Am I the only one who thinks that this year’s story is advancing just a little too slowly?

The writers appear to be in love with exposition this year. Instead of action packed sequences that leave us breathless with anxiety, awaiting with bated breath next week’s installment, we get a lot of thumb sucking, head shaking, and “character development.” For God’s sake guys! This is a TV show not Shakespeare in the Park. If I wanted insight into the human condition, I’d watch Will and Grace. Or maybe Meet the Press – especially when Ted Kennedy is on.

Fleshing out the relationship between President Jellyfish and his Nutzo wife is all well and good but let’s move it along. And the gratuitous inclusion of Fat Hobbit Lin’s junkie sister was jarring to the sensibilities and undermined the narrative flow – especially given that we probably won’t see her for a few hours.

More time wasters? Jack and Audrey going back and forth about Porn Star Kimmy. Just kidnap her already and be done with it!

In short…faster please. Usually by this time we have a larger body count, more plot twists, and a few more shockers, although Anessa’s revenge against Rossler ranked as one of the more satisfying moments so far. Given the way she handles that gun, maybe she and Porn Star Kimmy can team up and both of them can become rogue agents going after pedophiles and international scumbag sex slave traffickers. Maybe they can even have 24’s first spinoff show – Not Quite 21.

That’s a show I just might make time to watch.

SUMMARY

Following Ivan the Terrorist’s threat to unleash the nerve gas on American soil, Jack and Logan grill Cummings about what else he knows. We learn that the “Mystery Man” is a former CIA agent James Nathanson and that Cummings actually thinks he is some sort of “patriot:”

LOGAN: What the hell was your goal Walt? Explain that to me.

CUMMINGS: We’re patriots, Mr. President. We were acting in the best interests of the country.

LOGAN: How is any of this in our best interests?

CUMMINGS: Shoring up a strategic partner in the War on Terror? Assuring a stable flow of oil? How is any of that not in the national interest?

Nathanson chose his man well. Cumming’s arrogance and belief in his own superior judgment about what is in the vital interest of the nation was played expertly by the ex-CIA man who, it appears, may in fact be working with the terrorists after all. When CTU failed to get in touch with him on Cummings cell, it may indicate that Nathanson doesn’t feel he needs Cummings anymore or, he somehow knew that Cummings was compromised. If the latter, that would mean there’s another mole somewhere.

Feeling that his part in the drama is done, Jack makes ready to disappear again only to be stopped by Jellyfish who appeals to Jack’s patriotism and asks him to stay on until the crisis is over. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this may be the first time someone has appealed directly to Jack’s love of country in 5 years. While Bauer is a slave to duty and often has personal motivations for what he does, his sacrifices for his country were always placed in the larger context of concern for his fellow man not necessarily for Americans. His patriotism was always implicit, never articulated. Anyway, I was glad to see it.

Ivan the Terrorist discovers he needs to reconfigure the triggers for the nerve gas in order to carry out his nefarious plans. His contact in Russia puts him in touch with Jacob Rossler, a nightmare of a sleazeball who not only has the morals of a marmoset but is also the personification of The Evil Geek – a software whiz who agrees to help Ivan fix the nerve gas cannisters so that he can set them off.

The writers try to humanize Fat Hobbit Lin by introducing us to his junkie sister Jenny, a completely unnecessary intrusion in the show except perhaps as one more terrorist kidnapping target. Asking for money from her bureaucrat brother, Lin agrees to take time out of his busy day to meet her.

Ivan the Terrorist finds a machine shop where the nerve gas cannisters can be opened so that the serial numbers can be programmed into the magic chip that Rossler is making for him. They enlist young Mac, a machinist who happened to be in the shop while everyone else went to lunch. Not a good time for Mac to draw the short straw for lunchtime duty.

Jack calls Audrey and asks her to contact Porn Star Kimmy and bring her to CTU but not tell her that her father is alive. Um…right. And just what excuse is Audrey going to use to get Kimmy to come to headquarters? Let’s do lunch and a little shopping?

