A note of introduction: For those of you new to my entirely irreverent musings on 24, the last two seasons I’ve written what started out as reviews but turned into rants. The links are on the right sidebar over at Peace Like A River. Since this blog just opened up for business, I didn’t write up the first four hours of this season, so I’m just jumping in, uh, in media res. Hence, the stats section is starting off with only approximations.

A note on names. Since President Wayne Palmer is a tower of quivering linguini, he shall be known as President Whine Palmer. And, since his sister Sandra is as annoying as sandpaper rubbed over an open sore, she shall be known as Sandpapra Palmer. Oh, how we long for the days of David Palmer, where he would happily bet nuclear war with the Chinese on a ski mask, but do it with a pleasant back-slapping demeanor that just made ya love the big lug. (And last but not least, Assad is played by the actor who was Dr. Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)

Also, spoilers abound ahead. With that, let’s shake off the dust and the rust and once again deploy the rantennae.

We just get a “Viewer discretion is advised” warning. No graphic violence warning. The last couple seasons a graphic violence warning was practically welded onto the beginning of each episode. Although, there were times they gave that warning even though the episode consisted of little more than Jack and Kim having a tea party with Kim’s dolls. Or, some episodes didn’t have the warning even though the episode just about showed a child being disemboweled while the killer pulled out the entrails and played skiprope with them. So, I pay little attention to these warnings anymore.

In the Previously on LA Laws, we see Assad asking for a presidential pardon. He sure doesn’t know the sordid history of presidential pardons on this show, does he. We see Curtis going down. And we see the Daisy ad. I mean, a nuke went off in Valencia!! Heilege heck. This is the second nuke to go off on the show, so it’s old hat by now. Of course, this one killed 12,000, and the first one pretty much only killed a few rabbits and Heroic George.

As we plunge into this episode, a reporter on a tv is getting the audience caught up on the developments that have occurred in the past, oh, two minutes or so since the bomb went off. (One of the hoariest methods of info dumping at a writer’s disposal, I might add.) These reporters work fast, I tell ya. Incidentally, what the reporter is saying and what the krazy kaptions say are completely different. The krazy kaptions have the reporter saying, among other things, “here in Valencia.” Now that’s a dedicated reporter, if A) he survived the blast, and B) stands his post and files his report instead of instantly joining the chaos of post-apocalyptic Valencia where the survivors fight each for food and the last precious drops of gasoline, and fight the Mutants who come out at night.

At the White House, Whine and his court are shocked at the blast. Casualties are high. Whine wants a joint. I mean, he wants to meet with the Joint Chiefs. He’s told he needs to go to the Bunker, and then immediately says he needs to get in front of the American people. That’s gonna be kinda hard to do when he’s 5 stories underground, isn’t it? All the CTU field teams are dead as well. Kinda bunched up, weren’t they, if they were all in Valencia? The terrorists could’ve had a field day in Long Beach.

In the Bunker, I wonder if Whine thinks back to when David and RunLoganRun nearly started a war with the Chinese down there. The place has been remodeled since then, I’m sure costing gatillions of taxpayer dollars.

The VP is following protocol! Ah, the old classics never go out of style, do they. (By the way, we don’t know who the Veep is yet.) Someone mentions a Site-R. Which is…? Anyone?

Karen takes a moment to call her Honey-Bunny. “How’s my widdle pooggywoogums?”, she says. “How’s my widdle sugar sweetums?”, he says.

Chloe asks “Why do people I know keep dying?” Ok, Chloe, keep doing the math. You know what you must do. But enough moping about after the broken bodies of her fallen comrades. She’s got massive packet loss to worry about. (I hear there are effective treatments for that these days.)

Chloe is puzzled, thinking Jack quit. I’m unclear exactly when Jack started. He got off a plane, was to be the plaything of a psychotic terrorist, and ran around with Bashir for awhile. He hasn’t even been processed through HR yet.

Jack is out on the mean streets of Granada Hills, where panic is rampant. Either that, or Paris Hilton was just spotted at a local mall.

Some guy named McCarthy is talking to Fayed, and he plans to go to Vegas. (What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, as the terrorist motto goes.) Fayed needs another trigger reprogrammer thingy, since the one he had has been broken down into its constituent atoms. He wants to set off his other four suitcase nukes. He’s following in the footsteps of the great Marwan, and only slightly less great Henderson; improvising, making up plans on the fly. He’s got a high standard to live up to though.

