Cutting a season of “24” down to 12 episodes seems to have done something to its velocity, urgency and the amount of action it packs into each week’s show.
This week, it was 4 p.m. in London, but nobody was stopping for tea.
Instead, they were recovering from the season’s second errant drone strike at a dummy location blown to smithereens. Of the CIA agents targeted there, four died and six were wounded, but the main characters leading the charge, Steve Navarro and agent Ritter, got out with scratches. Which is not something that often happens at drone strikes.
Already they were sending out the cover up, though, telling people it was a gas explosion.
The British Prime Minister is meeting with the President as they learn about the drone strike and insists on being kept informed on what the Americans are doing on their soil (the chief of command, upon this request, gives him a stink eye). But the President agrees.
Still, Stephen Fry’s p.m. is informed by a staff that we’re seeing for the first time, they are dealing with a man they have learned is dealing with Alzheimer’s.
“God help us,” the prime minister intones.
If not a deity, they do have Jack Bauer, sitting calmly at the President’s offices in the UK and coming into the episode much later than usual. He has a line on Karl Rask, someone with a connection to the terrorist who has taken control of the drones, but he’s not a good guy.
But, Jack adds, whispering something he’s whispered many a time before: “Right now, he’s the only chance we’ve got.”
So after demanding an unmarked car, clean phone and the use of Yvonne Strahovski’s Kate Morgan, the cute but tough CIA agent who’s been tracking him, he’s off to get information from him, using some device Chloe has remotely planned.
Before Jack goes, he meets with Tate Donovan’s Mark Boudreau, the chief of staff and current husband of Audrey Raines, his old girlfriend. They get along OK, and Jack says Mark has nothing to worry about, Jack’ll be dead or in jail soon enough (and besides, they’re only doing 12 episodes).
Jack’s so nice, in fact, that Mark sort of regrets forging the president’s name on an extradition order to hand Jack over to the Russians. Which is a realization he gets about 10 minutes before the Russians call about the matter. Stalling only puts the chief of staff in deeper water.
But he’s almost having the least amount of trouble in the episode.
Margot Al-Harazi’s daughter, Simone, who had to witness the killing of her husband last week, is tasked with doing one more thing when the cell phone in the dead man’s pants begins to ring. It’s his sister, saying she’s all packed and ready if they’re still fleeing London.
It makes it sound like she knows something about their plan, so Simone is charged with going off to kill her. Even though she’s killed her lover earlier in the day, had a finger chopped off and watched her husband die all in the past few hours, Simone softens here at seeing her sister-in-law and especially when seeing her niece. Now she’s supposed to kill both of them.
This is where “24” has always excelled – presenting the big picture battle while cutting to smaller, personal, but often just as effective hand to hand scenes. Things go wrong, though. The sister panics, Simone indeed stabs her and the niece freaks and flees the building. A chase through the London streets follows, culminating in Simone being hit by one of London’s distinctive double decker buses. Blammo.
But even that’s not nearly the biggest ting that happens in the episode. To gain access to Karl Rask, whom Jack reveals he has been working for these past two years, he’s got to essentially make Kate Morgan unconscious and turn her over. While she’s skeptical at first, she goes ahead and stabs herself in the neck with the hypodermic needle and slumps over.
It’s some awful bait, as the Karl Rask’s crew is going to torture her for information and otherwise be distracted while Jack downloads the info he needs. Another complication: Even if the President doesn’t send the CIA to follow as promised, the Brits sic their MI-5 units, who muddle everything up with a full on attack on the warehouse hideaway during Jack’s operation.
Amid the gunfire, Morgan escapes from her torture just before they were going to use the electric drill on her skull. But Jack has to mess with the computer himself while firing off his own shots.
Rask is apprehended but doesn’t go quietly. He grabs a soldier’s grenade and blows up the place. Kablooey. Jack again survives.
In the midst of this busy afternoon, one CIA guy back at the office has the time to notice that some of the files regarding Morgan’s husband, charged for selling state secrets, are missing.
In a final scene, Navarro talks to some Mr. Big on the phone acknowledging their cover up could be exposed if these files come to light. So the head of the UK office is corrupt and a spy for someone?
Well, no time for tea now.
In previews for next week, we see Simone is not dead, double decker buses not being what they used to be. And there’s a real chance she could agree to change sides with the right pressure. Unfortunately, she’s also in the crosshairs of the CIA and her terrorist mother.
And we see in the preview, Jack get hit with the season’s third drone while he’s driving his provided car.
So much for unmarked.