Meanwhile back at the ranch Nutzo Martha confronts Jellyfish over his craven inability to tell her himself that he was going to recommit her to the mental institution. After telling her spineless husband that she “didn’t come to fight,” she proceeds to deliver the most satisfying slap in the history of the show right across Logan’s flabby face. The blow seemed to have an effect on Jellyfish. In fact, it acted as sort of a gonad transplant. When Novak suggests they initiate a cover-up of Cumming’s perfidy, Martha suggests otherwise; a come clean statement to the American people:

LOGAN: You may be overestimating the public’s capacity for forgiveness.

MARTHA: No, I’m not. The only thing they won’t forgive is being lied to. I think you should issue a statement to the press. And the sooner, the better.

Showing a completely uncharacteristic decisiveness, Jellyfish agrees with Martha and they both get to work on the mea culpa, or what H.R. Halderman famously said in planning the Watergate cover-up, the “hang-out route.” Halderman had several degrees of the “hang out route” including my favorite, “the modified, limited hang out route” which is what they ended up doing. We all remember what happened there.

CTU has traced Rossler’s call to Ivan to an office building downtown. The security matrix in the building is almost unhackable. So while Jack and Curtis ready themselves to confront Rossler, Chloe begs Bill to release her geek lover Spencer so that he can use his geek magic to get CTU into the security grid at the office building. Bill reluctantly agrees and Spencer does his thing. Jack and Curtis make their way up to Rossler’s penthouse which is guarded by two sleazeball security men. Not for long as Jack (who must have been itching to use his gun, it being more than an hour since his last kill) expertly guns down the guards and bursts into Rossler’s office. After winging the Evil Geek, Jack checks the bedroom only to find a 15 year old doe-eyed Anessa who was evidently “sold” to Rossler as a sex slave. Jack’s protective instincts go into high gear as he promises the girl she is safe – for a while anyway.

That’s because Rossler has CTU over a barrel and he knows it. Only he can lead the boys to Ivan the Terrorist. Jack and Curtis play bad cop/nightmare cop as Jack does the threatening and let’s Curtis have a little fun with the Evil Geek’s wounded leg. Not getting anywhere, Fat Hobbit Lin orders Jack to give the pedophile a deal that would grant him immunity and whisk him out of the country with young Anessa. Even though Rossler talks, Jack is still sickened by the thought of the teenage girl being in the clutches of slimeball Rossler who informs the boys that Ivan will call back within the hour to set up a meet in order to install the new chip which will allow the terrorists to detonate the nerve gas.

Back at CTU, Chloe reluctantly informs Spencer that his services are no longer required – either at the office or, we assume, in her bed. Fat Geek Edgar congratulates her:

EDGAR: That was hard but you did the right thing.

CHLOE: Shut up Edgar.

Edgar smiles a horny geek smile. Maybe he thinks he’ll get her on the rebound?

And the Hobbit? He slips away from the crisis to meet with his junkie sister Jenny who, after discovering that her loving brother will not give her any money, sics her junkie boyfriend on Samwise who seems to have lost some of his fighting skills when he made the move from Middle Earth. At the very least, he sure could have used some mithral to protect him from the blows delivered by junkie boy.

After finishing the statement, Martha and Logan are called out into the hallway where we discover that Cummings has pulled a Judas Iscariot and hung himself with his Brooks Brothers tie. Sic Semper proditor!

Jack gives Anessa the bad news that she must go with Rossler, at least for the time being. He promises that nothing will happen to her, that she will be rescued eventually. Obviously not believing our hero (not believe Jack?), she pulls a gun a kills her tormentor. This leaves our boys in a quandary as Ivan the Terrorist is about to call back and set up a meeting place so that Rossler can install the chips. Not only don’t they have Rossler anymore, but we haven’t seen the chip yet. And CTU is no closer to getting the nerve gas than they were at the beginning of the hour.

CELEBRITY SIGHTING

Senator McCain delivered a folder to Audrey in the CTU conference room in a split screen cameo. I guess if you’re a US Senator and a fan of 24, you get to be on the show. Or maybe he played a little slap and tickle with the producer? The Hollywood casting couch would never be the same.

BODY COUNT

Jack takes care of two security guards. Ivan plugs Mac the machinist. Anessa sends Rossler to hell.

JACK: 9

SHOW: 32

Sorry…suicides don’t count! However, if we find out later that Cummings was murdered, we will add him to the count.

UPDATE - SPECULATION

Some good speculation in this thread over at Lori Byrd’s Polipundit post. Several commenters also think the Cummings suicide was just a little too convenient.