Magic Lamp

I post as Steve (The 24 Guy) over on Dave Barry’s live blogging of “24” each week, and write a summary of the show each week, in the same spirit as the rest of the blog.

You can read the rest of my Season Six of “24” summaries on that page, if you need to catch up.

Here’s this week’s episode:

Previously on “24”, we found out: Audrey regrets going for Chinese take out; Wayne regrets forgetting about VP Noah’s Jedi mind tricks; Karen regrets not picking up Noah’s resignation earlier than the press conference; Evil Lisa regrets getting involved with VP Noah; Bill regrets not paying attention to Chloe during meetings; Chloe regrets not being sneakier when uploading things to Jack’s phone; Mike regrets not letting Jack drive; Jack does not regret going to take out some Chinese.

The following summary occurred between 12 am and 1 am:

12:02 am – Mike forgot to go to “How to Commandeer a Car” class, and jumps right out in front of traffic to grab a car after Jack left him behind, nearly getting killed. He finally flags someone down, and throws the driver to the ground in the middle of traffic, which was especially thoughtful. Mike calls to tell Bill that Jack “got the drop on him”, he avoided getting “slipped a Mickey”, and intends to find “that dirty rat”. Bill holds a very short impromptu meeting, in which he summarizes what’s left of the plot so far, just in case anyone at CTU wasn’t paying attention. Chloe, who has been playing Desktop Tower Defense on the hardest setting (and winning), gets interrupted by Bill who wants her back on the job to find Jack.

12:02 am – Jack drives to his favorite burger joint, only to find that land developers have put up power lines there. He uses the opportunity to disable the tracker. Chloe and Morris argue, and Milo takes the opportunity to spread some gossip about Audrey. Bill, Morris, Mike, Chloe and Milo are all afraid that Audrey might come out of this alive.

12:05 am – Meanwhile, at the White House briefing room, a spokeswoman gives fair warning to everyone that VP Noah might take over the country and to hide the children.

12:06 am – After dismissing everyone from the Oval Office, Noah asks everyone to leave except Lennox. Noah asks what Lennox’s intentions are, and Lennox says he’s flattered, but not interested. Noah explains that he’s worried that Lennox won’t like how he looks sitting in the President’s chair. Lennox repeats that he’s flattered but not interested, and then realizes what Noah really means. Lennox says that he just made the tape to protect himself, and now realizes that a bulletproof vest for bullets and a lead hat to prevent Jedi mind tricks would be better. He also says that he doesn’t intend to use the recording he made earlier. Lennox tells Noah, “You have my support”. Noah says, “Support can be beautiful”, and Lennox says for the third time he’s not interested, and also that slogan is for a competitor of one of their sponsors. Noah switches subjects and wants to know if Karen Hayes is going to slow them down, and Lennox says only as a speed bump. They decide to keep Karen on staff for now.

12:08 am – Jack calls Cheng, who still has a really tacky ringtone. Cheng tells Jack that Audrey’s life means nothing to him with Audrey sitting right there, and she must feel so appreciated. Jack tells Cheng that since he’s being chased by CTU, they need to alter the plans. Jack tells Cheng to meet him at an abandoned hotel. Cheng says he’s very flattered, but not interested. Jack says that he just wants to meet there for the exchange of the chip for Audrey. Cheng agrees, forgetting that Jack has been out of the country for the last couple of years and that the abandoned motel might just be a new shopping center by now.

Commercial

12:14 am – Karen tries to explain they have their TOP people at CTU trying to find Jack, but Noah won’t hear about it. Lennox suggests they send other agencies, like the FBI, the CIA and the Men in Black, after Jack. Noah agrees, and Lennox and Karen leave.

12:15 am – Aaaaah! Noah and Evil Lisa are kissing each other right next to the Lewinsky memorial couch, temporarily blinding millions of viewers.

