‘Momentos de tensão na Wenetus [1]’
courtesy of ‘Rodrigo Muniz’

It’s the last midnight, folks. In two more hours, Jack Bauer will have saved the world, cured Mad Cow, and destroyed more DC geography than the Canadians did when they burned down the White House. We’re here for snark, alcohol and a bit of group therapy. Join in!

Li’l Taylor is giving a statement to the DoJ about Jonas’ murder. Just a formality, she is assured.

President Woman President lays down the exposition about why finding that last canister isn’t the end of the danger, after all. Oh hey, they’re in dire need of sleep, just like every season of 24.

Jack’s in the van with Freckles and TurncoatTony, while Evil Redhead is whispering sweet nothings into his earpiece, threatening to kill Kim Bauer if Jack doesn’t help Tony escape. There’s a chopper overhead (BWAHAHA), escorting them.

Kim’s at the airport with the Terrorists Incognito. She notices a scratch on goofy mullet terrorist dude’s neck and gets suspicious.

Jack makes his move, shooting the redshirt Fed, just for fun. But at least he explains himself to Freckles, because really, she’s been jerked around enough today. Redheaded Evil gives them directions onto Taft Street (WTF) as the van drives through what is VERY CLEARLY LA.

Jack begs Freckles to cooperate so that Kim will be safe. Tony forces Jack to come along to his meetup with Redheaded Evil, because Jack has bioweapon in his bloodstream! Maybe their evil terrorist plot isn’t foiled after all!

Junction Jack rolls on into the White House, mere HOURS after resigning. Aaron actually accuses Li’l Taylor of having Hodges assassinated while Junction Jack decides how uptight he’s willing to be about the Nixon equipment. Junction Jack relents.

Li’l Taylor is finishing up her deposition, confirming AGAIN that she had NO outside contact during the relevant time period. *wink, wink*

Done with her perjury, Li’l Taylor heads to her office, Aaron stalls her just long enough that she doesn’t catch Junction Jack messing with the recording device. Junction Jack plays all innocent, oh, I was just picking up some of my old files. Here, of COURSE you can see them.

She’s right in the middle of chewing Aaron out for letting someone into her office when she notices the OH SO CLEVERLY CONCEALED BEHIND A PICTURE FRAME recording deck with the recording media conspicuously absent. She orders the Secret Service to detain Junction Jack, telling Aaron, “He stole my property.” Which is ridiculous, because the recording media is GOVERNMENT property, missy.

Meanwhile, Kim is relaxing at the gate with Mr. and Mrs. Terrorist Incognito. Freckles gets Chloe to patch her through to the gate so she can tell Kim about who is following her and who has taken Jack hostage. The Incognitos get suspicious, and Kim cuts the call short, after listening to a bunch of oversharing from Freckles. Kim tries to distract the Incognitos with pictures of her adorable baby (subtext: PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, I HAVE A BABY), but Mr. Incognito spots the cops heading over and starts the fight by shooting at the cops and telling the Mrs. to kill Kim with that TOTALLY NOT MADE OF METAL KNIFE.

Thing That Is Actually Totally Believable: Mr. Incognito managed to smuggle a gun through TSA security.

In all the confusion, Mrs. Incognito dies and Mr. Incognito escapes into an authorized personnel area. Kim calls Freckles, who insists that Kim figure out where Mr. Incognito went since that’s how they’ll figure out where Tony and Jack are. At a key moment, Kim’s phone dies, because the battery was low, REMEMBER?

Frustrated, Kim takes off after Mr. Incognito herself.

Li’l Taylor confronts Junction Jack and threatens to have him strip-searched if he doesn’t give up the CF card he’s holding. After some bluffing back and forth about who is a bigger federal scofflaw, she calls in the Secret Service to search him. The agent is disappointed that he didn’t even need those laytex gloves to find the card, which he immediately turns over to Li’l Taylor even though it’s potentially evidence in a federal prosecution against Junction Jack, if not against Li’l Taylor.

Aaron convinces the other Secret Service guys to let him escort Junction Jack out, and that’s when we find out that JJ is a paranoid bastard and gave the REAL CF card to Aaron and gave Olivia a blank one. The chatters totally called that one. Preeeedictable. JJ just HAPPENS to have “a companion device” to the recorder in his car. Uh huh. Companion Device? $10 CF card reader from Office Depot.

They’re dragging Jack off to turn him into a bioweapon now. The scientists are wearing facemasks but Tony and Evil Redhead are too cool for that. They hold him down on the table and start extracting his precious precious spinal fluid while Jack screams. Pansy. Who thinks that needle is going to end up in someone’s eye? *raises hand*

Freckles is on the scene at the airport, trying to figure out where Kim and Mr. Incognito are. Because you know, there are no security cameras at airports.

Kim is trucking through the stairwells, and I do not believe FOR A MOMENT that those heels she’s wearing are really not making any noise. She chases Mr. Incognito into the self-park area (that close to the airport? really?) and gets the rentacops there to contact Freckles.

Just as she’s on the radio with Freckles describing their position, Mr. Incognito comes barrelling down the ramp, picking off rentacops with his pistol. The rentacops have no training at all- they just stand there and make easy targets of themselves while attempting to shoot through the windshield of a moving car.

