Here is where “24” has improved upon the mistakes it made in seasons past. This is clearly a bridge episode, one where Homeland Security slowly digs its claws into CTU while Jack gets thisclose to getting the Warlock. Of course, in the process of saving the world, Jack had to blow some shit up. The episode ended with Jack and the Warlock getting stuck in a police car at a gas facility that Jack had just rigged to explode. They tried to make it look like we don’t know if they survived, but please, do you really kill the show’s star and villain with ten episodes to go? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.

First thing’s first: the interrogation of Audrey. Now, “Entertainment Weekly” has already exposed the fact that Kim Raver, the actress who plays Audrey Raines, just signed up for another drama, which means that Audrey’s all but a goner…but not this week, even though it certainly looked like Jack was going to torture her worse than he did Robocop. And here is where Homeland Security’s plot comes into play. It’s chilling to think about, that one branch of government would basically lay siege upon another. And yet, that’s exactly what this episode was all about. Let me explain.

Exhibit A: The People vs. Chloe O’Brien. Chloe finally gets some IT help in the name of a girl named Shari, who looks a lot like the Sandra Bullock girl that for all intents and purposes cost Edgar his life. Shari is almost instantly smothered by Homeland chicken-hawk Miles, and when Shari does something that Miles disapproves of, Chloe covers for her, since Shari had told her earlier that Miles had made unwanted advances towards her on a previous assignment (the record of which is conveniently sealed), and Miles is clearly out for revenge. Chloe, very much the Humphrey Bogart “I don’t stick my neck out for nobody” type, made a fatal mistake here, since Shari was never assaulted by Miles. Stick with me on this.

Exhibit B: The People vs. Bill Buchanan. Bill, obviously, didn’t like the way that Homeland Security BSD (read “Liars’ Poker” if you don’t know what that stands for) Karen Hayes was pushing CTU around, and he did everything he could to vouch for the integrity of his people, including suspected baddie Audrey Raines. Hayes was not at all pleased by the angle that CTU took towards nullifying an agreement that Jack had made with the Femme Fatale information broker so that they could interrogate her in order to learn more info…or so it seemed. In truth, they freaking loved what CTU was doing, but kept their mouths shut for the time being. Meanwhile, Shari conveniently informed both Bill and Chloe about the whole PSI/VX gas thing, and when Buchanan patted Shari on the back for a job well done, Shari said, “Did you see the way he touched me like that? That wasn’t right.” Chloe, like the rest of us, looked at Shari like she was nuts.

But Shari’s not nuts: she’s just playing her role in a spectacular hustle, orchestrated by Homeland Security to rid CTU of its most faithful, and therefore troublesome, employees. There was never any case of sexual harassment between Shari and Miles; they were good cop and bad cop, playing Chloe and Buchanan against each other unwittingly. Now, they have Chloe down for allowing her underlings to act outside of protocol, and they have Buchanan down for making “unwanted sexual advances” towards a subordinate. As a bonus, they have Bauer for taking out the security guard assigned to protect our femme fatale information broker, not to mention Hayes’ “assertion” that Bauer didn’t interrogate Audrey to the fullest extent in order to get the information they were looking for, despite the fact that Audrey never possessed that information in the first place. Homeland will then take the information that those three did extract, claim it as their own, and run CTU out of town on a rail.

And we haven’t even gotten to the scenes for next week. It looks as though one of our conspiracy theorists – forgive me if I don’t credit you by name, I don’t keep a spreadsheet of everyone’s theories – was dead on about the First Lady’s assistant Evelyn. She is seen admitting that she has information about the day’s events. The big question is: why did she keep it to herself? Did she think she’d wind up dead like President Palmer, or wind up “dead” like Walt Cummings? When I say “dead,” I am not implying that Walt isn’t dead. He’s certainly dead, but I wouldn’t bet the farm that he killed himself. That is probably why Evelyn, wisely, kept mum. She didn’t know whom she could trust. That White House, it appears, is crawling with chickens and hawks. Good thing this never happens in real life or anything, because that would be downright scary.