Season 3, Episode Recaps, 9pm-5am

Below are just the episode recaps without all the extra blathering and tangents I tend to take off on :)

9pm - 10pm

Hot damn. A show filled with many many Holy Shit moments and I swear I felt my heart pound and my stomach just drop to the floor. Man... David's back and is he ever fierce, Jack's suddenly finding himself in a situation where he has very little control and I think it's hurting him, Kim finally shows her inexperience and seriously buggers Tony and Michelle's relationship, and Wayne the Wanker could prove the be a bigger problem than Anne ever was and the whole presidential plotline begins to look more exciting... It was a roller-coaster episode for sure!

I'm going to deal with Jack's issues first. He's not looking so good right now (that's a bitch). But I can't decide if he's faking withdrawal symptoms or if he's really having them. He just goes from shivery mess to ironman too quickly. At the beginning of the hour, Ramon hands him some pills because Jack 'won't fix'. Jack takes them, says he's off to the bathroom and suddenly he's in with Claudia and the shaking is gone and his voice is strong. The only heavy breathing there was from their kiss (and wotta kiss it was too.) Either those pills were miracle heroine-be-gone pills or Jack's faking it as part of his act. I just don't know. And with my penchant for being so far off base I'm in the wrong ballpark, I wouldn't spend too much time pondering that.

Anyway, Jack's transponder-thing is broken thanks to Chase so his only option is to get to Claudia and explain to her what he's doing. This is what I dearly love about 24: I just do not know what is sincere and what is an act with anyone - but especially Jack. Is he promising the moon to Claudia just to finish his deal, or does he really love her and intend to rescue her and her family? I just don't f-ing know. It's killing me I tell you :) Meanwhile Chase has been carted off to the barn for torture-time. I did have flashbacks of Jack's torture but I think the show did something interesting this time. The audience knows Chase is being tortured, but we don't see much of it. Instead we watch Jack's face, with a hint of a tear in his eye as he listens to Chase scream in pain. That was incredible.

And yes, the big shocker that really wasn't much of a shocker because of FOX's penchant for fecking SPOILING everything in their previews... Nina is back. When jack and the brothers Salazar show up at the appointed meeting spot. The things that must have been going through Jack's mind... he knows the interdiction he planned can't happen because CTU doesn't know where he is anymore... Argh! Anyway, Amador the representative for the people holding the Cordilla virus informs Jack that there is another interested buyer and that he will hold a single-bid auction when they arrive. of course, that other buyer happens to be Nina.

Now - before anyone wonders wtf she's doing out of prison, remember that in Season Two, Palmer said that he would honour her original immunity deal which included immediate deportment out of the country and a permanent ban from returning. So she's been free this whole time. So anyway she shows up and I'm fairly sure she's shocked as hell to see Jack there and she orders her, ummm entourage (?) to shoot him. But of course that doesn't happen. She's wary of him but he continues to delicately walk the thin line of maybe/maybe not. Jack convinces the irritated Salazars to play it out a little longer and make a big bid because the potential payoff will be huge.

Aaaaand Nina outbids them and gains control of the virus which will be delivered to her in a 'couple of hours'. The smirk on Nina's face... I wanted to choke her. It must have pissed Jack off too but he's got other things to worry about. Suddenly he's no longer useful to the Salazar's and Jack's hour ends with him begging them to go after Nina. He pleads with Hector. He knows Nina, he trained Nina. He can get to her. If they don't attempt to go through with the deal the 'Salazar name' will be a joke to the terrorist community (wotta shame.) I think Jack played on their machismo a little there, but hey he's got to grab any straw he possibly can so he can stay in this thing a little longer. Finally Ramon decides to play it out longer, muttering, "He has more lives than a cat." as an emotionally beat-up Jack walks wearily back to the SUV. I think we're seeing real fear in Jack's eyes - not fear for his family, or fear for the potential loss of life if this deal fails, but fear that he can't control the situation. There are too many wildcards flying around him. Too many curveballs, and that combined with his smack habit is starting to make him crack. I think. Tick-boom.

Back at CTU, Kim's finally showing her inexperience. I also think she got a little bit cocky. Her father and her boyfriend are in the middle of this thing, and she's got everyone's sympathy - especially Michelle's. Tony's wearily keeping tabs on everything and seemingly blunders a couple of times when he gives Kim a couple of orders. The Whatever Technology (TM Television Without Pity) codes and passwords Kim thinks Tony didn't give her cause her to believe that Tony's injury and the stress of the op are too much so she goes to Michelle with her concerns. She tells Michelle that she doesn't believe Tony's capable and since Michelle is second-in-command, she should go to Chapelle about it.

What I had trouble with is that on Kim's word alone she does go to Chapelle and brings Tony's competency into question. I realise that Michelle was watching Tony carefully and seeing him stress etc. But I can't understand why she'd take Kim's word for it that Tony's incapable of handling the situation. Kim's a low rung on the ladder regardless of who her father is. My theory is that Michelle likes Kim, and I got the impression that she took Kim under her wing when she came to CTU. She took the time to talk to her in the bathroom earlier that day, she gives Kim quite of bit of responsibility... maybe too much which is what made Kim feel she could overstep her bounds a bit and go to Michelle.

But Tony's is in top form mentally, if not physically and proves it to Chapelle after being called into his office and learns what his wife has done. Uh-oh... I sense a big riff between them forming. And Kim is the cause of it because of her inexperience. Oh dear. So the CTU search for Jack and Chase carries on. And they do not know if Jack's cover has been blown. Jack's asked Claudia to get him a cell phone so he can contact CTU aswell as do what she can to save Chase so she's busy with that.

Ahhh Palmer... Damn he was fierce. I loved seeing feisty, fiery Palmer back on form. His biggest campaign supporter requests to see him. I've forgotten his name... will -re-edit later with it. Anyway, Palmer goes to see this guy, who's wheelchair-bound from a stroke, and married to a young hottie. We then get a little more backstory on Wanke- I mean Wayne. Apparently Wayne took over this guy's company (a friendly takeover from what I could tell) when he had a stroke. But while the guy recuperated, Wayne and the hottie wife had a year long affair. But they ended it. Campaign Supporter just found out about it and now he wants David to fire Wayne as revenge. A few veiled threats later, and David refuses to fire his brother. Then he storms back to his LA office and confronts Wayne about the affair. Woooo that was a great scene. Wayne offered to resign over it which, as much as I hate to admit it, leads me to believe that perhaps Wayne is honourable (adultery not withstanding) and isn't up to anything devious. He's just a wanker, plain and simple.

Ohhh I must stop for now. I've been working on this for 2 hours and I've got to get to bed. What I really want to do is re-watch the episode, but alas... I might have more to blather on about tomorrow. I believe this was the best episode so far - no, I believe that every episode just gets better and better.

10pm - 11pm

Ok. That's it. I am not watching FOX, staying up for 24 castmember talkshow interviews, or reading any forums that have to do with the damn show. The whole ending of this great episode was totally wrecked for me. First, it was by the end-of-the-episode previews for the next show when I saw Nina running her hands up Jack's thighs, then the forums that just stick spoiler info in thread titles, then from the clip The View chose to show when Sarah Clarke was on - they showed the bloody last scene of the episode! WTF?? And finally by mainstream media sources announcing in big giant letters that Sherry returns tonight. Thank you very much you feckin' eejits. I figured she'd be back at some point but I didn't know it would be tonight. So her return was diminished for me. As well as The Kiss surprise. The impact was lessened because I expected it. But enough whinging about spoilers. I will get to spend loads of time analysing what that particular kiss means to Jack. Amazing what the man will do for his country.

So... Sherry is back. Why is she not in jail? I hope that's explained in the next hour because she should be somebody's bitch in prison by now. Palmer's supporter Milliken is going to play dirty and put a stop to a Very Important healthcare bill Palmer want's to pass because he feels jilted by his far-too-young wife who had an affair with Wayne. He wanted David to fire Wayne and Wayne is actually keen to let him in order to preserve his presidency. But David knows that if he gives in, then his presidency will be a sham and he'd be at the mercy of anyone with a little dirt on him. He wants the comings and goings of his staff to be on his terms, not anyone else's. Yet for all of that, the president is willing to 'sink to Milliken's level' and play dirty too. He picks up the phone and dials a number (that he seemed to know by heart mind you). Aaaaaaand Sherry picks up. "I need your help." says David. Meanwhile Wayne goes to see Milliken's wife to see if she'll be willing to convince Milliken to stop his dastardly plan. But the wife has something she wants: Wayne. When he refuses, she also refuses to help him.

Heading back over to CTU, Michelle tries to apologise to Tony for doubting him. He tells her it was her responsibility to do that if she felt there was a problem. But then he turns around and bites her head off anyway. Tension tension between them. I wonder if they're newlyweds. Tony doesn't seem to have a problem forgiving Kim though which I found odd since it was her observations that caused Michelle to go to Chapelle. Tony gives Kim an update after he speaks to Jack (I'll get to that in a mo) and seems concerned about how she's doing through all of this... But he made it a point not to tell her that Nina 'is in play' (I'm sorry.. i couldn't resist that line, I just watched that ep in S2 this weekend.)

And Chloe's back. Yay! And she's with child! Well, not literally but apparently she's a single mum. That makes me (a single mum) love her even more. I bring my daughter to work all the time. Granted she's 12 and doesn't usually make cooing noises from under the desk, but then I don't have Chapelle for a boss. The look on his face when he saw Chloe's kidlet was priceless! Apparently, Chloe's sitter had some emergency and had to bring her baby to CTU, which Chloe was having an absolute cow about. I have never seen such a neurotic, anal-retentive character like hers before. It brings a bit of levity, in my opinion, to a season that's been filled with pain on so many different levels.