12:16 am – Mike continues to drive around aimlessly looking for Jack, while on the phone with Nadia and Bill. Fortunately all the streets are completely empty because everyone in Los Angeles has gone to sleep. Mike drives up to the exact spot where Jack parked under what have to be the only set of power lines in L.A., and uses his boy scout training to confirm that he did in fact find tire tracks. Somehow, he’s even able to determine the direction Jack headed, presumably because all CTU truck tires are installed with the treads in a certain direction. Apparently, the power lines don’t block cell phone signals, just circuit board trackers. Mike asks what roads are up ahead. Nadia tells him, and within ten seconds justifies the direction that he thinks Jack might be heading, and that Jack might have grabbed one of the terrorist cell phones that can be used to trace where he’s going. (Reminder: “might” in 24-speak means “for sure”).

12:17 am – Milo can’t even believe Mike’s amazing power of deduction. Morris tries to pick a fight with Chloe when Morris gets upset that Chloe sent over some actual work that replaced the minesweeper game he was playing. Chloe asks Milo if he can defrag Huffman keys, and Milo says, “Can a packet sniffer decode Ethernet headers? Sure!”, so Chloe sends the file to Milo instead. Morris and Chloe argue a bit more about who’s encryption schemes are better until Chloe goes too far and tells Morris not to arm any more nuclear weapons for terrorists, which hurts Morris’ feelings and he stomps off. Chloe makes a sad face.

12:19 am – Karen gets a phone call while talking to Lennox, and gets a visit from a new guy named Peter. Peter has a YouTube video that Karen just HAS to see. Karen rightfully points out that Reid is a weasel, which he goes on to confirm later on in the video: Bill had Fayed in custody, and let him go! (Reid makes a surprised face!) Karen knew about it! (Another surprised face!) Karen is in a cover-up! Karen admits that while the “facts” were true, Fayed entered the country illegally, so of course they let him continue to wander around without supervision. They had NO idea that Fayed would go nuclear. They were surprised as anyone. She continues with a little speech until Peter interrupts and asks about Karen’s attempted resignation. Peter wants to make sure that Bill or Karen gets in trouble for letting Fayed go.

Commercial

12:28 am – Jack drives up to the old motel, which looks like summer camp in a slasher movie, except with less screaming and dead bodies (so far), and goes inside one of the (ahem) bungalows.

12:29 am – Nadia calls Mike to let him know they found Jack’s call to Cheng, and it shows (surprise!) Mike was right about where Jack was headed. Mike asks if there’s anything between him and Santa Maria, and Nadia says she didn’t even know he was Catholic. Mike says he meant the town, and Nadia tells him that some towns are up ahead.

12:30 am – Bill gets a phone call from Karen, and she asks if he has a minute. Bill says that he doesn’t, and Karen says she’ll call back, not letting on about the BIG trouble they’re both in. Bill hangs up and looks worried that he’s going to be asked to pick out drapes soon.

12:31 am – Nadia tells Bill where they think they might be able to stop Jack. Bill rolls his eyes because he’s sure it won’t work, but doesn’t let on.

12:32 am – Karen goes to Lennox’s office and asks if he remembers threatening to completely destroy her career and Bill’s career. Lennox says, “Sure!”, but apologizes. Karen explains about Reid, Peter’s deep need to indict someone as soon as possible, and the fact that someone in the Justice department is up at midnight. Lennox points out that the choice is easy, since Bill can take the fall, forgetting that Karen is married to the guy. Karen doesn’t want to hear about it. Lennox doesn’t seem very sympathetic, but has tons of advice about how to be a sleazy weasel and throw Bill to the sharks.

12:33 am – At the motel, Jack has been able to use some bed springs, a bed vibrating mechanism, and some old soap to create a plastic explosive and detonator which he installs in the room. Jack calls Bill and for the first time in the history of “24”, does NOT get Bill on the phone. I can only guess that Bill has taken this opportunity to go to the bathroom, and forgot his phone. Jack explains that he set up an explosive in the motel room, that he intends to blow himself up along with the nuclear weapon component, and that he thought it would be cool if Bill got the message after he blew himself up.

