24 Day 5 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Due to a rogue program locking me out of my vcr, I watched this episode via a download off the Net. I love technology. So, the episode started with the 24 lead in, and I don't know if there was a graphic violence warning. Given there's been one the last 418 episodes, I'll guess there was. And, no clock tracking and no krazy kaptions this time around.

In the Previously on LA Laws, Sgt. Bierko says couriers are delivering canisters to their targets. All plurals.

And, we relive, or is it redie, the awful scene with Edgar becoming Deadgar. It's a tacky thought, but I was thinking they're going to need a forklift to get him out of there.

As we plunge into the episode, the Evil Canister of Death is still belching nerve gas into the air system. It's been several minutes now since it was set off. How much is in there?

So just who does this disembodied voice belong to, and where is he? Everyone still alive is in one of three rooms. So, is it helpful at this point to mention there are three safe rooms? Who's left to hear? And it's not as if anyone is going to open the doors when they get there. The bodies stacked outside the safe rooms are testament to that. Voice Guy calls the gas "Sentox VX-1" nerve gas. Good grief, that's the third name they've used this season. Don't they have a writer's bible for this season? First it was Sentox Six, then Sentox VX, and now Sentox VX-1.

Louis Lombardi (Edgar) is still in the opening credits. Not bad, collecting a paycheck for no work.

Curtis, who was AWOL most of last episode, is still out cruising LA. He says he and the CRT team are still 30 min away. (Why, are there computer terminals in trouble somewhere?)

Eeeewwwww, a closeup of a foamy-mouthed Edgar. Which will be a theme, as it turns out.

Chloe is not coping well. She's nearing the fetal position. Jack tries to talk her down, or back up as the case may be. Barry butts in, and says he'll try to work his voodoo. Shrink fu, attack!

Ick, is it right to touch patients like that? Maybe it's a subtle clue about his unethical conquest of Kim.

In Holding, Lynn is trapped with some Red Shirt, who gets all uppity with his superior about not reporting the stolen key card.

We check in with CTU Medical. At least they won't have killed the most people in CTU today when all is said and done.

Last week I thought that was Old Doc Besson, and we see him again. He's wondering what's going on. Apparently he missed all the dying and the door slamming and barrier dropping and Disembodied Voice talking.

(If you recall, Old Doc Besson was the one who cleared Paul, aka Mr. Audrey, as fit to travel back east, but missed the teensy weensy barely worth mentioning fact that the sac around Paul's heart was filling with blood. It's a wonder he still works there.)

Ya know, I'm wondering why this whole lockdown/anti-gas capability was built into CTU in the first place. Later Chloe looks at a little meter as air quality goes up and toxin level goes down. Someone had to build that on purpose. Remarkable preparations. Too bad they didn't think to have a protocol that on a day when there are multiple terrorist attacks in town, and a couple of nerve gas attacks, maybe CTU should tighten up security and at least look in briefcases as people enter, so someone doesn't just carry a flippin' canister of nerve gas in through the front door.

Ah, I see Tony knows the Atomic Sleeper Hold too. He wants Henderson to be Deaderson. (Hmm, doesn't quite have the same ring as Deadgar. Maybe Deanderson? No, too much like Dean Anderson. Sounds like Tony wants a stock broker. I give up.)

Jack tells one of the other lucky to be alive strangers in CTU to patch them into the medical room. Audrey says "Do it." Huh? Why does Audrey have to give that order? Wouldn't the flunky listen to Jack anyway?

Tony says to Henderson, "My name is Tony Almeda, and you killed my fadder. I mean, wife. Prepare to die."

Jack tries to talk him out of doing something he'll regret later. Jack says he knows how Tony feels. Teri was killed there in CTU. (There are some differences. I mean, Jack wasn't blown up in his driveway.) And, Jack did get the satisfaction of killing the person who killed Teri. So, seems a little unfair to deny Tony the same opportunity.

Burke is still pumping gallon after gallon of industrial chemicals into Buckaroo. But, he still won't say where the Oscillation Overthruster is.

We skip over to Department of Homeland Security LA. Huh? Who knew LA had a DHS? We haven't seen them much before on this show, if at all. They haven't been much help during all the previous terrorist attacks, have they. Apparently some dame named Karen Hayes is hot to take over CTU.

(Another jab at the Republicans? One of President Bush's closest female advisors has been Karen Hughes.)

