It’s the last midnight, folks. In two more hours, Jack Bauer will have saved the world, cured Mad Cow, and destroyed more DC geography than the Canadians did when they burned down the White House. We’re here for snark, alcohol and a bit of group therapy. Join in!

Li’l Taylor is giving a statement to the DoJ about Jonas’ murder. Just a formality, she is assured.

President Woman President lays down the exposition about why finding that last canister isn’t the end of the danger, after all. Oh hey, they’re in dire need of sleep, just like every season of 24.

Jack’s in the van with Freckles and TurncoatTony, while Evil Redhead is whispering sweet nothings into his earpiece, threatening to kill Kim Bauer if Jack doesn’t help Tony escape. There’s a chopper overhead (BWAHAHA), escorting them.

Kim’s at the airport with the Terrorists Incognito. She notices a scratch on goofy mullet terrorist dude’s neck and gets suspicious.

Jack makes his move, shooting the redshirt Fed, just for fun. But at least he explains himself to Freckles, because really, she’s been jerked around enough today. Redheaded Evil gives them directions onto Taft Street (WTF) as the van drives through what is VERY CLEARLY LA.

Jack begs Freckles to cooperate so that Kim will be safe. Tony forces Jack to come along to his meetup with Redheaded Evil, because Jack has bioweapon in his bloodstream! Maybe their evil terrorist plot isn’t foiled after all!

Junction Jack rolls on into the White House, mere HOURS after resigning. Aaron actually accuses Li’l Taylor of having Hodges assassinated while Junction Jack decides how uptight he’s willing to be about the Nixon equipment. Junction Jack relents.

Li’l Taylor is finishing up her deposition, confirming AGAIN that she had NO outside contact during the relevant time period. *wink, wink*

Done with her perjury, Li’l Taylor heads to her office, Aaron stalls her just long enough that she doesn’t catch Junction Jack messing with the recording device. Junction Jack plays all innocent, oh, I was just picking up some of my old files. Here, of COURSE you can see them.

She’s right in the middle of chewing Aaron out for letting someone into her office when she notices the OH SO CLEVERLY CONCEALED BEHIND A PICTURE FRAME recording deck with the recording media conspicuously absent. She orders the Secret Service to detain Junction Jack, telling Aaron, “He stole my property.” Which is ridiculous, because the recording media is GOVERNMENT property, missy.

Meanwhile, Kim is relaxing at the gate with Mr. and Mrs. Terrorist Incognito. Freckles gets Chloe to patch her through to the gate so she can tell Kim about who is following her and who has taken Jack hostage. The Incognitos get suspicious, and Kim cuts the call short, after listening to a bunch of oversharing from Freckles. Kim tries to distract the Incognitos with pictures of her adorable baby (subtext: PLEASE DON’T KILL ME, I HAVE A BABY), but Mr. Incognito spots the cops heading over and starts the fight by shooting at the cops and telling the Mrs. to kill Kim with that TOTALLY NOT MADE OF METAL KNIFE.

Thing That Is Actually Totally Believable: Mr. Incognito managed to smuggle a gun through TSA security.

In all the confusion, Mrs. Incognito dies and Mr. Incognito escapes into an authorized personnel area. Kim calls Freckles, who insists that Kim figure out where Mr. Incognito went since that’s how they’ll figure out where Tony and Jack are. At a key moment, Kim’s phone dies, because the battery was low, REMEMBER?

Frustrated, Kim takes off after Mr. Incognito herself.

Li’l Taylor confronts Junction Jack and threatens to have him strip-searched if he doesn’t give up the CF card he’s holding. After some bluffing back and forth about who is a bigger federal scofflaw, she calls in the Secret Service to search him. The agent is disappointed that he didn’t even need those laytex gloves to find the card, which he immediately turns over to Li’l Taylor even though it’s potentially evidence in a federal prosecution against Junction Jack, if not against Li’l Taylor.

Aaron convinces the other Secret Service guys to let him escort Junction Jack out, and that’s when we find out that JJ is a paranoid bastard and gave the REAL CF card to Aaron and gave Olivia a blank one. The chatters totally called that one. Preeeedictable. JJ just HAPPENS to have “a companion device” to the recorder in his car. Uh huh. Companion Device? $10 CF card reader from Office Depot.

They’re dragging Jack off to turn him into a bioweapon now. The scientists are wearing facemasks but Tony and Evil Redhead are too cool for that. They hold him down on the table and start extracting his precious precious spinal fluid while Jack screams. Pansy. Who thinks that needle is going to end up in someone’s eye? *raises hand*

Freckles is on the scene at the airport, trying to figure out where Kim and Mr. Incognito are. Because you know, there are no security cameras at airports.

Kim is trucking through the stairwells, and I do not believe FOR A MOMENT that those heels she’s wearing are really not making any noise. She chases Mr. Incognito into the self-park area (that close to the airport? really?) and gets the rentacops there to contact Freckles.

Just as she’s on the radio with Freckles describing their position, Mr. Incognito comes barrelling down the ramp, picking off rentacops with his pistol. The rentacops have no training at all- they just stand there and make easy targets of themselves while attempting to shoot through the windshield of a moving car.

In the shootout, Mr. Incognito manages to flip his car, and Kim steals his laptop, catching herself on fire in the process. Freckles shows up, and Kim hands over the laptop, along with some classic 24-technobabble about how to use it to track down the other terrorists. When Freckles gives her the WTF look, Kim explains that she used to be a systems analyst at CTU.

Evil Redhead is talking to Squirrelly Suit-Wearing Boss Man, who tells Evil that he’s coming over to check out the prisoner. Meanwhile, they’ve left Jack REALLY close to the knives, and he makes his escape. Forget MADCOW, he now has FURIOUSCOW.

Jack slips outside into the early morning sun, calculated to remind us that THIS ALL TAKES PLACE IN 24 HOURS, REMEMBER?, and apparently they’re back at the mysterious NW DC airfield from a few hours before.

Jack finds a couple of random cabs in a garage (helloo, if it were an airfield in DC, it would be Washington Flyer). Tony catches up to Jack in short order, and after a brief fight, Tony knocks Jack unconscious.

Meanwhile, Junction Jack strolls back into Li’l Taylor’s office to confront her. He explains that he has the real recording after all, and plays it for her, then explains that it’s time for her to tell her mother what she did.

Jack is now explaining the 45th time today he’ll switch sides. Apparently this whole thing was a big con to get the suit-wearing guy close enough for Tony to kill, since he’s somehow, in a convoluted way, responsible for Tony’s wife’s death. Jack, who just wounded a federal agent and helped a fugitive escape in order to save his daughter, proceeds to lecture Tony about going too far in the name of personal motivation. Irony, thy name is Bauer. Tony straps some C4 to Jack and doesn’t comment on the hypocrisy.

The presence of Hummer stretch limos indicates that the Suit-Wearing Bad Guy has arrived. After some random banter about pathology reports and whether or not Tony has a lot to offer the organization, they trot out Bauer, without checking to see if he’s been, you know, WIRED WITH EXPLOSIVES.

Just as Jack is about to get close enough to the boss-man so that Tony can asplode them to bits, the cavalry arrives- Freckles in a chopper, with machine guns. GUNFIGHT!!!

In all the confusion, Freckles finds Jack and manages to disarm the bomb, which he CONTINUES TO WEAR while they go look for Ton and the suit-wearer. They find them, just as Tony is about to have his sweet, sweet revenge for the murder of his wife and unborn baby. Jack, twitching and blinking all the while, has to shoot Tony twice to slow him down.

Freckles confronts the suit-wearer and tells him he’ll be charged with treason. The Suit Wearing Bad Guy, whose facial bruises are yellowing about 3 days too early, insists that the feds have nothing on him.

Freckles wanders off to find Jack, and finds him, just as he’s refusing pain medication, because he’s so hardcore. She’s distraught that they probably won’t be able to get anything out of the suit-wearing bad guy, and hints that she might be willing to, ahem, go to extreme lengths to extract information from him. Jack goes all soft and squishy and tells her not to, or something, but the point is, they have a tender moment before Jack is wheeled away on the rusty guerney from the 70s.

Li’l Taylor confesses about the murder to her parents. President Woman President freaks out, First Dude takes Li’l’s side, President WP insists that she has to honor the law, First Dude implies that it’s all HER fault anyway, and I’m betting that he’ll be served with divorce papers after breakfast. The aide interrupts this really critical moment to tell the President that he needs her to leave so she can hear some GOOD news. Go on, honey… you go take care of this president stuff. Our daughter will still be a murderer when you get back.

Chloe and Janis have their last scene. Chloe compliments Janis and Janis’ smile practically lights up the room. They’ll be running off to Vermont next season.

Jack’s at the hospital getting ready to get his coma on, when the imam shows up. Turns out Jack called him, because he’s experiencing some soul-related turmoil now that he’s dying and stuff. The imam speaks some comforting, conciliatory words (SEE? It’s all OKAY because the IMAM SAYS SO), and they pray together, which would have been a really moving scene if it just weren’t so freaking weird.

President Woman President comes back to her family, explains how much she loves them and that she’s sorry her job is so hard for them (whiners), and then explains that she’s got to turn Li’l Taylor in to the DoJ. Aaron escorts her from the room, and First Dude is PISSED. But what’s he going to do, kick his wife out of the White House?

The President is having a difficult moment out in the hall, when Junction Jack comes and offers to come back and rescind his resignation. Right then! Back to work!

Janis is mysteriously handling prisoner transfer paperwork and trying to get Freckles to sign it, when Freckles starts demanding that Janis leave. Janis has apparently caught onto the fact that Jack’s not even dead yet, but his soul has just jumped RIGHT into Freckles, and refuses to leave. Freckles pulls a gun and makes Janis handcuff herself to some random pipe in the room. Janis plays the Larry card while trying to talk Freckles out of it, but Freckles just sneers and stalks into the room holding Suit Wearing Bad Guy. He’s looking smug, but we know what’s going to happen next.

Kim shows up to the hospital after Jack has been put into the coma. She berates the doctor into telling her whether the stem cell treatment mentioned way back like 12 hours ago is still an option. The doctor heads off to get an OR, and Kim goes into Jack’s room to hold his hand and tell him she’s not ready to let him go yet.

And that concludes this season of 24. THANK GOD.

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Well, it’s that time again: time to mock the terrible geography skills of the people responsible for 24. My friend Mike suggested the other day that perhaps what we really need is a hitman who’ll just run a tab after we get past the actors listed in the opening credits. I couldn’t agree more.

Recap time: They should recruit Jibraan’s little brother for CTU, after the way he MacGuyvered a knife out of that broken mirror.

They’re retrofitting canisters and maximizing dispersion to release the bioweapon at “Washington Central Station,” because apparently Union Station is just TOO DAMN CONVENIENT. Meanwhile, Tony is telling Jibraan to get on the Red Line and head to Washington Center. JUST CALL IT UNION STATION YOU JACKASSES. Oh, and “Red Line, Westbound?” Good lord, people.

Jibraan heads underground at the Woodward Metro Station. No shit. Um guys? If there were a Woodward metro station, it would have a parking garage. *rimshot*

Jack uncuffs Jibraan’s little brother and sends the imam in to comfort him. Since the injured terrorist is their only lead, Jack waves off the paramedic trying to give the guy pain medication. There’s only ONE WAY this can play out.

Jack needs the Ladies’ Geek Squad back at Imaginary FBI to help him figure out where Tony is while the injured terrorist calls him with some made up story. Jack prefers that Chloe take point on this part, and Chloe and Janis engage in some ridiculous pissing match about who is the superior geek.

