The single greatest thing about tonight’s episode of “24” was the sneak preview of next week’s episode. They showed President Buck Buck Brawwwwwk dealing with the former First Lady of Crazy. And at her side: Old Yeller. Oh, thank goodness. I missed the old dog.
In a strange bit of subconscious Stockholm Syndrome at work, Jack has once again infiltrated a foreign embassy in an attempt to squeeze a reluctant diplomat that Knows Too Much. You would think that this is the last place on earth that he would care to go, and yet even after they leave, and President Buck Buck Brawwwwk tells him the consulate is lying, Jack comes up with the brilliant plan to have Chloe cause a power outage so he can ambush the dude by himself and hold him hostage for more info. It’s as if this is the only situation where Jack feels comfortable, when he’s being caught and, eventually, punished. Then again, maybe this whole detour takes place for the sole purpose of explaining just what happened to Jack while he was being held by the Chinese, and what caused the scarring on Jack’s right hand.
But that will have to wait. Right now, there is information to extract, and with information extraction comes…torture, despite the fact that even our own military is complaining about the negative effect this show has had on their cadets. Somewhere, though, Sam Raimi was surely having a laugh at Jack’s torture device of choice.
Back at the White House, Assad dies while trying to save President Palmer’s life (lame), and for that he gets…the blame for planting the bomb, just like Mr. Swank and his bomb-making goon planned. Senator Roark assumes control of the Oval Office while Palmer recovers, but he needs the Biscuit’s silent complicity to enact the Biscuit’s plan to roll civil rights back 50 years, which is the second such deal he’s been asked to make in about half an hour. The first time he was asked, he instantly turned on Swank and had them arrested. Saying no to Senator Roark, however, will not be so easy.
I was thisclose to calling him Mr. Roark. But that’s a different show entirely, isn’t it?
If they don’t deal with Jack’s experiences with the Chinese next week, they damn well better deal with the repercussions of Milo giving clearance to Nadia. And was it just me, or did you also think that Karen Hayes was gone all these weeks because she was on a plane to Los Angeles? Now we see that she’s been waiting at the airport all this time? What White House cabinet members, even the ones whose resignations have wet ink on them, wait at the airport for anything?
Heck, I guess I should be happy that Heidi Petrelli and Jack Jack weren’t ambushed on their way to CTU. But I don’t recall seeing them arrive, either. I guess there’s still time for that, though it would mean one leisurely drive through Los Angeles, the city that just had a nuclear bomb go off. Uh, sure.
And now it’s time for the conspiracy theory of the week.
We’re supposed to be in an uproar over CTU pulling Nadia’s access because of her heritage. I’m willing to bet that we ultimately discover that she’s not working for the terrorists, but rather that she’s working as a sleeper agent for Farmer Hoggett. She’s in a perfect position to monitor CTU’s activity, and she’s been keeping Chloe, Jack’s CTU life line, on an ever-tightening leash. That they brought Jack back is Christmas in July for Hoggett, because now he can monitor Jack, too. Either way, Milo’s a dead duck for handing over his clearance to her, and Nadia doesn’t live to see the final ticking of the digital clock in May.
