Hey, here’s a blast from the past. I didn’t start writing the summaries of “24” over on Dave Barry’s blog until about the 4th show. To complete the season, I decided to go back and write up the shows that I didn’t last season.
Here’s a summary of Episode 1:
The following summary occurred between 7 am and 8 am
7:00 am – A construction site in Mojave, CA, a construction boss is picking people to go to work. We see that Jack is wearing a special CTU bullet proof metal hat, which makes him look just like one of those World War I vets, but this still doesn’t get him picked for work that day. The foreman calls Jack, “Frank”, telling him there will be work tomorrow. Something tells me that Jack won’t be at work tomorrow.
7:01 am – President All-State and his brother are downtown somewhere, watching Spongebob when the TV announces that the Russian president is invading to the US. …Make that invited. All-State and his brother are working on a book, but All-State seems distracted. Soon he’s very distracted by a bullet that hits him. All-State is dead!
7:03 am – President Manilow rushes into his room, really concerned by his chair. No detail is too small for this guy. He even has a guy that’s in charge of fixing his chair. This guy thinks of everything. He also seems really concerned about the media.
7:05 am – Bald White House Guy (BWHG) who looks like Dick Cheney gets a phone call, and Manilow tells his assistant Walt that he doesn’t want Mrs. Manilow having a meltdown, so she’s not to go near any nuclear power plants. BWHG delivers the news that All-State is dead. Manilow looks surprised, and asks “Where?” BWHG tells him in the chest.
7:07 am – At CTU things are in full swing, and Manilow calls Bill and tells him that he wants the person who killed All-State dead, chopped, drawn with butter and thrown to the dogs. And to have salt rubbed on him. Bill tries to convince him that the salt is overkill, but Manilow won’t hear of it.
7:09 am – Scene change to Chloe getting out of bed with some guy named Spencer that works for her! Chloe doesn’t seem too happy about the situation. He convinces her to kiss him and they are about to kiss when her phone rings. She looks really upset now. It’s a telemarketer asking if she wants to save money on her mortgage. That, and President All-State is dead.
7:10 am – Scene change back to Jack watching TV with a really worried look. Jack, not the TV. He is really upset that All-State is dead, and sheds a tear!
7:11 am – Someone knocks at the door, so of course Jack’s immediate reaction is to pull the gun that he keeps under the sofa cushions. I bet he has guns stashed everywhere. It’s just Jack’s girlfriend, who invites him to breakfast.
7:12 am – Looks like his girlfriend has a teenage son, who is absolutely thrilled that Jack is joining them for breakfast. The girlfriend asks the son, Derek, to use a glass instead of drinking from the carton, and Derek being the rebel he is, continues to drink out of the carton, even though Jack just handed him the glass.
7:13 am – Derek confronts Jack about Jack’s story that he worked in Alaska on “The Albatross”, and that perhaps Jack meant “The Dead Parrot”. Derek seems awfully suspicious. Maybe this is what they look for in CTU recruits.
7:13 am – Tony and Michelle hear the news about All-State, and try to call Bill from their impeccably clean kitchen to see if they need him. Tony and Michelle don’t work for CTU anymore (is that allowed?) Tony makes a phone call to tell someone they’re going to meet with that they won’t be making the meeting.
7:15 am – And someone must really hate glass this season, because they just blew up a car to blow out the glass at Tony’s house. Yikes…it was the car that Michelle just started, and she’s definitely dead when Tony finds her out on the lawn. The car blows up as we go to commercial, engulfing Tony and Michelle in a very expensive special effect.
Commercial
7:21 – Back at CTU, Edgar is telling Spencer about Tony and Michelle. Spencer asks if Edgar knew them, and Edgar looks at him as if he’s a moron… the office isn’t THAT big after all. How could he NOT know them? Edgar makes a phone call to Chloe just as she’s about to get into her car to tell her about Michelle.
7:22 – Chloe is just about to get into her car, when she looks around, and sees Moby get out of a white van. She’s immediately suspicious because Moby doesn’t drive a white van, and she makes a run for it.
7:23 – Moby keeps chasing her through a mall. Chloe runs past people, knocking them over. No one seems to mind this typical shopping mall behavior. Moby stops when he’s blocked by two men standing on an escalator! How will he get around this obstacle? He ponders this for a few moments, and finally runs past them. Good thinking, Moby! Except Chloe didn’t go up the escalator. She gets away.
7:24 – Back at Jack’s place, Chloe calls Jack. Jack looks momentarily confused with one woman calling him Frank, and another calling him Jack. Chloe tells Jack that Michelle is dead, Tony is in critical condition, and that people are chasing her. Jack asks, “Who is this really? Am I on Candid Camera?” Chloe doesn’t find this remotely funny, and tells Jack that the only thing everyone who’s been killed today have in common is that they like McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish (I suspect a product endorsement deal) and that only they, along with millions of viewers, know that Jack is alive.
7:25 – Jack goes back to the room he’s been living in, and immediately does what anyone would do in this situation. He starts a home improvement project fixing an air-vent. While he’s doing this, he tells Chloe to head north of LA, to go to an abandoned oil refinery and wait for him there.
7:25 – Jack pulls off the vent cover, and loud dramatic music starts playing. Apparently that’s the alarm system Jack installed. He pulls out the JackSack, puts on dark sunglasses, and puts some Velcro on his arm because we all know it’s impossible to fight crime without Velcro on your arm.