They can’t quite figure out where Tony is except that he’s somewhere in Adams Morgan. Previously the map put him over near RFK, except now he’s in Adams Morgan (I guess Woodward Station is the 24-land equivalent of Woodley Park/Adams Morgan?) Jack wants MPD over there with all their hazmat gear, and at least HE knows to call them Metro PD.

Jibraan heads into an LA metro station, cleverly masquerading as a DC Metro station, because it has a DC Metro map tacked up in the corner of a station manager’s booth. He tries to alert the station staff, but OH SNAP! The transit cop makes him put Tony’s earpiece back in and start taking orders again!

Aaron has been WORRIED SICK, young lady, about Li’l Taylor, who slipped her Secret Service protection to go meet her wetworks guy in the park. Turns out he’s the one who told the hitman to go ahead with the Hodges assassination. And then he says, quite ridiculously, that she’d better hurry up and pay up because you do NOT want this guy mad at you. Because other hitmen are such fluffy bunnies.

Kim Bauer is walking through an airport that is clearly not any of the airports in this area, talking to her husband on her dying phone, as they both display their wedding rings prominently for the camera. He’ll be at the airport to pick her up. With the baybeee.

Jibraan’s on the Metro, and Redheaded Evil is incognito, setting us up the bomb. She gives it 15 minutes, even though “Washington Central” is the next and final stop. Don’t get that at all. But hey, I’m not a 24 writer, what do I know?

Jack and Freckles track Tony down. They ram his van with their car and Jack jumps out and puts Tony in a sleeper hold to prevent him from breaking his phone into teeny pieces! The commercial break will give Jack time to plan how to torture him.

The Chloe/Janis pissing contest resumes, and this time, it looks like… advantage: Janis.

Jack briefly tries to beat the holy hell out of Tony, but clearly his heart isn’t in it, because he threatens to kill Tony WAY too early. Tony says he’s got nothing left to lose, and Jack lowers his gun, as the terminal force meets the apathetic object.

So Janis and Chloe and Freckles figure out where Jibraan is, and say that he’s on the Metro Westbound, when their own map clearly shows him going EASTBOUND. Seriously, this isn’t even about DC geography anymore. This is about freaking COMPASS POINTS, BITCHES.

They manage to get Jack on Jibraan’s earpiece, and Jack talks him through finding the bioweapon. Jibraan has to take it out of the station because THERE’S NO TIME for Jack to get down to him. Never mind why the terrorists would want to set off a BIOWEAPON in an EMPTY TRAIN.

Jibraan narrowly misses being arrested by a totally clean cop as a terrorist, and he’s no help to anyone by waving that damn canister around. Fortunately, by the time he gets out of the station, Jack is there and able to set things straight very quickly.

Jack grabs the canister and seals himself off in… I don’t know, some truck. Because the AIRBORNE MAD COW is apparently only airborne for 15 seconds or something. I don’t know. I gave up trying to figure out wtf is up with this bioweapon like 4 episodes ago.

He comes out, all covered in mad cow preeeeeyons, and yet Agent Freckles has no problem at all getting all huggy on him. Jack orders “a complete interrogation package” for when they get Tony back to Imaginary FBI HQ. Interrogation package? Like with champagne and chocolate strawberries?

Evil Redhead assures the squirrelly suit-wearing bad guy that Tony won’t be in custody long… “we have another play.”

Kim Bauer is dodging the creepy guy following her at the airport (who turns out to be keeping an eye on her for Jack) by striking up a friendship with a couple sitting at her gate. The husband gets up to get coffee, Kim gets up to go to the ladies’ room, and OH SNAP, the husband kills Kim’s secret bodyguard in the bathroom! OH MAH GAWD, this is getting so ridiculous I can’t even begin to follow along.

Aaron is trying to get it out of Li’l Taylor where she’s been, and she gets all weepy and complains about how much stress she’s been under (like a Secret Service agent is going to have any sympathy for THAT whiny crap), and so Aaron gets suspicious. He calls… O HAI JUNCTION JACK and asks if the Nixon equipment is still hooked up. Apparently it is, but Junction Jack has to come back to the White House to give Aaron access to the recordings from the Chief of Staff’s office.

Janis and Chloe are still pointlessly bickering. Gawd. Won’t you just make out already?

The airport husband is back from getting coffee and murdering the federal agent, and he points his laptop camera at Kim. Evil Redhead calls Jack and tells him to spring Tony from federal custody or the operatives at the airport will kill Kim. What’s that? If any FBI agents get in the way, Jack should kill them? Will Jack have to shoot Freckles? AGAIN?

Tune in next week for the two-hour conclusion to this godawful mess.

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Just four hours left. That’s what I keep telling myself. Over and over. Four more hours until Jack Bauer and his cronies stop giving DC the business. We can do this. Stay strong.

Recap time: The container escaped! Almeida’s a traitor! Time to interrogate Hodges! Li’l Taylor loses her shit! Redheaded Evil and Tony get all hot and bothered over framing a local.

Tony and Redheaded Evil plant a bunch of crap on Innocent Local’s computer. They hang the Universal Banner of Islamic Terror and threaten IL’s brother if he doesn’t make terrorist love to the camera.

Chloe the Wonder Girl tells Jack that the miraculously reconstituted/recommissioned/rehydrated CTU servers have found NO CHATTER from suspected terrorists. NO CHATTER, the same day a plane blows up over DC. Janis gets all righteously indignant, Jack basically tells her to come up with a better idea or STFU.

Then Jack forgets what he’s saying and wanders off to shoot up. Chloe demands to know what’s going on, and Freckles and Janis finally break the news- Jack’s got MADCOWMGZ.

Chloe gets all lip-wobbly while Jack shoots up. Wuss. He’s accepted that he’s about to die, so why can’t she get the hell over it?

Meanwhile, back at Tony’s House of Framejobs, Jibraan is reading the fake terrorist message (in English, wtf) when the MPD shows up. The cops do at least have MPD collar bars, so that’s a nice touch. Tony warns Jibraan not to warn the cops, so he tells them some BS story about how all the yelling was from his drunk friends that he kicked out. He’s sweating bullets, and it’s hard to tell if the MPD believes him or not.

Chloe has finished up all that embarrassing crying and has a lead on how Jack can track down Jibraan. It’s his imam, who lives in the mosque on G Street… in GEORGETOWN?! God people, look at a damn map. 5235 G Street. Seriously. My god.

Li’l Taylor explains to her own personal wet-works guy why exactly it is that Hodges needs to be eliminated. He agrees a little too readily, and heads out.

Meanwhile, the FBI is handing over Jonas’ new witness protection identity. The folder says “US MARSHAL” on the front. Not plural, not WITSEC, not “US Marshals Service.” Just “US MARSHAL.” Like the prop guy has been watching “In Plain Sight,” but not that closely.

Jack and Freckles roll up to the mosque, and I can’t tell whether that beat is the soundtrack or the bass in their sweet ride. Jack goes all crazy on the imam, trying to intimidate him by screaming, but the imam is having none of it.

Meanwhile, Janis reports that MPD (who she calls DCPD, GAH) recognized Jibraan’s photo from the call out to his house a little while ago. Jack and Freckles KIDNAP THE IMAM and head out to, um, Eastbrook Street?

Almeida makes Jibraan tell his brother he’s a terrorist. Jibraan is awfully convincing for making it up on the fly, and little brother spits in his face as the Framejob Crew prepares to head out.

Li’l Taylor is talking to the hitman on her cell phone (so secure!) to arrange the murder. From the White House. (Like THAT’S never happened before.) But hey! Here’s Aaron! Just in time to tell Li’l Taylor that her father is awake, which gives her time to contemplate the BIG GREEN button that sends the money to the hit man, and the BIG RED button that cancels it. She cancels. Surprise.

Chloe the Wonder Girl, not to be out-done by Janis, sees through the deception of the framejob! Jibraan is innocent! Jack looks disappointed, and unlocks the handcuffs he put on the imam.

Li’l Taylor, President Woman President, and First Dude have a touching family moment. How proud they are of their daughter who only mostly ordered a hit!

As Jonas sits, alone in a wheelchair in a hallway at FBI, and says goodbye to his old life, we have what would be a really touching moment if he weren’t such an evil, world-crushing, megalomaniacal bastard.

Jonas is escorted through the shadowy parking garage by only one agent- what could possibly go wrong? He gets into the SUV, the agent walks off to sign some very official-looking witness transfer paperwork, as Jonas sits in the eerie light. What’s that? A COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE SUV EXPLOSION! Jonas is a crispy critter! Uh-oh, now the hitman is going to want to get paid.

President Woman President is meeting with Li’l Taylor and Tim when Tim’s cell phone rings with the news that Jonas has been assassinated. Li’l Taylor turns positively green and excuses herself from the room in a NOT AT ALL suspicious manner. And Aaron notices NOT AT ALL when she goes to hide around the corner in the hallway to have a panicked phone conversation about how she and her contact need to meet in Pershing Park. Which actually exists! Score one for DC!

Freckles, Jack, and the imam (which sounds like a folk rock band) arrive at Jibraan’s appartment. The imam notices that Jack doesn’t look so good, so Freckles reminds us all, in case we forgot, that Jack has the MADCOWMGZ and maybe has only a day to live. Being clergy, the imam is suitably concerned, but still thinks Freckles should be calling the shots.

Jack and the other FBI agents break down the door, and Jibraan’s little brother takes advantage of the distraction to stab one of the actual terrorists in the neck with a shard of glass. Hardcore! But Jack insists they need him alive, so they have to separate the kid from the terrorist, who is bleeding out. DUH.

Meanwhile, Tony is scoping out the intended target of the attack. That’s really a map of DC, but that is SO NOT REALLY A METRO TRAIN OH MY GOD. Would it have been so hard to get stock footage of an actual DC Metro train?

Next Week: Maybe Jack will actually torture someone! There’s a helicopter! It’s almost the end! YAY!

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Jack is being treated in the back of an ambulance, being treated for his seizure and urged not to talk, as his vocal cords are in spasm. But he manages to choke out instructions to stop Tony to Freckles. Oh, Jack, hindsight is 20/20.

At this point it would be easier to talk about who’s NOT a traitor.

Tony is at a no-tell motel that appears to be off NY Ave. NE. He tells the nameless henchman that the payment has been wired to his account, and he’s able to check his balance without dialing 47 different extensions and re-entering his account number 18 times. And now the henchman is turning on Tony. It’s so hard to get good henchmen these days.

Jack is filling in the President, and so’s the Secret Service. They work out how to get the information they need out of Hodges, and for some reason Bauer is promising the President that torture will not be necessary. I’m sorry, I thought I was watching 24… but apparently what Hodges wants is to fake his own death to protect his family. (Apparently launching a bioweapon would not have endangered them in the least?)

The woman who impersonated the Blonde Redshirt Lawyer is now at the no-tell with Tony. They start bickering about the bioweapon like an old married couple. She thinks Tony should take his time, he wants to blow the payload right away… Typical. Tony insists that Hodges gave them an opportunity, but we can’t figure out why Tony wouldn’t have just let the missiles launch if he wants to see the bioweapon go off that bad.

President Woman President wants Li’l Taylor to go get a Witness Protection agreement for Hodges. Li’l Taylor is horrified by this suggestion, and thinks that they should declare Hodges and enemy combatant and treat him like one to get him to talk. YEAH, THAT’S THE 24 I KNOW! But President W-P is having none of it, and while choking back sobs about her dead son and husband, she delivers a touching speech about the oath she took to protect the constitution. And shames Li’l Taylor into acting like a Chief of Staff.