Moving on to Jack, Nina, Claudia and Chase... My goodness, poor Chase. He's learned from the best when it comes to torture. Something I always wondered... When Jack or any agent comes back to debrief and tell of his or her adventures, do they go into much detail as far as the things they've had to go through to get from point A to point B? I mean, did Jack simply say, "I was tortured for information on the chip and my heart stopped." Or does he tell them everything they did to him?

I digress. Chase is being tortured with what I think is a cattle prod. While that's happening, Jack, Ramon and Hector have returned to the farmhouse where Chase and Claudia are. Hector contacts Gael (ahh yes remember the Salazar's don't realise that Gael is a double, double agent and he is still 'in' with them) to try and find out whether Chase came to Mexico alone or with a team. Gael tells him he doesn't know because that's a field ops question and Gael is not in field ops. Hector seems to buy that. Gael also tells him that just to be safe, they should keep Chase alive and Hector agrees. Then Jack gets on the phone and gives Gael the satellite number Amador was using and has him trace it so he can get to Nina.
I love Whatever Technology (tm TWoP). And oh man, Hector goes into the barn where Chase is and shoots that boy through his hand. Ouch! But he didn't break, good man. I think his knowledge that help was not far away, and that Jack really hadn't betrayed him was what kept him strong. Otherwise I bet he would have broken quickly if not for that.

Sergio, Claudia's little brother who idolizes hector nearly blows her plan to escape by telling Hector that Claudia told him to be ready to go. But she covers nicely and Hector is appeased. Phew! Silly kid. Meanwhile, Jack hurriedly tells her he's got to go after the virus but that there are military teams nearby if she can manage to get herself, her father, brother, and Chase out of there. Man I'd be scared to death to attempt anything like an escape. I felt Claudia's desire to escape and keep her family safe is what helped her overcome her fear.

Ramon of course is still wary of trusting Jack to go after Nina alone, so he refuses to let Jack out of his sight when the call comes in from Gael about Amador's whereabouts. He and Jack leave alone to try and isolate Nina when she meets Amador to get the virus. Hector plops down in a chair in the farmhouse and rests which gives Claudia her one shot. She finds her father and tells him to disable all of the trucks and be ready to go. She then goes to the barn, knocks out a guard with his own gun (you GO girl!) and walks in telling the torturers that Hector thinks Chase will talk to her. This is after they poured gasoline on his bullethole. *shudder*. But Claudia slips him a knife and together they kill the man torturing him, take his cell phone and run for her father's truck. Her father was waiting in it with Sergio. Claudia and Chase are lying down in the bed of the truck under some cover, but still, some henchmen stop Claudia's father before he can drive off and they don't look like they're buying his story. So Chase pops up and shoots them, which alerts Hector and there's a fabulous shootout as they get the hell out of there.

Phew!

But they make it away safely. Except that when Chase tries to tell Claudia thank you for helping him escape, he sees she's been hit by a stray bullet. Claudia is dead. Argh!! The first major death of the season and it's a doozy in terms of what this will do to Jack. From what I could tell from previous episodes, Jack might have actually fallen in love with Claudia. Her death is going to be devastating to him I think.

But at this point in time he's got his hands full with Nina. He has managed to track her to an abandoned church where she has just met with Amador. Amador told her that he would contact her in the next half an hour with the location of the virus and Nina's a little pissy at having to jump through hoops to get at it. But then Amador and his goons leave and Nina's alone with her own goons whom Jack manages to take out - all but one anyway. He has Nina at gunpoint again, but not for long. The extra goon Jack didn't see pops up allowing Nina to knock Jack out with her briefcase. When he wakes up, he's cuffed to a chair and Nina's trying to suss him and his motives out.

The exchanges between them were pretty intense. Nina wants to know if Jack can forgive her for killing Teri. Jack says repeatedly he just wants to get his cash and disappear. He tells her that the Salazars will pay her 10 times her 2 million dollar fee for this deal, and that he's a fugitive now anyway for breaking Ramon out of prison. She was able to confirm this, but she needs further convincing. So she kneels before him, runs her hands up his thighs and asks him to convince her he's over Teri's death. The final scene the kiss heard round the 'net. I don't know whether to be turned on or disgusted by it. I know why Jack had to kiss her - the stakes are high, lives hanging in the balance etc. - But... it's Nina.. and I don't think I can forgive her for killing Teri. Oh how filled with revulsion Jack must have been...

What an episode. Now we have to wait two weeks for the next one. Thanks Bush. Can't tell us what you're up to on a fecking Wednesday? Geesh.

11pm - 12am

I feel like there was a lot of information in this hour. I hope I can remember it all :) I think my favourite bit from this hour was Nina telling Jack, after quite a long snog, that she could still feel he was lying. That he would do anything to pull this off. Then Jack just had this look on his face... I can't describe it... It was like desperation mixed with revulsion with a little bit of passion thrown in. Then he leaned in and kissed her again in one last attempt to convince her. Then she pulled back and said some things that honestly I can't remember because my mind was still picturing myself in Nina's shoes letting Jack convince me. Well, until Jack headbutted Nina. Then I let her have her shoes back. Whatever she said, it must have pissed him off because he got her pretty good and knocked her flat on her back over a pile of wood. He flung himself backwards and broke up the chair he was cuffed to, grabbed a board and proceeded to explain to Nina that she was going to help him make this deal for the Salazar's whether she believed him or not.

So that took place near the beginning of the hour. We opened at CTU with Tony briefing the agents on the situation, and that Jack is going to attempt to work with the second buyer. Then Adam totally blew it by letting it slip, in front of Kim, that the second buyer is Nina. Kim is shocked. To say the least. So Tony takes her aside and apologises for not telling her sooner. He just couldn't find the right way to do it. A very shaken Kim tells Tony that there is no way her father could stand working with her again. Cut to that excruciatingly repulsive-yet-somehow-very-hot kiss. When we come back to CTU after Jack has cuffed Nina and called Ramon to come back to the church, Kim goes to Tony again and has a bit of a breakdown I think. She's visibly upset about the Nina development and Tony seems genuinely sympathetic. Why wouldn't he be? He was the one seeing Nina when she turned traitor. Anyway, Kim asks Tony to promise her Nina will come to justice when this is all over. Tony doesn't get to answer right away because Chloe (yay Chloe!) buzzes looking for Kim. As Kim leaves, he tells her he'll do his best (or something along those lines. I think my mind's still on the kiss/headbutt.)

So Kim goes to see what Chloe wants. This made me giggle and I'm digging having some bizarrely weird laughs on this so-serious of shows. I've read a lot of people around the Net aren't too pleased with Chloe having a child. I bet some of them are feeling kind of justified now since they predicted that soon Kim would be babysitting the kidlet. That is exactly what Chloe does: dump the ickle baby onto Kim and disappears off to do her work leaving Kim quite bewildered.

*phew!* I think I'm only about ten minutes into the show and I haven't even done Palmer yet.

Well, Wayne has just gone from hardass to dumbass in just a few hours. Earlier in the day he was all about getting David re-elected and playing holier-than-thou when it came to Anne's 'mess' when he himself wasn't so squeeky clean. So on top of him meeting the woman he slept with in some cocktail bar/restaurant - and kissing her there, he called this bastard Milliken in a pretty pathetic attempt to fix his own 'mess'. Milliken tells Wayne the stranglehold on David's healthcare bill will go away if he just resigns. Wayne says David won't let him. David comes in during the call and words are exchanged. Basically they're saying to us that it's about to get dirty.

Thank goodness Sherry's back then. Who better to deal with the dirty? Before I get to Sherry, I just want to say that I love getting to see Aaron the secret service agent/doorman now and then. His scenes with Palmer in Season Two, when he helped David get a phone were some of my favourites. Okay that said, Aaron announces Sherry's here and she slinks into David's office like a coquette. Small talk, small talk, small talk. We learn that David kept Sherry's role in the nuclear bomb out of the headlines and her out of prison (ahhhh), but now David needs her to play dirty as only she knows how to do. Sherry can be anything David wants her to be, she tells him. Ooooer.

Sherry knows Milliken's skeletons very well and knows which one to rattle so she gets right to work. But as she waits for a free office to use, Wayne comes in to see her. I rather enjoyed the sparks between them. It was like a bitchfight without the claws and hair pulling. I think we're to infer that they don't get on very well because Wayner wants her to leave. But Sherry has her own agenda...

I'm still not even halfway through the show.

So while all of the above was going on, Chase, Claudia's father and her brother were picked up by chopper. The agents on board informed Chase that they spotted a vehicle heading in their direction and they assumed it would be Hector and they had to get out of there right away or risk being spotted. So they had no time to load Claudia's body into the helicopter and had to leave it in the bed of the truck. not too long after they take off, Hector pulls up to the abandoned truck and finds Claudia dead. He sends a few of his men off to look for Chase but knows it's too dark. Then he called Ramon, who by now is at the church with Jack and Nina, and you can just hear the beginnings of panic enter his voice. Claudia's death combined with Chase's escape is too much for him and he's beginning to get cold feet about the deal. He tells Ramon about Claudia and tries to convince Ramon to call the whole thing off. Unfortunately there's just too much at stake now. The buyers Hector lined up will be expecting the virus and if they don't deliver, their reputations will be bogus. So Ramon orders Hector to come to their location. Reluctantly, Hector goes.

As Ramon hangs up the phone, he tells Jack that Chase escaped and that Claudia is dead. ... Poor Jack. God that was a very intense moment there. Kiefer said so much without saying a freaking word. In those two or three seconds I believed Jack was devastated by the news, that he wanted to say something, anything to alleviate the pain and shock. but he knew he couldn't. He had to hold it together. There's so much at stake. Amazing that I could absorb all of those emotions from such a brief, silent moment or two. Kiefer, you are amazing. And to the writers, every episode just ratchets up the tension until I think it couldn't possibly get any worse and my nerves are so taut by the end of the hour. I love it.

