24: Day Five, 2-3am Jack Bauer Causes a Plane Full of Diplomats to Plunge Earthward While Chloe Tasers a Lounge Lizard (#20)

My, my, MY! What an incredible episode! Unbelievable.

Only FOUR EPISODES LEFT! GOOD LORD, we'll have to wait 'til January! I'm NOT looking forward to The Summer of Bad TV. I'm not sure what the wife and I will do with our time this summer. Maybe sit poolside and think about Day Six.

A few observations.
Haven't we learned so much from Jack? For example, last week we received essential instruction on how to sneak onto a diplomatic airplane using this:


this...



this...


And this:


Who knew it would be that easy?! I would skip sunglasses, though. You don't wanna be mistaken for one of these guys.


We also learned that once you get on the plane, all you need is to take that panel off in the luggage department and pull on a couple of strings to force everyone to use those special white lunch bags in the seat pocket. NEAT! You know, it’s never clear to me if those bags are for KEEPING your lunch in or LOSING your lunch in.


2. Four words to strike fear in any human heart on the planet: CHLOE HAS A TASER!


WASN’T THAT THE BEST TASERING EVER?!! TWICE EVEN!!! How nice to have some comic relief in an otherwise very tense episode. That poor guy just needed a little companionship.


"Hey, baby, what's your sign?"


3. BOB BUCHANAN TO THE RESCUE! Once Buchanan started unbuttoning his shirt, we weren't sure WHAT those nameless agents knocking on the door were gonna find:

This:


Or this:


EGAD! Glad he stuck with the heroic "I'm just walking around my house in my T-shirt" approach.

4. GOOD LORD! What about Jack on the plane?! The way he clocked that air marshal? May he NEVER sit by me on an airplane. Jack Bauer—the Ultimate Fast-Acting Sleeping Pill!


And then the whole “Let me just take off this panel and pull these two little strings AND THE PLANE WILL PLUMMET TO EARTH KILLING EVERYONE ON BOARD!” action.


Does Jack ever RELAX or WATCH TV or GO TO THE DRIVE-IN? Oh, once in a blue moon...


And poor Hans Meyer. He was so scared and SO THE WRONG GUY! So terrified, he was beside himself.


After it’s all over, there will be the obligatory apology from Jack: “Uhh, sorry, man, that I put a gun in your face, probably hit you a couple of times, forced you to get in the luggage compartment of the diplomatic airplane you were on and actually LOOK for your own luggage, dug through your personal items (I didn’t think guys wore leopard bikini briefs anymore, but that’s YOUR deal), and then indirectly forced the pilot to depressurize the plane, and then finally pulled those strings that caused the plane to plummet to earth giving you an embolism. For that, I’m truly sorry. At least I didn't electrocute your pectoral muscles and then choose some other person to live (leaving you to die on the operating table), shoot you in the leg above the kneecap so you wouldn't be permanently paralyzed, punch your sternum repeatedly, decapitate you and put your head in a bowling bag, make you run through a room of toxic gas to save the country (thereby sealing your fate), chop off your hand to detach the rest of you from a ticking bomb, shoot you in the back of your head in a train yard, date your mom and then abandon you, or make you become addicted to heroin to infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel. And yet, people love me. I don't know why.”


5. I have to say that Jean Smart repeatedly impresses me. If she doesn’t get an EMMY, they should give her a special Oscar, you know, a special cross-over Oscar: “Best Actress in a Role That Shoulda Been in a Film But Was on TV Instead.” Before she hits the red carpet, let's get her to work not only on her hair, but also that foggy gauzy Glamour Shots cloud that seems to be surrounding her head.


6. And what’s with Secret Service Agent Justin Adams? He reminds me of some freshman English students I used to know.


7. We screamed at the TV when EMMY! Logan was being all coy and fidgety NOT telling Mike Novick what she knew. “WOMAN, TELL HIM WHAT YOU KNOW! SAY IT IN SIGN LANGUAGE! PLAY CHARADES! SOMETHING!” I can picture the First Lady grabbing her earlobe and saying, "Sounds like...'Marles is smilty in Falmer's Beth! Marles is smilty in Falmer's Beth!'"


8. Then there was the very intense conversation between SATAN and Mike Novick. Logan standing there, Palmer’s blood on his hands, his guilt hanging heavily in the room like a impending storm, the sense of evil walking around the room like a lumbering monster. INSANE! You could read SATAN’S mind almost: “Dammit! I can’t kill my chief of staff. I want to, but I can't! As far as I know, no one’s ever done THAT before!”
However slowly, Mike’s getting there. Mr. Lightbulb Head will go off.

9. Simply put: PRESIDENT LOGAN IS SATAN. HIS MIDDLE NAME IS BEELZEBUB. HIS FRIENDS CALL HIM “THE LORD OF THE FLIES.” HE HAS A PALATIAL SUITE IN HELL! HE WILL BURN THERE FOREVER!


Goodness, he looks grumpy. Long day, I guess.

10. You should have seen the gymnastics at our house when Jack got the tape from the co-pilot! We invited the neighbors over and we laughed, we cried, it touched the very heart of us.


Next week: As the plane plummets to earth, Jack figures out how to save everyone with one parachute.

Before he jumps out of the plane holding hands with everyone listed on the manifest, he programs the plane to stay on autopilot until it lands on the President’s California retreat, sending Beelzebub back to the rotting, stinking hell where he belongs.