Viewer discretion is advised because our health care system is so bad, the answer to “Does a guy gotta die around here to get a nurse to show up?!” is “Yes.”

In the Recaps, we relive the British Siege of the White House in the war of 1812. (Oops, scratch that, make that the Sangalan Siege of the White House in the War of 2012.) VP Mitchell Hayworth sits on his hands. Someone should ask him, Lincolnesque, “If you aren’t using your security forces, may I borrow them for awhile?” President Cherry says to Jack “No matter what you hear out there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not not open this door.” The recap has her saying “I am President and I order you to open this door!” Except last week, she also said “I am your Commander in Chief.” Jack is not in the military, and he isn’t even an official government agent, so methinks the Prez was quite confused as to how far her authority extends.

As we begin, the  ubiquitous CNB News is on. Sakes alive! Juma even had jamming equipment in there! Let’s see. They had the magic laptop. A drill bit that chewed up concrete in seconds. Dry uniforms. A magic door opener thingy. Lots of weapons. And they carried all this while in scuba gear. These are the kind of go-getters the Africa continent needs. Too bad they chose to use their powers for evil.

Nobody has any idea if the President is in the safe room. Again, a rather significant oversight in planning the construction of the safe room, don’t you think? Not even one phone?

Olivia is blubbering with her mommy. Ah, she apparently was fired from the campaign. The media and blogosphere must have had a field day with that. (Power Line: Livy Leaves! Daily Kos: Nazi Rethuglicans Attack Innocent First Daughter! Andrew Sullivan: Did Olivia Have To Leave To Conceal Unborn Child That Isn’t Even Hers?)

Ah, Jack discusses one heck a Hail Mary plan with Bill. He’s opened up some bottles of methane in the safe room, and then he’ll attract some gun fire in hopes a bullet will set off the gas. *Pause* Ok, leaving aside the beautiful insanity of this plan, WHY would there be bottles of methane in a SAFE room? Who thought “Methane – yes, phone…. no.” And judging from how no Africans seemed to detect it, the methane must not have had any odorant added. So, let’s have a colorless, odorless, flammable gas stored in a room that’s hard to get out of. Win!

Senator Buttinski whines at Jack “I want to know what the plan is!”

Juma has a statement for the President to read, but President Cherry Red wants the hostages released first. Juma magnanimously agrees to free one hostage. Which he does. He frees some Schlumpy McAide from this earthly existence. President Cherry quietly withdraws her request to have more hostages released.

And now the uplink is complete! These guys have the equipment necessary to broadcast this statement over the internet! I am utterlygobsmacked by how much they brought with them. With all this equipment, it’s a wonder these guys didn’t sink straight to the bottom of the Potomac and drown.

The Prez starts her speech. The krazy kaptions have her saying “This is the resident of the United States.” Uh, well, so am I. Now I’m worried Juma is going to come after me, and make me read some dumb speech.

Still whispering and passing notes and drawing I Heart Chloe doodles in their notebook, Bill tells Jack that Juma must be coordinating with someone on the outside. Bill has a plan of his own though. It’s called Kill Bill. He tells Jack to track down this threat, and then runs off into history. Bill manages to tackle a baddie, get his gun, fire it, and thereby detonte the methane gas. Boom.

In the subsequent chaos, approximately 28 of the remaining 4 Africans are gunned down. Jack himself sends Juma to his eternal reward. As things are quieting down, Agent Moss comes barreling in and says “We have the President!” Yeah, like you had anything to do with it.

At the first break, we get the Silent Clock at :11 to :11. Farewell, Bill. Nobody held meetings in the CTU conference room like you did. After the break, clocks are at :16 to :14. Even Time has a broken heart. I dedicate these missing two minutes to the memory of Bill.

The President is not going anywhere. She’s defiant. Or, maybe she wet herself in all the excitement and doesn’t want to stand up. We take lots of time out for another tender mother-daughter talk. Agent Pierce is ok. He’s shaken off the bullet in the shoulder.

Jack is taking a moment near his fallen comrade. Walker intrudes. Jack says “It was supposed to me.” How many times over the years have we said in these rants that it’s always about Jack. Ya know, while they’re standing there schmoozing, couldn’t they at least check his pulse or something. You know, to see if he’s still alive and could pull through with some quick, emergency medical attention?

Jack tells Moss that it didn’t end with Juma. Moss looks at this watch and says “Oh, farg, you’re right, we still have 11 hours left to kill.” Jack wants to reinterrogate Burnett, as surely Burnett knows who was helping Juma. “He will talk to me,” Jack says with supreme confidence. But Moss, with equal elan, says Jack is to be cuffed and taken into custody.

Walker tries to talk Moss into turning Jack loose on a torture spree. She says “I’m defending a good idea!” But, Jack is a ward of the state. The soundtrack of Walker’s life that continually plays in her head starts playing Weekend in New England. When will our eyes meet, When can I touch you, When will this strong yearning end and when will I hold you again…

Someone says “The president’s in the residence.” *snicker* OK, writers, have your little jokes. The spouse is in the House!

Walker now grovels before Kanin. It’s been hours since she’s been involved in a torture, and the need to feed is growing, gnawing at her.

Now cut to Hodges, who sits in front of a sign that says “Starkwood” and some gun targets. He buzzes someone in, who has the happy news that President Taylor survived. Hodges wants to know where the weapons are, and wants to talk to Chapman and nail down some targets. I guess those targets right there in the room aren’t good enough. (No, I don’t know who Chapman is, either.)

At the break, clocks are at :23 to :22. Coming back, they are at :28 to :26.

A chopper is coming. Moss tells some flunky that it’s his job to escort Jack back to the FBI. Heh. On this show, that job usually has the life expectancy of the first wave at the battle of the Somme.

