02.12 | Episode one, 1PM - 2PM
Production Code: 3AFF01
Written by Joel Surnow and Michael Loceff
Directed by Jon Cassar
Hurrah! The show is back. Except now it's on a different channels. With horrible DOGS and absolutely tonnes of adverts. Fittingly, there was 24 minutes of ads. But enough of that. Let's discuss the important stuff from the first episode.
The '24' logo flashes up. That music and s/fx always sets the pulse racing. We get a view of last season's attack on President Palmer from an angle we didn't see before. It’s a bit like the Zapruder footage of the President Kennedy assassination. Plays out to a heartbeat...
Three years later:
The following takes place between 1:00PM and 2:00PM. Events occur in real time, as they always do.
Shot of moving traffic. Dodgy black transit van, obviously of terrorist origin. Van weaves between other cars, backs into National Heathcare Services facility, Los Angeles. Body is pulled out and bomb is set off. Security guard is woken up.
Cut to a federal holding facility. Jack Bauer enters the series via a stylistically brilliant 'hand scanner' which displays his face on an LCD screen before the camera pulls back and we see him in the flesh. He looks good, wearing a natty suit. His partner, Chase Edmonds, is wearing similar garb. Obviously this is important.
A prisoner in chains appears. Must be a baddie, because he’s played by Joaquim De Almeida - Bucho in Robert Rodriguez's Desperado, and he gets the 'duh duh duh' musical treatment. Plus, we saw him in the trailer months ago.
Chase asks Jack if he's OK; Jack takes this as a chance to unveil some of the plot. However, this isn't what Chase meant.
Joquim is here to give up details of the terrorist cells he dealt with in return for a move to a class two detention centre. Chase suggests the prisoner is allowed to go to Florida as 'it won't make a difference'. AHA, WE HAVE UNCOVERED CHASE AS THE MOLE ALREADY. No, only joking.
Luis Annicon has also been working with Jack and Chase over the last year. He seems a bit of an asshole. You see, Jack worked undercover with Ramon Salazar and ended up putting him in prison. Ramon makes a scary speech, saying that Jack and him are 'connected'. Ramon starts talking about blood, and stabs Shaye, his lawyer, with a pen. Now that’s resourcefulness of a Jack Bauer kind. Maybe they are connected.
1:08PM, and a big red Ford 'Haz Mat Unit' van has arrived at the healthcare facility to examine the dumped body. The body was addressed to Dr Sunny Macer, who presumably turned up in the Ford. And I thought my junk mail was bad. The body is apparently infected with some kind of deadly virus; she goes to call Tony Almeida at CTU.
Tony, who should doing important world-saving work, is 'having a moment' with luvvy-duvvy Michelle until he is interrupted by some techie looking guy dressed in CTU regulation black. Apparently the new guy is called Adam, and he doesn't want someone called Chloe 'touching his data'. He is so gay. Tony calls him crazy, SO OBVIOUSLY ADAM IS THE NEW MOLE AT CTU. No, I'm joking. Though check back in a few episodes, eh?
Tony and Michelle go back to 'sharing moments'. The doctor speaks with Tony and tells him it’s a Cordilla virus. It’s dangerous, it’ll kill lotsa people if it's released and it’ll take 24 hours to solve. You get the picture.
1:12PM, and back to the federal holding facility. Jack, Chase and some extras are looking at CCTV footage of Ramon's little outburst. No idea why. Presumably to hold them up until the rest of the plot catches up. Jack gets the inkling that something important might happen today. Well, hopefully, and as long as it's unrelated to cougars and amnesia, I’m all for it. Jack, however, seems a little off his game.
1:14PM, and President Palmer's limo pulls up outside University of Southern California. Oddly, for a President of the United States, there's about eight people there to welcome him. Big cheers, and helpfully he holds up his buggered hand. One of the crowd is his brother, Wayne – who's taken both Sherrie Palmer and Mike Novick's jobs. He fires people, apparently. He must be evil, AND IS THEREFORE THE NEW MOLE. Forget about that, though, because President Dave has a 'funny turn' and hobbles off to wait for Anne – who we're supposed to presume is his doctor. Anyone with eyes and a brain can work out that there's probably something more there, though.
