Viewer discretion is advised. Why? Because watching Jack patronize Rain Man and then shove him out into harm’s way may be the most barfingly bizarre thing this show has done.

In the Previously on LA Lawless segment, Fayed and Gredenko ready the drones. A drone is launched, and CTU promptly loses it. Why? Because Nadia is a mole! Or, (he strokes beard), is she? Jack flies the drone and promptly crashes it. There’s a radiation leak. And the Crazy Veep orders a missile launch. This guy has had the reins of constitutional power for only a couple hours, and already he’s launching nuclear weapons at the Middle East. Does this not strike anyone down in the White Bunker as stark raving lunacy?

Sometimes this show strikes me as the tv drama equivalent of Cubist art. There’s an eye where a sensible plot should be. There’s a leg where rational laws of time and space and governmental procedure should be.

As this week’s glorious, jumbled mess begins, the hideout for the terrorist drone operation is swarming with CTU personnel. I buy it this time because it is only three blocks away from CTU, after all. Jack orders somebody to keep the drone pilot alive, but in a blatant disregard for orders, the drone pilot dies.

Jack orders Doyle to go do flunky cleanup work. And Doyle agrees. Why? Doyle is head of field ops. Why would he willingly take orders from someone who isn’t even officially part of CTU, and who only a day ago was a tortured prisoner of the ChiComs?

Jack and Bill have yet another phone conversations. Junior high girls got nothing on these two guys. Jack is worried that the Crazy Veep is going to start World War III. (So, seems like an opportunity to pull out Einstein’s quote: “I don’t know how man will fight World War III, but I do know how they will fight World War IV; with sticks and stones.” I’d like to see a scene where the Veep snarls “Launch rocks at the A-rabs! NOW!”)

Gredenko is now out of his vehicle somewhere. Fayed is in whatever van-like vehicle he scrounged up after fleeing in his medevac helicopter. They’re worried that their drone pilot was captured. Fayed is ready to give up, and then he gets pushy with Gredenko.

Gredenko says he is the “only one who can deliver the targets you want.” I have no idea what that means. They had just launched a nuke at San Francisco. Is San Fran some great mystery? Can’t Fayed look at a map and find beeg Ameriken ceety on his own?

Now, we cut to a dramatic scene of…. eggs frying! PETA viewer discretion is advised. For a moment, I thought I had sat on the remote and accidentally changed the channel. Some guy named Mark Hauser is feeding Rain Man, and Rain Man doesn’t like red peppers. What is this show doing? As King said awhile back, “The shark has not been jumped, but the shark is in the pool and the show is strapping on skis.”

Gredenko calls up Mark Hauser, and wants some new security protocols from him. Who knew the LA basin was just crawling with Caucasians so eager to help out terrorists. So, Mark has Rain Man access the mainframe for him. Because that’s drama! Thrill as the idiot savant uses the laptop!

Back in CTU, Milo is still watching Nadia O’Vision. Bill shuffles up (apparently in between meetings and gab sessions with Jack) and says Nadia is being processed as an enemy combatant. Really, this show has a bad habit of quickly skimming newspaper headlines and clipping out things they think sound cool.

Chloe chimes in and says “We may have caught a break.” Bill says she should throw it back, as California has a two-break limit. They picked up the call between Hauser and Gredenko.

Over at the drone operation site, Doyle talks to someone name Connell Johnson. Johnson found evidence that Nadia is innocent. The drone pilot was using some kind of chip to get into Nadia’s workstation through a radical web site she was monitoring. Folks, if CTU computer security is so poor that people in the outside world can access the inner sanctum of CTU computers, using technomagic or not, someone should be put up against the wall and shot.

(Side note: Johnson is played by JR Bourne, who played Martouf on Stargate SG-1. He was a Tok’ra, and sort of had a thing going with Carter, to the everlasting jealousy of red-blooded males everywhere. Martouf fell prey to mind control influences and tried to assassinate the US president, and Carter was forced to kill him. I pray the writers of 24 do not look to this for plot ideas.)

At the first break, clocks are at :10 and :10. Does anyone else find these UPS whiteboard commercials to be highly annoying? Coming back though, clocks are at :14 and :12. The space-time continuum shifts, and suddenly we’re living in UpsideDown Land, where fat people blame the seizure of British sailors by Iranian forces on some fever-induced notion of a conspiracy of warmongering forces.