I digress. As Jack internalizes the shock of Claudia's death, Nina is watching him intently. The look on her face tells me that she's calculating. She's wondering who Claudia is. She knows Jack better than Ramon does and I think she can tell that the information Jack just received hurt him. And she's trying to work out how she can use that to slither out of this whole thing. But she doesn't get much time to ponder it because Jack makes her come over to a laptop and set up access for Amador so that he can verify the funds. More Whatever Technology (tm TWoP) :) After that, Nina tries to convince Ramon that Jack is still working for CTU when Jack's not looking but Ramon says, 'Do you think we are stupid?' I hope he wasn't expecting an answer to that.

Soon Amador does call, verifies the funds and then tells Nina they will meet at an abandoned mine in just over an hour and make the exchange. Unbeknownst to Amador, CTU has a lock on his phone, and is tracking him via satellite. But they can't bust him without verification that he has the virus and they can't get that verification without Jack. So Chase and all the other agents are twiddling their thumbs waiting for intel. Well Chase isn't twiddling his thumbs because he has a gaping hole in one of his hands, but there you go. But he is pestering the lead agent and telling him that he's not leaving to seek medical attention. Unbeknownst to Ramon, Jack has nicked the cell phone and places a one way call to CTU. By this time Hector has arrived and after seeing Nina cuffed, he begins to lose his cool. Hector takes Ramon aside and argues that they should call off the deal. Odd how the situation has changed. Just a few hours ago it was Hector who had to practically beg Ramon to go through with it. Now Ramon is all set to deal, and he has to practically order his little brother to shut up and go through with it. Jack interrupts their argument, with the phone hidden in his pocket and tells them that the mine is a ways away and they need to get going. Now CTU knows where they're heading.

Just a little more to cover now :)

Back in Palmerland, Sherry's been doing her thang and soon after she gets started, Milliken calls David and makes more threats. From the way he was talking, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps it isn't so farfetched that he's connected to this virus thing. He's pretty pissed off and evil-ish. All over a woman. Sheesh. Then again, as I've said before, I suck at speculation so I'll leave it at that. David asks Sherry what she's up to, but she can't or won't tell him what she's doing just yet. I'm also wondering if David's bringing Sherry into this isn't really a catalyst into just making everything worse. What if whatever she's doing only pisses Milliken off more and goads him into getting the virus and releasing it. That's if he's connected... I just can't help feeling that bringing Sherry in is one of those things that seemed like a good solution at the time but ends up only making matters worse somehow. We'll just have to see.

A brief sojourn back to CTU and we find Kim trying to shush the crying kidlet. Chloe returns and asks Kim what she did to the baby. Just at that moment, Chapelle and Tony hear the baby crying. Chapelle is livid and orders Chloe's suspension. But Michelle tells him that they just don't have anyone who can work the monitoring for the op in Mexico as well as Chloe can. Exasperated, Chapelle looks at Chloe, then looks at Kim, and then orders Kim to look after the baby. Oh dear.

Ooookay now. Chase has bugged the guy in charge enough to let him run point on observation at the mine in order to confirm the virus. Jack, Nina, Ramon, Hector and assorted flunkies set off for the mine so that they can position some flunkies around the area in case things go wrong. It's only supposed to be Nina going in to get the virus remember, so the Salazar boys can't be seen. They arrive at another abandoned building and Hector is even more antsy and irritable. As the time draws near they must get going and get into position but Hector decides to stand up to Ramon. He's had enough. The deal is getting too dangerous. The argument heats up between the brothers Salazar as Nina and Jack look on. Finally Hector orders his men to leave with him. As he turns to the door, Ramon tries one more time to to make Hector do as he's told. He fails. So he pulls out his gun and kills Hector. His own brother whom he loved like a.. well like a brother.

I told you it was a lot to take in this hour. I have to say that I believe this was kind of a filler episode but leave it to these guys to make exposition intense and emotional. I thought this was a fantastic hour and I canNOT wait until next week. I'll also say that remaining spoiler-free for this hour was SO worth it. I enjoyed it a lot more not knowing what to expect..

I know this is a long long entry, but I just wanted to mention that I did watch the live webcast after the show. Overall, it was pretty good, but I did feel a bit letdown because they only did one audience question, one email, and one phone call. They aired for 15 minutes, much of which was spent listening to the hostess blather on and on and waste time asking her own questions. Penny and Howard were great guests though and I did learn a few nifty things. FOX is archiving the mini-show for a week so if you missed it, you should be able to go to the FOX site and view it.

Enough from me. Great show. Fingers hurt. Time for bedfordshire. Gnight!

12am - 1am

Jaysis. Just... Damn.

Ramon is cold. Cold cold cold. Hector was just lying on the floor, bleeding. He might have lived had Ramon let his henchmen take him to hospital. But 'they might ask questions' and he had to do this deal. So... he shot him again. Dead. Even cold-blooded, selfish Nina was shocked. I think Ramon showed a slight tinge of emotion, a little shaky breath perhaps. But nothing more. Then Jack approached Ramon and told him he was sorry, but they needed to get going if they were going to get to the mine before Amador did. That seemed to propel Ramon into action.

As they left the barn or whatever building it was, Nina pleaded with Ramon. She told him Jack was still with CTU, that Hector was right. Ramon whirled on her and told her never to say his brother's name again. Awwwww. Off they go to the meet.

I'm probably going to be way out of order in the way things went down this hour. My mind's spinning in all different directions and I'm really sleepy. If I miss out anything I'll try to update tomorrow after I've watched this again and again :)

We learned this hour what Milliken's big skeleton is (or one of his skeletons anyway). We also learned that Sherry carries way too much crap in her bag. She left David's.. what are they, offices? I know it's the same place Palmer went in L.A. during the second season but I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, Sherry continued to withhold her info from David for now because she was going off to meet some contact about Milliken's big secret. Next thing we know she's knocking on the door of some really trashy trailer and meeting a geezer.

Several years ago, Milliken was driving drunk and hit and killed a young woman (a kid? I'm not sure.) The man Sherry is talking to is the girl's father who was paid off by Milliken's people if he would just keep his mouth shut. So he did. My question is if he received a big old payoff from milliken, why the hell is he living in a dumpy trailer? I digress though. Sherry's job now is to convince this guy to go public with Milliken's skeleton and she nearly does it. But the geezer wants one thing in return. No, not money. He wants his son, currently doing life for a murder rap, pardoned by the President. Me, I would have asked for money.

So Sherry steps outside and finally phones David and fills him in on what's going on and now David has yet another ethical dilemma to deal with. Remind me never to run for president. He and Wayne have another discussion about how to handle this one. Wayne once again offers to resign but David's being the stubborn one now. he tells Wayne they have to fight dirty - and I found this amusing because now Wayne is the high and mighty brother when just a few short hours ago he worked a deal to nick Keeler's playbook and engineered a blackmail payoff for Anne's ex-husband. Of course David reminded him of these little factors. At the end of the discussion, we basically hear David say he doesn't know what he's going to do.

However, the point is moot because when Sherry goes back inside the trailer, Geezer is missing and there's blood on the walls. She runs as fast as her impossibly high heels can carry her over to her car and as she's digging through her gigantic bag for her keys, we see some car lights flip on and begin moving toward her. She's yanking all kinds of crap out of that thing desperately searching for her keys as the car inches closer and closer. I distinctly remember thinking, damn, the car's going awfully slow if it's going to try and run her over. Just as Sherry finally finds her keys, the car passes by with some very short old people in it. I nearly fell off my seat laughing and Sherry gets away.

At CTU, Adam questions Kim about the baby and we find out that ummm, Chloe has no children. Adam conducted Chloe's background check before she was hired and knows for a fact Chloe's barren - er childless. Kim confronts Chloe about this and Chloe concocts a story about the baby really belonging to her boyfriend and that the child's real mother was in a relationship with a drunken paedophile so she had no choice but to help her boyfriend get the child out of that situation and that her boyfriend contacted child support services about this and was supposed to meet them but something happened and oh no I've gone cross-eyed (tm Austin Powers). Suffice to say the story sounded like complete bullshit and Kim wasn't falling for it. She thinks Chloe's 'delusional' and tells Tony as much. She verifies with CSS that no such meeting was to take place between chloe's "boyfriend" and them and she suspects Chloe may have possibly kidnapped the child herself. Since Chloe is such a vital part of the monitoring team for Jack's operation in Mexico, and potentially holds the lives of her father and her own boyfriend in her weird little hands, she takes her concerns to Tony.

But I don't know how credible Kim can be anymore what with her previous suspicions proving groundless. Kim's done more to create paranoia and suspiciousness within the higher ranks than if she'd just kept her mouth shut. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Kim. My opinion is that she's just trying to be a good CTU tech, but she just hasn't got enough experience or knowledge of the inner workings of a military organization like CTU. That does not make her stupid. Just young and naive. We know she's there because of Jack anyway.

Tony tells Kim that they will deal with the baby situation after the op is complete but right now Chloe is the best at what she does and he won't allow her to be distracted. So he tells Kim to look after the kidlet.

Moving back south of the border, Jack is setting up an observation point on the place where the transaction will take place when he overhears Nina trying once more to convince Ramon that Jack is still with CTU. She tells Ramon she can prove it. Ramon eyes her questioningly so she points out that she worked for CTU herself and knows their protocols. She says they'll have a single man hidden either in the surrounding high ground or a nearby treeline. Ramon knows he'd be an idiot if he didn't at least check it out so he sends some men to look. In the meantime, he takes her into one of the buildings and waits. Soon the men call in, except one. Because there is one man up in the high ground - Chase. When the henchman fails to report in Ramon comes dangerously close to killing Jack. Jack starts yelling at Nina: "What did you tell him?" he yells at her. Just then the henchman radios in that all is clear and things settle down. Then Chase knocks out henchman and goes back to observation. Not bad for a kid with a hole in his hand.

