24: 2AM – 3AM; Jack Faces His Betrayer

Photo from Fox

In this week’s episode of ”24” (Fox) Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) realizes that he has been betrayed, and by a person who is close to him, Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard). Jack is also feeling the worsening effects of the pathogen.

But the episode begins with a new twist. Tricia, who is Jonas Hodges’ (Jon Voight) attorney, gets a call telling her that Hodges was arrested at the White House. As she opens her front door to leave her home to go to his aid, she is overcome by a man who knocks her out with a spray. Another woman comes in who looks just like Tricia, and she takes on Tricia’s appearance by also taking her glasses. (Let’s all hope they share the same eyeglass prescription.) The intruders also copy Tricia’s thumbprint and takes Tricia’s ID to guarantee her access to Hodges.

The FBI also discovers that the person who escaped from Starkwood is an ex-Special Forces soldier named Galvez (Gabriel Casseus). Tony has heard on the FBI radio that they are searching for Galvez, and, in order to cover up Tony’s own implication in Galvez’s escape and to help get the canister out, he shoots himself to give the appearance he was shot by Galvez. When the FBI arrives to his aid, they also find Agent Larry Moss (Jeffrey Nordling) dead. Yes, he looks VERY dead.

Meanwhile, back at the FBI, we get a wasted scene with Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) and Agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching). Kim is leaving because Jack has refused her help, and he stem cells, to aid in his recovery from the pathogen. Please Kim, leave quickly.

Renee also finds out that Larry is dead, but she realizes that she still has work to do, a tear streaming from her face. Janis (Janeane Garafolo) tells Renee she will give Larry’s ex-wife then news.

Jack is trying to give his report to an agent before his memory goes bad. (I yell to the TV for the agent to just read my blog recaps, but for some reason he doesn’t seem to hear me.) When Jack learns that Larry is dead, he looks mildly distressed.

After Tony gets some medical attention, he moves off and calls Galvez, telling him that Galvez needs to take the C-4 explosive and rig a building to blow up, find a diversion to get as many agents into it, and then blow it up. In a nanosecond, Galvez rigs the building just right and also manages to overcome an agent, get his radio, and calls in a fake sighting of him going into the building in order to draw them in. It's one of those times where I wonder how they can do thing so quickly in the "24" Universe.

Let’s not forget while all this is going on, the fake Tricia has gotten access to that little jail that they keep at the White House, and speaks with Jonas. She tells them that he jeopardized their plan, and that the weapon was not intended for his personal use. She makes a threat to his family, and she hands him a pill that will cause cardiac arrest. She tells him to do the right thing. As the attorney leaves, they ready Hodges for his move to the FBI. Afterwards, the fake Tricia contacts someone and relays the information that Jonas is being moved, and adds that they can count on Tony to deliver the bioweapon.

When Jack and Renee arrive at the scene where Tony and the very dead Larry Moss are waiting, Jack notices that while Larry was killed with armor-piercing shells, Tony was hit by a 9mm. There were also casings from a .45 on the scene, and Jack wonders if someone else was on the scene.

We also have another completely wasted scene with Kim, who makes a phone call to her boyfriend Steve. She tells him Jack us dying, staying at his side would only make things worse, and she didn’t tell Jack about her daughter – Jack’s granddaughter. I find that I could not care less. Kim says she will get on a flight to come home. I hope that we will not see her any more this season but I suspect that won't be the case.

Back at the scene, while they continue to search for Galvez, Jack requires another injection of medication to help control his symptoms from the pathogen. Meanwhile, Galvez has finished his sabotage of the building with C-4, overcome and agent, and successfully faked a sighting in order to draw the agents in. And it works – Renee takes a team in, but Jack decides to stay behind, as he isn’t well enough to go along.

Back at the White House, as Jonas is being led out, he notices a tattoo on one of the guards and comments that he recognizes it. The guard tells Jonas he worked with Starkwood people while he was in Afghanistan. When Starkwood asks how he would rate those men, he says they were good men, and Starkwood tells him he just made his day. While they drive off, Jonas takes the pill and begins to have a heart attack, and they stop the van to check out Jonas, and then they speed off to the hospital.

While Renee and her team are searching the building for Galvez, Jack gets a call from the agent to which he had previously been giving his report, and the agent noticed that there is a discrepancy with the name of the person Jack mentioned was Tony’s contact. But when Jack notices something on one of the FBI monitors, he cuts the call short. It appears that the transponder from the radio of the agent who made the call about the Galvez sighting is not inside the building. Jack senses the trap and calls Renee to alert her, and as they try to escape the building, Galvez sets off the explosives.

After the explosion, Jack tells the FBI team not to pull their people off the original search, that this is what Galvez wants. Galvez, meanwhile, blends in with the FBI people, and with Tony’s help, escapes with the canister into an ambulance. Jack, after finding that Renee survived the blast, calls back the agent to get clarification on what he said was a discrepancy with Tony’s contact, and he finds that Tony’s contact is alive and unharmed, despite what Tony had told him. Jack, realizing that something bad is going on with Tony, pulls a gun on him, but it’s after Tony had helped Galvez into the ambulance and the ambulance had sped off. Tony tells Jack that he cut a deal with his contact for the information, and says Jack’s judgment s being affected by the pathogen. When Jack collapses in an apparent seizure, Tony takes his gun, and tells the medics Jack needs help.

Galvez, meanwhile, kills one of the medics and holds the other at gunpoint, telling him to keep driving, making his escape.

While we did have a few wasted scenes – with Kim of course – and a few scenarios that stretch believability – like getting the building wired so quickly with explosives – the episode still provided a lot of excitement and tension. It seems more obvious that Tony has his own agenda. And it looks more and more like his intentions aren’t good, although I still hope that Tony had not gone completely bad. Somehow, I feel we have not seen the last of Kim Bauer, and if her stem cells are Jack’s only hope, we have to assume that somewhere down the line Jack will realize that he needs to live in order to be there to bring down Tony and get to the bottom of the bigger web of terrorists. As we saw in the preview of next week, Jonas Hodges is still alive and Jack goes to see him for information, using Jonas’ family as a pressure point. Jack Bauer is like the Energizer Bunny – he just keeps going, and going, and going…


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