Redheaded Redshirt Impersonator is on a conference call talking about how Almeida’s bioweapon attack is going to be blamed on a hapless Middle Eastern man, who will at least not be alive to notice the injustice. The shadowy conspiracy takes a vote- because people bent on overthrowing America are known for their reliance on Robert’s Rules of Order- and Tony and the redhead start making out heading into commercial.

Hodges is awake and ranting about how saving him has killed his family. Jack steps into the unusually dark room and offers to help fake Hodges’ death and protect his family for his cooperation. Lots of back and forth and timewasting arguing about whether or not Hodges knows who he has been working with, and Jack reminds him that while the President may not have the stomach to endanger Hodges’ family, JACK sure as hell does. Hodges finally cracks and explains the plan. Which makes no sense, but who’s counting?

Meanwhile, the President has been listening in. Jack tells her they need to start identifying terrorists and git ta raidin’. Because apparently, they don’t keep that kind of list around. So clearly, it’s time to bring the CTU servers back online. Alternately, they call it “recommissioning” or “reconstituting,” so apparently the servers are actually ships. Or dried fruit.

Jack calls Chloe, who apparently sleeps in her clothes and with the light on juuuuust in case she gets a late night booty call from Jack. She urges her husband to take their kid (the nerdiliciously-named “Prescott”) and get the hell outta Dodge because there’s going to be another attack. A tender moment ensues.

Jack gives what’s supposed to be a Patton-like speech (it’s not) at FBI. An FBI agent named JIM MORAN OH MY GOD I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP starts asking questions, and Freckles explains the plan. Janis goes all goody-two-shoes and insists that this kind of surveillance is illegal (um, really? Pattern matching on suspicious financial transactions is illegal? Since when?) and she wants to know whether FBI is turning into CTU. Freckles tells Janis to shut up or GTFO.

Chloe arrives at Imaginary FBI Field Office, because apparently she was like a block away. Jack tells her the servers are nearly back online, because apparently they were never actually OFFline, and informs her about Tony’s treachery. In her confusion, Jack demands her loyalty. Personally I’m hoping she turns out to be a traitor too.

Li’l Taylor is righteously indignant as she informs Aaron that Hodges did NOT die in the hospital, but in fact her mother is giving him Witness Protection. She backs up the waaaaaaahmbulance pretty good and then makes a poorly-considered remark about killing Jonas Hodges.

Li’l Taylor then calls a naked man who is apparently some kind of political operative. She tells some vague story about a problem reporter in their past, and the naked man agrees to show up to the White House to talk some more.

Chloe and Janis are measuring their e-peens (Chloe’s is totally bigger) when Jack loses his shit on Janis and screams that “PRESIDENT DAVID PALMER RECOMMISSIONED THESE SERVERS,” clearly forgetting Presdient Woman President is the Woman President now. He stomps off while Chloe and Janis are temporarily united in their collective “WTF?”

Meanwhile, Tony Alameida is threatening the hapless Middle Eastern man with a gun.

Next week: Jack tells Chloe he’s dying, Tony forces Hapless Middle Eastern Guy into pretending he’s a terrorist, and oh thank God, an explosion.

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A blonde who will henceforth be known as Redshirt for reasons that are about to become clear is cleared for the White House. Just as she’s getting ready to leave her house, she’s sprayed with something into unconsciousness by someone who LOOKS JUST LIKE HER and steals her access credentials. Awesome.

Blah blah Freckles and Janis technobabble.

Tony shoots himself to fake a confrontation. Oh, that wily Tony. Here comes the cavalry.

Kim Bauer tells Freckles she’s leaving, and once again recaps her conversation with Jack, just in case you missed it last week and in the recap this week.

Jack’s being questioned by a guy in a lame shirt. Jack keeps forgetting what he already said due to the MAD COWMGZ, which gives me hope that he’ll strangle the lame shirt guy and forget about it for the same reason.

Freckles finally gets word that Moss was killed in a shootout, making her the lead agent on this operation. Despite the wobbly lip and tears in her eyes, she goes all hardass and starts mobilizing a team for the hunt for the suspect. Even though the place is already crawling with agents.

Jack asks who died and made Freckles boss… and she tells him. Jack barely registers that Tony has been shot as well, so maybe this is the lead-up to the inevitable showdown when Jack tortures Tony… FOR AMERICA. Freckles indicates that the fugitive is about a mile from the Fauxwater compound, which means he’s near Quantico. Which apparently is so close to DC you can double back into the District from it, if you remember that from last week.

Oh, and apparently it’s near 13th and Jefferson in DC, which is deep in Northwest. WTF. Anyway, Jack demands to ride along with Freckles in the helicopter. He’s like a 5 year old, he’s so insistent. He practically holds his breath until she gives in.

So then Evil Parallel Universe Blonde (the one who’s pretending to be Redshirt) rolls up to the White House south entrance, and after a couple of is-this-really-supposed-to-be-suspensful moments while her credentials are checked, she’s allowed in to see her client, Jonas Hodges.

Jonas seems to be under the impression that she’s going to spring him from the White House pokey, and pontificates briefly on “subpoena-waving goon squads,” (REALLY?) but Blondie has other ideas. Oh yes, she promises Jonas that Fauxwater won’t punish his family for his screwup if he takes the suicide pill she gives him. Because, you know, that bioweapon was, and I quote, “Not for personal use.” Really, she said that. I can’t make this up. “Not for personal use.” Deadpan. Like it’s OFFICE SUPPLIES or something. Anyway, it seems like Fauxwater was working for the Evil League of Evil.

Li’l Taylor comes in, and Blondie warns her that her client has invoked his right to counsel, and no one is to speak with him except in her presence. Li’l Taylor says, “In some parts of the world, they’d have shot him already.” OOOO, BURN. (I hear we like to ship people to those parts of the world these days.)

Somehow we’re in a residential part of DC that is a mile from Triangle… wtf… and Robert is wiring a building with C4. He’s a moron who carries the C4 around with the detonators IN IT ALREADY.

And now Jack is going all gushy on Freckles, insisting on talking about Freckles’ FEELINGS, when all she wants to do is be the hardass and catch whoever killed Moss.

And somehow, Tony is walking around normally after taking a 9mm to the gut. Tony tells some bullshit story about how he blacked out before Moss got shot. Apparently blacking out from blood loss doesn’t mean he can’t walk around normally now. Does ANYONE believe this crap? But Jack is looking at the shells recovered as evidence and has suspicions that things are not exactly as Tony said.

Kim Bauer is in a cab on her way to the airport, and on the phone with her husband, Not Zack Morris. She tells him her father is dying, and basically this entire scene is a setup to tell us… Kim has a baby! She and Not Zack have produced a grandbaby for Jack. No doubt, this kid will someday be torturing Osama’s great-great-granddaughter in “24: The College Years.”

Jack’s having an attack, and shoots up in front of Almeida, who apparently didn’t know Jack had been exposed to the MAD COWMGZ. Freckles tells us that the suspect is at 12th and Rincon, so apparently DC is in Puerto Rico now. And in this version of DC, there are abandoned apartment buildings in upper Northwest.

As they’re loading Jonas into the van to take him to the FBI, Jonas notices the tattoo on the soldier’s forearm and asks him if he had run into any Fauxwater units while he was in Pakistan. He wants to know if they were “professional.” I had no idea that Fauxwater employs mystery shoppers. Having been satisfied that his employees are doing their jobs, Jonas takes the red pill. Which breaks my heart, because I wanted to see Bauer have his way with Jonas.

The red pill kicks in, like, instantly, and the truck is diverted to West Arlington Imaginary Hospital.

Meanwhile, Lame Shirt Guy is asking Jack if he’s REALLY REALLY SURE about the name of Tony’s informant. Jack is distracted and can’t concentrate on this REALLY IMPORTANT CLUE, because he noticed that this whole abandoned building thing IS A TRAP.

And Robert the Terrorist blows up the building with a cell phone detonator. He heads into the building, blending in with the FBI by wearing FBI coveralls. Which is why tourons think their street vendor FBI ballcaps are SO AWESOME. Screw you, 24 writers.

Jack seizes control of the situation as we head into commercial, and heads into the building to rescue Freckles.

Tony and Robert the Terrorist meet up, exchange the canister, and freakishly fingerpaint Robert’s face with blood. Gross. Tony puts the “injured” Robert into the ambulance as Jack figures out that Tony is the real TurnTurnTurncoat.

Jack pulls a gun on Tony and goes all Michael Corleone- I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. Tony denies everything and accuses Jack of being all crazy with the MAD COWMGZ. As if on cue, Jack drops to the ground with a mad cow induced seizure. Tony makes the classic villain error and assumes Jack is going to die before he can tell anyone his suspicions, and just walks away.

Meanwhile, Robert the Terrorist knifes the paramedic and commandeers the ambulance… and we’re out for the week.

Next week, miraculously fresh-faced and pink-cheeked, Jack prepares to interrogate Jonas. See you then.

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Guess what? There was actually some geography to snark about this week!

Recap time! Freckles’ Cleavage, Jack’s middle name is Exposition. Moss retreats from Fauxwater, Freckles wants to call Jack’s daughter, and the President caves to Jonas’ demands.

And we’re off: Hey look, Tony has figured out what the deal is with the missiles.

So Jonas is on his way to the White House, while Jack reminds the President that we don’t NEGOTIATE with terrorists, we TORTURE them. For America. After getting a tacit go-ahead from President Woman President, Tony rigs the RP-7 rocket fuel to blow… with the three charges of C4 he just HAPPENS to have with him for JUST SUCH AN OCCASION. (I mean, who doesn’t, right? It’s a girl’s best friend.)

Aaaaaand Jonas makes it to the White House from Triangle, a distance of 33 miles, in 10 minutes. A new record, even for the 24-verse. (See chat transcript for map.) We once again see the MENACING MAD COW ROCKETZ and Tony beats up a Fauxwater flunky to be taken DEEP INTO THE BOWELS of the base so he can finish his convenient C4 application.

Jonas goes all Vito Corleone on the President, complaining that not once has she invited him to the Oval Office for coffee. Then he makes her an offer he can’t refuse- to add his 1500 trained mercenaries (and MAD COWMGZ) to the fighting force of the US. I can’t even figure out what the hell he’s actually suggesting here, it makes no sense, even for 24. I guess Jonas figures he’s won the bionic, weaponized beef arms race.

Meanwhile, Butterfingers Tony loses the detonator down a grate just as the Fauxwater people are figuring out there’s been a breach. O NOES, what will happen? Will Clarksville, MD get hit with the OMG MAD COWZ? Or will Tony’s arm grow an inch so he can grab that detonator? Look at that, one of the Fauxwater lab geeks grows a conscience and refuses to participate in the launch, buying Tony crucial seconds. EXPLOSION! Tony wins!

But then Homeland Security Lackey (Some call him…. Tim) comes to fetch the President. He pulls her OUT OF THE OVAL OFFICE and into the study, leaving Jonas and the Fauxwater TurnTurnTurnCoat ALONE IN THE OVAL OFFICE WTF. Seriously? They leave terrorists alone in the Oval Office, unsupervised?