Soon Amador shows up with his bodyguard and Ramon warns Nina that if she blows it, she's dead. She heads off to make the deal. Chase has a clear view and tells CTU that Amador has handed a vial to Nina. Nina has taken it and inserted it into some sort of machine that takes five minutes to verify whether it's real. Tum ta tum. Tick tock tick tock. We have a bit of drama back at CTU when Chloe loses Chase on audio and runs over to switch to a different satellite, which freaks Adam out because he thinks she's screwing up bigtime. But no, Chloe really does kind of know what the hell she's doing and she gets Chase back. They have verification that the virus is real.

However, after Nina's virus-o-matic makes the confirmation, Amador takes the vial back on the pretext that he'll just hold onto it while Nina makes the fund transfer. She does, everyone leaves. But they don't realise that CTU's Delta teams are on their way in and Chase doesn't count on Ramon's hatred of Jack despite it all because once Nina hands the virus to him, he pulls a gun and says, "I don't need you anymore Jack." *gulp* Bastard! Jack is seemingly taken aback, "We had a deal Ramon!"

I wish I could incorporate sound effects into this blog because I can do some really cool gunshot noises :D Chase realises that that Ramon will kill Jack before the Delta teams can get there so he starts firing and hits Ramon. Nina sees her chance and takes off into the night just as the teams converge and begin firing on Ramon's minions. Chase tells CTU they do not have the virus and he watches as Ramon staggers away with the case holding the virus and Jack take off in pursuit.

Argh commercial!!!

When we come back, Milliken's wife's in her kitchen when her phone rings. It's Sherry. Dum da dum dum. Sherry convinces Mrs. Milliken that she can help her get away from Milliken and still keep herself in the lifestyle to which she's become accustomed. So she sets up a meeting at Milliken's house with her.

Back in old Mexico... Chase catches up with Jack and Jack is surprised to see him. but there's no time for a reunion or a bitching out for getting Claudia killed. They have to find Ramon and get that virus. With the aid of a helicopter they find him skulking behind (well, bleeding profusely behind) a haystack or something. He holds the vial in his bloody hands, full of betrayal and disbelief at the turn of events. He's surrounded, and the object of his intense hatred is holding a gun on him. If he survives, he knows he'll go back to prison and he cannot allow that. Ramon begins to twist the lid off of the vial while Jack attempts to talk him out of it. The scene is intense and has to be seen to feel the full effect of it. I can't do it justice here. But just as Ramon is about to relent, there is a high-pitched whine and Ka-boom!!! Ramon explodes! The vial was not the virus it was a fucking bomb! Jack and Chase are knocked over by the blast, and Ramon Salazar is with his brother now. The funny thing is, the bomb was meant to kill Nina, but once again, she's escaped.

Excuse me while I catch my breath.

Amador, who may just be as emotionless and cold as Nina, is driving along when some more Delta teams ambush him. But the joke's on them because he ambushed the ambushers with his own men. He led them into a cul de sac of some kind where he had men stationed and was able to take them all out, destroy his phone since it's now obvious he was being tracked via the signal, and continue on his merry way with the virus.

Blimey. What an hour. Everything's starting to come together and yet we are still getting curveballs thrown at us when we expected a fast ball. Twists and turns and thrills and chills. I love this goddamn show.

1am - 2am

Note to self: Stay on Sherry's good side.

But we knew that already eh? We've already hit a few of the thrilling dips and curves in this roller-coaster of a show but I think we're about to hit that final big mountain of a drop in the coming episodes. Whoosh! This episode was packed with great moments - moments that had me cheering out loud (causing much eye-rolling from my daughter), dropping my jaw, and actually cringing in an I'm-glad-I'm-not-him sort of way. 24 just continues to rock my socks.

We opened with Jack and Chase searching the surrounding area of the abandoned mine, looking for Nina. They had separated to cover more ground. Chase noticed a light amongst the leaves nearby and asked Jack if it was coming from him, which it wasn't so he went to investigate. When he gets there, he finds a dead man and his flashlight. He leans in to, I dunno, check his pulse maybe, Nina cooly steps out of the shadows and forces Chase to drop his weapon as she trains her gun on him. She asks Chase where Amador is and learns that he still has the virus. Everyone got screwed. Nina seem sdisappointed in the news. She then gets him to get on the two-way with Jack (oooer!) and give him a Code 6. I have no idea what that means, but evidently Jack wasn't having it. As Nina started to lead Chase away, Jack popped out of nowhere and WHAM! Nina went down. It was great :)

And then... ohhh and then Jack sends Chase off to an airfield. You can tell Chase is reluctant to go and leave Jack alone with Nina but that mysterious power Jack has to get people to do what he wants comes into play and Chase goes. Soon Nina is pleading for her life. "I don't want to die." she begs of Jack as he holds his gun to her head. She tells him she can help him track Amador. Jack struggles with his desire to kill this pathetic woman and avenge his wife and his strong need to preserve life by stopping this virus. Finally he pulls out his cell and phones Tony to tell him he's got Nina, alive, and that he's bringing her back to CTU. Then he leads her off to the airfield to meet Chase.

When they arrive, they meet up with some officers who had a C-130 plane on standby and it's ready to take them back to L.A. He hands Nina off to be secured. After they take off, Jack begins to press Nina for information. I think she can see she's got very little leverage - for the moment - so she tells Jack about a man called Alvers whom she came across when she was checking out Amador before the deal went down. She says that's all she knows so Jack has Tony run a check on the name.

Meanwhile we've cut to Amador aboard his private jet, making a call to Alvers himself. Marcus Alvers to be exact. Amador tells Alvers he has the virus and asks him if he's ready. Alvers replies that he is indeed. The cool thing is that Alvers is played by Lothaire Bluteau whom I absolutely loved as the funny little jockey in Dead Heat which also starred, you guessed it, Kiefer Sutherland (and Anthony LaPaglia who just beat Kiefer out for the Golden Globe this year). It's a funny, sweet little film that I recommend renting.

Anyway, Chase and Jack have to resolve a few issues. Chase is a little bitter about having Jack hold a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Jack explains that he had to take the risk that Ramon would never have given him a loaded weapon because it was a test. So all of the speculation before about whether Jack knew it was loaded can be put to rest. Jack didn't know for sure, he was just making an educated guess. Jack also tells Chase he couldn't let him in on the grand plan because he had to keep it as contained as possible, which meant that it had to stay between Tony, Gael and himself to avoid leaks. He reminds Chase that the job they have chosen involves calculated risks that you never know the real outcome of until it's all played out but the one factor they have to keep in the front of their minds right now is stopping that virus. Chase relents a little and tells Jack they need to press Nina. However, Jack has to wait and see if the lead Nina gave him on Alvers is valid.

A new techie (Michael Bolton from Office Space, btw) comes up with a match. It turns out that Alvers is an amature biologist and wannabe terrorist. Both he and Amador were once accused of manufacturing weapons-grade Anthrax, but they were never convicted. That's enough for Jack. He gets Nina to give out a little more info. I think he knew she was holding back because that's how she works. Give 'em a little, but save the best for last. Nina admits to knowing how to contact Alvers. She even tells Jack she will trust him when it's over to make sure she can cut a deal with the Justice department. She tells him there is a Falco number he can call that will give up an internet socket where they'll find Alvers. Yes I said Falco. That's what I heard, and snippets of 'Rock Me Amadeus' flashed through head. But I'm just looking at the episode guide on the Fox site and it's 'Felco'. Oh well :) Rock me Amadeus anyway! I like that silly song.

Jack dials the numbers, jumps through the hoops Nina sets up only to find that the beeyotch has set fire to the last hoop. The numbers have fuck-all to do with reaching Alvers. Instead, Jack has triggered a destructive worm that Nina left hidden in CTU's system before she 'left', and set it loose. She tells Jack what she's done and says that until she says otherwise, eventually it will eat it's way through to the kernel and leave CTU's files wide open to any hacker who wants them, exposing agents all around the world. The sneaky little tart.

Jack confirms with Tony that the systems are indeed crashing bigtime so he suggests pulling Chloe from his department to work on this, because again, she's the best at stopping hackers. Unfortunately there's been a development with her. Earlier in the hour, Chloe tried to carry on working when she knew she was on thin ice, Tony told her that Chappelle wanted to see her. "Why?" she asked. "I think you know why." Tony replied. She stormed off in her Chloe-like way to see Chappelle and Tony rang Kim's desk to let her know Jack and Chase were heading back to L.A. with Nina. Kim's relieved but I wonder what will happen when they get back. Jack has a lot to answer for with her and I don't know if Kim's going to be able to forgive him for his deceptions throughout this particular day. I don't mean the whole undercover thing because I believe everyone knows that deception was necessary in order for Jack to get back in with the Salazars. But the heroin addiction's going to be a confrontation between father and daughter that I'm really looking forward to. Well, that's going to be a showdown with CTU in general I think, since everyone knows now Jack's a smackhead. Can't wait.

Anyway, Chloe entered Chapelle's office, which looks eerily similar to Jack and/or Tony's office :) I was thinking about how weird it must be to have someone just 'take over' your office while they're there. But that's a tangent for another blog. I love Chloe's abrupt manner with the big boss. I think in Chloe's world, there are set rules but since she's the queen of her little world, she's allowed to bend those rules and everyone should understand that. But no one else can break a rule or she'd be on them like a hawk. Chloe continued to refuse to explain the whole baby issue even after Chappelle threatened to take the baby to the lab and do some blood tests. So instead he placed Chloe under guard and set things in motion to have the child tested.

Tony doesn't have time to explain all of this to Jack so he just accepts that he has to get Chloe 'on it' right away. Suddenly Chloe's like SuperGeek as she sweeps down the stairs barking orders at everyone. I have to interject here and ask where the hell Gael is. He was missing last hour and he's nowhere to be seen this hour either. Hmmmm... So CTU is running around trying to stop this worm as Jack, Nina and Chase head back to L.A. Nina informs Jack that she'll stop the virus if they turn the plane around and go back to Mexico. From there she wants to be released and once she's safely away she'll tell them how to stop the worm.