Commercial

12:38 am – Morris goes to talk to Bill, and asks for a transfer to anywhere else but near Chloe. Bill points out that Morris’ timing is really awful, but agrees.

12:39 am – Bill calls Karen, who lets him know that because of no fault of his own when he and Homeland Security let Fayed go, she has to fire him as the head of CTU. Bill points out that she did that last season, but she says that it’s different this time, and she really means it. Bill points out that his job is kind of important, and that he’s going to look pretty guilty even though he’s not. Karen says that it’s pretty important that she keep her job too, since it’s only been her second season on the show and she’s close to the president. Bill doesn’t see Karen’s side of things and hangs up on her.

12:41 am – Mike calls Nadia, and wants to know more about Jack, but she has nothing because Jack used double secret probation codes to encrypt the phone call.

12:42 am – Jack calls someone, just as Mike drives up to the motel where Jack is hiding with his bomb. Mike was able to find Jack with almost no help from Nadia, which I’m sure will be in Mike’s report at the end of the season, if he lives that long.

12:43 am – Bill calls Nadia in, and says he’s going to resign. Nadia thinks this is all pretty weird and Bill confesses that he didn’t so much “resign” as “got fired”.

12:44 am – Some CTU rent-an-agents come to escort Bill out of the building, and Bill tells Nadia that she’s in charge until they send a replacement. Bill starts to point out that the last replacement ended up marrying him, so Nadia might just be meeting her new husband soon, but he has to leave and doesn’t get the chance.

12:45 am – As Bill leaves, Morris runs to him to let him know that Mike found Jack’s truck, and Bill says “That’s good news” and leaves with the guards. Morris turns to Nadia to tell her that he had no idea that security was that strict around CTU, especially with everything else that has already happened today. Nadia tells him that she’s now in charge of CTU, and Morris looks like he’s going to bust out laughing.

12:46 am – Nadia immediately holds an impromptu meeting. Bill would have been proud because she immediately tells everyone to do exactly what they’re doing already.

Commercial

12:51 am – Mike breaks into Jack’s car, pulls out a gun and calls CTU to let them know that he’s arrived at what looks like the Bates Motel, so he’s going to check all the showers looking for Jack. They start using all the satellites they have to find Jack, but Mike stops them. Mike says that perhaps, just perhaps, the long stretch limousine that just pulled up might be something important, so he’s going to surveil it with some surveillance, and asks for a massive amount of backup.

12:53 am – Cheng gets out of the car, and goes to the exact bungalow that Jack is hiding in. Jack says he won’t do a thing unless he sees that Audrey is safe. Cheng calls someone in the limo. Audrey gets out and starts to head for the room. She’s got a gag in her mouth. Cheng explains they were so freaked out about Audrey’s crying all the time that they finally had to do something about it. Jack scribbles this down on his hand for later, in case he makes it out of this alive. Jack takes the gag out of Audrey’s mouth, and she seems to be pretty freaked out and unsure of Jack. There’s a pretty good chance that Cheng kidnapped a woman from a Chinese laundry and disguised her as Audrey, because Audrey would never wear the kind of clothes she’s got on right now voluntarily. Jack tells Cheng that Audrey needs to leave the building WITHOUT the gag, out of the range of the sniper Cheng has set up, so he knows she’s safe. Jack tells Audrey to leave to go to a gas station to pick up some Skittles. She leaves.

12:56 am – Just as Jack tosses the component to Cheng, Mike shoots the sniper. There’s lots of shooting and Jack is shot! Someone launches a missile at a helicopter! Cheng is getting away! This never would have happened with Bill in charge!

12:57 am – Some of the Chinese guys who missed the “let’s go now” signal from Cheng get shot by Jack. Fortunately, Jack was wearing a bullet proof cummerbund. A bunch of agents enter the building, and Jack demands to talk to the person in charge. Mike walks in and Jack explains that he had a spectacular special effect all ready to go off, and Mike ruined the whole thing. Mike also helpfully points out that he let Cheng get away too. Mike calls Nadia, who orders that Jack be placed under arrest.