Tim tells the President that the Fauxwater base has blown up, and smugly orders the arrest of Jonas and the TurnTurnTurnCoat. Jonas is so incensed that he tries to take a swing at the President, and is restrained by the Secret Service. O HAI GUYZ, nice of you to show up. But seriously, he’s pretty much frothing at the mouth, and I keep expecting him to say, “I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling FBI agents…”

Jonas insinuates that he’s part of a MUCH bigger plot against America, which all but guarantees that he’s going to be left alone in a windowless room with a mad cow-crazed Jack Bauer at some point.

Speaking of mad cow-crazed Bauer, he and Freckles are congratulating each other on destroying the weapon when Jack gets a call from the President to thank him for his help. She notices he’s a little uncomfortable (must be the prions!) and goes all Mama Bear on him. Jack cuts the conversation short, and the President demands “realtime” updates on Jack’s condition from the CDC. Which pretty much violates all kinds of patient-privacy laws, but let’s not get fussy about that.

Tony is safe. Moss goes all gooey and melty on the phone with Freckles, who has no patience for it. Jack’s condition is deteriorating, and we notice how odd it is that he gets to walk around wherever he wants at the FBI with this apparently airborne (I know, wtf?) pathogen.

Freckles reveals that she called Jack’s daughter Kim, and Kim is waiting to see him. Jack freaks out and I really thought he was going to stick a jackknife in Freckles’ knee, until she says that Kim WANTED to see Jack, at which point it’s JACK that gets all gooey and weepy, which is kind of freakin’ me out, to be honest. THERE’S NO CRYING IN 24!!

Totally uncomfortable father-daughter scene. More weeping, making it about as believable as the Penthouse Letters section. (“I never thought it would happen to me, but one day, my dad got mad cow…”) Another commonality with the Penthouse Letters section: It features Elisha Cuthbert. Jack demands that Kim leave! For HIM! And she GOES, leaving Jack alone with his bitterness, his rage, and his prions.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, GOOD LORD, ENOUGH with the random Fauxwater lackeys killing random FBI agents already. Lackey makes off in an FBI vehicle, that has GPS in it, that Janis conveniently remembers that she can use to track him.

And FINALLY we get some geography gibberish:

We couldn’t figure out if Janis says the SUV is on Highway 42 or 22 (but there’s neither in VA) at Smoketree, but then Freckles says she’s contacting Fairfax County police to intercept the guy, AND DC to cover the DC line in case the guy doubles back. DOUBLES BACK? Into DC? FROM QUANTICO??!?!

Blah blah shooting, Fauxwater guy shoots Moss with a big effing shotgun, and just as Moss is warning Tony about the guy with the shotgun… OH SNAP, turns out that Tony is in cahoots with the Fauxwater guy, he kills Moss, and now he has a canister of mad cow.

So that makes Tony a double agent several times over. Does that make him octuple agent? Sextadecatuple agent? Is it exponential?

Freckles is gonna pee herself.

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Unless this is your first time here you’re well aware that we’ve become a little obsessive over Jack Bauer’s tour through our city. We’ve got 15 17 hours worth of 24 recaps under our belt and fully intend to laugh (in order to fight off the tears) through the remaining 9 7 hours of Hollywood’s molestation of our geography. (Yes, Tiff, I suck at math.) So really, about the last thing we needed was to be further encouraged.

Enter the International Spy Museum.

The folks over at the museum’s retail store sent us some toys to play with, after having been entertained by our 24 recaps. So early in March, three items arrived in plain brown boxes by an unmarked panel truck. In the middle of the night.

After some email haggling, jovial threats and bickering, the WLDC staff managed to split up the loot gifts and proceeded to play with them: a micro-cam recorder, a ninja sword umbrella and night vision goggles. And now, we’re going to tell you all about it.

Spy tools, courtesy of Ghost_Bear

The Micro Stick Video Cam – seen above, to the right of the USB flash drive – is pretty nifty. Though the documentation touts it more for ‘interviews,’ it’s pretty obvious you can use it for any general purpose. With the 2GB micro card (included), it can record up to two hours on a three hour charge. The stick connects directly to your PC via USB or you can use the micro to SD adapter card to read from your PC’s card port.

The camera’s tricky to use, though. If you don’t follow the directions to the letter, you’ll either not record what you wanted or lose the data afterward. Because there’s no way to check once you start recording (except for the little blinking yellow light, which gets lost in the sunlight), you need to make sure you understand the procedures. And while you’re practicing, get a good idea of the camera’s field of view. It has a bit of a wide angle to the lens, which is good, but the constant light adjustments can make video taken outdoors or with sunlight a bit distracting. And keep in mind the more noise, the bigger your vid file will get.

It’s quite compact and handy, however. Since I don’t have a cell phone capable of recording video, I plan on having this on me anytime I go into town now in case I feel the need to snap a video of me being confronted by less-than-knowledgeable security guards about my photo rights. The video is of higher resolution than ones I’ve seen from cell phones, too. Overall, this nifty little cam is spectacular to use, once you get the hang of it.

You can see a sample vid I shot during my photo walk along Hains Point last week; I had done another during the NCBF over the weekend but because I didn’t follow the exact procedure, I lost that video. Yes, I know, I’d make a horrible spy…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tiff snagged the ninja umbrella. She giggled madly when I handed it over; I warned her to stay away from the capitol building, just in case.

Tiffany: The first thing you notice about the Ninja Umbrella is the distinctive handle. Molded in the shape of the hilt of a samurai sword, it’s a good 10 inches long, with a pretty fair level of detail for molded plastic, certainly enough to catch the eye of passerby who happen to glance over. It comes with a sheath, complete with strap suitable for carrying your umbrella cross-body, but I have to say… the sheath is made out of the same nylon as the umbrella. So once you get done wielding it, there’s no potential for calmly sliding the closed umbrella back into place behind your back. Oh no, instead you have to do the totally nerdy remove the strap over your head and apply the sheath like a condom maneuver. Bummer.

On the other hand, there’s something very Hiro Protagonist-esque about walking down the street with this thing strapped to your back. That is, if you can deal with the extra width you suddenly need every time you walk through a door. I never did get used to that. But all of that is instantly wiped away by the utter perfection of the actual name of the product, printed in plain block lettering on the tag clipped to the strap:

“UMBRELLA FOR THE CIVILIZED BUT DISCONTENTED”

Finally, the Eyeclops Night Vision Goggles got fought over by Don and Katie (Katie won). They both had a bit to say on these:

Don: The night vision goggles are more toy than tool; I actually have a friend who – an apparent effort to prove he had more money than sense – bought some Russian surplus night vision gear about a decade ago. Military grade stuff is typically a “starlight scope,” meaning it picks up the tiny ambient amount of light and amplifies it so you can see. These rely on built-in infrared emitters so that the IR-sensitive camera can show you a picture on the little screen in the eyepiece.

I know, it’s tech gobbledygook to rival 24, right? [Well, mine's actually true...] The only reason you should care is that this means you can’t decide to strap them on and make a 2am bicycle ride down Rock Creek Park. They just can’t put out enough illumination to let you see more than a few feet away when you’re outside. You’ll crack your fool head open even before someone sees you and alerts the Secret Service.

They’re great fun in an enclosed space, however, and light up a pitch black room like you wouldn’t believe. Strap em on and, in your best Kiefer growl, say “The Geneva what?”

Surprised spy, courtesy of Don Whiteside

Katie: After throwing on the night goggles and running around my apartment wearing my jammies and stalking the cat, I decided that there are a lot more ways to get killed wearing the goggles than for them to be actually useful.

First of all, the goggles provide no peripheral vision, and no vision of what is directly underneath you so the first way to get killed is by wearing them WHILE RIDING A BIKE. Instant death. You won’t be able to see a darn thing, not to mention that if you’re wearing them while riding, oh, anywhere, and someone is bound to point at you and laugh. Or worse, point at you and shoot. You certainly look really goofy, if not a bit like a transformer, so picture this: you, on a bike, wearing the goggles, running into things and looking like a robot. Isn’t that an equation for instant death? I think yes.

And that leads me to my next way to get killed in night goggles: GO IN PUBLIC. Nothing says scary like a person with a huge red light on their head, wandering around and stumbling over grass and rocks. I’m pretty sure if I saw me outside my apartment I’d *at least* call the police. On the other hand – your neighbors got you down? Are they having a backyard party at 2 a.m.? Throw on your night goggles and flip flops, and run outside screaming like a banshee about noise ordinances. That’ll shut them up. Side note: I do not speak from experience.

Another way to get killed is to try LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW while wearing them. This is an instant fail. First of all, the red light needs to hit whatever it is you’re trying to look at – this does not happen when looking out the window. So basically, if you’re trying to spy on said neighbors throwing a party, all they’ll see is a big red light shining out at them, and all you’ll see is white fuzz. Who wins here? You: 0 Neighbors: 1. Again, this is not firsthand experience.

Lastly, THROW A DANCE PARTY. This is also a great way to die. The already stated lack of peripheral vision allows you to bump into coffee tables, couches, the cat you were stalking, and lamps. Sharp corners abound out there, people. And if that doesn’t do you in, your roommate will. Especially if you’re wearing them, rocking out to Ok Go while she’s walking in the door with that hot boy she met at happy hour last week. Seriously, though, I have no personal experience with this, I just um, think it. Really. There were no night goggle parties to Ok Go. Well, maybe to Lady Ga Ga… but I digress…

So there you have it. Four WLDC authors attempting to…well, I’m not sure what we were trying to do, except entertain our readers. And despite our clear failure to be spies, I think we did better at it than Jack Bauer. And we actually did it here in DC, too!

Many thanks to the International Spy Museum for the cool toys! Visit the museum’s online store if you’re looking for specs and prices; next time you visit, let them know you read about our exploits here on WeLoveDC!

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Recap: So, who thinks Jack is good and who thinks he’s bad this hour?

12:00

Moss and Alameida whisper sweet nothings to each other while harassing Freckles for satellite imagery. Janis thinks “the subnet is crashing,” which are likely words strung together by people who’ve heard about networks on shows like this one. Surprise! They’re surrounded! Did you really need a satellite to tell you that?

Jonas is nice and indignant about the government’s apparent hostility to Fauxwater. He shakes his cane at Moss and demands that he and his friends get offa his lawn.

Jack Bauer tracks down Knowles, Jonas’ one opponent on the board and secures his cooperation by PROMISING him that there are bioweapons on his company’s base. He then hangs up so he can call Moss, INSTEAD OF PUTTING KNOWLES ON HOLD.

While Moss creates a diversion by punching the turncoat IN FRONT OF 10 GUYS WITH GUNS, Tony just steals a gun off some oblivious mercenary and ducks into a building while no one notices. Apparently he’s a ninja now.

Back at the FBI ranch, apparently the weaponized mad cow is eating Jack’s brain really fast. Refusal to torture people is the first line of prion defense so Jack’s unusually vulnerable.

12:13

Jack convinces President Woman President that no really, he KNOWS where the weapons are now. She gets all maternal and checks on how he’s doing since he’s got the mad cow and all.

Li’l Taylor and L&O Crazy Killer Guy have a tense phone exchange where he demands even MOAR inside information or so help me, he will TELL HER MOTHER WHAT SHE DID. Also, he’s at the Roosevelt Continental, which I’m guessing is a way to avoid using the Willard’s trademark?

Knowles’ card key doesn’t work, so Janis does some socket magic on the FBI comm device that Alameida has somehow mysteriously had in his back pocket for an indeterminate amount of time. Knowles runs interference on the Fauxwater goons to give Tony time to get in. Apparently the Fauxwater goons have forgotten that the chairman of the board can fire their asses.