Yeah, like Jack will just say 'Okiedokie' and comply. Pfft. In the meantime, as we wait to see how this plays out, Sherry is on her way to Milliken's to talk to Julia. She informs the President of this and he tries to stop her. But Sherry reminds David that he's the one who asked her to help him out of this situation and he has to let her carry on. David relents. I don't know why exactly, he's allowing Sherry to sling the mud and play dirty. The only theory I have is that the attack on his life at the end of Season Two has left him shaken and unsure of himself. He's lost confidence. On the surface he appears strong, but throughout this day, he's made some dodgy decisions I don't think he would ever have made before the attack.

Sherry phones Julie to find out the gate code and how to avoid Alan while they meet. Julia is extremely reluctant to go through with this but Sherry knows what buttons to push to get her way. She knows Julia wants out of her marriage, but wants to hang on to the lifestyle to which she's become accustomed. Greedy greedy... Ah well. After Sherry arrives, she meets Julia at the service porch entrance. She tells Julia to get Alan's cell phone that he uses to make all of his calls because you see, Sherry needs proof that Alan made that Kelly guy in the trailer disappear. She needs to find out who he's been talking to. Julia tells Sherry she's too afraid. "Sweetie, I'm not." says brazen Sherry as she barges into the house, sneaks into Alan's room as he sleeps, and nicks his phone. You go girl.

Just after she gives Milliken's numbers to her 'friend' who can trace them, Alan rolls out and startles Julia and Sherry. And it's showtime! Alan and Sherry face off. She exposes his coverup over the hit and run and proceeds to screech and scream at him saying horrible things like, "No woman would ever be attracted to you. It's your money, that's all anyone wants from you, you pathetc, scrawny little man!" It has to be seen to be believed but man it was awesome. As she's screaming at him, Alan clutches his chest. Another heart attack! Desperate, he cries for Julia to get him his pills. As Julia runs for them Sherry stops her. She prevents Julia from helping him. Alan stumbles out of his wheelchair and grabs for his pill and as he's about to pop one, he dies. It was an awesome scene.

Julia's in shock but calm, cool, collected Sherry soothes her by reminding her that she's free now. She tells her to go to bed, and come back out in an hour and *gasp* discover the body. "Who do I call?" asks Julia in wide-eyed shock. "911 honey." Sherry replies in a kind of 'duh' voice. Then Sherry gets a little scary again as she tells Julia that no one can know she was ever there. Julia reluctantly agrees.

Back at CTU Chloe's in Tech One running around trying to stop the worm. She's working with Adam on it and mentions how sad it is to have to do this with him even though he and Kim stabbed her in the back. Adam is taken aback. "You're the biggest rule freak around here, what do you expect??" he hisses at her. Obviously she expected a little latitude because remember, it's ok for Chloe to break rules, but no one else. They're interrupted though when the worm begins to speed up. She calls Jack and tells him this. Putting Chloe on speaker, Jack forces Nina to tell Chloe how to slow it down again. She doesn't have a choice. But time is still running out. They're on final approach in L.A. and Nina is being obstinante about stopping the worm. Tony gets desperate and orders the pilot of the plane to turn around and head back to Mexico, giving in to Nina. Jack refuses to let that happen. He has put his faith in Chloe to stop the worm and makes another one of those pesky judgement calls: Expose CTU agents all over the world or give in to Nina.

So he whips out his gun, holds it to the pilot's head and tells him to land the plane. Tony gets on speaker in the cockpit and orders Jack to let them turn the plane around. Jack can't do it. He can't give in to her again. Just then Chloe and Adam stop the worm and get the systems back up. It was more tense than that on the show, I promise but this part happened rather fast. But the best part of the whole scene on the plane was the look on Jack's face as he left the cockpit. First he told the pilot he could file a report on him if he wanted to which I thought was amusing. Then he walked over to Nina, smirked, and told her the systems were up and running. Perplexed, Nina says, "I don't believe you." And - get this - Jack smiled! A real shit-eating grin too as he replied, "I don't care what you believe." Fantastic!

Speaking of shit-eating grins, Chloe had one herself as she was congratulated by Chappelle for saving the systems. She thought she was off scot-free. Alas... The charges were still going to apply and he had called in Child Protective Services for the baby. This was the straw that broke Chloe. She admitted to Chappelle why she had the baby in the building, and who the baby really belonged to. She told him she was just trying to be a friend. This new info was apparently pretty strong stuff because Chappelle told CPS to leave the child. Just then Kim came downstairs and had another little confrontation with Chloe about the baby. She wanted to know why CPS wasn't taking her. Chloe kept trying to get away from Kim during the convo but at that question, she turned, grimaced and said it was because she told Chappelle who the father was. "Who?" asked Kim. "Chase." Eeek!

So the kidlet is Chase's daughter. That was the end of the hour and I'm exhausted again just thinking about it. I do find the new parallel between Jack and Kim and now Chase and his little girl interesting. It puts a new spin on everything Jack said to Chase earlier in the day about how you cannot have a normal life and do this job at the same time. Ohhhh good things are coming.

There are two more episodes to go before we go on another looooong break. We'll be going almost all the way through March sans 24 *sniffle*. But according to Fox, when it returns, we're in for a 9-week run through the season finale in May so that's good news.

And I'm spent. Gnight folks. Will fix typos later :)

2am - 3am

Holy repercussions!

Now Jack knows that Kim knows that CTU knows that Chappelle knows that he knows he has a drug problem. Chloe continues to amuse. I actually guffawed in the first few minutes of the show which is an unusual occurrence watching 24. Chase asks Chloe if Kim knows about the baby. She says she does know. Chase wants to know how she reacted so Chloe says, "Ummm, gee Chase, I think she's kinda pissed." Oh. My. God that was funny :)

So it turns out that the baby's mother sort of sprung the baby on Chase a month ago and he's becoming attached to the little sprog. Chloe and Chase's sister have been helping out with the baby as apparently he and Chloe are good friends. Which is weird. Anyway, Chase explained the situation to Kim after getting a bit of a cold reception from her when he walked into CTU.

Yes they have arrived back at CTU to try and squeeze more info out of Nina, who is under very heavy guard. As they arrive back at CTU, Chappelle meets them at the entrance and stops Jack before he goes in and tells him he knows about his drug addiction. I think Jack's shocked. After everything that's happened in this day, I think that was the last thing he was expecting to hear when he brought Nina back. Chappelle wants him to go to the clinic to be checked out, and then it will be decided whether he can get back to work. Jack realises he has little choice in the matter and decides to humour Chappelle. But first there's a rather sweet and tender reunion with Kim. That was really nice to watch. As he walked in he found Kim, who had just seen them bringing in the woman who killed her mother. I'm glad the next person she saw was Jack because the girl needed a hug.

But after she hugged her daddy, she hit him up about the drugs. Damn, no one's going to let up on Jack! Another lovely scene betwen Kim and Jack where he tells her he was too embarrassed to tell her. It was very touching. Then off Jack went to get 'checked out'. Which means he finally got to take that jacket off. Ahhhhh, that's nice. Sorry I'm in a strange mood this evening. As I write this in my little blogger editor I can see the top of Kiefer's head from my previous post. It's very distracting. Where was I? Oh yes, Jack's getting checked out in the clinic. Chase walks in and fills him in on what they are doing with Nina. Chase hesitates, and then spills it to Jack about his new daughter. Jack's slightly taken aback, but again, after all that's gone on during this day, nothing seems to surprise him much. He simply tells Chase that he better square it with Kim no matter what. For once, Chase listens to him and goes off to try and smooth things over with Kim, and it seems to work. Then we get to see a nice little shot of him cuddling Angela as Kim looks on from afar.

Meanwhile, Sherry's back at Palmer's place and lying through her teeth to David about where she's been. She tells him she ended up not going over to Milliken's and instead pulled over in her car to make phone calls. However, David's not an idiot. Pretty soon they get the call that Milliken's dead, and Wayne sneaks a call to Julia to press her to find out what really happened. Of course, Julia sings like a canary, the poor greedy little woman. And now David knows Sherry lied through her teeth. How on earth will she get herself out of this. Moreover, David's hands are pretty dirty in Milliken's death as well. Sherry made Julia standby and let Milliken die - and Sherry went there on David's behalf. Dum dum dummmm...

I'm guessing they're now beginning to tie the Palmer storyline into the virus storyline now that Amador has the virus in L.A. So he'll be dealing with the Milliken repercussions while the virus - the real virus this time - is getting set to be released on the population. Amador has taken it to Alvers at some seedy nightclub - the kind of place that requires a secret knock to get in evidently - and now Alvers begins to prepare it for distribution. Things are about to get worse methinks.

And now we come to the double interrogations. Yes, the double interrogations. You see, Jack's in pretty deep shit. So Chappelle has brought in... I don't know, someone who handles agents who are on drugs, I really can't remember her exact position right now. All I know is she was played by the chick who was John Connor's foster mom in T2. Anyway, She's got video and audio set up in a conference room and now she begins to interrogate Jack to find out whether he truly did become a user in the line of duty. The other interrogation is Nina, of course. And the handler is Tony. *gasp* Yes, Tony's doing it as Michelle looks on. This should be good.