When we return, Whine is still out cold, and Sandpapra looks on with an expression that indicates either great emotional or gastrointestinal distress.

Karen comes in to comfort her, and lays out the situation. A crazy man is trying to start a war, and they have to wake up Whine so he can croak out orders to cease that madness, and implement his Ap-peace-ment plan.

Sandpapra starts blubbering, and I don’t hear the rest of the scene because I’m jabbing a screwdriver in my ear in hopes of rupturing my eardrums. Alas, I hear Karen get all stern with Sandpapra. We take another look at Whine in a reminder of what’s at stake. The krazy kaptions say “monitor beeping”, but we hear nothing. Sandpapra briefly channels viewers everywhere and says if there’s a chance Whine could kick the bucket if he’s brought out of the coma, then by all means, bring him out of the coma.

I think I shall start calling VP Daniels “Dr. StrangeVeep”, because he was gone off the deep end. The USS Vickery has been dispatched. It will send a B-611 300 kiloton flaming warhead of death into the sands of MiddleEastistan, and send a message that the US will not tolerate, uh, nomadic Bedouins, apparently.

Tom starts droning on about COMPLAN, when Dr. StrangeVeep receives a note that Sandpapra has consented to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead. (Lisa found out because she “has a source in the medical bay.” Uh, is the president’s condition a secret down in the White Bunker? Him being just down the hall and all, isn’t he easy to keep track of, without the need for spies?)

Not surprisingly, he does not take this well, and chews out the quacktor. Dr. StrangeVeep growls that he will compel the quacktor to stop. The quacktor says he should take it up with Sandpapra. And, actually, I do believe she is the one gal capable of standing up to the Veep.

Jack at a tac team have arrived a Casa del Hauser. Chloe sends Jack a photo of Hauser via Sprint Picture Mail, so Jack knows which one to shoot. (Product placement alert.) And the shooting begins. Mark takes two bullets. Of course, picking up a shotgun probably wasn’t the wisest move. (Is it just me, or does having a shotgun propped against the wall, out in the open and easily accessible, seem like a bad idea with Rain Man around?)

Rain Main is distressed, and says Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! Mark! (Ok, I might have slightly exaggerated the number of times he said “Mark”.)

So, in the most patronizing tones you can imagine, Jack has a tender moment with Rain Man. And, probably commits a felony by representing himself as a police officer. Jack then goes to talk to Mark, and Mark reveals he was giving Gredenko the security specs for the Edgemont nuclear power plant. How many nuclear plants are in the LA area, anyway? One wiped out Edgar’s mother. Besides, we already did the threat of attack on nuclear power plants thing to death in Season 4 with Marwan.

Doyle and Johnson arrive at CTU. Jack has yet another phone conversation with Bill. Jack says “Hauser was wounded.” Nice use of the passive voice, Jack, as if some random act of fate befell Hauser. A more accurate statement would be “I shot Hauser, and I’m very lucky I didn’t hit an artery, thereby killing our only link to Gredenko.”

At the break, clocks are at :24 to :23. Coming back, clocks are at :28 to :27.

At Case del Hauser, Mark is being wheeled out. Jack reiterates to Rain Man that he is a police officer. There is a touching Mark/Rain Man scene. Then, Jack has Mark call Gredenko to set him up. (I assume now that they now Gredenko’s cell number, CTU will keep an eye on it, for if and when Fayed calls?)

In CTU, Johnson, who also knows Milo from “Denver”, tells Milo about the exculpatory evidence. Milo erupts in rage (or at least I’m sure that’s what the script says) and harumphs off to confront Doyle. Taking on a Special Forces guy takes guts for a weenie IT guy. Milo’s lucky he didn’t up with a conference table embedded in his chest. However, it’s all a misunderstanding. Doyle had given the chip to Morris to check out. Milo is a wee bit embarrassed. And yep, looks like Nadia is innocent. She now put her picture in the CTU lunchroom along with others like Sarah and Audrey in the display of CTU Chicks Wrongly Tortured Or Interrogated.

