02.19 | Day 3: Episode two, 2PM - 3PM
Production Code: 3AFF02
Written by Joel Surnow and Michael Loceff
Directed by Ian Toynton
The following takes place between 2:00PM and 3:00PM. Events occur in real time, like they have been doing for three seasons now. Get used to it
We start with Jack in his office. He's hiding the remains of his heroin stash and syringes in his waste paper bin. Well, I can't see that sneaking up on him at some time in the future and biting him on the arse. I mean, what a dumb move. Can't blame Jack, though; he's a junkie, and he's in a better state than most people.
Tony and the CTU gang brief Wayne Palmer – the president's chief of staff and brother, no less – in a cheap and easy way of reiterating the main plot points to the audience. Cheers. Oh, and the president won't neogiate – he won't free Salazar, no matter what the threat.
2:05PM, and Kim wants to talk to her daddy. "Oh, I need to tell you I'm fucking your partner". Yeah, unfortunately Jack's too busy as he needs to ride the dragon to H-Land. Also, Kim rang through to her Dad's office at the end of last week’s episode – in real time, just over five minutes ago. Is she needy, or what?
Jack tells Chase he plans to quit heroin. Today.
Chloe badgers Chase about finding the guy carrying the virus. She asks if he reckons the president will turn over Ramon Salazar to the terrorists. HEH. ANOTHER REASON WHY CHLOE IS THE CTU MOLE.
2:07PM – it's taken Kim two minutes to bring the files on Goss – the dead guy found infected with the virus – up to Chase and Jack's part of the office. Damn, Jack can drive halfway across LA far quicker. Not only is she needy, she's slow. Chase refers back to Teri Bauer's death as the reason why Kim can't have a relationship with a field agent. Nice. Rub it in for the girl, why not?
Then Kim – who is clearly the focus of the first ten minutes of the episode – walks into Jack's office and drops the bombshell that she's dating Chase. Jack, who is clearly missing his smack, has absolutely nothing to say. You see, that's the trouble with heroin. Emotionally, you don't give a shit about stuff. Clever on the writers' part to work the two things in together. Probably not the happy smiles that Kim was looking for, though.
At 2:11PM, Dr Sunni Macer – the virus expert – phones up and speaks with Michelle. Somehow they've figured out – she actually uses the line "I'll skip the technobabble" – that the virus is being transferred in a crystalline form, like a white powder. Eventually, Michelle figures out that she means a bag of cocaine.
This is where the plot falls apart. CTU presume that the dead guy from the first episode was infected by the same batch that must be somewhere in Los Angeles. Yes, it's true that the dead guy must have been infected by a powder, but who's to say that the stuff they're looking for couldn't be in liquid form, or cake form, or white elephant form, even. If I was a terrorist, that's how I'd trick the goodies. Or maybe it's a double bluff. Who knows?
Secondly, if the baddies already have the virus to infect the dead guy, why do they need Kyle Singer to smuggle a bag of the stuff into LA from Mexico? Hmm.
Kyle, despite being tied up in the writers' muddle, has problems of his own. His friend Tim won't help him out by tagging along when he makes his delivery. And Zach the dealer calls to tell him when to make his delivery. Exciting stuff.
Then we get an ad break.
2:17PM – Kyle and girlfriend Linda leave the pool; spy Gael looks mysterious; President Palmer's involved in a photo shoot with some guy.
Michelle tells Jack that they’ve found an address for Goss the dead guy. As to why this wasn't in the file that Kim gave Chase earlier, I have no idea. Maybe Kim is just rubbish at compiling useful information like that. Maybe Kim's file had stuff like "GOSS' FAVOURITE ICE CREAM FLAVOUR: PINK" in it, and a load of doodles and other dumb shit.
Jack and Chase get their groove on and pack with guns. They're going shooting, and it's not for bunny rabbits. Kim stalls Chase by telling him to be careful whilst making gooey eyes at him. Jack yells at his partner for no apparent reason, other than to create tension between the two because one of them is fucking the other's daughter. Not forgetting, of course, the heroin withdrawal symptoms, which kick in after precisely two hours and nineteen minutes.
At 2:19AM, Jack and Chase magically 'jump' from being deep inside CTU to being outside of CTU, getting into a big Ford 4x4 SUV type thing. No idea how they did it. Maybe someone sliced the tape the wrong way in the editing room.
At the University of Southern California, Dave and Wayne Palmer discuss the virus threat again, mainly for the benefit of the viewer. Wayne shows his analysis skills on the situation: "It's not good". And still, he demands that the president should proceed as planned with the debate.