<brief interruption while I went to bed for the night and picked up where I left off the next day>

So anyway, we were about to go through Nina's interrogation. I found it chillingly ironic that Jack was being interrogated at the same time as Nina. Especially since one of the reasons for his interrogation is his obvious deterioration since Nina killed Teri. And since I'm headed that way I think I'll go over what happened with Jack first. As Jack laid out the whole Salazar connection we learned that they were an up and coming drug cartel that Jack learned about two years prior to his initial takedown of Ramon. When he began working up the case, he apparently decided to begin shooting up in the December before he even had any sort of a meet set up with the Salazars. When the interrogator asked him why he began using 6 weeks before he had anything concrete set up, his excuse was that the Salazars were born and raised in the drug world, and Jack knew as part of the job he would have to use. But if he went into their world without any knowledge of how the H would affect him, the Salazars would know he was a cop and kill him. He claimed he needed that time to become a true junkie.

But his excuse was not good enough for Chappelle or the interrogator. Neither believed it would hold up to scrutiny. Why did Jack hide it from everyone?. Why did he not even tell his partner? I think they were hinting that a possible reason could be that Jack just did it as escapism from his private demons. But Jack responded with the fact that everyone at CTU knows his wife was murdered and that he has had difficulty coming to grips with it. For everyone to then know he was using would be misinterpreted. During this interrogation Jack is becoming more agitated because he feels time is wasting. He needs to know what is happening with Nina. At this point, Chappelle, in a very surprising move, stops the tape and tells the interrogator to change the date that Jack began using to be more in line with when the Salazar investigation began. The interrogator has no problem with this - but Jack does. He is emphatic about being honest about it. In my opinion, Jack's decided that since it's out in the open then everything might as well be out in the open. I would think he would be feeling some sense of relief that he no longer has to hide this. He may have to deal with some shame and embarrassment, but that's nothing to the pressure of having to conceal his addiction from everyone he knows and loves.

But now that it's out, Jack feels he has nothing to hide and is going to be a stickler for being honest. And I think that will serve him well. Ohh I could go on and on about the repercussions of his addiction because I find it fascinating. But I'll save it for another blog. Just want to quickly add, going back to his entrance into CTU and his confrontation with Kim - my god that was some extraordinary acting from both Elisha and Kiefer. I wanted to hug them both and tell them it would all turn out fine.

Getting back on track, as I said Nina was being questioned by Tony at the same time Jack was debriefing. Talk about some fine acting as well. Sarah made Nina ooze coldness and I felt there was nothing in her worth any kind of redemption. There is no more to 'discover' about her, no more questions that demand answers. I feel that during the interrogation with Tony we learned Nina's only motivations are selfishness and greed. There is no 'why' because it's easy to understand the path she chose. She's just bad to the bone. Behind the wall Michelle and techie-boy who is apparently a Gael replacement (I've read that the actor who played Gael had filming commitments, hence the new guy. I still wish we'd gotten some sort of explanation for Gael's disappearance from three episodes now.) are monitoring Nina's vitals in hopes of catching a 'tell' as Tony puts it. It's kind of creepy to see them zooming in on her eyes looking for any hint of a lie or of holding back.

When Tony walked into Nina's room, you could almost see the frost in the air. Nina had some great zingers as well that I wish to hell I could remember off the top of my head right now but I can't. I blame the drugs. It just felt that everytime Tony asked her a question she deflected with potshots about him being married now, something about, "First Jack, then you. What does that remind me of?" but I can't think of the context of that great line... But Tony wasn't having any of it. Instead he continued to press her about Alvers. He told her they had sketchy details, medical records and whatnot. See Nina was denying ever having met Alvers. Then Tony began mentioning a few medical records: an MRI on his knee, treatment for HIV - ooo! That sent her pulse racing according to Michelle and the techie. But her face was like stone. When Tony presses her on this she merely tells him that his neck is bleeding. Now, after the show threads began popping up everywhere about Nina possibly having had sex with Alvers and now she has AIDS. So that is the great debate-of-the-moment. My take is that Tony just threw that out there for the hell of it to see if it got a reaction.

But other than the racing pulse, Nina maintained her stony silence. So Tony decided to call in 'Richards' whose only job is to inflict pain (So CTU employs at least two people whose only purpose is to inflict pain: Johnson and now Richards. How scary.) While he waits for Richards to show up with his equipment, Chase interrupts Jack and Chappelle to update him on Nina. He lets Jack know that there's a possibility Nina may have actually known Alvers. Cut back to Nina and we find Richards injecting Nina in the neck with what looked to be the same stuff poor Gael had to endure earlier in the day. She stoically endures the pain, but when that initial injection is complete and Richards readies another, Tony asks her how much more she can take. Just as Richards is about to inject her again, she says something like 'That's about enough.' and throws her head back causing Richards to puncture or tear an artery in her neck. Blood is squirting everywhere and general mayhem ensues as they race to uncuff her and get her to the clinic and stop the bleeding. It's quite a trick because I was left wondering if she was just trying to get away, or if she finally figured 'to hell with this' and was attempting to kill herself. At this point it's hard to tell.

It was also hard for me to tell, when they had her in the clinic, on the gurney what she was doing while they worked on her neck. She reached down and grabbed some tubing near her hand and pinched it shut. I thought for sure she was going the suicide route. It wasn't until Tony showed up in Jack's conference area covered in blood and telling Jack what Nina had done, when the alert bells started going off throughout the building that it dawned on me that she was trying to get away. So I had a 'Duh' moment. No I didn't know that was going to happen because I managed to avoid spoilers as best I could :) I did stumble on one spoiler but it turned out to be wrong, thank goodness.

So Nina's on the loose and Jack tears out of that room like he was on fire, gun at the ready in that terribly gorgeous stealth pose he does so well. We see shots of the clinic room where they were working on Nina. A pile of bodies, all stabbed by whatever was handy. One woman is still alive but clutching her chest and points Jack in the direction Nina took off in. Meanwhile Kim's wandering around. I wonder if she was feeling panicky because she seemed to not quite know what to do. Then she happened upon the fallen body of a security guard and seemed to make the decision to hunt for Nina herself. She grabbed his gun and headed off. This was silly on her part, but I can sort of understand why she did this. She can't let this woman get away, this woman who murdered her mother and her unborn brother or sister, ruined her life and her father's life. Seeing her face to face must have been awful for Kim. Still, She should have left it to the more experienced to go after Nina. But of course, she did not. And Kim found Nina in a tech room full of circuit breakers and I believe she was trying to interrupt the circuits that had locked down the building.

The interesting thing about Nina and Kim's showdown is that I don't believe that Nina wanted to kill Kim. She pleaded with Kim to leave. In fact she was practically begging her to stay out of it. Which makes me wonder if there wasn't a tiny spark of remorse for the things she's done. Maybe she felt her own doom and like the thief who's not sorry he stole but sorry he got caught, she felt a twinge of regret. Who knows. Kim wasn't about to leave. Kim kept her gun trained on Nina and just as Nina realised she wasn't leaving she raised her own gun to shoot Kim, and would have gone through with it too, except Jack found them and took Nina down with a shot of his own.

So there's Nina on the floor suffering from a neck injury (I think one or more of the writers have a neck fetish), and a gunshot wound, completely at the mercy of Jack. Jack sends security off to let CTU know they have Nina and it's just him, Kim and Nina in this room. (Speaking of this room, I do not believe it is the same room Nina killed Teri in. Just for the record. CTU has been rebuilt since it was blown up and the room just looks different from the one Nina and Teri were in.) Kim is about to say something to Jack, but what it is I don't know. Could have been her ethical self trying to tell Jack they need to get Nina secured, or it could have been her vengeful side about to tell Jack to kill her. But Jack sent her away before we could find out.

"You don't have anything useful left do you." Jack says in a manner that suggests it's more of a statement than a question.

"Yes I do." gasps Nina, feebly reaching for her gun that is just a few inches away from her hand.

"No. You don't."

Three gunshots echo around the room as Jack kills Nina Myers.
Tick, Tick, Tick.

3am - 4am

Okay, sorry for putting off the recap. I just felt that I needed to view this ep again because I misheard a few things and had some questions. My main thing is that I got a little bit lost when the new guy showed up to meet Amador and exchange money. I don't believe his name was ever given during the hour, but I could be wrong. People on the Fox boards seem to think his name is Saunders. So I'll call him Saunders as well, for now.

Anyway, this hour involved a lot of plot detail so it moved a little slower than other eps, which is just fine with me. I think a trap a lot of people fall into is one created by the show itself. People seem to expect hardcore action and plot twists virtually all the time on the show and I'm discovering as I watch it unfold week after week as opposed to just watching the DVDs that the slower episodes that involve setup seem to stand out more when you've got a week to digest it and don't know what's coming up. When you're watching the DVDs the show just seems like one really long film and so you expect to have slow periods while the story is being set up.

Having said all of that I still ended up literally biting my nails and covering my eyes at the end. This episode was not without its kickass 'Holy Shit' moments.

I'm going to begin with Wayne, Sherry and David this time because damn, I'm really feeling this story arc right now. As someone who vividly remembers getting caught in a lie when I was young and how your stomach just drops out and your face goes flush as blood rushes to your head, I can almost empathise with Sherry right now. I don't agree, but I know how she'd be feeling. You see, Wayne confronted Sherry about Milliken's death. Julia spilled the beans to him about what really happened and now Wayne's pissed and Julia's freaked out. The cops are investigating Alan's death and Julia apparently doesn't have Sherry's cajones because she caves under the questioning pretty quickly, despite Wayne telling her to wait for her attorney to arrive.

Now, Wayne is talking to Julia on the sly. So David has no idea. Wayne decides to confront Sherry who was catching a nap in a spare office. He tells her he knows she stopped Julia from giving Alan his pills to which she replies, "You would have done the same thing had you been there." "I wouldn't have been there in the first place!" rails Wayne. Then Sherry deflects and tells him that she was brought in to clean up his mess and that sometimes the most complex problems have a simple solution. "You are insane!" he hisses at her. I don't think Wayne can reconcile himself to the fact that Sherry just let Milliken die like that. He also knows she's right about the reason she was brought in so he lets Sherry convince him they need to keep all of this from David. As long as Julia keeps her trap shut, they can keep it covered.