In the shootout, Mr. Incognito manages to flip his car, and Kim steals his laptop, catching herself on fire in the process. Freckles shows up, and Kim hands over the laptop, along with some classic 24-technobabble about how to use it to track down the other terrorists. When Freckles gives her the WTF look, Kim explains that she used to be a systems analyst at CTU.

Evil Redhead is talking to Squirrelly Suit-Wearing Boss Man, who tells Evil that he’s coming over to check out the prisoner. Meanwhile, they’ve left Jack REALLY close to the knives, and he makes his escape. Forget MADCOW, he now has FURIOUSCOW.

Jack slips outside into the early morning sun, calculated to remind us that THIS ALL TAKES PLACE IN 24 HOURS, REMEMBER?, and apparently they’re back at the mysterious NW DC airfield from a few hours before.

Jack finds a couple of random cabs in a garage (helloo, if it were an airfield in DC, it would be Washington Flyer). Tony catches up to Jack in short order, and after a brief fight, Tony knocks Jack unconscious.

Meanwhile, Junction Jack strolls back into Li’l Taylor’s office to confront her. He explains that he has the real recording after all, and plays it for her, then explains that it’s time for her to tell her mother what she did.

Jack is now explaining the 45th time today he’ll switch sides. Apparently this whole thing was a big con to get the suit-wearing guy close enough for Tony to kill, since he’s somehow, in a convoluted way, responsible for Tony’s wife’s death. Jack, who just wounded a federal agent and helped a fugitive escape in order to save his daughter, proceeds to lecture Tony about going too far in the name of personal motivation. Irony, thy name is Bauer. Tony straps some C4 to Jack and doesn’t comment on the hypocrisy.

The presence of Hummer stretch limos indicates that the Suit-Wearing Bad Guy has arrived. After some random banter about pathology reports and whether or not Tony has a lot to offer the organization, they trot out Bauer, without checking to see if he’s been, you know, WIRED WITH EXPLOSIVES.

Just as Jack is about to get close enough to the boss-man so that Tony can asplode them to bits, the cavalry arrives- Freckles in a chopper, with machine guns. GUNFIGHT!!!

In all the confusion, Freckles finds Jack and manages to disarm the bomb, which he CONTINUES TO WEAR while they go look for Ton and the suit-wearer. They find them, just as Tony is about to have his sweet, sweet revenge for the murder of his wife and unborn baby. Jack, twitching and blinking all the while, has to shoot Tony twice to slow him down.

Freckles confronts the suit-wearer and tells him he’ll be charged with treason. The Suit Wearing Bad Guy, whose facial bruises are yellowing about 3 days too early, insists that the feds have nothing on him.

Freckles wanders off to find Jack, and finds him, just as he’s refusing pain medication, because he’s so hardcore. She’s distraught that they probably won’t be able to get anything out of the suit-wearing bad guy, and hints that she might be willing to, ahem, go to extreme lengths to extract information from him. Jack goes all soft and squishy and tells her not to, or something, but the point is, they have a tender moment before Jack is wheeled away on the rusty guerney from the 70s.

Li’l Taylor confesses about the murder to her parents. President Woman President freaks out, First Dude takes Li’l’s side, President WP insists that she has to honor the law, First Dude implies that it’s all HER fault anyway, and I’m betting that he’ll be served with divorce papers after breakfast. The aide interrupts this really critical moment to tell the President that he needs her to leave so she can hear some GOOD news. Go on, honey… you go take care of this president stuff. Our daughter will still be a murderer when you get back.

Chloe and Janis have their last scene. Chloe compliments Janis and Janis’ smile practically lights up the room. They’ll be running off to Vermont next season.

Jack’s at the hospital getting ready to get his coma on, when the imam shows up. Turns out Jack called him, because he’s experiencing some soul-related turmoil now that he’s dying and stuff. The imam speaks some comforting, conciliatory words (SEE? It’s all OKAY because the IMAM SAYS SO), and they pray together, which would have been a really moving scene if it just weren’t so freaking weird.

President Woman President comes back to her family, explains how much she loves them and that she’s sorry her job is so hard for them (whiners), and then explains that she’s got to turn Li’l Taylor in to the DoJ. Aaron escorts her from the room, and First Dude is PISSED. But what’s he going to do, kick his wife out of the White House?

The President is having a difficult moment out in the hall, when Junction Jack comes and offers to come back and rescind his resignation. Right then! Back to work!

Janis is mysteriously handling prisoner transfer paperwork and trying to get Freckles to sign it, when Freckles starts demanding that Janis leave. Janis has apparently caught onto the fact that Jack’s not even dead yet, but his soul has just jumped RIGHT into Freckles, and refuses to leave. Freckles pulls a gun and makes Janis handcuff herself to some random pipe in the room. Janis plays the Larry card while trying to talk Freckles out of it, but Freckles just sneers and stalks into the room holding Suit Wearing Bad Guy. He’s looking smug, but we know what’s going to happen next.

Kim shows up to the hospital after Jack has been put into the coma. She berates the doctor into telling her whether the stem cell treatment mentioned way back like 12 hours ago is still an option. The doctor heads off to get an OR, and Kim goes into Jack’s room to hold his hand and tell him she’s not ready to let him go yet.

And that concludes this season of 24. THANK GOD.