24 Recap: The Best Bitchslapping Episodes of the Season

Well that was much better, wasn’t it? This whole season we were building up towards something big and we finally seemed to hit the nail right on the head last night. My plan was the two hours of 24 and then the second half of the NCAA National Championship game. I got two amazing endings. The basketball final was one for the ages. The one on 24 was so game-changing-ly delicious that I think it might have seen our best “episode” in years. Why did I put episode in quotes? Because it was two episodes—AKA a two-hour event—that lived up to its billing.

Taking Yourself Hostage is So Hardcore

The ending was so shocking and so deliciously 24 that I think we need to backup two hours and figure out how we got there. The sun was rising. Jack was busy escorting President Hassan back to the United Nations when Hassan decided to take matters into his own hands—literally. Hassan crowbars Jack to the back of the head (seemed a little light, but Jack went down) and points a gun at Freckles. He then (for some reason) turns over his gun to the guy who had been trying to take him hostage in the first place (Bishop) and orders his wife, daughter, Frecks and Jack into a room where he adds a crowbar to the lock so they’re nice and trapped*. Hassan and Bishop exit to the street (7th Ave? Really? How did we get to the West Side? I need a 24 geography lesson) where there is an SUV waiting with keys underneath. How nice and convenient. Hassan has literally taken himself hostage. Now that’s a Jack Bauer move.

*Side Note: OK, here’s what I don’t get. Hassan is an honorable guy…but all those Secret Service people who fought for him when he was taking fire last episode now died for nothing. They sacrificed their own lives so he could get away and now he’s turning himself into the same people who were after him. Also, why the hell would he give Bishop his gun? What’s stopping Bishop from putting a cap in Jack and Freckles and pistolwhipping Hassan’s daughter and wife? He doesn’t want them getting free and blowing the mission. He had every reason to just kill Jack and Freckles since he was trying to do the same exact thing like 20 minutes before. Even Jack yells, “Mr. President, you can’t trust him!” Why did it change now? Why was this totally missed?

Jack calls Chloe for help (“Can you hear me now?” Sprint must be sooooo pissed that Jack’s hocking for Verizon now) and tells her that General Brucker is the one behind all this. Jack gets a phone call in to the President where he tells her that her Cabinet has been compromised and that she needs to confront him now. I mean she was already onto something wrong since she had just asked for updated casualty numbers, Hassan and Ethan (who Rob Weiss locked in his office to die). Chloe then watches as Jack carjacks some poor dude in a Hyundai who is trying to grab the morning paper. Sucks for you, dude—your car just got Jack’d.

Brucker, Rob Weiss and Bishop get to the terrorists just as the bomb is about to go off. Samir calls Tarin and tells him to stop the bomb. And with a few seconds left until detonation, it’s a good thing. Especially for Tarin who seems more than relieved. Tarin and Bishop then do a very cool phone trade: Hassan for the bomb. Meanwhile Taylor and Secret Service invade Ethan’s office, she has Brucker arrested and she smacks the shit out of Rob Weiss—and threatens him with treason. She’s really not happy about his treason and doesn’t want his promise of “plausible deniability”. Too late, Madam President—Weiss has confirmation*; Hassan is with the terrorists. Bitchslap number 2.

*Side Note: It’s a good thing that terrorists are so ethical. What’s stopping Tarin for just driving away and setting off the bomb? Or not giving Bishop the location or the keys? Or just hitting his stopwatch (which, of course controls this enormous bomb) as he's driving away? Terrorists who play by rules are really no fun. It’s also a good thing that guy about to be charged with treason is allowed to reach into his pocket like that to grab his phone. How is this allowed? Weiss was obviously quite willing to let Ethan die—what’s stopping him from having some sort of bomb or something that injures President Taylor. Sloppy Secret Servicing.

The Great Escape

Meanwhile, back at CTU, when the power comes back on, Denny tries to escape to call Samir, but Chloe stops her—so she says she needs to get FP jr. and then FP jr. gets in her way of calling Tarin. Darn distractions. Denny needs to get away and finds a way and thinks she can get away downstairs by the trunk line but Arlo The Horndog is in her way. So Denny decides to choke a bitch and she’s about to choke him when Chloe calls. Arlo’s seemed to figure her out—though I wonder if he’s also some sort of mole. He was acting very moley this episode. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia that I wish CTU and our government had on 24. At least someone needs to be paranoid of our government with all the moles and misguided "patriots" we've had.