But as I said, Julia caved fairly quickly and it wasn't long before Sherry was receiving a call from the detective who was questioning Julia. This is where I can relate to Sherry getting caught in a lie :) It seems that the housekeeper saw a light-coloured Mercedes driving away not long before Milliken's body was discovered. It also seems that the security cameras were switched off recently. Sherry convincingly denies having been there despite the fact that Julia gave the detective Sherry's number. She tells him she's been at District with the President for the last five hours - which, she says, Palmer can confirm. Yikes. The detective seems to accept that, for now, but you can tell he's going to check on that. And now that Sherry has blatantly lied to cover her ass, she now has to somehow get David to go along with that. Seems like her lies are snowballing. But we'll have to wait five flipping weeks to find out what she tells David.

Meanwhile at the Batcave - I mean CTU, Chappelle is livid. Jack killed a material witness and his head's going to be on the chopping block if he allows Jack back out into the field. Jack says with utter conviction that Nina was going for her gun and he was defending himself. However, upon review of the security cam playback, Jack is conveniently blocking the view of Nina's arm that would have been going for her gun. But I love love love the way Jack steps up right into Chappelle's face - centimeters away - and looks him right in the eye and tells him it was self-defense, and that Nina would have killed Kim if hadn't shown up when he did. Chappelle accuses Jack of deliberately blocking the view of the camera, but Jack is adamant that he acted in self-defense and never wavers. All of this takes place up in Jack's office as he's changing clothes and getting ready to go back out in the field as soon as they have a lead on Amador and Alvers.

Chase comforts Kim back in the control room as she stares at Nina's body. Kim tells Chase that ever since Nina killed her mom she's wanted Nina dead. But now that she is she realises that it's not going to bring her mother back and she's unsure of how she feels about it. She also seemed a little upset that Jack sent her out of the room before he shot her so she can't be a witness to Jack's self-defense claim.

Tony's advising the staff about the recent events, and tells them they will need to widen their search for Amador. Michelle has new information that came from a Russian contact: several detonating devices were recently stolen from Russia and could be used to disperse the virus. He sends everyone off to do what they do best and it isn't long before Chloe gets a hit on one of Amador's bank accounts. It was active in the previous few minutes and soon Chloe, Adam, Kim et al are getting to work tracking the location.

Chase goes up to Jack's office and interrupts Chappelle's tirade to inform them they have a lead. Yet Chappelle is still reluctant to let Jack go back to work. So Chase steps up and defends Jack, saying that he's been working with him all day and that Jack's operating at a higher capacity than anyone else. He tells Chappelle they need Jack on this. Then Jack sends Chase out of the room and tells Chappelle it's his call. He's met with silence and Jack throws out a sarky little 'Thank you' that amused me as he walked out the door. Now he and Chase are on their way to intercept the virus - this time working together.

Something that just struck me... Earlier in the day Jack was adamant about keeping Chase out of danger now that he knows his daughter loves Chase. Was that just an excuse Jack was using so that Chase wouldn't cop on to the 'big picture'? Because now he seems fine with working with Chase again. He showed no reluctance whatsoever to taking off toward Amador with Chase in tow now. Hmmm...

Anyway, Chase and Jack have a small exchange in the car about Chase's daughter. Basically Chase tells Jack that it's between him and Kim and that the only thing they need to do right now is focus on the virus. Everything else can wait. I don't think Jack wanted to let it go though. But he did eventually drop it. You know there's so much extraneous stuff - repercussions for the day's incidents, both emotional and physical that I'm wondering if a lot of it will be tied up by the end of the 'day'. Sometimes I feel that the writers add these layers to Jack, Kim, Palmer et. al. and yet they don't go anywhere with them and we're left to imagine what will happen between Kim and Jack as he comes to terms with his addiction and the fact that Nina's dead now. I hope that the reunion they had last week where Jack states he's going to get help for the heroin thing isn't it and the subject is dropped from the show. Part of me really wants to know what happens to these guys after their epic days. Digressing again, sorry.

CTU closes in on Amador's position and Division is able to get an operative into the seedy nightclub where Amador is meeting a new bad guy, Saunders. Here is where I go cross-eyed because I don't quite understand it all. Saunders arrives and takes the vials of virus Alvers had been working on. At this time, Amador asks Saunders why he chose such a limited target, and not a leger one that would inflict more damage and casualties. Saunders tells him it's because he merely wishes to send a message. Eh? Okie. Saunders seems higher up on the food chain than Amador is because he began questioning Amador about his venture into Mexico earlier in the evening. I'm guessing Amador wasn't supposed to do that.

After Saunders shows Alvers how to work the stolen detonation device, he taunts Amador for believing that Jack Bauer had really flipped sides. He tells Amador that his greed nearly cost them this mission and now he's got the whole of CTU looking for him. Amador tells him that Bauer's story checked out to which Saunders replies, "Don't presume to tell me about Jack Bauer." Hmmmm... There is a transfer of funds from Saunders to Amador that Amador finds upsetting. He's only been given half of what was promised I guess. Saunders tells him it's because of his blunder in Mexico. Once the mission is complete he'll get the rest of the $200 million. We find out a little later that the 'limited target' is the Chandler Plaza Hotel. Alvers takes one vial of the virus, and a detonator and heads off to the hotel. As he enters, he gets a call from Amador and tells him the mission will take about 25 minutes.

The Division operative checking out the club reports via an earpiece/mic that an armed guard outside one of the back rooms as Jack and Chase arrive outside and prepare to storm the place. Just then the operative is grabbed by a thug and dragged into the room with Amador. As Jack loses the com signal he orders the SWAT team to storm the place. Mucho running through the building in classic Jack style and they end up catching Amador before he can escape. Very cool to watch Jack knock him down and basically sit on him until Chase can get in and help subdue him. He shouts 'Where is the virus?' at Amador. Amador tells him he's too late and that it's been passed off.

Coolest line of the night? "Take him in the next room Chase. I dont' want the SWAT guys interrupting us." Muahahahahah. This is in reference to Amador by the way. They're about to do the torture thang. As Chase slams Amador down into a chair, Amador starts bleating about how Jack betrayed him. Jack replies, "You betrayed me too. I'm just better at it." Another fecking cool line :) Well done writers :) Anyway, now the chinks in Amador's icy armour are starting to appear because you can tell he's afraid of something. Jack asks him where the virus is, and he just replies with stuff like, "He knows who you are. Don't presume to tell me about Jack Bauer were his words..." Jack's puzzled but doesn't let him deflect. He keeps hounding him about the virus location. Jack, almost smilingly because he's said this so many times before, tells him 'We can protect you.' Amador asks if they can protect his family (Amador's got kidlets??). Jack says yes, but then Amador contemptuously tells Jack he couldn't even protect his own family. Oh dear...

Finally Jack tires of Amador refusing to answer his question so he gets him in a chokehold, calls for Chase, and Chase proceeds to slice open Amador's hand with a buck knife. Amador, being the weenie he is, passes right out. Ironic as Chase had been shot through the hand only hours before and was up and about while Amador passes out like a wuss at a little cut. "When he wakes up, do it again." says Jack. Ohhh yeah. Meanwhile his phone's ringing and it's CTU asking for an update.

Some techs discover Amador's laptop which happens to have the entire scematics for the Chandler Plaza Hotel. Jack quickly puts two and two together and relays the info to CTU. Very quickly they mobilize a field unit headed by Michelle to go over there and either attempt to stop the virus outbreak or contain it if they're too late. Gael will be going along as well (yay Gael is back! I'm going to pretend he was down in the clinic getting checked out after his ordeal with Johnson). Michelle apparently is the most qualified person at CTU to handle the mission but Tony is not happy about it. Just before she left with her team they had a moment together, but the events of the day, and their mutual anger with each other prevents them from saying anything mushy or sappy before she heads off. I have a feeling they'll regret that later. On the way to the hotel, Gael tells Michelle that the secret Tony kept from Michelle about the Salazar mission has been eating away at him. I don't know if that placated Michelle very much but it was nice of Gael to tell her that.

The security head at the hotel is contacted and told of the potential virus threat and is told to lock down the building. No one goes in or out. He's also given a description of Alvers to pass around. As Michelle and her team arrive she's told by Tony that the NHS team is still 20 miutes out with the hazmat suits and orders her to stand down until they arrive. However, Gael pulls an image off the hotel's cams that clearly shows Alvers in the building. The head of security inside had noticed a suspicious looking maintenance man he'd never seen before and asked his assistant to check it out. Michelle makes a snap decision not to wait for the Hazmat suits and she and her team enter the hotel to try and stop Alvers before he has a chance to release the virus.

Meanwhile Alvers is actually in the building and he's down in a ventilation chamber. He arms the detonator right in front of a huge fan that blows air into the building. Michelle is on the hunt in the area the suspicious maintenance man was last spotted and does she ever look awesome prowling about the place, gun pointed and determination written on her face. Suddenly Alvers appears and she orders him to halt. He tries to play it off that he really is just a janito, but Michelle's not buying it. Alvers tries to make a break for it but Michelle is better trained and too quick for him. In some kickass moves worthy of Jack, she brings him down and cuffs him to some pipes. With a gun to his head and her claws digging into his neck he reveals the location of the detonator. Michelle relays the info to Gael who takes off for it.

Gael finds the detonator but he's on the wrong side of the fan and there's no time to find his way around through the basement maze of rooms to the right hatchway that Alvers used. He sees there's just enough space underneath the whirling blades of the giant fan for him to stick his hand through and try to reach the detonator. This is where I was biting my nails and cringing because I remember watching the episode of ER when Romano got his arm chopped off by the helicopter and being taken completely by surprise by that and I could just see something similar happening to Gael - and I just didn't wanna see it you know? :) But it doesn't matter because just as Gael's fingers touch the tip of the device, it goes off, smashing the vial with the virus in and a powdery substance is blown all over the place, but mainly right into Gael's face. Tick boom.