The Veep, BOB, is still hot for martial law. I'm unclear why, if people were told there are clouds of deadly nerve gas drifting around, would they take to the streets? You'd think they would be quite willing to stay indoors.

Sgt. Bierko is told the men are on their way to the new target. Now it is a target, singular? And yeesh Bierko has a lot of men. He's lost a boatload already, and yet has enough to make Stage Three of this amazing backup plan happen.

Barry is just asking to be gutted like a fish. He gets snippy about Jack, who is trying to get some work out of Chloe, by saying ya want to help someone, just be there for them. An obvious dig about Kim. Jack puts a chokehold on Barry, as cheers erupt across the nation.

But Jack is more clever than Barry knows. Jack's super reverse psychology works, as Chloe takes to her terminal, saying she'll work if everyone would just stop fighting.

And no sooner does she start tapping on her keyboard when alarms start sounding. Hmm, maybe Chloe wasn't quite ready to focus yet, and did something wrong? Seems like seals are breaking down, as some corrosive in the nerve gas is munching away at the seals. There's sublimated polymers in the air! (Why would there be acid in the nerve gas? Seems like overkill. Jack will have to ask Henderson what Omicron was thinking.)

At the presidential retreat, Martha is almost spitting as she says "Charles is letting the VP draft a statement?!? She's just mad that she thought she had been made a speechwriter earlier in the day, and here she's been passed over a second time for that role.

MIKE is doing his best to get Martha to help stop BOB. I wonder if Novick lives over a convenience store.

Up in his little safe haven, Bill wants all personnel to be working on the deteriorating seal problem. Not sure what else there is do, though.

Audrey plays the role of Miss Sunshine, and tries to convince Jack it might not be as bad as it looks. Jack says he's put Kim in danger yet again. Which, is really pretty much a true statement.

A master plan is hatched. Jack is going to....what?? He's going to hold his breath and run through the nerve gas to try and jigger the life support system?

Jack goes through a panel in the wall, and is soon deep in the Death Star, without even a kiss for Kim. What kind of building has crawl spaces and hatches like this?

And so, everyone's lives depend on....duct tape? Duct tape? I hope it is weapons-grade duct tape. Because I'm a little disappointed in this nerve gas, that it can be thwarted with duct tape and breath holding.

Jack is going in. He takes one last normal not particularly deep breath and heads out. Apparently unmindful that every second counts, and instead of heading for his objective with all possible dispatch, he stops to shine a flashlight to see dead people. La la la, la la la. He pauses yet again after going through another wall panel.

Chloe says something, and Kim says "Don't talk down to me." rroooowwwrrr!

Barry, sounding like he needs to brush up on his Physician Heal Thyself skills, is a little rattled and helpfully reminds everyone they're in a crisis situation and that they all should just breathe.

Chloe wisecracks "What's with you and the breathing? Is that your solution to everything." Ha. When it's my time to die a horrible death, I want Chloe to be there.

Jack finds some kind of security grate over the offending life support computer. Chloe says there was a security upgrade two years ago and the information was mishandled and her display hadn't been updated.

Jack holds his breath while something happens to clear the air. This is where we see that little good air bad air meter. Jack realizes that Samwise is going to have to hurl himself into the crack in Mt. Doom, to save everyone.

Jack breaks the bad news to Lynn, who takes it rather well. However, Jack is told there is a second person there, the Red Shirt, who doesn't seem quite as excited over the plan.

Time is of the essence, what with polymers sublimating at a rapid pace, yet we take a five minute commercial break, and when we return, the Hobbit is still there in Holding. Well, to be fair, I suppose it does take time to simultaneously psyche one's self up and talk a reluctant colleague into killing yourselves.

Kim apologizes to Chloe. She asks if Chloe sent Jack info, and Chloe says yeah, about once a month. Was mostly about Kim. (Hmm, earlier Jack didn't seem to know about Chase leaving her. Or about her breakdown.) Chloe says "I'm really good at getting information. I didn't judge, I just passed it along." Chloe volunteers to find Chase, but Kim has Moved On. On Doctor's orders, apparently.

Chloe retorts that shrinks are always giving advice they don't follow themselves. Kim asks how Chloe is doing, and Chloe replies "Well, a guy woke up in my bed this morning who I probably won't see again, and I just watched a friend die right in front of my. I guess not so good." Chloe, we love you.

