Spoiler alert: this blog is published after the first UK broadcast of 24: Live Another Day. Do not read on unless you have watched episode six.
Read Stuart's episode five recap here
Previously on 24
Catelyn Stark has control of the drones, and she's blowing up as many of central London's inexplicably rural National Trust properties as she can. Jack Bauer can stop the attacks from escalating, but he's sitting in a room holding his breath like a snotty toddler until he gets what he wants. Onward!
Jack
This was a solid sock to the jaw of anyone who doubted that a 12-episode series of 24 could still be 24: a streamlined, fat-free hour of television, full of action and plot and – for the first time that I can remember – actual fun. If we'd been watching a regular series of 24, the whole thing would be bogged down in all manner of go-nowhere subplots by now. But this is a leaner beast, and we're already in a giddy sprint to the finish line. Put this down to hyperbole if you like, but tonight might have been my favourite episode of 24 since the glory days of season five.
Much of this is because Jack has finally been let off the leash. He knows that the only way to stop Catelyn Stark is to get to Karl Rask. And he knows this because he's been working undercover for Rask's criminal organisation for the past three years. To save the day he needs a car (to get there), a gun (to shoot people with) and LadyBauer (to drug up to the eyeballs with Propofol and use as bait). It goes wrong, obviously – LadyBauer is woken up with a magical Propofol antidote and gets comprehensively tortured, Rask takes too long to operate the MacGuffin to locate Stark and the whole place ends up being raided by soldiers – but that's all just fuel for Jack to be a superhero. He shoots everyone, sends the data to Chloe O'Brian and miraculously manages to be the only person in a 50-foot radius to survive a grenade blast. Classic Bauer.
Catelyn Stark
Almost immediately after Catelyn shoots her son-in-law in the face, his phone rings. It's a phone that runs on Sprint, which doesn't make sense, but we've no time to pick apart the intricacies of nation-specific cellular data providers here. The caller is the dead man's sister, doing her best to babble the dead man's entire scheme to ditch Catelyn and bolt out of London as quickly as possible. Naturally, Catelyn dispatches Simone to do the sister in.
The good news is that the sister lives locally. The bad news is that she has a young daughter, who now also has to be murdered. The good news is that Simone manages to kill the sister. The bad news is that her daughter escapes. The good news is that Simone runs out into the road and is fatally struck by the 106 to Whitechapel. No, wait, that's bad news. Or is it good news? Bad news for anyone who liked Simone, I guess, but that's approximately zero people. Essentially, this whole thing was a mess.
President Heller
On the plus side, Heller's dementia has suddenly kicked in. He repeats orders to generals, leaves bottles of brain pills in conspicuous locations during meetings and – thanks to a warning from PM adviser Miranda Raison, whom I've arbitrarily decided not to trust – prime minister Stephen Fry knows about his condition. This last point is key: first, because it gives Fry a chance to do Disapproving Jowl about the state of the world, and second, because he can now be suspicious of everything that Heller says about anything from now on.
Which is a shame, because the first thing Heller says to him is essentially: "Hey, remember Jack Bauer? You know, that wanted fugitive who murdered all those Russian politicians and literally only just finished shooting a bunch of soldiers in the chest in the US embassy? He's going to fix everything by himself, in secret. Yeah, it'll be fine." This sets Fry off on a paranoid rampage that directly causes the mess-up in Rask's HQ. The moral of all this? Let Jack Bauer get on with stuff, and don't trust Miranda Raison.
The ballad of Mark Boudreau
I haven't really mentioned Boudreau so far in these recaps, but he's quickly turning into one of the show's most complex characters. In episode one, troubled by the sudden reappearance of his wife's ex-boyfriend Jack Bauer, he forged a presidential order to deliver Jack to the Russian government. But, now that he's met Jack – and Jack has told him that he seems like a decent chap – he's tying himself in knots trying to rescind the document. Worse still, the Russians are on to him. One way or another, his story will not end well.
Bonus revelation!
Benjamin Bratt is a mole! He framed LadyBauer's husband! Nobody cares? Oh, OK!
Notes
• Did you see Trevor from EastEnders? That was the greatest piece of casting of all time. Trevor, the most villainous villain in EastEnders history, playing a baddie on 24. A baddie from Australia. Or South Africa. Or Streatham. Look, accents aren't his strong point, OK? Let's just rejoice that he's even here at all, even if he does get stabbed to death after about two minutes.
• Also, I'm not going to believe any more news reports about gas explosions. Great.
• "Jack wants her, Jack needs her, Jack gets her" – add "Jack puts her in the way of emotional and/or physical danger and she ends up permanently damaged by it" and Heller pretty has much described every relationship that Jack's ever been in.
• I've been looking into it and, according to this release from Massachusetts General Hospital, the Propofol antidote used by Rask is likely to be Ritalin. Always good to have some Ritalin around.
• Fun with Google maps: Rask's headquarters are an abandoned warehouse in Wandsworth. I think this means that an international crime ring has been operating about 20 feet away from the MasterChef studios. Figures.
• A theory I've just concocted that probably doesn't hold any water: 24 is running through key real-life American presidents in chronological order. The beloved (and assassinated) David Palmer was JFK. Charles Logan was obviously Richard Nixon. Allison Taylor, whose tenure was marked by pointed indecision, was Jimmy Carter. And now we have James Heller, a president notable for his Reaganesque degenerative neurological condition and love of advanced yet ethically unsound remote defence systems. Which means that, if there's another series of 24, we're going to get our Clinton. Fingers crossed, everyone.
