The first hour of 24. So many threads to pull together. This season they’re gonna air two hours at a time.

So we open up with some creepy looking dudes gathering together stalking someone. One of them is black. I’m gonna call him Black Dude. Could it be Jack Bauer? When we last saw Jack he was on a murderous rampage because some Rooskies killed his girlfriend, FBI Babe. He got his revenge but then dropped off the grid.

At the CIA station we see a bleached blonde babe doing the cardboard box routine which usually indicates you’re out of a job. They’re watching the take down of Jack in real time and the bleached blonde whose name is Kate sez during the chase that his best escape route was up to the roof. Right about now, I’m getting an IBM flashback and I can already see that Kate, in spite of her blonde locks, is the smartest person in the room and the CIA manager is like many IBM managers I’ve worked for, clueless. Later on we find out that Kate is getting canned because her husband was selling secrets to the Chinese and she didn’t know it. So how is that different than BJ getting BJ’s from Monica (who is back in the news again) right under Thunder Rodent Thigh’s nose and she’s supposed to be the smartest woman in the world? Anyway, Kate is the only one who has figgered out that Jack let himself be captured. I know how you feel Kate.

Switch to the American Embassy or I think that’s where they are. President Heller Biden? Remember him? He was the Secretary of Defense in season 4. He’s now president. He’s yakking with his staff and is worried about getting a base for drones because we’re catching a lot of flack around the world for it. He pulls a Biden and gets FDR mixed up with Teddy Roosevelt. Uh oh! Is this the onset of Alzheimers? His chief of staff, who looks like a real dorky asshole corrects him in private and Prez Biden sez when he loses his chief of staff job he can go on Jeopardy. Good one Prez! I can tell I’m gonna really dislike this dude. I’m gonna call him ACOS (Asshole chief of staff).

He gets a call from the CIA and tells them that no one is supposed to know about Jack and he wants him transferred to Special Activities where they can do the hard core interrogation. You can tell he doesn’t like Jack.

Back at the CIA, Kate tells IBM Manager soon to be her ex-boss that Jack is up to sumpin’. She gets nowhere. I feel your pain, Kate.

Cut to an AFB base where a black drone controller is in trouble with his boss, another IBM manager type. That has to be a neat job. Drone controller. Sit on your ass and fire rockets at ragheads without worrying about being shot down. Anyway, the black controller gets reamed by his boss for sumpin’ and gets his weekend pass canceled.

Back to the CIA. We’re jumping all over the place! IBM Manager wants a crack at Jack before the Special Activities folks get to pump him full of drugs. Jack’s wired up to a lie detector and flat-lines in response to every question. Even when IBM Manager tells him about his airhead daughter Kim having another baby.

Kate wants to find out who ratted out jack by giving the CIA the lead to his location. She asks one of her soon to be ex-coworkers to check it out.

Switch to Special Activities. OMFG! It’s Chloe strapped to a Gurney. It was either Lisa Kay or Vicki on FB who said Chloe looked Goth and they were right. The Special Activities dude pumps some more drugs into Chloe and she screams in agony. Wrong drugs. Give her a mix of dilaudid, fentanyl, and phenergin and she’ll tell you anything you want to hear and she won’t shut up. That worked for me when I had my stroke. I was higher than a kite. I really felt good! And I wouldn’t STFU! Cindy wrote a long comment about that and I moved it to the front page.

Back to the embassy and there’s another surprise. Audrey is back! When we last saw Audrey, she was a vegetable. She went hunting for Jack in China and they did a number on her. Prez Biden has been pissed at Jack ever since. Kim Raver was prolly happy to get this role since she had a series that flopped. CBS was thinking of a spinoff of NCIS LA called NCIS Blue which she would have been in, but I guess that went nowhere either. Thank the heavens for 24!

She’s now married to the ACOS. To marry him she would have to be a vegetable. He takes credit for her miraculous cure, but I think it’s the writers who should take all of the credit. He blames Jack for her being a vegetable. The ACOS wants the Special Activities guys to wring everything they can out of Jack and then turn him over to the Rooskies. He tells his underling that no one, especially Audrey and Prez Biden, should know that the CIA has Jack in custody.

Back to the CIA. Kate figgers out it was Jack who sent the info as to his whereabouts and that he wanted the CIA to capture him. She manages to get into the interrogation room and asks Jack if he is after someone. Whoa! The needles move! Could he be after Chloe?