12:59 am – They bring Audrey inside, and that Chinese laundry lady theory is looking a lot more plausible because Audrey doesn’t recognize Jack! She’s acting weird! Even weirder than usual!

1:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME: AUDREY BABBLES! NOAH’S WORRIED! A SPY! KISSING! (NOT AUDREY AND JACK!) FOUR MORE EPISODES TO GO! (TWO HOUR FINALE!)

Previously on “24” – We found out that: Fake nuclear weapons are very effective against fake unnamed countries; CTU has some great stunt drivers who double as fake terrorists; Jack really impressed Mike with his chain letter to Fayed; If you’ve got a plot you don’t know what to do with, it’s ok to end everything in the middle of a show and start a new plot with something REALLY scary instead.

The following summary occurred between 11 pm and 12 am:

11:00 pm – Jack gets a shot from a CTU medical, who tells him that it will help with the pain of hearing that Audrey is still alive. Or maybe the pain in his side. It’s hard to tell which. Mike tells Jack that the military is about to swoop in and take the fun job of securing the nuclear weapons and bringing them back. Jack had really counted on those things for a really excellent prank he was going to pull later.

11:01 pm – Mike thanks Jack for all the great shooting and killing he did, and says that things could have ended a lot worse – namely, there could have been a lot less great shooting and killing today. Mike looks like he wants to ask for Jack’s autograph, but doesn’t get a chance because Jack goes off down an alley to make a phone call.

11:02 pm – The Chinese guy, Cheng, needs a new chime for his phone because the beeps in his phone are so 1980’s. He picks it up, it’s Jack, and he wants to talk to Audrey. Cheng tells Jack that although everyone else in the world gave up on Jack since the show ended last year, Audrey was still trying to find him, except for that little show “The Nine”, which would have kept Audrey out of the picture for good had it actually been successful. Anyway, Cheng thought that since Audrey was out of a job, she might make a good plot twist, and now he’s going to use it.

11:03 pm – Jack says he’ll give himself up, but Cheng says that wouldn’t be any fun because Jack doesn’t talk a lot when he’s in prison. Instead, wants the nuclear weapons! For a second Jack wonders if this whole “China has nuclear weapons” thing has been just an incredibly great prank by the Chinese this whole time. But then Cheng says the reason he wants the nukes is for the trigger mechanism, because he really wants to learn all the Russian defense codes, since the mechanism uses ROT13 for encryption. Cheng threatens to kill Audrey if Jack doesn’t hand over the mechanism, and Jack somehow misses this gracious offer by telling Cheng that the Russians are pretty good at logic and eventually would figure out that the US supplied the mechanism, and start World War III.

11:05 pm – Jack asks to speak with Audrey. She apologizes for running off to a different network, and Jack promises he’ll do anything he can do to save her. Jack must be pretty tired to be talking this way. Cheng grabs back the phone and says that Jack has one hour to call back. After hanging up, Jack immediately begins stalking the van with the nuclear weapons.

11:06 pm – Lennox comes in to see President Wayne. Lennox says that Wayne really should take better care of himself, because Lennox and Dr. Welton are both pretty worried that Wayne needs medical attention, since he keeps making very convincing wincing expressions. Wayne is also worried that VP Noah might try to sneak off with the country, if he as much as goes off to the bathroom, so he says he’s not going anywhere. Lennox assures Wayne that VP Noah won’t be trying anything funny, mainly because of his previous attempt at stand-up that failed. Wayne wants to know the real reason, and Lennox finally tells him he has “The Truth”. Wayne tells him that Dr. Welton might have something to cure that kind of condition. Lennox says he doesn’t mean that, and Wayne says he wants to know what “The Truth” really is. Lennox says that he has a blooper audio recording of VP Noah conspiring with Evil Lisa to commit perjury, and he had been hoping to save it for the Christmas office party. Wayne says he can’t wait to hear the recording.

