I was going to call this episode “Love Boat Night on 24” but seeing as the subject matter of the hour was so extremely serious, I didn’t want to jump the shark. But when you think about it, many of the episode’s most important moments had to do with love. Tony and Michelle. Jack and Audrey. Heller and his son. Even Tony’s sacrifice for poor Chase when he tried to save his live could be considered a supreme act of love. The question all of them were asking was is love enough?

On this night, the answer would have to be no.

SUMMARY

The missile is on its way and we find out it’s a cruise missile with an 1800 mile range. The fact that it looked absolutely nothing like a cruise missile (which in configuration resembles an airplane more than a missile) doesn’t bother me. I’ve already gone past the point of trying to match reality to TV drama so let’s just continue to suspend belief for another two hours shall we?

Marwan, smug and confident, awaits the inevitable grilling by Jack. What follows is a classic confrontation between the not so good and the very, very evil. And to those wondering why we just can’t invite Osama Bin Laden to lunch and hash out our differences, I give you Habeeb Marwan:

Jack: You and I both know all I want to do right now is kill you. But I have my orders. You win. I’ve been instructed to ask you what you want.

Marwan: What I want is already happening.

Jack: The death and destruction is a means to an end, Why don’t we just skip to the end?

Marwan: To the end?

Jack: Everything you did today you did for a reason, for your people. What do you want to change?

Marwan: I have no desire to have a political discussion with you..

Jack: You tell me where the missile is headed, you help me stop it and I’ll guarantee you’ll talk to the President. Believe me, he’ll have no choice but to listen. You have a chance to get what you want.

Marwan: I already have agent Bauer. After this day, elected officials and the American people will know that they can’t intervene in our lives, in our countries with impunity. Besides, your President sees me in only one dimension – evil.

Jack: As you see us?

Marwan: Yes…and vulnerable.

I think the writers did a very good job of capturing the logical irrationality (?) of the terrorist. Many on the left in this country think that if we could only find out what the terrorists “want” that they’ll somehow leave us alone. The left believes that if we withdraw from the world and apologize for being such meanies, the Marwan’s of this planet will go away. It’s not enough. Marwan isn’t out to “change” anything. He’s all about killing. He’s managed to rationalize it by tying it to the impotent rage felt by Arabs as they see the west represented by America pay their kleptocratic leaders for access to the lifeblood of human civilization – oil. But Marwan’s satisfaction is not in getting America to stop intervening to protect itself. His satisfaction comes from killing Americans…a lot of them.

Realizing he’s getting nowhere, Jack starts to take Marwan back to CTU for some proper interrogation. Out of the blue, a rocket is fired from unseen attackers and World War III breaks out. Pinned down, Jack and Curtis can only watch helplessly as Marwan is spirited away, once again outsmarting CTU and the American government. I think the writers had Marwan captured just so they could stage that conversation with Jack. Good writing. Good theater.

Following Marwan’s escape, CTU’s focus returns to trying to intercept the missile. When searching Marwan’s cell phone records, who do they find on there but our old friend, moonbat Richard Heller, the Secretary of Defense’s son. Chloe breaks the news to Buchanan and Tony who wonders if they should inform Richard’s sister:

Tony: Chloe – Does Audrey know about this?

Chloe: No. This is more of a management conversation, don’t ya think?

Tony looks at Chloe in disgust and just shakes his head. That’s our Chloe!

Back in the Presidential bunker, Jellyfish meets the Congressional leadership and immediately runs into trouble. Speaker Ashton who, according to Palmer, has confused his own personal ambition to be President with doing what’s best for the country, questions whether Jellyfish is really in charge. If he only knew….

Tony and Michelle have a sit down where Tony goes for the gold, telling Michelle he wants to get back together but not if they’re working at CTU. Michelle balks because she can’t imagine life without these nice, relaxing days at headquarters where the guys and gals at CTU prove that saving the country can be fun. Before Michelle can answer, reality intrudes once again and they’re off to follow up a lead supplied by Richard Heller.