Speaking of our government, President Taylor tells Ethan that she wants him back—like really back. Seems like some hot and heavy shit around there. Like sexual. I always thought that Ethan and Allison would get it on with the annoying husband out of the way. Maybe more on this next episode. President Taylor thanks Freckles, but she doesn’t smile anymore even though the President gives her huge praise. All of a sudden a Russian guy shows up and wants to speak to the President about Hassan. How does a Russian guy know that Hassan has been kidnapped? And how does he request council with the President? Why does he want to talk about the peace agreement right now if he knows this? Ugh. Priorities, people!

Tarin and Hassan do the drive together and Hassan tries to convince Tarin to give up and Tarin says he has already lost. The conversation turns personal as we remember how Tarin watched over Hassan and his “Western Whore” (She's not a whore! She's a nice lady!) and how Hassan cares for nothing but himself and his TIME magazine cover. Hassan sheds a single tear. He can feel feelings! But it’s too late for sentimentality as Tarin gets a call from Denny telling him that CTU has a roadblock ambush set up and he needs to head into the parking structure. Jack is right on his tail and follows him up the structure when…Tarin drives off the roof of the parking structure! But Hassan isn’t in the car! They switched cars. And some really fake blonde girl drives away with a drugged out Hassan in a blue Honda Insight*. Tarin is dead and Hassan’s gone.

*Side Note: Because of course the terrorists care about the environment so they drive a hybrid as they're about to set off a dirty bomb. Amazingly, the car is allowed to leave without a blockade---how? HOW?!?! This really upset me. Jack ordered people to guard both entrances and yet this car is able to leave. And of course they lose surveillance. Come on, 24—you can do better! With all the freaking traffic cams and your two expensive drones roaming the city, you can’t find the car? Wasn’t there supposed to be a perimeter set up? Ugh.

At least Jack knows something is up and wants Freckles to deal with it at CTU with Chloe. How will he know who the mole is? He has the cell phone from the car (in perfect shape of course even though Tarin just nose-dived off of a freakin' parking garage). Denny tries to leave but is stopped by the “new protocols.” Damn those protocols. Freckles, Chloe and Bubba are all trying to get the cell phone’s owner—and they find out it’s Denny’s phone! They put in new protocals--apprehend on "site" (that's what it said on the screen). But Denny won’t be stopped from leaving. She grabs her gun and starts firing and takes hostages. FP jr just found out his fiancé is a terrorist—this is seriously going to mess with his accent. FP jr goes after Denny, shoots down her tires, and drags her out of the car by her hair asking “who are you, you lying bitch?” But she doesn’t want to talk to her fiancé—Denny wants Bauer!

Not Exactly Nina Myers, But It’ll Certainly Do

The Denny/FP jr situation was a poor man’s version of Nina Myers/Jack (and Tony). We had the love making. We had the love triangle and how the murkiness of that clouded the fact that we had a mole within our midst. We had the deception and the heartache and the final scene in the parking lot as the bitch tries to escape. FP jr says to Bubba, “I wuz jus tryin to protect huh, I wanted to keep huh safe” (or at least that’s how it sounded to me). But instead of sympathy, FP jr is being berated by Bubba for not telling him sooner about finding out about the Jenny persona. Tough love in CTU.

160th st to CTU in under 20 minutes—Jack Bauer, everyone! Jack goes in to ridiculously unnecessarily high-tech interrogation room (wasteful spending…blame it on Barack Obama!). Denny wants immunity, a clean slate, and compensation (which she lost when “the deal went south”). Do you want a medal of honor, too? Jack has a counteroffer: he throws her by her throat up against the wall, calls her a bitch, and tells her to "stop screwing with [him]" (I can only assume that this means he's as upset by her accent as I've been). Bubba is not happy about it but can only muster a “oh, Jack.” Jack decides to call the President for that immunity deal (Nina Myers again).

Jack does get that someone else is working with her, though, which is sure to come up later this season—mark my words. Taylor thought that the fake name of Denny would make the agreement null and void…but it won’t. She then goes in to talk to Ethan who is recovering quite well considering he was pretty comatose like 20 minutes ago. They talk about a murky succession in the IRK constitution. Everything is murky in that region. Everything!

Arlo and Chloe talk about how surprised they were for not realizing it was Denny. Why didn’t they just listen to her accent? Bubba talks with FP jr who has been “burned”. “Get over it!” Bubba yells (more tough love). FP jr has to listen to her talking about the operation and she briefs them on where to find Hassan. Jack tells FP jr can talk about being betrayed by lovers in the car ride. Not really. But this is what I imagine.

