalil would be relieved but he is not. I do know that he would be a lot more comfortable if he learned how to use his truck’s AC. He’s all sweaty and flustered, while Jack is the model of a cool demeanor. He may not care about his own comfort, but Kalil is concerned with the overall safety of his mission. When the officers were running his plates, he noticed that backup was coming, but they pulled off at the last minute. Kalil knows that this must mean he is being followed, and he tells as much to Omar over the phone. (Thankfully for us viewers, Kalil didn’t think that these people who were tracking him could also tap his cell phone, so we get to hear his conversations.)

Jack also gets to listen in on these cell phone conversations, and when he hears Kalil’s conversation, he sets up a roadblock and prepares to capture Kalil so he can then do a field interrogation on him. Kalil never gives Jack that chance, however, as he swerves into the oncoming traffic and slams himself into a huge dump truck. And whatever slim hope any of us had that Kalil still might be alive and able to give some information with his last words was shattered when the truck proceeded to explode. While the interrogation never happened, since Jack knew that Kalil was close to returning, CTU was able to narrow their satellite surveillance of the area, and started work on identifying the location of the terrorist cell using heat signatures.

Omar realizes that Kalil has martyred himself, but something else is bother him. “I smell gas” he says. In the background it looked like one of his henchman was admiring himself on the old “silent but deadly” fart scheme, while the other was about to chime in with the always prudent “you smelt it, you dealt it” advice. Both scenarios were incorrect, as they quickly realized that it smelled like natural gas, and it seemed to be coming from their prisoners’ cell. They pull out Heller and Audrey, and once in the fresh air, they begin to wake up. I guess 45 minutes in a gas leak wasn’t enough, maybe they need a match next time. As Audrey is waking up, she gets a glimpse at one of the computer experts and recognizes him, which gives us a first hint of the mole that might have been responsible for the original security lapse in Heller’s itinerary.

Just as all of this is going down, Jack arrives on the scene. He is contact with CTU and learns from Curtis that while the Marines are planning to storm the compound, there is no plan for them to keep Audrey alive, only to rescue the Secretary of Defense. Soon after, he learns from Driscoll that the president had authorized an air strike on the compound. In the interest of national security, the president decided that the public humiliation and probable execution of Heller on television would be a sign of weakness. Convinced that Heller would have probably approved of the strike himself, the President gives the go ahead and the bombing coordinates are set.

Having seen his wife killed and having invested so much time into trying to keep Kate Warner sane, Jack was not about to let Audrey go without a fight. Storm a fortified terrorist compound by himself with no backup might sound a lot for one man, but it’s a day in the park for Jack. Unfortunately, we will have to wait until next week, as the hour ended before we got to see Jack go medieval on some ass.