Back in Granada Hills, we’re suddenly on the set of some lame movie. Jack is climbing on a roof where a helicopter has crashed. He rescues someone just before the helo slides off the roof, falls about eight feet, and…. explodes in a massive fireball? Huh? Must be made of that new flammable metal developed by NASA for the space program. (Like the cargo plane in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights, where it runs out of fuel in Afghanistan, crashes, and erupts in a massive fireball.)

The krazy kaptions say “sirens wailing”, but we hear nothing. I’m unclear why the helicopter didn’t explode when it crashed onto the roof, but went kaplooey when it fell a few feet to the ground.

Jack talks to Bill and says he’s not out after all. (It’s too easy to make “They keep pulling me back in” wisecracks here.)

As we go into the first commercial break, the 24 clock is at 10:11, and the wall clock is at :11. But when we come back, the 24 clock is at 10:16, and the wall clock is at :14. Just like that, the universe is out of phase again. Suddenly, Rosie O’Donnell is funny, Kelly Clarkson’s voice doesn’t sound like a car horn stuck in the on position, and Carnegie Hall goes to an all-rap format.

In the Bunker, Admiral John wants to nuke 3 cities. Yup, those military types sure are a bunch of crackpots. Whine contemplates his direct role in setting off the nuke, since he freed The Engineer. Wait till the opposition party gets ahold of that one. Whine swells with pride as he thinks about the mighty deeds he’ll accomplish down there. Although, he’s already turned Jack over to be murdered, instantly caved into to terrorist demands, and was directly responsible for a nuclear blast in an American city. And the day is just beginning. Not bad!

Fayed is carrying around the suitcase nukes in his Chevy Van, and that’s all right with me.

Dr. Bashir arrives at CTU. I see CTU has learned nothing, and they don’t check to see if he’s carrying in a canister of nerve gas through the front door. Bashir tries to shake hands with Bill, who declines, not wanting to get Terrorist Cooties. They all head to the conference room, where Bashir says Fayed had talked to some Russkie general named Gredenko.

Going into the next break, clocks are at :21 to :19. Coming out, they are at :25 to :23.

CTU, which has the most comprehensive databases known to mankind, at least when it’s convenient to the plot. Chloe looks up firms that have done business with Gredenko. An ominous name pops up on Bill’s B screen. Someone with BXJ Something or Other. It’s Philip Bauer, who is dum dum dummmmmm Jack’s father.

Huh? His father? His father? This is turning into the Lifetime Channel. Bill calls Jack, who says he hasn’t spoken to Dad in nine years. And yet Jack wants to talk to him alone, he says “He’ll talk to me if I go alone.”

Over at the Detention Center, where Evil Republicans are trying to stamp out civil liberties as fast as they can, Sandpapra is talking to the FBI. They want Walid to go deep undercover into the murky underworld of the detention center yard, where, uh, people are just milling about. Sandpapra runs her fingernails down a chalkboard and shrieks like a Banshee. no, wait, that’s just her normal speaking voice. Earlier, she instantly called her president brother in the middle of a national crisis to whine about her petty problems. She shows remarkable restraint here in not bothering Whine right away.

The FBI goons stage a beat down for the benefit of the terrorists, in order to get a wire on Walid. They work him over in a bathroom. (The krazy kaptions say “thump, groan.”)

Jack tells the guy in his SUV he needs to go alone. And apparently Jack just leaves the guy on the curb. At least he didn’t clobber the poor guy like he did Curtis last year when he needed an SUV.

Whaaaa….? Jack has a brother now too? This is the Lifetime Channel! Jack calls Sam, trying to reach his father. Sam is on Spy O’Vision, as someone calls Jack’s brother to warn him that Jack is Back.

Holy Hannah! Jack’s brother is the mysterious guy from last season who was ordering President Logan around! (And he had access to info and communications everywhere.) What is going on? It’s a great bit of casting, though. I mean, the resemblance is uncanny. Short, dumpy balding guy, vs. trim, athletic, long features. I’m sure you suspected they were related long ago.

In this break, clocks are at :33 to ;31, and coming out, :38 to :35.

Jack calls up his brother Graham, and calls him “Gray”. Oh, subtle. Why not just call him Inhabits The Morally Ambiguous Interstices Between Good And Evil Representing How He Walks In Two Worlds. But, that’s a little unwieldy, so I guess “Gray” will do. (The krazy kaptions spell his name as Graem.) I thought I heard he lives in Indian Falls at 226 Pine Crest Road. But Indian Falls is a small town up in northern California. So I’m not sure.