1:16PM is the time that Jack and Chase leave the holding facility. Jack's got a hunch and wants to go back to CTU to check it out. In the car, Chase bothers Jack with dumb questions before he’s interrupted by Kate Warner! Special guest star alert! And she looks hot, which is good, because it sounds like her and Jack were together, but have split up. Sexy blonde lawyer – with bonus terrorist sister – on the prowl!
1:18PM and on the most dangerous day of the year, Tony and Michelle are more concerned with getting new jobs in Washington. You've have thought that these top class anti-terrorist people would be better at prioritising. Audience yawns, but is woken up by Michelle's lame humour about being a useless cook. Michelle walks over the over side of the office to boss about Kim Bauer. Hopefully, Kim isn't being paid to sit around and be useless. Turns out she's a damp hand at computers, though, and she manages to annoy Adam the gay looking bloke. Two thoughts: who is Kim's new hairdresser? That hipster hair is great. And how come these CTU people just go about writing down access codes and passwords on pieces of paper and reading them out over the phone?
1:21PM sees us going to Las Nieves in Northern Mexico. This appears to be the bad guys' resort where they train horses and speak in subtitles. This Mexican guy is up to something dodgy.
1:23PM, and Kim alienates herself from the potential gay mole, Adam, by fucking about with his 'CTU OS' computer. I have no idea how she did it, chiefly because it's a made up operating system on their machines, but has something to do with 'data forks' and 'opening sockets', or something. Obviously thing have been upgraded from the days when Nina Myers used to send dirty pictures of herself to Jack and Tony by 'sending it to their screen'.
1:25PM - Jack and Chase arrive back at CTU. Jack runs upstairs to introduce us to Chloe O'Brian. It appears Jack, Chase and Chloe belong to one 'half' of CTU, whilst Tony and Adam do something else on the other side of the office. There's office politics involved here, and obviously it affects Jack pretty bad because he gets grouchy. Once he’s alone, it looks like he's about to die. The music goes mental, like some fan remix of Radiohead or something.
1:27PM. Kim going delving around some back room – probably where her mother died, but she's obviously to thick to realise that. The music goes spooky because someone’s approaching her from behind. It's Chase, WHO MUST BE THE NEW MOLE AT CTU. Actually, it's worse than that – he appears to be Kim's boyfriend. Woo, no wonder Jack is pissed off with him.
Doctor Macer videoconferences with Jack, Tony and Michelle. The virus will kill a million people within a week of release. Jack, who doesn't look at his best, panics like he did in the first episode last season and looks down at Kim, obviously thinking about getting her out of harm’s way. Macer says "We don't know who has it, there's no way to plan where they plan to release it; we don't even know what form its in". So why presume it'll be in Los Angeles, then? Why not New York or London? If I was Tony and Jack, I'd widen my search at this point.
Cut to a kid with a dodgy looking bag of drugs. I'd say the virus is in that, somewhere. It's 1:30PM when Kyle Singer is interrupted by his mother. He's got plans to go destroy Los Angeles, apparently.
President Palmer is running through a debate practice at 1:31PM. Brother Wayne thinks Palmer is too truthful. Well, duh. Dave's doctor arrives, and she's clearly more than a doctor. She's such a fusspot she's more like Dave's mother. In fact, the examination of the President's wrist - along with Kate Warner's guest appearance - is the only real 'pay-off' we get from last season. Thanks for wrapping that one up nicely, then. Meanwhile, Wayne breaks the plot to the president, just in case the viewers hadn't heard it the first time.
1:33PM, and Jack's even more pissed out than he was six minutes ago. Apparently Chloe 'can't read minds' and goes off on one about relationships. She's a weird one. Chase is even odder – he pulls up Jack about his erratic behaviour, yet he's content to see Chloe all dressed up in some waistcoat and high trousers. Jack wants her replaced, so OBVIOUSLY SHE IS THE NEW CTU MOLE. Jack and Chase have a lover's tiff. Chase tells Jack he is 'on edge'.
It's 1:38PM, CTU has been handling a major 'protocol' event for less than half an hour and Kim wants to know if Chase talked to Jack about them seeing each other. She doesn't improve. CTU has received some mad voice recording giving them instructions to release Ramon Salazar or the terrorists will release the virus. Time to break out the voice recognition software and hear who that really is. The dead body from the beginning of the show is identified as David Goss, a drug dealer. Jack and Chase go looking for information on Hector Salazar, Ramon’s brother. Apparently he’s an incredible horse trainer.