11:07 pm – Before Lennox can answer, Karen comes running in, saying she has good news. Wayne starts to ask “You saved a lot of money on your car insurance?”, but Karen continues before he can get all the words out. She tells them that CTU (which we know is code for “Jack”) has recovered the nukes. Lennox asks about Fayed, and Karen says that he and his men were killed during the assault (which is also code for “Jack”). Lennox does what anyone in his position as a toady would do: He congratulates his boss for a job well done! Wayne is so thrilled that he just can’t wait to get out of the bunker and tell The American People that they’re no longer under the threat of nuclear attack. I would bet that The American People’s response to this would be “Oh, that’s …. Wait… What???”, if they were actually awake at this hour, since it’s about 2 am on the East Coast right now. Wayne’s so excited about telling everyone about this, I bet he’ll set off all the civil defense sirens just to wake everyone up so he can tell them.

11:08 pm – Bill’s response to this entire situation is what you’d expect: He throws a meeting! Given everything that’s happened, he wants everyone’s briefs right away. One of the people in the back of the room says that he’s pleased about this, because after he heard about the nuclear weapon attacks, he’s going to need new briefs. Bill goes on to bore them some more, when Chloe is saved by a phone call from Jack.

11:09 pm – Jack gives Chloe the bad news: Audrey is alive. Chloe seems very disappointed by this, and tries to deny it, but Jack finally convinces her it’s the truth. Jack also informs her that he needs her help in retrieving one of the circuit boards, and a real one, not something from a Commodore PET, because they’d recognize the fake immediately. Chloe doesn’t seem too thrilled about this, but finally agrees to look at Morris’ terminal to see if she can find a copy of the schematics from a report Morris was working on. Jack says he wants the information sent to his JackPhone.

11:10 pm – Chloe goes to work on Morris’ terminal, and after getting past all the pop-ups, accesses the file. Chloe tells Jack that she’s sending it to his screen. Jack says, “Copy that”, and Chloe tells him that’s what she’s already doing. The file gets uploaded to Jack just as Bill’s meeting breaks up.

Commercial

11:15 pm – The phone rings as Wayne looks at an old picture of President All-State. Wayne’s secretary announces that VP Noah is here. Wayne thanks Noah for that really great idea about the nuclear weapons, but Noah looks pretty disappointed that Wayne used fake nuclear weapons. Wayne tells Noah that their whole relationship has been a marriage of convenience, (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and that they really need to break up. Noah seems pretty stunned by this, since it’s likely he’ll end up with Lennox in a custody battle, and he’s not ready for that. Noah says that he refuses, and starts to walk out until Wayne mentions the little recording that Lennox made. Wayne seems really happy to tell Noah this. Despite his best efforts to laser beam Wayne with his eyes, Noah can’t do it, and leaves.

11:18 pm – Morris is one bright dude. He set up a keylogger on his own system to make sure that no one accessed his World of Warcraft account, and he realized that someone accessed his system. Just as he reaches to call technical support, he realizes HE is technical support and decides to call security instead. Chloe stops him, tells him that she’s the one that broke in, and then tries to walk away. Morris asks why, and Chloe tells him the whole story about Audrey and the circuit board. Morris seems pretty skeptical about the whole situation, but Chloe reminds him that it’s Jack we’re talking about, so everything will be OK. Morris says he’s going to go tattle to Bill, and after a brief staring contest, Chloe says she’ll do it.

11:22 pm – Up in Bill’s office, Bill paces back and forth practicing making phone calls, as Chloe arrives and tells Bill that there is something he needs to know.