Back at Washington Field, Jack is showing some of the classic signs of mad cow disease. Of course, Creutzfeldt-Jakob actually can’t be transmitted through the air, but hey, who’s keeping track of the science?

12:??
Li’l Taylor is out to meet creepy Reporter Ken, and she is clearly up to something, perhaps a Linda Tripp maneuver. The weapon is a mere 30 miles away! (the base was 13 miles away last week… don’t know wtf that’s about) She makes a brilliant point about operational security while violating it. And apparently Ken is willing to kill the story, for a price. A SEXY PRICE!! *bowchickawowow* I don’t know when 24 became eligible for a public showing at UMD…

Jack gets some medicine for the mad cow he could not possibly have contracted so Freckles can argue with him about the daughter she thinks he should call.

Alameida whups the ass of two Fauxwater guys. I swear, it is SO hard to find good mercenaries these days.

12:40

Tony’s got a machine gun, ho ho ho. He confirms the canisters and Jack practically salivates at the possibility of nuking the base from orbit. Tony makes like a tree…

Knowles and Jonas spend some time reminiscing, and Jonas launches into another tirade ala his role in Frenemy of the State. Oh, there was nothing here? How about QUANTICO? Jonas beats Knowles with a blunt object and splatters him all over South America on the map on the floor below his office.

But… oh shit! Fauxwater has detected the FIERY DEATH about to rain from above! They’ve got 3 canisters ready to go, and Jonas wants to call the President. Presumably to make her back off those limits on executive pay.

12: ??

As Li’l Taylor attempts to pick up her clothes and her remaining shreds of dignity, Creepy Reporter Ken says he’s going to run the story anyway. Li’l Taylor must be rubbish in the sack. But she has her revenge, by turning her Linda Tripp into a Paris Hilton and showing him the cell phone sex tape she made. What’s that, Ken? You have a shrew of a wife?

President Woman President needs Li’l Taylor back at the White House ASAP, because apparently she just can’t face bombing the BEJEEZUS out of the Fauxwater base without her by her side.

Jonas calls President WP and shows off his shiny new bioweapons to prove he’s not bluffing and threatens to launch the weapons in a few minutes if she doesn’t call off the air strike happening in a few seconds. I don’t get it either.

Montage! Freckles looks tense, Jack grimaces and shoots up, and the President runs to the situation room to scream at the admirals until the follow a DIRECT ORDER from the Commander in Chief to abort the airstrike. I bet a male president wouldn’t have to put up with this kind of guff from the Joint Chiefs.

Next week: Hodges arrives at the White House, all 13 missiles are prepared, and Jack grimaces some more.

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Got this in the email inbox late last night. Thought I should share it with everyone – seems Jack Bauer reads WLDC! Leave him your comments; he said he’ll be watching… -BHR

After innumerable years as a government employee trotting the globe, I’m finally back in the center of it all, beautiful Washington, DC. And I love it here.

There are lots of reasons why; I thought, since everyone’s been ragging on me this week, why not ‘fess up and tell you? DC is awesome for so many reasons:

‘Jack Bauer’ courtesy of ‘friskytuna’

• The government is so efficient around here! Congress gets rolling early in the morning, allowing me to make my testimony and still have a full day to track down and beat up African terrorists.
• The excellent proximity of FBI HQ and Nationals Park. I can’t wait to head over for a game and suds after a brisk morning of technobabble with FBI geeks. Hey, there’s tickets still left for Opening Day when the Prez tosses the first pitch! Sweet!
• I love how big DC is. Over 21 miles square! And never traffic to slow you down as you zip from place to place – a key benefit in my line of work.
• The Capitol dome is so big, you can see it from anywhere in town! It’s a great landmark to steer by.
• Northwest Airfield is so close to town, I can fly out to LA to see my clueless kid without having to schlep all the way to Dulles.
• Speaking of my bubbly daughter, there’s no pumas in Maryland or Virginia, so when she goes out for a walk, she won’t get eaten after she steps into a bear trap. What a relief!
• Metro is a fabulous transit line. You can get to locations like DuPont Circle from North Georgetown by way of Pentagon City in less than five minutes. And I heard Metro’s going to let people even drive their trains now! That might come in handy, in case I need to take out some tunnel-traipsing Chinese commandos.
• The huge, bustling Port of Alexandria is an amazing place, full of international cargo imports and exports. You could get lost wandering around there! I don’t know how those big container ships make it through those bridges, but that’s the awesomeness of modern engineering for you.
• DC is divided into quadrants, for those of you who didn’t know. (I looked at the map tacked on our office wall.) It’s great for getting around the city. North, South, East, West quadrants… So when I need to get somewhere fast, like say, 5th and B Street, I know exactly where to go. God bless L’Enfant. I wish LA was set up like this!
• Speaking of how the District is arranged, I love how I can get from one end of the city to another with such minimal traffic. You’d think, for the seat of a nation, there’d be more people but I think with the advancement of CIP chips and sockets, there’s less need for data monkeys. You always hear about the horrible Beltway commute, but I’ve never found it a problem zipping up the 337. I think it’s a myth by these East Coasters to keep people from clogging the streets.
• Did you know DC has a fascinating underground? Lots of forgotten sewer tunnels and Cold War bunkers criss-cross the District; I’ve heard some even go under the White House. We should probably patrol those for African terrorists… You know, that’s not a bad idea. Catch ya later, DC!

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This week’s recap is probably going to be a shorter

11:03
Jack’s getting a very special shower out on Not-Duke Street as we start this week’s episode. They make some comments about pathogens and neurotoxins, but it’s all pretty unclear. Nerve agents tend to be pretty much fatal or harmless, without much degree of in between. But, maybe the writers of 24 know just about as much about bioweapons as they do about DC geography.

11:07
And now, Tony and Jonas are facing off at the Fauxwater headquarters in suburban Virginia where they’ve brought the bioweapon. It strikes us as odd that Fauxwater would have a small military installation inside the Beltway where land is so brutally expensive, but, I suppose, if the CIA can do it, so can Fauxwater.

11:10
As it turns out, the bioweapon appears to be a weaponized version of Mad Cow disease, which has a few of us kinda squirming in our seats a little bit. That’s worthy of being scary, but usually the lag-time on Mad Cow Disease is too long to really be all that terrifying.

11:12
Li’l Taylor and her Moms are hanging out in the Oval Office, and President Woman President offers her daughter the acting Chief of Staff gig while they work on getting a new one (which will definitely take longer than the eight hours the show has left.), while the Homeland Security Liaison interrupts with an important call that reveals all of last week’s episode, plus the bioweapon. She calls for a cabinet meeting, which means we pretty much won’t see her again this hour.

11:17
Back in Fedland, Renee is looking sullen, as she’s been detained by Agent Moss and his crew. Agent Moss fills in Renee, who stops hearing anything after “Jack’s been exposed,” showing off her smouldering love/hate for Jack. This was when I started wondering if there’s 24 fanfic. As it turns out, there sure is. (don’t click that link if you want to continue to have any faith in our society at large.)

11:22
Well, it seems in 10 minutes, despite it being the middle of the night, the Joint Chiefs came over from the Pentagon, and all the cabinet’s there. They’ve identified (in 15 minutes!) that it’s a Mad Cow plague that’s been weaponized by Fauxwater and sold off to the Juma Regime. The generals are pretty much arguing that because there are 1500 troops in the facility, pretty much the only way to be sure to get them all is to nuke them from orbit. None of them were sitting in a wheelchair with a nervous tick and a bad German accent. Pity.

11:24
They’re just about to ice Tony for knowing who Jonas is, and what his involvement is, when the right hand of Evil Jon Voight ices the guy and helps Tony escape, earning our Turncoat the OH SNAP of the week.

11:30
Don is quick to point out that the map that they flash up on the screen in the SitRoom is, in fact, down near Quantico, which would be due South of where they were before, not due West.

This was about where our TiVo decided that the crappy Comcast feed was too much to bear, and died. What’s left we watched in Standard Def, and some of this is just transcribed from our chat:

11:40

The facility is listed as being “13 miles from the Capital,” which, we all recognize is crap, if they’re down in Triangle. That’s more like 35 miles as the crow flies. Nice map reading, jackasses.

11:43
Don also notes that they read off lat/long coordinates tonight in decimal form, but then immediately typed them in in minutes & seconds. That’s either some mighty fancy math, or the people who read the scripts in special effects ignored the writers and decided that minutes and seconds was the True form of lat/long. Either way, there’s no way that math happened on the fly like that. Worse, the lat/long they read off was dead in the middle of the San Diego Airport some 2500 miles away from DC. Nice job, guys. Nice job.

11:51
An FBI assault team is now landing at the Fauxwater complex 35 miles south of DC. Never mind it was only really authorized 10 minutes before, and that they took helicopters, and not matter transporters. As Mike wrote, “An Executive order from the President to search your building.” Man, they told me if Obama was elected we wouldn’t see this sort of warrantless intrusion.

11:53
As it turns out, Turncoat is really a Turnturncoat, and has lead the FBI force into a trap, not to the source of the bioweapons attack, which means it’s back to square one. Fauxwater surrounds the FBI guys and there’s a tense scene. Of course, had it been a Cuban boy, or a Jesus wannabe in there, we’d have known just what to do. I have a feeling that Janet Reno is sitting at home, screaming at her television shaking her fist. That’s pretty much it for this week. Seeya next week!

We’ll be doing the usual double-duty tonight: Cover-it-Live Liveblogging, plus recap for the TiVo set.

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Apparently the Post has JUST NOW NOTICED that 24 screws up DC geography.

Even though the writers have a big ol’ map of DC on the wall, apparently they don’t consult it that often. Or watch the news, ever. (edited to add:) Oh, and apparently only people with “too much time on their hands” care about this stuff. Well, okay, I probably do have too much time on my hands. But people LIVE in DC. This is our HOME, and we care about having it portrayed accurately. 

Shameless plug: We’ll be back at our 24-snarking tonight as usual. Oh yes, we’re committed to you, our readers, to slog through every episode this season. Come watch with us in the chat room, and we’ll have a recap up afterwards.

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Alrighty, folks, we’re here for yet another week of 24 in DC. I think we’re headed outside again this week, so we’re excited to present yet another version of the live chat during the episode, and round-up after the fact! Here we go!

10:00

The Senator is still dead, in case you were wondering. And there’s no sign of Bauer. Except for that bulldozer he ran over the murderer with last week.

Moss and Junction Jack have a pissing contest about whose fault it is that Jack supposedly killed the Senator, and finally Junction Jack just looks tired.

Tony Alameda and Jack Bauer trade exposition, in flagrant violation of DC cellphone laws.

The First Dude is awake, and the President tells him that yay! Li’l Taylor has come home and accepted the cushy job offer as “Special Advisor.”

Junction Jack informs the President that Bauer has allegedly killed the Senator. Displaying more critical thinking skills than anyone else up to this point, the President is not totally credulous. But then Junction Jack resigns to protect the president from his bad decision to let Bauer loose. So… a cover for being an agent for Starkwood? The last time Bob Gunton played a good guy was when he was playing… well, Junction Jack on Greg the Bunny, so that’s where my money is.

10:10

Tony and Jack made it from the middle of DC to the Port of Alexandria in 10 minutes. Riiiiiight. Considering the Port of Alexandria is a little wooden dock, I have no trouble believing there’s only one guard. But oh no, he’s talking to his wife, who is pregnant with twins. That means nameless Port Authority Guard is not going to survive the episode.