Hector Salazar, who right at this moment, is showing his girlfriend Claudia the fabulous sights around his ranch. Like the huge piles of dead and decomposing bodies. Hell, Hector's even got her daddy working as the gravedigger. Hector is clearly Evil With A Capital E And A Small 'vil'. Unlike his brother Ramon, who is definitely capital madness all the way through.
Back at the holding facility, Annicon tries to get Ramon to tell him why the lawyer got killed. Unfortunately, Ramon is too Evil to be that stupid. He obviously knows that his brother has something planned.
Claudia and Hector have a lover's tiff over Hector’s 'illegal activities'. She's annoyed with him, though isn’t scared enough to not walk away. Hector has other things on his mind, and phones his spy, Gael. Gael is watching Kyle, the kid with the virus, over a CCTV system. Kyle's in trouble because his sensible friend – who looks like a cross between Fred Savage and Screech from Saved By The Bell – won't accompany him to the drop off point. Kyle, apparently, is 'about to get evicted' from his 'crappy apartment'. Of course, this is LA, where every crappy apartment comes with an outdoor swimming pool. Pshaw. He should try living in a crappy Mexican ranch where they have to bury dead bodies in the back garden.
1:48PM. President Palmer is in a conference room at the University. Now he knows they're dealing with terrorists who want the release of Ramon Salazar, he decides to chat with his nurse. Wayne disagrees. There’s conflict between him and his brother. When I say 'chat', I mean 'snog'. It's pretty ugh. President Palmer almost gets the quote of the episode with his "It's going to be one of those days" line. How apt. As long as it's more like the first day than the second day...
Jack throws a strop at his PC at 1:52PM. Chase sits down for a chat. We're supposed to think he'll talk about Kim, but instead he goes into Jack's past with the Salazars. He tells him to get his head straight. Jack hits a remote control which tints his office windows dark, and I think we're supposed to think Jack’s going to have a little cry about Teri, or Kate, or something. Until he tries shooting up with a syringe full of heroin, that is. It'd be quite a shocker if you weren't already expecting it thanks to stupid trailers and people posting shit in internet forums and EMAILING YOU ABOUT it because you run a '24' website. Mehh, whatever. Anyway, it is pretty shocking and affecting moment, though. Even if you knew what was coming. We even got to see Kiefer's cool new tattoo.
Cut to: Kiefer expertly preparing to shoot up; Ramon Salazar languishing in his prison cell; Wayne Palmer on a mobile phone call; Kyle Singer's mates dicking about in the pool whilst he looks on, moodily.
Jack presses the syringe to his arm. Phone rings. It's Kim, wanting to come up to his offce. "Not right now, sweetheart. I'm in the middle of something", replies Jack. Actually, this is the best line of the show. Any line that can make Kim seem dumb and heroin seem dumber is well worthy.
Jack squirts out the syringe, rips off his tourniquet and throws the whole lot across the room. Episode ends...
Time checks:
Jack and Chase do the drive between the federal holding facility and the CTU office in nine minutes.
Doctor Macer tells us that the virus becomes contagious after fourteen hours. It kills within 24 hours, obviously.
Death pool:
David Goss, the drug dealer whose body was dumped outside the National Heathcare Services centre. And that's it, unless you count the bodies that Hector and Claudia's father dumped at the Las Nieves ranch. Frankly, they fell so fast I couldn’t count them. So I won't. The death count stands at one body, and one body only.
Other Stuff:
Memory Bank's 'Horse Drawn' is played out during the first scene in Kyle's bedroom. The incredibly cool Colder has their song 'One Night In Tokyo' over the top of the scene at the pool between Kyle and his mate Tim.
Things to think about:
Curiously few references to the time and how long things will take in the dialogue. Have the writers left out the clues they used to do, this time around? Or are they just being easy on themselves for later?
If you were a high tech terrorist, would you really leave your plans up to a dumb surfer dude to carry the virus into America?
Is Jack really a junkie, or is he infected with something? Will Jack last for the next 24 hours?