My, there are big rats in the walls of CTU! Oh, it's just Jack returning. They check in with Lynn, who is about to cross that River Jordan. He needs to get to that life support computer and rejigger it. As soon as they open the door though, the nerve gas will get in.

There's a very sad scene with Red Shirt Harry calling his daughter one last time on the phone. Sniff. While I was watching this, my son and daughter were playing in the tub. And at snack time before bed, my daughter, age 4, asked me out of the blue "Do whales burp?" I said I didn't know. She says "They do. Some of them do anyway." So, I'm just about a puddle on the floor watching a daddy say bye to his little girl, who just wants him to come home and say goodnight.

Chloe says to Lynn "Good luck and thanks for doing this." It's a nice gesture, but seems a little inadequate, as Lynn just opens the door and heads out. (Didn't seem like much a seal, if he could just lightly turn the handle and go out. And what kind of Holding cell is this when the prisoner can just open the door and leave?)

Lynn gets the job done and heads back to the room. I'm not sure why the two of them didn't just make a run for the door. Go down fighting. But, they sit down to await their fate.

Harry removes the cloth over his mouth, takes a breath or two, and says "I'm ok!" Oops, nope. This is a highly highly manipulative moment, far worse than the conversation with the daughter, as Harry suddenly keels over all foamy mouthed.

Lynn is next. He goes down in convulsions, and also is foamy mouthed. All of this is watched by the voyeurs in the conference room in full digital sound.

Jack checks in with Burke. He still can't break Buckaroo, and gives him probably the 89th shot of the episode.

Just where is Old Doc Besson in all this? We haven't seen him since the beginning of the episode, yet he can't have gone anywhere? Is he in another room reading a copy of Readers Digest from August 1988? I suppose people slowly being killed in the other room in CTU Medical is just another day at the office for Old Doc Besson.

Kim wants to leave, doesn't want to be around Jack because people always end up dying. Again, can't really argue with that logic.

Audrey comes over for a hand touchy moment and asks if Jack is all right. Jack says "No."

At White House West, Logan says CTU is the first line of defense. Now there's a scary thought. We're all gonna die! Unless he means like the Soviet troops opposite the Germans on June 22 1941 were the first line of defense. Ya know, speed bumps.

Martha wants to be alone with Charles. She tries to console her jellyfish of a husband, and says she doesn't want to see VP BOB use him. Logan says please, give me a little credit.

Uh, Chuckles? Can we review? You actively tried to have the Russian Head of State, his wife, and your wife, killed. You agreed to gas American citizens in a mall. Walt, the guy who gave the gas to the terrorists, was on your staff and hanged himself in the hall. I think there's plenty of reason to doubt you have a very firm grip on the tiller of the ship of state.

His voice cracking, he asks if he's lost Martha. She says no, but it isn't clear if she was thinking to herself "Because you never had me."

Sgt. Bierko is told his men need some schematics. He makes a call to...

Some room where some male actor is in bed thinking "I've got a great job!" A babe in a state of undress comes around the corner as she's hitching up her buxoms.

For a moment I thought we were going to see Mandy! In seasons past most of the times we've seen her early on, it's been when she's at or near the stage of coitus finishuppness.

The babe looks at a computer, and tells Bierko she's getting the schematics, and then goes back to the guy for a few more laps around the pool.

Hayes and her DHS minions are on the way to CTU. CTU will no longer be an independent operating entity. They will work for DHS.

The barriers go up at CTU. Air is clear. Just where did they vent all that air? Outside? Have they killed every living thing in a ten block radius?

Kim says "Goodbye Dad." Barry says "thanks for saving our lives." Jack takes him aside and tells him to take Kim and get out of town, without stopping for anything.

And then, back to CTU Medical. Tony tells Jack, "You had your chance with Henderson, he's mine now." Jack takes the remainder of the episode to run to CTU Medical. Must be a lot farther than we thought.

Tony clonks Burke and fills a syringe and hovers over Henderson. It is at this point in my notes I wrote OH PUHLEAZE.

For Henderson, who has been filled with barrels of drugs for the past hour. Who has been wracked with pain. Who Burke thought was slipping into a coma. (ok, fair point, Burke must have gone to the same medical school as Besson, for he just looked at Henderson and saw closed eyes, a sure sign of coma.) Whose mind is surely swimming in and out of lucidity from the drugs.