10:16

Angelina’s daddy is talking to a guy who sounds like he’s from Bal’mer. Or Pittsburgh. Did you hear him ask if he could stand “dahn?” Then there’s an old white guy shouting match in the Starkwood board meeting- Cooperate with President Taylor! Don’t cooperate? Are you suuuuuure you didn’t have the Senator murdered? And look at Daddy Jolie getting all affronted at the implication.

Tony and Jack are talking to Disposable Security Guard, who apparently thought he was just helping smuggle Wiis in from South Korea. He didn’t know he was helping terrorists! As the terrorists arrive, DSG makes a nice speech about how expensive it is to pay for fertility treatments, apparently to make us feel bad for him when he inevitably ends up in a bullet-riddled heap on the dock.

10:29

DSG tries not to let on how nervous he is talking to the terrorists. Except he FAILS, and the guy starts interrogating him, finally demanding that he get in the car and take a ride to the container. Which, at the real port of Alexandria, would be about TEN FEET AWAY.

10:31

We’re back to Junction Jack, talking to Li’l Taylor, who is apologizing for being difficult. JJack then lectures Li’l Taylor on having an excess of ambition, which of couse goes in one ear and right on out the other.

This week’s “OH SNAP!” has been awarded to Li’l Taylor, for being the leak all along!

10:34

Commercial AGAIN, gawd. But I guess is the only chance the characters have to go to the bathroom.

10:40

Agent Moss is actually allowing EVIDENCE to challenge his ASSUMPTIONS. WHEN DID THIS BECOME CSI, DAMMIT? And Freckles is practically collecting apologies from bullheaded men this season. Good for her. Finally, she gives it up that Jack was chasing down a Starkwood lead when the Senator was murdered.

Back to the Port, this time with Dramatic Music! The terrorists are truly fierce, as they risk the wrath of the dockworkers’ union by moving their own cargo. OH NO, we knew it! Disposable Security Guy is gonna get… disposed of.

But no! Jack shoots the terrorist, since after all, it’s been nearly a whole episode since he’s iced someone. He was starting to get twitchy. Of course, now, there’s the mess of the other terrorists to deal with.

YES! MACHINE GUN FIGHT!

Look at all these shipping containers and forklifts and crap. The real Port of Alexandria would collapse under this weight. Tony gets caught, but Jack is already in the truck, escaping.

10:55

Jack calls Larry! Jack tells him he’s on “highway 236, exit 29.” 236 is Duke Street, basically, so that’s not so implausible, but there’s not so much “exits” on 236 as there are “left and right turns.”

Jack jumps into the back of the truck WITH THE BIOWEAPON, but you see, he is unharmed, because he HELD HIS BREATH. The terrorists approach and start shooting, so Jack runs across the deserted highway, abandoning the cover of the truck, because they’ll NEVER hit him that way. *eyeroll*

10:58

Jack informs Larry that he’s abandoned the truck “about 7 miles before the weigh station.” Yeah, you know, the IMAGINARY weigh station on 236.

Oh, I guess Jack actually was exposed to the bioweapon. What a shame. I guess holding his breath didn’t do that much good after all.

Previews: Wet, nekkid Bauer action next week!

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9:02

Jack’s running out to his car which is supposed to be at Kennedy Memorial Hospital. He breaks into a sweet old ride with a nice laptop inside, not to mention some easily spottable Sprint gear.

9:04

That’s a really derelict looking hospital that Jack just “escaped” from. More Warehouse than Hospital, I think.

Aaaaand Freckles with the ID of The Real Killer in the photo! Good job, Freckles! And not just the ID, but exposition too! Hey wait a minute… is she after Bill’s job? God, the body’s not even cold yet…

9:07

Hodges and his lackey are talking in what looks like a very nice K Street office. It actually looks a lot like one of the floors at the Columbia Square building on E Street, but I’m not 100% sure.

9:10

Jack is driving through somewhere in DC. Judging by the amount of not-turning, I’d say he’s on one of the main arteries. Of course, this is magic DC, so Jack’s probably using some sort of cross-dimensional highway that just LOOKS like he’s using a straight road, when instead he’s using a mythic tunnel between Anacostia and Petworth or something.

9:19

And, we’re back. Freckles is indignant to Agent Moss, and finds herself under arrest.

The Senator’s at his mythical home on Deerbrook Avenue, somewhere in one of the four quadrants. It is, I’m certain, no accident that the search results in Google suggest, instead, a map of Washington DC:

DON’T GO IN THE BASEMENT, SENATOR! Oh wait, it’s just Jack. Who must be, like, the politest hostage-taker ever. Do you see how he addresses the Senator as “sir” while ordering him around? That’s what separates us from the terrorists, kiddies.

9:28

Does anyone believe that’s the White House briefing room? Anyone? It’s laughable.

The guy who plays the murderer on like, every episode of Law & Order ever has some illicit information for Junction Jack. Oh noes! A leak? (Why wouldn’t there be a leak in an administration where the FBI, Secret Service, and Congressional staff are all compromised? Does this surprise anyone? And why doesn’t anyone have a password on their computer?)

Meanwhile, Mr. Chloe is getting strong-armed into decrypting what Freckles sent to Jack. It’s Blowfish encryption, he says, very strong UNLESS you know the secret back door into it that the coder built. Apparently the 24 writers don’t know that Bruce Schneier, Geek God of Security, wrote the Blowfish algorithm while ensconced on the holy mount of Encryptius. In other words, don’t go accusing him of building back doors into his shit. He will punk your day. Also, 148-bit Blowfish encryption is mathematically impossible.

So Jack is accessing the sekrit files pertaining to Sangala and Starkwood on the Senator’s mysteriously unprotected computer, and apparently NO ONE EVER ENHANCED THE PHOTO of the cop at the accident scene before, because look! He’s the same guy who killed the federal witness!

And juuuuust as the Senator comes around to being a Bauer-Booster, there’s a knock at the door. OH SNAP*, the Senator is gunned down in the doorway of his own house. That’s cold, dude.

*That was for Katie.

9:53

Junction Jack is accusing Li’l Taylor of leaking the information about Bauer to the media, right in front of her mother! Li’l Taylor makes with the alibi, though, making Jack look the fool.

Don’t you cross Junction Jack. He will cast you down with the Sodomites.

And at LAST, we are finally back outside, where Jack Bauer is whining like a sissy at that tiny little cut on his hand. I’m pretty sure there are no fences that tall in DC, and especially not anywhere near a neighborhood where a Senator lives. For that matter, I’m pretty sure in the Senator’s neighborhood that amount of machine gun fire wouldn’t go unnoticed.

But hey! Jack found a bulldozer with the keys still in it! Convenient, no? After Jack brings a fist to the gunfight and WINS, he conveniently finds a text message on the dead suspect’s phone that tells him that our next big plot point is happening at the Port of Alexandria, yard C, at 10:30. It takes half an hour to get there from the middle of DC-ish, and so conveniently, that’s how long Jack HAS to get there.

Oh yeah, and Tony’s at 5th and B. STILL NO QUADRANT. Seriously, writers? Read a damn book about DC.

And that wraps it up for this week. But next week? BLACK HELICOPTERS. Because no show taking place in DC is complete without them.

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Since it’s just me this week I’m gonna eschew the CoverItLive software and kick it old school, like we did back in the old days of… two weeks ago. Hopefully we’ll spend more than 3 minutes of the episode out of the White House set so I’ll actually have something to snark about.

9:06 8:06 and we’re still in a series of twisty rooms, all alike. I could mock the silliness of a supposed internet video feed that can’t be blocked – tell it to Verizon, who manages to block my feeds all by themselves – but what fun would that be?

9:09 8:09 oops, Bill just cost the taxpayers a whole lot of stimulus money. The White House is gonna need some screen doors and a whole lot of paint.

Whoops! Jerked up the time. Fixed now. My desperate prayers for some actual DC or supposed-DC scenery continues after the jump.

8:12 and we know Jack’s sad – the ticking clock is silent! The digits mourn.

8:15 and we want to move to Andrews? That can’t be the fallback location if there’s an issue with the White House, can it? Well, we’re not going there – we’re gonna stay right here in the blah set. Oh, and call that fictional West Arlington hospital, wouldja soldier? We might need to use the First Dude as an plot device again.

8:22 and it seems that Daddy Jolie and his CSI:Miami buddy are part of a thinly-disguised Blackwater clone. Maybe they’ll go outside at some point.

Oh, speaking of stopping transmissions on internet servers – a new Comcast commercial!

8:27 and we’re back. Time to take Jack back to the non-existant SE FBI HQ! Ohhhh except that Junction Jack, having been sucked in by Agent Freckles’ power-play, is ordering Moss to put Jack to work. Booyah, terrorists – Jack’s gonna pretend to torture you!

How long before Jack’s empty threat to torture the prisoner turns into real torture? I’m betting on 2.1 seconds. Rounded down.

To the nearest minute.

8:33 and we’re getting in a chopper. You’d think a promotion would have gotten Jack out of handcuffs a little faster. Or that Jack would have glared them off by now. Apparently the emergency isn’t so great that there isn’t time for Moss and now-former Agent Freckles to have a little face off.

8:36 and we’re out at commercial. C’mon, where’s the long shot of the shopper going in a hugely inappropriate direction? Did the whole budget go into that fireball?

Apparently the greening of 24 continues. Why can’t Jack just punch global climate change into compliance?

8:40 and they just named a real area hospital. I may swoon.

C’mon Fauxwater, you don’t need to send a dude into a DC hospital to commit an assassination, just convince them the patient is a journalist.

8:48 and the First Daughter is telling Junction Jack he should resign for incompetence and that she’s going to find out who’s to blame and make sure they’re held accountable. Now they’re not even PRETENDING they’re in DC anymore.

Sorry Wayan, I should have been more clear – it’s not a real DC AREA hospital…

8:55 oh you should not have made Jack drool. You’re gonna pay for that.

Well, we’re coming up on the end of the episode and Jack’s in trouble. But he’s in trouble OUTSIDE! Hooray, I see street!

Hopefully next week we’ll get some scenes that aren’t on a sound stage. See you then.

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We’re trying something new this week – we’re going to use CoverItLive and have multiple ones of us going at once. Be merciful – we’re used to being able to press SAVE when we feel good about things, now we’re performing live without a net! We’ll be starting at 8 on the dot this time, so watch with us!

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The voiceover promises that “this is the hour that changes everything!” Let’s hope that means that Jack will finally figure out where FBI headquarters actually is. Here we go with the recap, and welcome to another week of We Love DC’s geography-snarking.

5:00

We open with weaselly traitor FBI nerd at his desk, being taken to task about issuing the federal warrant that thwarted our hero.  Ooh, looks like Blondie is a traitor too! Agent Weaselly has the Magical Undetectable Bug of A Thousand Expositions!

Agent Freckles is freaking out that Debaku’s girlfriend is in danger. Silly Agent Freckles, thinking of “assets” as “human beings.” You’ll never stop ANY terrorists with that attitude, missy.

Debaku lets his girl know that he knows what she’s been up to since she knows what he’s been up to. Or something. It’s hard out here for an African military operative when you just don’t know who to trust.  Aww, isn’t it sweet that they’ve made up?

Finally the DC-Cops-on-LA-Streets work out this whole “warrant” thing and let Freckles and Jack go, but oh no! Chloe has lost the girlfriend’s signal!  