7:25 – Back at CTU, Bill is telling everyone that because it would be too expensive to keep Tony in a hospital and because they can’t afford to have yet another set, Tony will be brought to CTU for safe keeping until they can find a plot thread that involves him. An assistant comes in and tells Bill that someone from DoD is there.
7:26 – AAAAAAAA! It’s Audrey! They should WARN us when they do that. A big flashing warning sign, or SOMETHING. Anyway, Audrey looks around reminiscing about all the good times they had at CTU. The people that got shot, the yelling… Good times… Good times!
7:27 – Bill tells Audrey, “I know it must be hard to be back here” and under his breath says, “I know it’s hard for us”. Audrey tells Bill that Manilow told her to tell him that he would be told by her that she was told that Bill should keep the summit as his top priority. Bill looks pretty confused when he walks away.
7:27 – Manilow is making a speech out in the open, in a heavily-forested area which is in no way a bad place to be with so many people being killed all over town. He’s making a speech about All-State.
7:28 – Mrs. Manilow is having her hair done, announces she looks like a wedding cake and sticks her face in water…. I wish I could make that last line up, but that really just happened. I think this is to enforce that Mrs. Manilow hasn’t got her marble collection intact. Point made.
7:29 – Walt comes to the door, and tells Mrs. Manilow that he has some bad news. She looks hopeful it’s bad news about Manilow. He tells her that All-State is dead.
7:31 – Mrs. Manilow goes running off to tell Manilow something she thinks is important. She’s still dripping wet, and starts arguing with an agent, telling him that she’ll have his family “eating dog food out of a can” if he doesn’t get out of her way. Nice lady! No dry dog food for his family! BWHG and Walt finally get her calmed down.
Commercial
7:37 – Jack drives his pickup truck to a refinery, and knocks this guy named “Weaver” out, with no explanation. He must have made Jack mad earlier. Jack hears something, and he finds Derek hiding behind a crate. He’s stalking Jack! When Derek sees the gun, he tries to convince Jack that he didn’t see it, but it doesn’t work. Jack shoves Derek into a helicopter.
7:39 – Back at CTU, they’re bringing in Tony. Curtis wants to talk to Tony, because he found some really weird things on his cell phone bill pertaining to Jack. I’m guessing that talking to a dead guy is what they consider suspicious.
7:40 – In the helicopter, Derek asks Jack if he’s being kidnapped, and Jack says, that “technically”, no. Derek wants to know where they’re going, and Jack says “Disneyland”. Derek doesn’t like this, so Jack says “LA”. Derek puts two and two together, gets three and decides that Jack is some sort of criminal. Jack looks offended by this.
7:41 – Jack makes a phone call to Diane (Derek’s mom) and tells her to head to LA to pick up Derek. Oh, and that they’re in a helicopter. Jack says he can “drop Derek off” by they decide it would be better just to meet in LA.
7:43 – Things slow WAY down as Manilow goes to see Mrs. Manilow. She tells Manilow that she thinks that All-State was going to tell her something, such as “Trix are for Kids!” She thinks that Manilow doesn’t believe her (which it appears that he doesn’t), but calls her a “silly rabbit”, and they iron things out.
7:44 – Manilow tells Walt that Mrs. Manilow is Cuckoo for Coco Puffs.
Commercial
7:50 – At CTU, Edgar asks Spencer about Chloe. Edgar is suspicious about Chloe not being here yet. Spencer tells him that he just saw Chloe about a half hour ago, and when Edgar presses him on it, he says “Do I have to spell it out for you”. Edgar gives him a look that says he doesn’t think that Spence could spell anything.
7:51 – Chloe gets a taxi driver to pull over at the refinery, just as Jack’s helicopter goes over the refinery. Jack tells Derek that the helicopter was the only way to get to LA fast enough without Curtis driving.
7:52 – Chloe gets through a fence, cuts herself and finally reaches Jack. Jack needs her to work some of her Chloe magic to get into some archives at CTU.
7:53 – They all get in the helicopter and they see the bad guys pull up outside of the refinery. The helicopter isn’t going to reach speed fast enough, because that wouldn’t be the “24” way of doing things. Jack tosses a few smoke grenades and completely baffles the bad guys as Derek and Chloe run off to hide in the refinery.
7:54 – The head bad guy takes off, and when he does, Jack comes out of the smoke with a knife. He shows the knife to one of the bad guys pretty up close and personal, before he can even ask Jack for an autograph.
7:55 – Head bad guy is after Chloe and Derek. Meanwhile Jack shoots some bad guys for driving much too quickly, and gets them to stop their car using a bunch of debris by the side of the road. Jack finds Head Bad Guy, shoots him, and Chloe starts to shoot too. Bad guy goes down, and Jack tells Chloe and Derek to walk away. They go about 10 feet away, and watch what’s about to happen.
7:57 – Jack tells Head Bad Guy that if he wants to be in another episode, he better spill his guts. Jack realizes what he just said, apologizes, and tells Head Bad Guy that he better tell Jack everything.
7:59 – Head Bad Guy says that All-State was the primary target, and that all the rest of the people that were getting killed or chased were just something to set Jack up. Then he says he’s the one that killed All-State. Ooops. Too much information. Jack doesn’t like that very much, and shoots bad guy dead.
8:00 – Time’s up!
You can see the rest of the season on the Steve’s “24” Season Five page.