11:25 pm – Jack has an irresistible urge to climb on things, so he starts climbing around on pipes on the outside of the building, and continues to stalk the suitcase nukes. Jack finally realizes he can walk over, announce who he is and uses his Jack Powers to scare the guards into letting him get to the suitcase nukes. It works! Jack even invites them to stand guard while he steals the circuit board. Man, that’s going to be hard to explain at their court marshals! Jack gets to work on getting the circuit board. He finds the right one, just in time for Mike to show up and ruin everything. One of the guards hits Jack and he goes down like a Gredenko without an arm.

Commercial

11:29 pm – Jack wakes up and boy, he’s embarrassed. Mike has Bill on the phone. Jack swears up and down that all he wanted to do is save Audrey. Bill looks like he wants to tell Jack that is the reason he can’t let him do it, but he makes up something about not wanting the Chinese to get their hands on the mechanism. Bill says he’s going to do everything in his power to help get Audrey back. Jack has to remind Bill that just because Bill has a spandex suit in his office, it doesn’t mean he has superpowers, so whatever he has planned isn’t going to work. Jack asks if he can call President Wayne. Bill says he’ll see what he can do.

11:31 pm – Back in the Oval Office, Wayne watches the news about what a great guy he is, and gets that phone call from Jack. Jack wants Wayne to authorize a field operation to get Audrey back, and Wayne’s initial reaction is exactly what everyone else’s has been: revulsion. (He disguises it as surprise). Jack says that all he needs is a little FB circuit board to give to the Chinese. Unfortunately, it turns out that Wayne must have had a class on obsolete Russian nuclear weapons when he was in President school, because he knows exactly what the circuit board is for. Jack swears up and down that he’ll make sure that the Chinese won’t get their hands on the component, but Wayne says he won’t do it without knowing Jack’s plan. Jack says this is his plan: 1) Get the circuit board; 2) Conceal some C-4 explosive somewhere; 3) Blow up the C-4 if he needs to. Wayne says he’s not a rocket scientist, but does know that if any C-4 explodes, that Jack is going to die. Jack says that is one of the parts of the plan that he’s still trying to work out. Wayne authorizes Jack for the field operation, and says that he’ll get Bill to help Jack.

Commercial

11:38 pm – Mike releases Jack. Jack says he wants Mike to help him, and Mike asks what the plan is. Jack says that there’s going to be some circuit board destructin’, and some Cheng shootin’.

11:39 pm – Back at CTU, Chloe gets back and Morris wants to know what’s going on. Chloe tells him everything, and then points out that she was right about Morris wanting to tattle-tail. They start having a nerd fight, and I swear one of them called the other a spyware coder, which is clearly a low blow. Chloe says she’s going to hold this over Morris’ head for a long time.

11:40 pm – Milo calls over to Nadia that Mike is on the phone, and Mike gives her the information about the amazing electronic field work they were able to do, to get new tracking electronics embedded in that little tiny circuit board.

11:41 pm – Jack calls Cheng. Cheng gives Jack instructions about where to go next. Cheng tells Jack that he shouldn’t be late because Audrey might die. Jack stops for a moment and starts to say something about this plot being vaguely like the one in that new show “Drive”, but Cheng hangs up.

11:42 pm – Jack and Mike start to leave, and Mike tries to remind Jack that mixing work with pleasure didn’t work for Tim and Nichole on “The Apprentice”, and it won’t work here. Jack doesn’t want to hear about that, and tells Mike that they owe Audrey for the service she did for the country: She was basically not seen on the show for nearly 17 hours. They leave.

11:43 pm – Back at the White House, Evil Lisa goes to see VP Noah. Noah explains to Evil Lisa that he plans to resign, much to her surprise. Noah explains about the recording that Lennox made. Lisa points out that if she hadn’t asked Noah to lie about Karen, none of what was happening now would be happening at all. Noah doesn’t look very comforted by this. They start holding evil hands together! Noah says that at least he and Lisa will be able to spend more time with each other, and you can just tell that this is NOT part of Lisa’s evil plan. Noah signs the resignation letter, and tells her that he wants Wayne to have it before Wayne’s press conference ends.