Debaku and the girlfriend turned south on 11th St., which does actually go south. Small favors. Apparently the girlfriend is not taken in by Debaku’s “oh, this corruption is SO TIRING” charade.

And that is NOT 11th Street. Eleventh does cross New York Ave, but not in a residential area, and surely not  with that big wide turning lane in the center.  But points for effort for those lame-ass “WASHINGTON, DC FESTIVAL” banners on what is clearly an LA street.

AW YEAH, Debaku rolled his SUV! Jack calls for an ambulance, presumably not for Debaku, who he’ll probably just torture in a minute anyway.  Oh no, Freckles! The car is on fire! Stop trying to rescue that innocent civilian you endangered!  Finally, Freckles grows a spine and pulls a gun on Jack to demand some damn conscience…. and the SUV blows up!

(Aren’t we due for a timestamp update about now?)  Oh, there we go:

5:12 – Commercial Break

5:16

ARE YOU KIDDING? YOU SPENT FOUR MINUTES ON COMMERCIALS! WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

Junction Jack is all “Oooh, important military stuff,” and the President is all, “Don’t bother me with that running-the-country crap right now, because I’m feeling guilty and need to talk about my feelings.”

The CTU Agent of Well-Timed Exposition appears to explain that Debaku may not live and urges the President back to the Oval Office where he can protect her. For the record, she’s the freaking president of the United Freakin’ States. The Oval Office should come to her. But at least we’re back outside now.

More DC emergency response vehicles on a street that does look vaguely like DC, but isn’t. I can’t figure out if Jack is trying to interrogate Debaku or kiss him.  There’s a list, and Debaku is about to give it up, but OH NO, the Consciousness Lapse of Extended Dramatic Tension gives Jack an excuse to dig around in Debaku’s innards for what looks like a Compact Flash card.  But apparently Jack has never seen anything like it (maybe he’s never owned a digital camera), and he hands the blood-soaked object to a cop who is not wearing anything resembling a Metropolitan PD uniform, who is ALSO not wearing gloves and who does not seem to care about the obvious biohazard.  That’s hardcore!

Agent Weaselly and Blondie are arguing in the bathroom. 

Dammit, I need another car chase so I’ll have more geography to whine about.

Wait, WHAT did Blondie just say about  tying servers together with… um, an AVI motherboard reconfigured for “macro uplink?” In the absence of a car chase, I’ll bitch about stupid technobabble that doesn’t mean anything. Now get out of the ladies’ room, Agent Weaselly.

5:25 – Commercial Break

5:29 -MORE TIME WASTED!

Agent Freckles is all boo-hoo-hoo about what happened to the girlfriend and getting on Jack about being focused on, you know, saving the country and stuff. 

Meanwhile, back at Fictional FBI Field Office, the Compact Flash card has apparently morphed into an SD card, that Chloe says is a “PX17 drive with an auto-download function.” If Chloe can’t identify it accurately, no wonder Jack was so confused.

5:31

Agent Weaselly and Blondie are working on tying their servers together and bypassing safety protocols. While Weaselly is busy promising the data will be wiped out, Blondie busily panics about how she can’t wipe out the data. Awesome!

Blah blah misused technology jargon that I’m not really listening to or I’ll just get mad… and Chloe figures out she’s being sabotaged! Quick! To the “mainframe” room. Apparently Dell makes mainframes now.  

Oh, snap! Weaselly shoots Blondie while they’re getting all hot and bothered against a server rack (they ARE awfully hot).  And somehow no one at Fictional FBI Field Office notices or hears the sound of a weapon discharge. Weaselly feeds Moss some crap story but doesn’t manage to wipe his own fingerprints off the gun.

Oh hey, here’s the people who noticed the gunfire. Took them long enough. Thanks for protecting us, FBI.

5:36 – Commercial Break

5:40 (Sigh. Really.)

Weaselly continues to throw Blondie under the bus and Moss very credulously gives up and fills him in.

OH WOW, Chloe mirrored something on an outside server, which she ALWAYS does when dealing with sensitive stuff. Because that’s so secure. But it looks like Weaselly was foiled! Chloe recovered the files, and Weaselly tries really hard not to shit a brick when Moss informs him. Admirable poker face, Weaselly.

Oh yeah, it’s Janis. I had almost forgotten about the purple-legged one. She’s got an annoying but pointless couple of lines before Weaselly is prevented from escaping.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the medical extras try to pretend like there’s some reason to mess around with forceps near Debaku’s head while the girlfriend’s sister comes in (in her WHEELCHAIR, in case the message wasn’t clear enough) to lay the guilt even heavier down on Freckles. What you can’t have in writing and acting, you can have through conveniently-timed apperances of minor characters. But Jack is almost giddy with the recovery of the data.

Oh, Freckles. You shouldn’t slap Jack in the face. His mother slapped him once. ONCE. But OH NO SHE DI’INT: Freckles reveals that she actually would have shot Jack back there at the flipped SUV. You see, Jack? You’re not the only one with a compromised moral compass. How do you like her now, bitch?

5:48 Commercial Break

5:52 (Jack is just going to flip his shit)

A tense mother-daughter moment at the White House. You thought your relationship with YOUR mom had a lot of baggage. At least your mom isn’t the leader of the free world and always going all “Can’t tell you that because of National Security” every time you want to have a real talk with her.

Exposition Guy is back! And he knows all about the Traitor Database That Was Erased But Not Really.  Oh yeah, and Exposition Guy reminds the President that the nation owes Jack Bauer a debt of gratitude, and maybe she could make that whole testimony-before-Congress thing go away.

5:56 

Jack relaxes quietly and gazes out over the reflecting pool. Get it? THIS is what Jack was trying to save! And it really is a gorgeous shot of DC, but then Tony has to show up and ruin it by reminding us that there are still 16 more hours in this day and the writers had to fill them with ANOTHER Sengala-related crisis.  And what a coinky-dink- the chief of staff of the Senator that has it in for Jack is involved with this vast conspiracy.

And at the close of the show, Senator Goody-Two-Shoes is headed for the White House to talk about Jack with the President, and unwittingly INVITES A TRAITOR ALONG. Dum-dum-DUM!!

I hope we get more car chases next week. I like the car chases.

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Hey there everyone. Tom and Tiff are currently being held captive in a basement of a Los Angeles bodega Dupont-area shop  so I’m going to be judging tonight’s battering of our beloved down. Jack don’t want to hurt you, DC, but you just make Jack so ANGRY….

Top of the hour means recap time to catch you up to date. I think this is the one where Jack faces a moral quandary and does what he has to in order to protect America. At the end of the last episode some extended gunplay had led to tragedy: over a dozen cases of Negra Modelo and Modelo Especial were broken and the beer sprayed everywhere.

Oh, and the First Dude got shot too.

Let’s go!

4:00 and they’re coming into the not-Dupont shop. Agent Freckles has barked at high volume that the first dude was shot but don’t spread it around. Look at the upside, at least he’s not a journalist with a headwound.

Then again, there’s no such thing as a West Arlington Hospital, so how bad can the care be?

4:05 and the quickest clearance process ever is taking place in the Oval Office. Where’s your SF86, Buchanan?4:07 and Debaku is chattin up his lady in the cleanest alley our area has never seen. Where’s the tranny crack addict having emmmm ‘an interlude’ in the background?[NSFW]

4:09 Roosevelt Continental Hotel? Ummm okay. At least they said traffic will be bad, which narrows it down to about 64 square miles of DC.

4:12 2191 Euclid. Still no quadrant. Amusingly it’s an actual address…. in Long Beach, CA. I’m gonna give you a little benefit of the doubt and pretend it’s a VA address and you’re in Clarendon so I don’t have to throw this beer at the tv. Enough beer has suffered for this show.

Oh, a commercial for Lie to Me, the DC-set show that makes 24 look like Google Street View.

4:15 and we’re back. Chloe and her jackass bald hubbie are driving in a car with DC plates, which they went out of their way to show us. Twice. Never seen buses that color in our area though. Nice to see the TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION flashed up in large, though.

4:18 and they’ve claimed the Euclid address is in Mt. Pleasant. So much for my rationalization.

4:22 and we’re in a pretty marble-filled hotel talking about the mythical Taft Airfield. Unless you’re near Rochester, NY.

4:31 This must be the West Arlington hospital. The surgeon says First Dude’s gonna be there for five hours, which still leaves another twelve hours of show afterwards. Oh, and the country elected a President with an estranged daughter who works at a consulting firm? This is more fiction than the SF86-less security clearance!

4:39 Chloe smack-talks the network setup while writing down a 7 character cellphone identifier so she can uniquely identify one of the 159,000,000 cell phone users in the US and we’re off to commercial.

4:46 “We’re not lobbyists” says Olivia “Snotty brat First Daughter” Taylor. Yeah, because nobody in this town ever exerted some influence while unregistered and failed to pay their taxes and is Tom Daschle. Whups, my subtlety module failed. Chloe wouldn’t approve of how it’s configured either I bet.

4:49 And it’s time to leave Mt Pleasant, south on 14th. Well, that would mean Columbia Heights but I’ll cut you some slack on that, it’s only a few blocks.

More Lie to Me commercials. I liked the premiere episode where they go to Dulles Airport on the outside and LAX on the inside.

4:55 and Dubaku’s lady asks how much further. I’d like to know too, but any DC resident would know heading south on 14th that there’s noplace closer than National they could be headed in that direction. Left on Connecticut? Are they flying out from the Rayburn building?

Wait, 14th to Ct to Mass to N? Through Dupont? What? I’m gonna have to rewind this to parse it out but I’m confident that path made no sense. At the very least you cannot get from Mass to N – N doesn’t connect to the circle.

And now Jack’s down on the ground in the middle of the street. Where’s the pothole or metal plate?

Wow, and we’re done. FBI traitor revealed, though only to us. In her quest to learn the truth about cats, dogs, and Chloe it looks like Ms Garofalo is going to be fingered as the peeper.

I’m done here, folks. See you next week!

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We’re running a little late tonight thanks to the President’s Press Conference. We’ll be underway in a minute.

Okay, here we go. It’s the recap of last week, when Ike Debaku got a first name, and an apartment somewhere near Dupont. Prime Minister Ule Motobo also has a first name now, and is on the way to the White House. President Taylor’s husband, the First Dude, is in the trunk of a car somewhere in DC.

3:03

The First Dude is being taken into an alley. Meanwhile, Ike is at a hotdog stand (with a TV?) listening to President Taylor from the White House’s tiny magic press room where there aren’t chairs. Ike’s now in a backroom of a storefront near Dupont. In his underground lair, which is fairly expansive, he’s got the First Dude tied up. Ike’s going to use him up like Tina and probably beat him pretty solid along the way.

3:06

President Taylor continues in the tiny press room. Seriously, the White House Press Room has seats. And it’d be packed to the gills, and not just in front of four reporters and staff. When the President speaks, there’s people are around. Jack, Bill and Chloe, Wondergirl, are heading into the Oval Office as President Taylor finishes.

3:10

And now we break the bad news that there are bad men inside President Taylor’s Government. Bill takes a beating from the President for hiding all this. C’mon guys, get back outside. This dialogue is really, really terrible. And Renee’s trigger finger is looking itchy.

3:13

Debaku wants Motobo at some sort of power plant in “East DC”. They cut off his finger as proof. I can’t make out the name of the supposed power plant in “East DC.” We have quadrants here. Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest. C’mon. Use ‘em.