IBM Manager has her escorted out of the building but she overpowers the guard and tazes him. Don’t taze me bro!

What’s going on outside the CIA? A utility worker has a power panel open. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? He looks like a bad guy, but this is 24 so you never know. The CIA dudes in the opening sequence looked like bad guys. He attaches some wires to a laptop.

Jack is handcuffed and is right outside the door to Special Activities. Black Dude is jeering at him and tells him he was supposed to be really good “back in the day”. Jack pushes on sumpin’ embedded in his hand. It’s a locator. The utility worker shuts off power. Jack takes out Black Dudee with his hands cuffed behind his back. He’s still good, Black Dude! Or maybe you’re bad. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!. He made you look like a pussy. Taken down by a white guy with his hands cuffed behind his back. How embarrassing! What’s with all the tattoos on Jack’s arm? By the time the Special Activities dude opens the door Jack is uncuffed and has a gun in his hand. He makes the dude take him to Chloe and then he pistol whips him into unconsciousness. That’ll teach you to pump drugs into one of my friends, you asshole!

Jack tries to wake Chloe up but she is unresponsive. He fumbles around in a drawer and conveniently finds some adrenaline or some other drug to wake her up. By the time he gets her out of Special Activities, Kate has found Jack’s handiwork and is after him. He shoots out some gas lines and causes an explosion which drives Kate back. She calls for a Level 5 lockdown, whatever that is. IBM Manager is befuddled. Who called for the lockdown? On whose authority? WTF is going on? Where am I?

Kate follows Jack and Chloe and gets the drop on him. “Get down on your knees with your hands behind your head”, she sez. Did I mention that Monica Lewinski was in the news again?

Jack presses his handy dandy locator device again and his accomplice blows a big hole in the street under where Jack and Chloe are, drops a ladder down, and Jack and Chloe escape, but not before Kate, who in spite of the Level 5 lockdown (Level 5 lockdown my ass!) makes it out to the parking lot to fire a few shots at the fleeing van.

Cut to Audrey and Prez Biden riding in a limo. “I Know that look”, sez Prez Biden. Really? He actually knows sumpin’? Wasting away in Joe Bidenville.

Audrey tells him she know about him getting FDR and Teddy mixed up. Prez Biden must be a Republican. If he were a Dimocrat it would be nothing. Just look at all the flubs Obungler and the real Biden make on a regular basis. Remember Joe talking about FDR going on TV during the Depression? No big thing. It’s just Jpe being Joe.

Prez Biden sez his descent into Bidenville is going faster than he realized. He just wants to make it through getting the treaty with the Brits signed and he’ll decide what to do after that. Get shitfaced! Treaty! Treaty! Treaty!

Back at the CIA it’s looking like the time when CTU was blown up. Kate is pleading her case and asking IBM Manager to let her help them find Jack. Black Dude, who got punked by Jack and who is getting Kate’s job doesn’t want her on the case. He wants to fuck up without her. Kate asks to speak to IBM Manager alone to plead her case. He tells her ACOS is already all over his ass about Bauer. She asks him what ACOS would say if he found out he ignored the only person who knew what was going on. I’ve had that conversation with an IBM manager Kate. Many times. I used to call myself Cassandra. I would tell management sumpin’ bad was gonna happen and they wouldn’t listen to me. When my prediction came true they would always ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sigh!

“Are you threatening me?”, he asks.

“No. I’m asking you.”

Meanwhile, in the van, Jack asks Chloe if she can go somewhere safe. He tells her it will be better if they split up, hands her a cellphone, and drops her off.

Back to the drone controller. All of a sudden he loses control of the drone and the missiles are armed. He calls his boss and tells him to get away from the truck. Being an officer, his boss e asks questions. The controller tells him the missiles are armed and he’s targeted and to get away from the truck. Now! The office continues to ask questions. I’ve been there as well. When I was in the Navy I used to think that officers went to four years of college to learn how to be stupid.

Bam! Missiles strike. Cut to a dude in profile who sez, “It’s done.

End of the first hour.

23 more hours to go. I predict that somewhere along the line Kate is gonna go rogue and she and Jack are gonna be the only ones who will be able to stop the drone strikes that will be trying to take out Prez Biden. So far, they’re the only two people on our side who have the intelligence to know what’s going on. Maybe she and Jack will get it on like FBI Babe and Jack did in the last season of 24.

As first hours of 24 go, this one was good. Usually the first two hours of 24 are pretty good. It’s the middle hours that drag.