Richard has been dragged kicking and screaming into the infamous holding room where Audrey convinces Jack that before he begins his torture routine she be allowed to talk to him. Jack relents and Audrey pleads with her brother to tell what he knows. Richard keeps claiming he doesn’t know anything at which point the Secretary, who’s been absent for several hours, makes an appearance. After informing Richard he’s going to let Jack use “every piece of equipment they have”, Heller shames his son into finally revealing the truth. He likes to have sex with men. Turns out Richard met a swinging couple at a bar. And while Richard was playing slap and tickle with the man, the woman made a phone call to Marwan who was able to connect to Richard’s phone and listen to all his subsequent conversations thus finding out when the Secretary was going to visit and enabling Marwan to plan the kidnapping.

I thought the Secretary handled the news of Richard’s (bi?) sexuality quite well. And given that Richard screwed the pooch by not revealing this information during his earlier interrogation, I thought the Secretary was more understanding than he probably should have been.

Maybe he was just relieved Richard wasn’t a terrorist.

Meanwhile back in the Presidential bunker, Novik realizes Speaker Ashton could try and make a move to remove Jellyfish unless he were convinced the Spineless One was in charge. So Palmer, Jellyfish and Novik cook up a little Kabuki dance where Jellyfish pretends to order Palmer around in front of Ashton. The subterfuge works but begs the question: Why can’t Jellyfish pretend to be in charge all the time?

After finding out where the swingers live by tracing the cab they took to an apartment complex, Jack and Tony make ready to pick them up. On his way out, Tony and Michelle, as predicted here numerous times, kiss and make up. This was actually a no brainer, of course. The real question comes next week. Will they be able to enjoy their retirement…together?

And Jack and Audrey have a conversation where Audrey almost relents and acts like a human being toward Jack. She’s torn but I’ll be extremely disappointed if those two make it back together. Too much water under the bridge, too much ugliness.

The swingers, who evidently really, really like to have sex together are about to leave the apartment to go and meet Marwan when the woman hears the copters and sees the cops gathering outside the complex. After casually shooting her lover, she starts to make her escape. Jack busts into the apartment and after finding the man, calls on everyone to search the perimeter. Everyone but Tony who’s been taken hostage by the woman. At a time when a nuclear missile is in the air and headed for an American city, Tony gives up his gun to save Chase? Not only doesn’t it do any good, but one would think at that point that everyone is expendable. Wrong move.

Jack finds Chase’s body and informs CTU of the probable hostage situation involving Tony. As teams of agents fan out over the complex to look for their one last link to Marwan, Michelle hears of Tony’s capture and almost loses it. But being the professional that she is, she snaps out of it and issues terse orders for everyone to “move it.” Brave words to mask the fear underneath.

BODY COUNT

Bad night for CTU tactical.Four go down during Marwan’s rescue and Chase gets it during the woman’s escape. And Richard’s boyfriend bites the dust just minutes after making love to the swinger woman.

At least he died happy.

Jack: 42

Show: 232

Chloe: 1

LOOSE ENDS

Many, many loose ends to be tied up in the last two hours. Chief among them of course is the identity of the mole. One more piece of evidence for the mole could be the fact that Marwan had people outside waiting to rescue him. If they were there before CTU arrived to capture him, why didn’t they open fire then? This means they must have arrived after Marwan was captured.

This mole business is a huge problem for the writers because it appears now that neither the SoD or Audrey could be the mole. It appears that neither one of them knew about Richard’s homosexuality which would mean they couldn’t have set him up in the bar. I believe now that there’s a real chance the writers will not give us a mole; that the numerous American mercs working with Marwan, the transponder code for the football, and all the other clues that we’ve been speculating about over the last many weeks may in fact be left as is with no mole at all.

If that happens, I’ll be extremely disappointed in the writers. They’ve got to know there are literally millions of people tracking these loose ends. So either next week’s two hour finale is going to rock our world or it’s going to be a huge bust.

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