Yes, this Henderson suddenly opens his eyes, is instantly alert, and has the strength to grab Tony's hand and force the syringe into Tony's body. He leaps up, grabs Tony's gun, and disappears into thin air.

Jack gets there and sees Tony on the floor. He doesn't think to wonder where Henderson was.

It is a sad scene, as Tony joins the Pantheon of Dead 24 Cast Members. Farewell Tony.

BUT. No no no no no. Real drama comes from real people in real situations. TNT had some commercials where pretentious actors pretentiously tried to answer the pretentious question "What is Drama." Awhile back in my blog I said comedy was when someone steps on a rake and it hits them in the forehead. Drama is when you step on a rake and it hits you in the forehead.

Drama is the tension that arises out of plausible constraints. When drugged up tortured near death people suddenly pop wide awake and overpower someone, that isn't drama, it's a cartoon. It's one of the hoariest cliches of the worst horror movies. It is beneath this show which, though it does careen off into crackplots, has a stellar cast, and good production values. Why cheapen it with this inane development. Bah.

And now, once again, here is guest critic Paul Foth. While I was holding my breath running the gauntlet of my kids' gastrointestinal disturbances, he was in Conference Room One typing this up, and finished before I could duct tape the kids to the radiator for the night.

OPTIONAL OPENING PARAGRAPH IN CASE YOU DON'T MANAGE TO SEE THE EPISODE:

Our regularly scheduled primary, Jeff Kouba, has been incapacitated by nerve
gas--or maybe it was his boss yelling at him with garlic and onion sandwich
breath. It remains for me, the second stringer, to put my hood up, dash
across a room filled with that heady aroma, send this rant, and make it back
to the safety of the broom closet, all without laughing (or screaming) out
loud.

Who was that talking on the CTU PA system at the beginning of the episode?
We saw all of the survivors, and none of them had this guy's voice. We can't
be expected to believe it was a recording, can we? We got a complete rundown
of the situation, including which rooms were safe (and already sealed, so
the knowledge wouldn't have done anyone on the outside any good) and the
name of the nerve gas, which has changed YET AGAIN. It's now Sentox VX-1.
Where did that 1 come from?! Let me use the title of Lemony Snicket's first
book about the Baudelaire children and call this a Bad Beginning. Now,
moving on to more Unfortunate Events:

Barry, don't be a hero, don't be a fool in this strife. (Sorry; I've seen
that TimeLife infommercial starring Greg Brady hawking the 70s CD collection
a few too many times.) But does he listen? No. He gets points for breaking
Chloe out of her Post Edgar Stress Disorder just enough to get her away from
the window and back to the conference room table, but then he turns right
back into a speedbump. I loved--absolutely loved--Chloe's, "All right, okay.
I'll get back to work," line as Jack is throttling Barry. It was certainly
the (probably intentionally) funniest moment the series has ever had.

But.

Almost as soon as Chloe gets back to work, she discovers that the seals on
the doors have lost 80% of their integrity. This is, what, ten or fifteen
minutes after the canister started spewing, right? It takes another ten or
fifteen minutes for the deterioration to go up to 86%. Okay, fine, the
writers are trying to give us an implicit lesson on exponential decay, but I
think they're doing it in the wrong direction. The rate at which the seals
are being eaten by the walruses--I mean, the magical corrosive agent (more
on this in a paragraph or two)--isn't going to slow down with time. If
anything, it's going to speed up. At the very least, this was a missed
opportunity at creating more realistic dramatic tension.

Maybe, just maybe, the deterioration slowing down can be explained by the
build up of--I don't know what to call it, seal slag? blubber?--on the
surface, so that the corrosive agent (I don't mean Chloe) has a harder time
getting at the part of the seal that remains intact. But we see zero
evidence of this. No smoke, no bubbling seal material, nothing. This is one
amazing corrosive. It makes a door seal completely disappear--100%
conversion of mass into energy, apparently. Of course, were that really the
case, CTU and a sizeable chunk of Los Angeles would've been destroyed in the
resulting fission explosion. (Wow, two (bad) physics lessons in two
paragraphs.)