Senator Keeler arrives. Him and the President talk about golf. No really, and Keeler socks it to Palmer:
DAVE: "I know you have a lot of last-minute cramming to do if you want to survive this debate."Palmer looks shocked at how easily he's been outsmarted. The president is obviously not quite his old self anymore. Heh. It's almost like he's a parallel of Jack Bauer: losing his wife in season one, gaining a life-threatening injury in season two and becoming a stupid, cranky fool in season three. As for Keeler, could he be our new president for season four? On this sleek start, let's hope so.KEELER: "I won't argue with you there, Mr President. Your research staff, compliments of the tax payer, outnumbers mine three to one. I actually have to do some of the shoe leather myself."
DAVE: "Touche".
Meanwhile, Wayne – who is dodgier than Sherry Palmer – has a deal on his mind. It must be bad, because the spooky music is playing over the scene.
2:22PM – Jack tells Chase that he got Kim a job working at his anti-terrorist unit so that he could 'keep an eye on her' and 'make sure she's safe'. Bleh, all most fathers' do is pick their daughters up from their late night babysitting. What a nice guy. Luis Annicon interrupts Jack's rant about how it's his job that has made him such a bad family guy, by phoning up and demanding to know why he can't move Salazar back to solitary confinement. Understandably, Annicon's not happy, so he marches over to Ramon's cell. Ramon proves how evil he is by withstanding a beating from the guards and by promising to murder Annicon's wife and kids. Ramon uses the phrase 'if I am unexpectedly allowed to go free', which obviously means he's expecting to be allowed out of prison. He knows something is going on.
2:30PM – We return from an ad break: Jack and Chase are still driving to Goss' last known address; Kyle Singer is in bed with his girlfriend; Ramon Salazar is stewing in his cell.
Wayne tells Palmer that he has a copy of Senator Keeler's debate 'playbook'. True to form, Palmer won't dare use it. Wayne goes overboard by reminding Dave that he's 'not Sherry'. So obviously he’ll pull it out and go ahead without Dave’s express permission. The question is: will he get caught, and how many people will he have to kill to get it?
2:33PM – Kim and Michelle are in the ladies' loos at CTU. A setting we have not seen since Paula – AKA Darlene from Roseanne – started getting cold feet early last series. And look what happened to her, eh? Hopefully Kim will soon meet a similar fate.
Somehow Tony learns that Hector Salazar is somewhere in Northern Mexico. How he did that, we’re not really told. Cut to:
A scene in Northern Mexico. Hector Salazar is talking to his spy over the phone. Gael, the spy, is watching Kyle Singer over CCTV. Hector overhears his girlfriend Claudia arguing with her father. He steps in to interrupt, tells Claudia 'not to raise your voice to your father ever again', and slaps her hard, as her father looks on. Seems like Hector makes enemies easily, and I'm sure this pair will be looking for an opportunity to screw him over when it'll hurt him most. Still, nice to see that he’s a caring, sharing bio-terrorist who cares about family values.
Back to CTU, and Chloe is telling Tony 'you don't have to yell' because he wants her to be extra on the ball since Jack is refusing to use the useful CTU magical wireless information transmitters on the bust that's about to go down.
Jack and Chase have reached Goss' last known address at 2:38PM. It's a run-down junkie hotel in the bad part of town and it looks like a location out of an 'NYPD Blue' crime scene. Jack and Chase tell the waiting police officer that they don't want any back up, even though 'there's 30 scumbags in there'. What is this? The last polite, clean-mouthed cop in LA? What, is there a swearbox down at the station, or something? Annicon just said 'bastard' ten minutes ago, for fuck's sake. Surely this dirty-looking cop fellow could be allowed to say something a little more extreme?
2:43PM, and Jack and Chase enter the junkie den. Some pristine-looking model injects heroin in between her toes just like people do in real life. Trust me, when junkies get to that stage, they don't look like models. Naturally, Jack and Chase immediately get into a bullets-flyin' fire fight. One of the junkies – coincidentally, Zach, who Kyle Singer was supposed to meet later – escapes and Jack pins him down in a stairwell. In the tradition of so many of last year's episodes, Jack interrogates the guy to gets the information out of him. This time it's better, though, because this year they torture this guy by having Chase stand on the guy's balls. Zach spills everything, telling them that Kyle Singer still has the drugs.
2:46PM, and Kyle Singer's mum is being bothered by her landlord for rent. Kyle dives into his room for his drug money and dashes off to pay the landlord. Cut to CTU and Tony informs everyone to work on finding where Singer is.