And that is how we're left hanging for the next month. *sigh* I miss having the DVD set at my fingertips and not having to deal with these interminable breaks. But what a compliment for the show, to have so many people ARGH-ing about the break because they cannot wait to see what happens next. I think that's pretty cool.

Don't forget you can join in the discussion about this episode on the 24addict forums :) :) :)

4am -5am

Last night's show affected me more than I thought it did initially. The events inside the hotel in particular. I wonder if that was sort of the aim. I had one of those 'just before you wake up' dreams this morning - the kind you actually vaguely remember details of - and it was entwined with what's going on inside the old Chandler Plaza Hotel. As time goes by this morning the images from the dream are fading, but what I can remember is an overwhelming feeling of guilt. I seemed to be part of the containment team outside the hotel and I wore fatigues and I was either carrying a machine gun or I was positioned in the back of a military vehicle with a mounted machine gun. I can't recall which. All I know is that I had access to a weapon. Anyway, the panic inside the building was a fever pitch and there was a huge smashing of windows and a group of people escaped. So I, and several other members in my group or whatever had to gun them down. It was awful. The clearest image I have from the dream is of me just sobbing and racked with guilt at having shot these people. I remember putting my hand to my face and losing it.

And then I woke up.

And that... is how powerful this episode was for me. It affected my dreams.

Anyway on to a bit of recapping :) I have to say that anticipation levels were high for this hour due, of course, to the break, but I was also slightly worried that the hype I kept trying to avoid (spoilers spoilers everywhere in every critic's review. I HATE that!) would overshadow the impact but now I guess that point is moot because that was one KICKASS episode! Sure there wasn't as much Jack as someone like me would have preferred but I understand the necessity of moving the rest of the storylines along. And while I could watch Jack drive for hours on end, I'm guessing watching Jack and Chase drive around L.A. following Amador isn't compelling television.

Besides, this episode was all about Michelle, and deservedly so. We began with a dazed Gael informing the head of security for the hotel that the virus is out and that he needs to shut down the ventilation. But it matters not because we later discover that the entire hotel has been exposed and that the hotel has over 1000 souls inside. Michelle calls Tony to report in and he's gobsmacked to learn that she's inside the building. I had forgotten that no one knew they went in. Tony looked so anguished. Up until now he's been so strong and coordinated - tough and functioning under such pressure for someone who's been shot, but I do believe that he's regretting letting animosity build up throughout the day with Michelle. He knows she's been exposed and you could just feel his heartache. Poor Tony. He tried to get her out of the building thinking that perhaps the chances for her exposure were slim to none, but ToughMichelle reminded him that it would be impossible for her to leave. Not only because she is the ranking officer in charge, but that soon the guests will be waking up and panic will ensue once they realize they can't leave and she needs to stay to help contain it. Also, if there is even the remotest chance that she had been exposed, she knew she could not leave or risk spreading it further. Deep down Tony knows this, but he's worried about his new wife. (I say new because at the very least they've been married three years but I'm betting it's less than that.)

After her conversation with Tony, Michelle goes back to where Alvers is cuffed and interrogates him, asking if there were more vials in the hotel. After some smackdown by Michelle, he admits there are eleven other vials but that he doesn't know where they are to be released. She then begins containment procedures in the hotel, including the jamming of cell phone signals so the guests can't call out and shutting down hotel operations such as the fire alarms etc. She feels bad for Gael and tells him she's sorry for getting him into this. Bravely he tells her that she didn't do anything he wouldn't have done on his own. What a guy. Not long after, as Michelle is calling in a report to CTU she sees blood begin to gush out of Gael's nose and has to isolate him.

Once again she confronts Alvers. The virus is supposed to have a 14 hour incubation period and Gael should not be showing signs of symptoms yet. Alvers forces Michelle to promise to kill him when he begins to show symptoms. "I know what this virus can do. I don't want to die like that." he tells her. Michelle is unwilling to give in to his demands but she has to know what he did to the virus. So she agrees to kill him. Alvers then admits that he added an accelerant to the virus before it was passed off. Stunned, Michelle calls Tony to inform him about the accelerant and we begin to see Tony get a little emotional. But Michelle stops him and tells him they can't do that right now. They need to get an active protocol in place because they're just moments away from panicky hotel guests.

Meanwhile an employee of the hotel who had just come off of his shift was heading out when the head security guy stops him and tells him no one can leave because of an 'irritant' in the air, and they need all hands on deck to help with the guests. But this employee isn't falling for it because in his hurry to find an exit he discovers where they've got Gael isolated and overhears what's really going on. So, of course, he panics. He finds a gun and some keys in the security room (good job leaving them in a fairly accessible area security guys!) and heads for the nearest door - after pulling a fire alarm to alert the guests. Apparently the security team did not get them all disabled in time. Soon the guests begin to appear downstairs, bleary and confused. They are upset that they can't leave the hotel, even after being told that it was a false alarm. One man refuses to go back to his room until he's told what's going on (there is always one eh?). Several guests shout that they've seen men with gas masks on outside the building. So, and I don't know if this is proper protocol but I thought it was pretty slick actually, Michelle announces that she is a federal agent and that a toxic substance has been released outside the building and that they are all safe so long as they stay inside. Clever, clever :)

But Michelle is told by the security man that a fire door has been breached so she goes off to find out why, asking the security man to stay and keep the guests calm. She discover the panicked employee before he can get out of the building thank goodness. I completely thought he would be the first casualty by shooting because he was so panicked. But Michelle did a great job being honest with him about what's happening and she calmed him down. But now he must be isolated from the rest of the guests because he knows the truth.

Suddenly, Michelle gets a call on her two-way from the security guy - one of the guests has become symptomatic. Blood is gushing out of this poor lady's nose and mouth. Soon several others are beginning to bleed as well as Michelle does her best to maintain order. But I think if I was surrounded by spontaneously bleeding people I'd panic myself. And they do. One guest throws a trash bin through a window (it is unclear whether this is an inner window leading out into a lobby, or one that actually leads outside. There's some confusion about whether this means the virus is outside now) and Michelle pulls her gun on him. She tells him she will kill him if he tries to make a break for it. He doesn't believe her and bolts. BAM BAM, she shot him. The other guests are shocked - as is Michelle I think. She stood over the dead man with quite a look of remorse on her face.

And that ends the hotel saga for this hour. I bet you're wondering where Jack is by now :) Well he was with Amador at the beginning of the hour. He continued to press him on the mysterious person who knows him. Amador refuses to give up Saunders (Saunders being the man who now controls the virus vials.) Amador's hand has been bandaged and Jack can clearly see that Amador would rather die that reveal Saunders. He believes Amador is afraid of this guy. Jack speaks to Tony and learns that there are eleven other vials out there in the wide world and that Michelle is inside the hotel. He tells Tony he's sorry :( But then gets back to business. He tells Tony that he believes the virus has been altered in some way but that further testing will have to be done from the samples they gathered in the club. He cuffs Amador to a radiator ("Knees." *klunk*) and leaves the room with Chase. As they talk over what to do about him, Amador manages to bust the pipe he's cuffed to and escape. At first I was smacking my head and saying, 'Jack you dolt!" and then they showed Jack getting a call from Kim telling him that Amador was on the move. Nice fakeout :)

They wanted Amador to escape so they placed a tracker in the bandage and let him think he had escaped. The following hour pretty much just had jack following Amador at a safe distance because he believed Amador would lead him to the mystery guy. He knew Amador would want to get out of the country, but that he'd need powerful help doing so. And that is why the episode was relatively Jack-free. I don't believe watching Jack make a left-turn would be a good ratings draw :)

After Amador contacted Saunders and set up a location to meet someone in a silver taurus to get money and travel documents etc, he doubled back on his route for most of the show to ensure he was not followed. But he didn't know he actually was being tracked by Jack. So when he went to meet his contact Jack was nearby and about to pounce. Meanwhile Saunders hands off a cell phone to a henchman and told him that when it rings twice, to release the virus and destroy the phone. Then he ominously shuts several briefcases that contain the same timers/vials o' virus as the one that went of in the hotel. Spooky stuff, that.

So Amador gets into the car with the contact to receive his documents. But, just as he opens the briefcase, guess what happens... a bomb explodes, killing both Amador and the flunky sent to meet him. Jack and Chase race to the scene, horrified by what just happened. Just then, Jack's cell rings.

And I'll come back to that. Damn this is a long recap, sorry about that. Lots of stuff happening :) Just have Palmer to cover yet... Now don't groan because for the first time, Palmer is about to be drawn into Jack's storyline. I know there have been complaints about how Palmer's story this year hasn't been very interesting, and while I hate to badmouth, it has moved slowly and seemingly on a totally unrelated path from everything else. But now, Sherry has come to David and blatantly told him that she and Julia watched Milliken die because she withheld his meds. And she proceeds to blackmail David into lying to the chief of police about her whereabouts during the evening. The sad sad thing is, David did it. After a showdown with Sherry and another with his brother telling him he has to lie to stay president, David lied to the Chief's face about where Sherry was. And I think now he's racked with guilt. We also had a clear, tight shot of Palmer taking some more meds (the ones Dr. Packard gave him earlier in the day?) I don't know what this will lead up to, if anything, but it was interesting to say the least.

Anyway, back to Jack. His cell rings. It's Saunders and he wants to chat with the president. He doesn't reveal who he is to Jack, and I'm wondering how he got Jack's number, but it's magic 24 power and I don't question it :) Jack gets Palmer on the line and Saunders proceeds to explain that he has eleven other vials of virus out there and he will use them if the president does not do as he's told. "You are no longer in control of your country." are his haunting words to Palmer. Tick Boom, tick boom.

*phew* I'm out of practice on these recaps :)

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