06.15 | Episode sixteen, 11PM - 12AM
Boom. Mushroom cloud. Cue a minute or two of sentimental dross matched only by the crap dished out by BBC1's 'State Of Play' earlier in the evening. Man, I could strangle those MP and journalist dudes, but not before telling them just how inferior to the President of the USA and Jack Bauer that they really are.
Anyway, Yusuf Auda begins by pissing off Tony Almeida. Like I said last week, this Auda guy is so bad that he must be good.
Jack gets rescued within five minutes of the blast - amazing, isn't it? Wouldn't the helicopter have been blown up by the the nuclear blast? Who knows, eh? Jack probably bought the chopper from the same place he got that black shirt, which survives plane crashes, being shot at and close bodily contact with Kate Warner, without even a button falling off.
Syed Ali gets a going over by Michelle Dessler, who - sixteen hours into the series - has now done her first useful job towards CTU's mission of saving the world. Still, for old times' sake, Jack later gives her the hard task of phoning up a policeman to see if any word's been heard from Kim.
Michelle also gives us this episode's first of the too-many-to-count mentions of America's favourite tourist camp, Guantanamo. I bet Palmer sends members of his staff there on holiday.
President Bush - sorry, Palmer - learns that it'll take eight hours for the first strikes against the middle east to take place. He then tells us that he'll address the nation in less than six hours - meaning that he'll be talking live to the American people at 5AM. Hmm, sounds crazy, but I guess that due to the time zone difference, this means 9AM New York time.
And - suddenly - Syed Ali is assassinated. The episode's master stroke. I wasn't expecting this, and I bet Ali wasn't, either. It leaves you thinking for half a hour that there's a second season mole inside CTU - else, how would the shooter know where Ali was? But, by the end of the hour, it's clear that the assassin was one of the 'coiled snake' gang. Whether it's the missing seventh member from the airfield, or the dodgy Colonel Samuels who had dealings with Roger Stanton - who knows?
The question is: why does he want Kate Warner? Is there any chance that Bob, her father, could be involved in this? Or has the plot moved on too far since his last appearance? After all, in real life, he'd be starring as the dodgy father in yet another drama series by now, right?
Sorry for all the questions I'm asking, but the only things this hour leaves clear is that Syed Ali's Cyprus recording is definitely fake, and, two, that he's definitely not going to Guantanamo, no matter how many times the actors namedrop it.