Kanin has decided. Bauer will get his crack at Burnett. The supremely confident Jack says his presence alone should be enough to get Burnett to talk. Someone is awfully full of himself, hmm?

Aside: Somewhere along the line we really missed something. Kanin used to be the Secretary of Defense, for the previous President, (the former Dr. StrangeVeep.) Now, he’s apparently some kind of advisor. Whatever he is, he tells Moss to turn Jack loose, and that is a “direct order.” How does he have the authority to give orders to the FBI?

The Prez wants Angela sent up to work on a speech. Wasn’t she, or some speechwriter, killed in the previous hour? Now, Prez wants to give Olivia a job. Ah, we hear her crime was leaking damaging info about Prez’s opponent in the election. Since that opponent was Dr StrangeVeep, we can only imagine what that damaging info was. Perhaps the way he wanted to fire off nukes at MiddleEastistan based on no good intel?

Kanin rightly thinks that is a bad idea, but Prez erupts. “I don’t care what you think!” One perfunctory apology later, she wants the job offer to come from Kanin. I hope he’s getting paid well.

And now, Moss chews out his girlfriend. “How about you choose to follow orders?” Walker again defends Jack. “He’s been right every time!” Every time? He was right to get Marika killed? He was right to… oh, you can read the previous rants. Then, Moss delivers the killing blow. “I want you to clean out your office and turn in your badge.” Walker is being suspended. Ya know, most relationship books I’ve read say that having your girlfriend suspended can put some stress on the relationship.

At the break, clocks are at :36 to :34. Coming back, they are at :40 to :37.

Yikes, Hodges (and the mysterious Chapman?) are talking about 12 targets on the eastern seaboard, with 10 to 15 thousand casualties possible in each. WHAT is their motivation? This show hasn’t even attempted (and I doubt it ever will) to explain why this American is so willing to have tens of thousands of his fellow citizens die.

The Mighty Quinn has already been sent to silence Burnett, and take care of Jack in the process. Now, keep in mind, the decision to let Jack have a go at Burnett was made maybe fifteen minutes ago. Yet, we’ll see in a minute, the Mighty Quinn is already at the hospital. He’s in doctor duds, complete with stethoscope and ID badge. AND, and, he has equipment for hacking into computers, for hacking into video feeds, which he couldn’t have known about, and, he brought some kind of special nerve gas and a gas mask. Quinn just happened to have all this sitting around did he? Came up with this plan in minutes? He must be good. How can we mortals possibly fight against such powers?

Jack and Moss are at the hospital. Some doctor gets all huffy with them, but Jack will have his way. Quinn is talking to some sweet old man, who has all the wrong answers to Quinn’s questions. Lucky for Quinn, the first person he tried has no family. And so, Robert is murdered? Why, so the nurses would come running and abandon their station.

Quinn connects something to the computer in the nurses station, and pulls up… floor plans! I asked my nurse wife if she often had need to pull up floor plans on her computer, and when she stopped laughing and got up off the floor, she said no. The Mighty Quinn sure found it in a hurry, too. Didn’t even have to wade through patient data. “Let’s see, Mrs. Hanson is in for diabetes. Well, duh, you’re 300 pounds. Lose some weight, you heifer. Mr. Smith is in for prostate surgery. Which reminds me, time to schedule that exam. Oh, here we go, floor plans!”

Quinn goes up into the ceiling, and finds what looks to be the same ginormous crawl space Jack was in back at Dubaku’s office lair.

Back at what’s left of the White House, Olivia thanks Agent Pierce, and asks about Martha Logan. Pierce says “we were close.” Olivia refers to “what happened to her.” Not sure what that means, maybe her stabbing of Charles? Pierce thinks of faraway days, says “Yes, we had some good times together. She liked her games. I was Napoleon. She was Josephine. Of course, she believed she actually was Josephine. I always felt guilty taking advantage of a sick woman like that, but c’mon, you’ve seen her, right? She had knockers out to here and… uh, I mean, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Then, Kanin shows up to kindly offer Olivia a job. And, the demon inside wakes up again and Olivia just flays Kanin. Not entirely without reason, though. Olivia doesn’t understand how the government could become so riddled with moles right under Kanin’s nose. Kanin certainly has to be a suspect at this point. (Of course, in true 24 fashion, the producers probably don’t even know at this point if Kanin is good or bad.)

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

Burnett is already awake, less than 15 minutes after the huffy doc went to wake him up. (My nurse wife said to look up narcan.)

Jack begins his dark work. Jack never feels more alive than when he’s working over a victim. Alas, the Might Quinn has other plans. He drops a little gas canister from the ceiling. The krazy kaptions say “shrill hissing.”

Jack goes down like a sack of bricks, and starts drooling or spitting something. Somehow, Quinn managed to freeze the video image Moss is seeing. Is there some reason Moss couldn’t be in the room with him? Anyway, Quinn cuts Burnett’s throat and escapes.

Moss now thinks Jack killed Burnett. So, Jack makes a run for it. He calls Moss to proclaim his innocence. “This guy, he dropped from the ceiling, and had some kind of nerve gas that knocked me out for a minute, but dissipated by the time you came in and… no, really! Stop laughing! I’m serious! *pause* I am telling the truth.”

The episode chokes on someone else’s vomit with the clocks at :00 to :56.

Number of times someone says a variation “Now!”, “No!”, “Move!” or “Go!”: 56
Number of times a “protocol” or “grid” is mentioned: 9
Number of times a “perimeter” is mentioned: 10
Number of times Jack/someone says “Drop the weapon!”: 6
Number of torture scenes : 6
Number of moles: 6
Approximate Body Count: 67, plus one security camera, plus two planes, plus one cable, plus numerous glass doors, plus one finger, plus vintage bottles of methane