But what makes this corrosive agent even more amazing is that it apparently
attacks the door seals, and only the door seals. Why don't we see skin
sloughing off the bodies of all those dead CTU personnel? Why aren't their
eyes leaking? Gross, yes, but if this stuff can tear through door seals like
Sherman on his way to the sea, it's going to be slowed down even less by
human tissue.

Which all goes to say that yet again we're presented with a crisis that,
while it may have been played in an emotionally true way, is completely
undercut by the utter hash it makes of physical plausibility.

And what was the deal with Jack putting his hood on while engaging in his
running about, knees bent behavior? Was he trying to keep the corrosive
agent from attacking his hair? Shouldn't he have tried protecting his face?
Or did he know his skin wouldn't be eaten? Is Jack a mole? Or just the
victim of poor writing?

Moving on, or at least over, are we supposed to feel sad about Samwise
taking a premature trip to the Grey Havens? He confesses his culpability in
the attack by telling the red shirt he's with about his key card being
stolen, but since he hasn't done much beyond getting really, really
paranoid, he doesn't exactly win any sympathy from the audience. And Red
Shirt, being a member of the crack CTU Security Squad, never asks, "If your
bleepity-bleepin' card got blankity-blippin' stolen, how the flippin'-bleep
did you get back in the building? What are you, a flippity-blankin' mole?"

When Samwise leaves the room, what evidence is there that it's actually
sealed? There's no sound of a pressure differential equalizing, no brush of
the seal against the floor, no retraction of the seal between the door and
the jamb. The door practically RATTLES, for crying out loud. Did Samwise and
Red Shirt manage to stay alive simply because they BELIEVED the room was
safe? That's some powerful mojo CTU's got going there.

So Samwise saves the day and makes it back to the room where he started,
apparently so he can die his gurggly death in front of the security camera.
We are left with the conclusion that the only purpose he served in this
entire season was to facilitate the nerve gas being released inside CTU HQ,
which plot point, as was pointed out with much vigor last week, was written
so shoddily that any emotional investment we may have had fizzles in much
the same way Edgar's face should have.

But wait: we get a bonus death! Tony buys the farm, too. I predicted that
would happen, although not in the way it ultimately did (I'm available for
parties and bar mitzvahs.). It's sad to see him go, but the real tragedy is
that he didn't go out a hero. It would've tracked better emotionally had the
writers found some way to switch Tony and Samwise's deaths (and the more I
think about this possibility, the more I'm convinced it would have been a
better way to go). They could still have worked in Jack talking to Tony
about the similarity between the current situation and Teri's death in
season one. Plus, I'm not quite remembering: how did Tony make the
connection between Buckeroo and Michelle's death? Did someone tell him
that's why Buckeroo was being tortured? Did he just pull it out of the air
(although I can't believe THAT happening on THIS show)?

Buckeroo is apparently the Marwan of this season (or maybe he's sharing
Marwan duties with the gas canisters), since after killing Tony he
completely disappears. Maybe he's hiding in the razor blade disposal room,
where Maya found her suicide instrument last season, but my guess is that
the next time we see him, he'll be dashing across the CTU parking lot,
looking for a car to steal, with no explanation of how he got out of
Medical.

The IDEA of this episode was a good one--pretty much all of the action was
confined to CTU HQ, with only brief glances at the terrorists and White
House West--but, yet again, the execution left me feeling cheated.

It looks like next week we can look forward to Helen Mirren taking over CTU.
I speculated last week that the highly-placed mole Sergeant Bierko alluded
to may be Vice President BOB, but now I'm thinking it might be this woman.
BOB now seems to be motivated by a personal desire for power, while this
crew from Homeland Security seems downright creepy. Of course, the way these
things were portrayed was awfully obvious, so maybe we're being set up for a
surprise.

To end things on an up note, Chloe had some great lines in this one. I
already mentioned the way she told everyone she would get back to work.
Another favorite was during her talk with Kim, which again demonstrated that
the show does have some pretty talented actors. Chloe's offer to find out
where Chase is was sincere, earnest, and very funny.

Number of times Jack says "Now!": 16
Number of times Jack says "No!": 8
Number of times a "protocol" is mentioned: 26
Number of times someone says a variation of "Go!": 18
Number of moles: 3
Approximate Body Count: 55 (plus three rats, plus one human nerve gas guinea pig, plus 11 in the mall food court (and no, not from food poisoning), plus one security camera, plus 40% of CTU)

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