11:44 pm – Wayne has the press corps especially well-trained, because they all sit when he tells them too. Noah and Evil Lisa are in the back of the room watching, trying to use Jedi mind powers or anything like that to keep Noah from having to resign. Noah’s even holding his resignation letter, so he seems pretty sure nothing is going to work out the way he wants.

11:45 – Wayne gives a speech about how Fayed is off the show now, and that everything is going to be AOK, because NOTHING dramatic is going to happen from now on. Wayne takes a couple of questions. The first guy wants to know if Wayne is SUPER-DUPER sure that everything is OK. Wayne says that he’s super-duper with sugar on it sure. Wayne asks another reporter to ask a question, and mispronounces “Robin” as “Andrea”. She asks about the detention centers, and this completely confuses Wayne so much so that he starts to stutter, and keels over! Noah or Evil Lisa must really have Jedi mind powers now! Noah puts away his resignation letter.

11:52 pm – Dr. Welton comes in and tells everyone that for some mysterious reason, Wayne had a brain hemorrhage, and that he can’t completely rule out that someone used some Jedi mind powers Wayne. Noah goes into “well, he shouldn’t have been brought out of a coma” mode, acts all “I told you so!”, and tries to blame this on Karen. Everyone argues briefly, until Evil Lisa points out that there is no way that Wayne will be able to recover from this anytime soon. Noah picks up on this and gives a very insincere speech about how everyone liked Wayne, and that it’s a real tragedy about his brain hemorrhage and everything, but WOO HOO! He’s president now!

11:53 pm – Evil Lisa finds a memo that tells about Jack trying to use the circuit board to get Audrey back, but is a bit unclear about the whole thing because the way she says it, it sounds like Jack is going to hand over technology to the Chinese. There doesn’t seem to be anything in there about Jack blowing himself up. Karen tries to explain this, and Noah gets all huffy with Karen about her explanation. Noah foolishly believes that Jack won’t be able to pull of the operation and is suddenly very concerned about getting in trouble with the Russians, forgetting the nuclear weapon he wanted to send to Unnamed Country. We can only assume that since the Russians have nuclear weapons too, that must be the problem. Noah tells Karen to get CTU to make Jack stop everything now.

11:55 pm – Out in the hallway, Karen and Lennox just can’t believe what a big bonehead Noah is being. Lennox goes to the hospital, Karen calls Bill.

11:56 pm – Karen tells Bill about Wayne’s condition, and that Noah is being a bonehead about Jack’s operation. Bill looks pretty scared when he realizes that he might actually have to get in the way of Jack shooting a lot of people, which is bound to make Jack pretty angry.

11:57 pm – Bill talks really loudly to everyone at CTU, and tells them they’re about to stop Jack’s operation. Oooo! He tells Chloe that she can’t work on this anymore because she’s proven that she can’t be trusted! (I’m guessing that’s not going to go over well with Chloe in the long run).

11:58 pm – Bill calls Mike and tells him that they’re going to try and take Jack back to CTU, and they’ve set up one (ONE!) tiny roadblock nearby to do this. Curtis would have set up a whole perimeter! Mike explains the change of plans after he gets off the phone, and after the explanation, Jack does EXACTLY what Jack always does, and pulls out his gun and points it at Mike. Jack explains that since he’s already proven that he’ll even shoot his own partner, Mike really should consider stopping the car. Mike does, and Jack drives away without him.

12:00 am – Time’s up!

NEXT TIME ON “24”: JACK GOES ROGUE! BILL THINKS THE CIRCUIT BOARD GOES TO A SUBMARINE! BILL AND/OR KAREN ARE IN BIG TROUBLE! NOW THAT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH WAYNE IS ON THE ROCKS, NOAH WANTS TO KNOW WHAT LENNOX’S INTENTIONS ARE! LOTS OF SHOOTING! SOMEONE HAS A RIFLE SIGHT ON AUDREY!!!!!