2:53PM. Stupidly, Kyle's left his bag open and Linda discovers the drugs. She's about to open it and get infected when Kyle comes back into the room. If only she hadn't waited five minutes during that ad break, eh? She'd be a walkin' casualty. They fight and she walks out. Kyle's mum starts talking to him, and I lose interest in this soap opera and wish Chase and Jack could go back to standing on that guy's balls again.
Palmer greets 'Doctor' Anne at 2:55PM. I have no idea what kind of doctor she is, but she seems to know all about type three viruses when he asks her for advice. ERGO, SHE MUST BE THE MOLE. Nah, maybe not. She'd have killed Palmer ages ago if she was.
2:57PM, and Chase argues with Jack about who gets to do the exciting work. Jack wants Chase to take Zach Parker – the guy whose balls they crushed – back to CTU to do some boring questioning, but Chase wants to stay out and play with Jack and the big boys in finding Kyle Singer and save the day! Jack's having none of it – he uses the same tone of voice he uses with Kim – and sends Chase scurrying back to the office. Chase walks off, grumbling. "Pff. He never lets me have any fun. I'm not a baby any more".
Also, if they've found Kyle Singer's druggie contact, CTU must be close to finding Kyle Singer, right? How long can this be stretched out for?
In the most surprising move of the century, Wayne Palmer has disobeyed his brother's wishes and picked up a copy of Senator Keeler's playbook. "Don't be angry, David", he says. "Jesus Christ, you're like my wife with a beard", replies the president. Happens that the playbook has information about Doctor Anne in it. Dave compromises three series' worth of integrity by having a quick peek at the pages, but they're blatantly not letting us know about it until the next episode.
Cut to: Dave and Wayne staring each other out over a desk; Doctor Anne looking innocent and taking a phone call (which, in the '24' world, means you're up to something dodgy); Kyle Singer looking at the bag of virus-infested coke, trying to work out why he’s being paid $10,000 to shift something that's only worth $500 tops; a computer screen displaying casualty estimates (9% of population, if you're interested).
Then to a shot of Gael, Hector's spy. Darkened room. Loads of monitors. He's been watching Kyle Singer. He flicks the monitors back to images of the inside of CTU and walks out through a door... into CTU.
HOLY FUCKING CHRIST. THIS GUY WORKS AT CTU. HE'S THE MOLE. And we're only two episodes in. This is audacious. The writers have pulled off the cheekiest plot twist I've ever seen. How could anyone have been expecting that? What now? Twenty-two weeks of Gael avoiding capture and becoming the meanest bad guy since Nina Myers? Oh please, and I thought having another mole at CTU would be stupid and a poor repeat of what's gone before. The simple step of revealing him at this early point in the storyline has given '24' the shot in the arse it's needed since the cougar. I am first in the queue to watch next week's show.
Who else is joining me?
Time checks:
Tony states that CTU has five hours to comply with the terrorists' demands.
Chloe tells Chase that it's not likely that they'll find the virus carrier in the next four hours.
Kyle Singer has to drop off the virus-infected bag of cocaine with Zach the dealer at 7:30PM, which is in five episodes' time.
Top quotes:
Dr Sunni Macer: "I'll skip the technobabble…"
Dave Palmer: "I can walk and chew gum at the same time."
Jack Bauer: "Shut up, stupid - you just fired at a federal agent."
Death pool:
Nobody died this week, leaving the death pool at:
David Goss, the dead guy from the first episode
Shaye, Ramon Salazar's lawyer
...as well as Hector's truckload of stiffs, which were too many to count. So they won't count.
Trivia:
Ian Toynton, the episode's director, first cut his teeth directing episodes of 1980s Channel Island cop show 'Bergerac' and writing and directing 1980s car-lot wheeler-dealering Dennis Waterman-vehicle 'Minder'. And he also helmed a few episodes of Fox's under-rated teen school drama-with-a-twist 'Opposite Sex' – the third best TV show of the past few years, after '24' and 'The Tom Green Show'.
Nineteen minutes into the episode, Luis Annicon says the word 'bastard'. Unsurprisingly, this isn't the first time there's been swearing on '24'. Jack's used the big 'b word' himself at least once, has used 'son of a bitch' more times than you can count.
Questions Arising:
Jack, tell us how you really feel about Chase and your daughter? Will this leave the wannabe sidekick sidelined action-wise for the rest of the series in a clever misdirection and turnaround of events?
Gael: how will he screw over CTU next?