Apparently Jack and Gray’s wife had a thing going in the past, too. Lifetime Channel! And the wife is a hottie! How did short, dumpy balding Gray bag her? Is he a professional athlete or something? And the son is Kurt Russell Jr.! Jack and the Hottie Wife exchange Glances. I hope that’s not a hint that the boy might be Jack’s son. It’s obvious Kurt Russel is the boy’s father. The wife apparently got around.

Back at the Bunker, Tom sees an opportunity to curtail freedoms. By giving these lines to the weaseliest character in the White House, we can see this is what passes for subtle political commentary for Hollywood types. Whine blathers on about “making our streets safe again.” Huh? Do we have a crime problem, or the kind of problem where NUCLEAR BOMBS ARE GOING OFF?!?

Back at…. somewhere, McCarthy picks up a bimbo outside a massage parlor. She complains about standing around like a hooker. But honey, that’s exactly how you’re dressed. She wants to go to Vegas, what with the bomb and all. (Apparently the dance clubs/grief centers used so memorably by Marwan aren’t enough to comfort her.) McCarthy says they’re not going to Vegas. I’m amazed the gal didn’t say “The bleep we aren’t.” McCarthy does assert his manhood and say “Stop talking, now.” How this gal is going to help him get the trigger rearming thing for Fayed, I have no idea. But in a world where Denise Richards can be a nuclear scientist, who knows, maybe this gal has connections.

Fayed evilly says that he wants the other bombs to go off today.

In this final break, clocks are at :45 to :42, and coming out, :49 to :46.

Bashir is apparently heading to DC. Bill loves the guy now, and offers a handshake.

Back at the Detention Center, we’re told Walid was whacked around a second time, but we didn’t see it. The Terror Gang is suspicious. The FBI guy says it was Walid’s decision to wear the wire. Huh? I don’t think so. Sandpapra appropriately says Scccreeeeecchhhh!

Walid does end up talking his way into the gang. The FBI guy says he’ll have to “sell himself to the others.” Oh my. So it’s turning into that kind of prison movie.

At Brother Graham’s house, Jack and Graham share a not so tender hug. Graham invites Kurt Russell Jr. over to meet Uncle Jack. Then, Hottie Mom appears and tells the boy to give his father some privacy. Hey, Mom, lighten up, Dad was the one who invited him over.

Jack and Gray go into Gray’s office where Jack once again proves he’s psychotic. He starts torturing Gray. Why? Why? What possible reason could Jack have for roughing him up like that? Jack wants to know where his father is, and Gray said he is trying to help. So why launch into the abuse?

Jack clobbers Gray, then ties him up with a cord from a lamp. (Jack remembered that trick from Season 4, when he tortured Audrey’s ex-husband with a lamp cord in a hotel room, even though the poor schmoe turned out to be innocent.)

Jack says if Graham yells for help, “I’ll rip out your tongue. Are we clear.” All together now, “Crystal”.

Gray says “You’re hurting me.” Jack says “Trust me, I’m not.” I’d trust him, Gray.

At the Bunker, Whine is going all weak-kneed again. He’s ready to talk to the American public. Whine asks if the speech is ready, Tom says it’s on the teleprompter. Whine asks Tom if he should tell the American people he’s bald because he secretly joined the cult of Set the Snake God. Tom says uhhhh, no.

So Whine is going to just sit down and read a speech he hasn’t seen yet? There could be anything on that teleprompter.

“My fellow Americans, Britney Spears has knockers that could start a war! She… Hey! What is this? Where’s my speech?”

I do like the fakey Oval Office background.

Back at Gray’s office, Jack grabs a plastic bag and wraps it around Gray’s head. As Gray fades to black, so does this episode, with the clocks at :00 at :56.

Number of times Jack says “Now!”: 0
Number of times Jack says “No!”: 0
Number of times a “protocol” is mentioned: 2
Number of times a “grid” is mentioned: 3
Number of times Jack says “Drop the weapon!”: 1
Number of times someone says a variation of “Go!”: 0
Number of moles: 2
Approximate Body Count: 10, plus 12,000 in the nuclear blast, plus dozens and dozens in the terror attacks, plus one coffee table, plus one helicopter.