3:15

Agent Jackass has been tapped by Renee (huh huh, I’m 12) to put a team together to rescue the First Dude. They’re off to rendezvous at the Capitol Reflecting Pool. A bit of a hike from the White House, wouldn’t, say, the Spy Museum make for a better cover and closer to both offices?

3:22

Yep, that’s totally the local Fox News reporter, Brian Bolter on the screen, even if that’s not Fox 5’s badge on the coverage. Bauer and Renee meet Agent Jackass to compare notes. Bauer’s thinking they’re going to go torture the family of the other Secret Service agent. Awesome. That’s vintage Jack right there. Maybe he’ll just hold Agent Jackass’ head underwater at the reflecting pool to convince him?

3:26

Meeting’s over. Back to the underground lair in Dupont. Debaku’s woman is on the phone, begging him to come to dinner at her place. He sounds like a lame boyfriend.

3:29

Junction Jack is sending out a decoy Motobo with Bill and the gang, and is pulling back the fleet to make it look right. Jack’s 7 miles from the Beltway, headed toward Bethesda, and Agent Vosler, except Vosler’s headed South….toward Andrews? No, not so much. Andrews is antipodal from Bethesda, and getting around the Beltway is going to take at least 30 minutes plus in mid afternoon traffic, probably more like an hour. Christ. They also mention some nonsense about a “337″ route that would take him there more quickly. There’s no 337 in DC. Or inside the Beltway. Closest is a crossroad in Maryland between Route 4 and Route 5, which is near Andrews, but absolutely nowhere near Bethesda or Connecticut Ave.

Lordy. They screwed that one but good. I exclaimed when I heard it the first time, and scared the cat a bit.

3:35

Trigger-happy Agent Renee is holding Agent Vosler’s wife at gunpoint while the baby cries. Man. She’s a piece of work.

Jack’s now on 9th Street headed south. Allenford and Audish? Really Jack? Did you fail at geography? They’re now back in LA. Jack’s doing stunt driving up an LA one-way (you can tell because of the monster skyscrapers.) and running right into Vosler’s car. Jack leaps out and beats agent Vosler silly. This one’s a major geographical clusterfuck. There’s nothing like this near Andrews.

Jack says they’re running out of time.

3:40

Supposedly, Debaku’s lair is on “Arlington Avenue” in DC. There’s an Arlington Road in Bethesda, and an Arlington Boulevard in Arlington, but there’s no Arlington Avenue in DC. How is there no police on scene when Jack runs out to his car? Seriously? Big accident like that in the middle of DC, there’s no way in hell there’s not a cop nearby within 3 minutes. And looters? Really? Dude, we’re not that crime-ridden here, at least not in daylight.

3:45

12451 Arlington Avenue. It’s clear these writers are from LA. Pretty sure there’s not a single five-digit address in the whole of the District. Can anyone confirm that? I’m seriously amazed that their geography is about as terrible as it gets. This is pretty depressing.

3:48

Debaku’s off to “take care” of his girlfriend’s meddling sister, who seems to have figured out that “Samuel” is actually Ike.

3:54

The showdown at the power plant begins. Judging by light and color palette, I’d say that they’re somewhere near the mysterious airport in Northwest. Which is probably actually in Southern California. Debaku figures out the scam and orders the car blown to bits. Sorry guys.

Jack and Renee head to rescue the First Dude, except somehow they’re in Los Angeles again. The perfume store has a number on the marquis that says 489-0037. Google the number and perfurmes and you’ll see the first hit is a Perfume warehouser on 6th Street in Downtown LA. Nice job guys. You could totally have found something on Connecticut to match it.

Debaku’s in Dupont and calling into Downtown LA. The last of the bad guys shoots the First Dude right in the gut. Renee’s getting an ambulance when the show closes for the week.

Lordy. This was a pretty rough week. There were a couple nice little location shots in DC this week, it’s just that they were ridiculously far away from where they were actually supposed to be. Downtown LA stood in for DC or suburban Maryland, and the whole thing was pretty much crap. Deeply disappointing.

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Oh 24. I look forward to mocking you every week now. I didn’t think that was possible. And yet, here we are. Last week, we had all manner of craziness with the First Dude going on, planes crashing over “Edgeborough,” and frankly I haven’t seen a cabinet that full of pansies since I visited the garden shop the last time.

With that in mind, here we go, episode five!

2:00pm

We’re at the Washington Field Office. Or, at least, the pretty glass entrance. For those who haven’t been following along at home, that’s in Judiciary Square, not at the HQ at 9th & E.

Oh goodie. We’re opening up fresh sockets. Christ on a pogo stick, these people glom on to one IT term. Sigh.

2:04pm

Junction Jack wants to talk to the First Dude, but he’s incommunicado. JJ’s a little testy with the FBI SAIC.

2:05pm

The Motobos are in 546 Adams, according to Chloe, Wondergirl, and Jack’s all about the security specs. Turns out, that’s Debaku’s hideout, where he’s working on doing some damage to that Ohio Chemical Plant. Debaku and Motobo are having a “which one of these african dictators has a larger unit” contest. For now, Debaku’s winning.

I can’t seem to find an Adams street anywhere. But, it seems the same kind of bland California office park kind of place one might find in, say, the suburbs of Los Angeles.

2:11pm

And we’re off to Kidron. Sigh. Fortunately they’re at least butchering Ohio instead of DC for the moment.

2:18pm

Jack’s back inside the ductwork of the imaginary building. Somewhere, John August is cringing, as going-in-through-the-ducts is deeply lazy writing. Chloe, Wondergirl, suggests that it might be an SDART processor running the CIP device. This is like saying the freemostat on your car is responsible for over-torquing the cluster drive. It sounds good, but it means absolutely nothing.

2:25pm

Creepy White Guy bites the dust as Renee shoots him in the back. Jack, Tony and Bill head into the command center where Debaku and his cronies are hanging out. Tony pronounces the CIP device “dead,” but any MacGuffin worth its salt is never really all that “dead,” so I figure we’ll see it back right after the C-break.

2:32pm

I really think Jeanine Garofalo is doing some the best/worst acting of her career here as Janis. It’s annoying, utterly vapid, and completely devoid of any intelligent writing, and yet, she’s absolutely brilliant. Meanwhile, Jack, Bill and Tony are doing a sweep of the building while Chloe, Wondergirl, and Renee watch the Motobos in the Van. They’re now outside of “546 Adams” which looks more and more like Southern California.

2:43

Back at 1600 Penn. Spineless Cabinet Member #1 is briefing the President on the sudden end of the crisis. The President isn’t buying it. We’re keeping the alert levels in place. Junction Jack is still looking for Agent Gedge and the First Dude. He’s mighty ticked. I can’t believe the First Dude’s been missing for an hour now and no one’s noticed. Seriously, this is silly. They’d have been all kinds of up in arms after just a minute or two of no contact.

They mention 404 Wilkinson Drive as the location of the apartment, which very much does not exist in DC. Closest would be in PG County, but there’s no way this building’s in PG County. And now the First Dude is fighting with the other fake Secret Service Agent.

Debaku’s on the Metro heading across the 14th Street Bridge toward Pentagon City. Hey wait! That’s actually the Metro! Points to 24 for actually getting the Metro right, even if there’s no earthly possible way that Debaku actually made it from North of Georgetown to a train heading across the Potomac in that amount of time, but at least they got the train lines right. Whew.

2:52pm

And Debaku’s getting off the Metro…at Dupont Circle? Sigh. Failboat. Man, it shouldn’t bum me out that they get this so very, very, very, very, very wrong, and yet… here we are.

2:55pm

President Taylor mentions a South Entrance to the White House. I’m pretty sure that no such thing exists. I’m trying to find the floor plans of the White to be sure, but as that faces the Mall, I’m pretty sure that’s as public an entrance as you could get, not someplace where you’d sneak someone in.

2:57pm

Debaku’s at home, and his girl stops by to say hello. His big apartment is somewhere near Dupont Circle, and he mentions a Korean grocery 3 blocks away. A quick Google search shows a Safeway, Dupont Market, a couple 7-11s and another Safeway within a short walk of the Dupont metro. I’m guessing that’s another big ol’ fail for the producers. So, good points to 24 for actually using the Metro, bad points for disregarding how it actually interacts with reality here in DC.

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And now we’re back for yet another week in the 24-straganza here at We Love DC. There are several active threads in DC, and we’ll start with the FBI at the FBI HQ which is magically neither at Judiciary Square or at 9th & E.

1:03pm

There’s an awful lot of grousing at the FBI this week. Janis and Billy Walsh are giving a lot of lip to the agent in charge, who responds by giving them a nice little smackdown inside their weird corporate cube.

1:06pm

The Yellow Van is headed through some magical construction wasteland near to DC with Jack and Tony and the Prime Minister & his Wife.

They’re somewhere with a really big hanger. This is the kind of space that’s only available on, say, an Air Force Base. But it doesn’t look like Andrews, and that’s pretty much the only place around that’s got a warehouse space this big.

1:14

Just before the C-Break, we get an ominous scene with an airplane screen and De Baku ordering planes in the DC area be struck down. Dun dun DUN!

1:17

Oh, Junction Jack is pissed. He’s upset that the President won’t trust him with her counsel. She tells him there’s been another breach, and that she wants to talk with all of the “First Responders” personally. Ma’am, with all due respect, that’s a lot of firefighters, police, paramedics and military, but we’ll get you the list…

1:23

Junction Jack is now arguing for a pullback from Sengala, and De Baku calls. He’s delivering threats while they’re blowing up a plane over what looks like the Mall. It’s hard to judge where the plane was blown up, and what actually did the job, but I think we’re lead to believe it was fighter jets circling the DC area on alert.

1:31

Ah, it was two airplanes that ran into each other. The planes went down in Edgeborough. I don’t think there’s an Edgeborough in DC, in Maryland, or in Virginia. The entire cabinet is ready to fold it up like a suit and head home, though, but the President is holding her ground. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Good.

Secretary Stevens packs it up and heads off to clean out his desk.

1:36

Thank God. A C-Break. It’s 3-0 Jack Bauer at the half-way.

1:40

Jack’s back at “Northwest Field” which is probably nestled up against the Chevy Chase Country Club or maybe tucked into a corner of Rock Creek Park or something.

1:42

Hey look, we’re back at the Residences with the First Dude and his son’s former girlfriend is on her way up. Creepy Secret Service Dude is setting up what is, I’m sure, going to look like a nasty accident. I thought we’d forgotten this plot point.

1:45

Yeah, that’s gonna look like an accident. Not quite. Major thanks go out to commenter RDO who pointed where the Residences are: “The Residences at Market Square, D St. Between 7th and 9th NW overlooking the Navy Memorial. The entrance you see is on D St. @ 8th.”

1:53

They’re packing up the PM at the “Northwest Airfield”, and a sweet Escalade has just rolled up. They’re taking the Motobos out of the area in the Pimp Ride, but not without leaving a few extra bodies behind first.

1:56

The First Dude is working hard on his Wesley routine but it still looks like the CSSD is going to hang him successfully.

Well, right up until they go over the balcony edge and CSDD is impaled on something nasty, and the First Dude finishes choking him to death.

And now we go into the final break. De Baku gets ready to blow up a plant in Kidron Ohio, and we’re out. One final note, they mentioned that there was no word from the White House yet, despite the plane’s proximity to the “Executive Mansion” (why not say White House?), which means they think “Edgeborough” is in the District. There’s an Edgewood, but that’s in Ward 5, nowhere near the White House. 4-0, Jack Bauer. Ouch, 24, haven’t any of you been to DC?

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