However, Doyle is not happy that Johnson revealed the evidence and Doyle’s role in not immediately publicizing it. He says “Johnson, you screwed with the wrong guy for the last time, pal.” Never mind the juvenile snicker of putting the words “johnson” and “screw” in the same sentence, it struck me that this season is spending a lot of time on characters other than the regulars. Characters we really don’t know or love. So what’s the point?

At the break, clocks are at :34 to :32. Coming back, clocks are at :38 to :36. Victoria’s Secret has reinvented the bra! Although, I don’t think there was anything wrong with the old one. Of course, these stunning gals make the bra look absolutely gorgeous. They could make anything look gorgeous. Heck, these gals could wear nothing and still look gorgeous.

In CTU, Bill finally does something other than hold a meeting or talk to Jack. He apologizes to Nadia and asks her to stay, saying they “can’t afford to lose our best people.” Nadia agrees to stay, perhaps putting her plans for a monster lawsuit on hold till the crisis blows over.

Chloe is all proud, saying she sent over the assault vectors. Absolutely not clear what is going to be assaulted, but it sure sounds important. Chloe then disengages her brain and runs on about how Milo likes Nadia.

Ah, so that’s what this has all been about. He’s such a good actor, I had not picked up on that at all. I thought Milo was just being suspicious. It was really love! *he rolls eyes*

Milo then trips off to confess his undying love for Nadia. She shoots him down in spectacular fashion, just like would happen in real life. The scene ends and… NOOOO! NOOO! Milo grabs her and they kiss and suddenly she loves him! NOOOO! In the history of the known universe, has this Hollywood cliche ever happened in reality? Or, if some dorky guy was actually stupid enough to try it, is there any woman who wouldn’t haul off and clobber the guy?

Back in the White Bunker, Sandpapra gushes that David (her brother) had the patience of Job. Doesn’t really help Whine, though, as the swelling is back. A crisis emerges. Whine is crashing.

There sure has been a lot of crashing lately. Logan crashed, Whine crashed, the drone crashed. By induction, I can only conclude that the drone is or was a US President as well.

To entrap Gredenko, Jack will use Rain Man as bait. Have you ever heard of anything more cynical? Using a sweet innocent as a bullet catcher to catch a terrorist? There are three teams, and one of them is from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. They’re going to hit Gredenko with a tranquilizer dart.

Short version. Gredenko arrives to get protocols from Rain Man. After a near disaster, they get Gredenko, kill everybody else, and Rain Man barely escapes alive. Jack orders Gredenko to be prepped for interrogation. Goody, more torture!

At the break, clocks are at :49 to :46. Coming back, clocks are at :53 to :50.

Aw dang, no torture. Jack goes to talk to Gredenko, and he knows all about Jack already. (How? From Papa Bauer, who remains missing?) Gredenko apparently has no desire to be drugged/shot in the thigh/electrocuted/use your imagination, so he offers to help lead them to Fayed. But, he wants amnesty, and a promise he won’t be shipped back to Russia, where Suvarov might not be so gentle with him.)

In the White Bunker, Dr. StrangeVeep, who long ago stopped worrying and loves his bombs, is eager to launch his missile, and he doesn’t want to wait for the results of the interrogation of Gredenko. He orders the launch to proceed.

But what! What’s this? What news breaks yon window? T’is the Vickery has been ordered to stand down, and Whine is the sun!

Whine is not dead and/or in a coma. He’s conscious, and tells Dr. StrangeVeep to throttle back on those plans for starting a war with the entire Muslim world.

However, Dr. StrangeVeep is not going to let anything stand in his way, and says Whine is not capable of discharging his duties. He asks for the Attorney General.

At this point, I’m not sure what is nuttier, the plot or Dr. StrangeVeep.

The episode careens off the road with the clocks at :00 and :56.

Number of times Jack says “Now!”: 8
Number of times Jack says “No!”: 0
Number of times a “protocol” is mentioned: 4
Number of times a “perimeter” is mentioned: 13
Number of times a “grid” is mentioned: 3
Number of times Jack says “Drop the weapon!”: 6
Number of times someone says a variation of “Go!”: 19
Number of times someone says “Go dark”: 1
Number of times someone says “I’ll hold my mud.”: 1
Number of moles: 5
Approximate Body Count: 54, plus 12,000 in the nuclear blast, plus dozens and dozens in the terror attacks, plus one coffee table, plus one helicopter, plus one fire alarm, plus one presidential lectern.