Amazingly, the blue Honda with the fake blond is able to get away without satellite surveillance and they bring Hassan to an apartment building. It's very discreet there because they must adhere to “no snitchin’”. Samir and Hassan come face-to-face and have a talk about when they met in the past and about the peace agreement. Hassan asks Samir to put his faith in him once again and when it looks like Samir is reconsidering things, Hassan gets punched in the face. I told you: lots of bitch slaps this two-hour event. Samir is causing Hassan great pain to get him to read the statement to his people “atoning for his sins”. He won’t break. He’s stronger than they thought. Sort of like in Rocky IV. So they’re just going to read his crimes and execute him. Prepare the interwebs!

Losing a Head…of State

The feed is going through and NSA has tapped in so the President and CTU can watch. Chloe figures out the exact area where Hassan is…up to the exact side and floor of the building. Jeez, Chloe, you’re quick (more on this a little later). Arlo sees two lookouts. Just use the drone, man (what a waste of money)! Instead, FP jr’s team is going to take them out on coordinated kill shots. This is just like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2!

Freckles and Jack are back together after she promised that she’d stay with him. Bad promise to make and it was sort of awkwardly made (like a little kid promising to hold an adult’s hand when walking across the street). Jack is in, 5 minutes to go. They find the correct apartment. Jack picks the lock…and find a child. The child cries and a mother comes out and they get the child out of the room. Jack goes searching for Hassan as Freckles keeps watch on the mother. But Freckles sees a blond wig on the floor and realizes this is the fake blond. Freckles turns and shoots the blonde right before she’s about to shoot Frecks. Take that

I kept on thinking they were in the wrong place, but the blond being there made me reconsider. Jack gets in to the terrorist hideout through a closet, takes out all the agents in a few neat kill shots and runs over to Hassan—but he’s already dead! His neck has been sliced! It was tape delayed*! Jack failed at his mission. In a quite emotional scene, Jack apologizes to Hassan (whose picture I can't even put up here) and closes his eyes. President Taylor has to deliver the bad news to the Hassans who are inconsolable. Silent Clock! Silent Fucking Clock!

*Side Note: I know this is really nitpicky, but wouldn't Chloe have been totally wrong about the apartment if she didn't know about the tape delay? The delay wasn't a few seconds and she calculated sun, heat, and everything else like she was calculating in real time. I know, I know, it's nitpicky, but wouldn't she have been off? Actually, I realized the episode was so good that I don't care. Sorry for this interruption.

Conclusion

Wow. What a ride. It was exhilarating even writing the review. I know this may be too grandiose a statement, but it may have been the best Monday night viewing of 24 we've had since Season 5. We had a big, big death (did anyone see Hassan dying before the finale if at all?). We had a Jack interrogation. We had a few Jack missions and Jack driving a car really fast. We had Freckles and Jack kicking ass together, Denny finally being bitchslapped and a few more bitchslaps saved for Rob Weiss. We even had Jack promising to protect Hassan and failing at that which will lead him to be even angrier and more focused on kicking ass and making sure that everyone responsible comes to justice. I love it. And we saw a preview in the closing of a hot scene between Jack and Freckles and Charles Logan's slimy return to 24 to deal with the Russians. The Russian and the Arabs--we're back in the Cold War all over again! Love it!

Season grade so far: A-/B+. One episode doesn't totally make up for a season of plot holes and ridiculousness...but it certainly raised the grade. A lot. There was very little missing from this two-hour event that makes a really good 24 episode. I hope that 24 didn't blow it's load too soon, but I feel like they can continue to build on this. "We Can Build On This!"

Best line of the week: “Mr. President, you can’t trust him!” - Jack to President Hassan. Yeah, well, you can't trust anyone on this show. Except yourself. You can't really even trust yourself. I mean Hassan took himself hostage this week. Jack has done plenty of self-destructive things. So there's no controls there.

Best moment of the week: The bitch slaps and the throat holds. It was a knock-em-down episode of 24. Punches, bitch slaps, pulling by the hair, throat holds, torture, take downs, gun shots. It was just awesome. It was billed as a two-hour event and it was just that--an event. Think about it: we got rid of all the filler in one fell swoop: Samir, Rob Weiss, General Brucker, Tarin, Denny, etc. Awesome! Though I don't feel like it's over for all of them, especially after Denny's deal. There's always a boss. Let's figure out who Denny's is!

Ari's body count: 81. Ari didn't watch yet so I'm going to try to do this roughly. We had Tarin (1), Hassan (2), the blond (3), the two lookouts (4,5), the guy on the stairs (6), the four guys in the room (7,8,9,10). I think I got everyone. 81 deaths with 8 hours to go! NYC hasn't seen nothin' yet!

Comments? Thoughts? Did you like it as much as me or do you disagree? Was the blue Honda's escape too much for you? Other plot holes you saw? Or did you just love it? Leave your thoughts below on the two hour event!

Pictures from EW, 24 Wikia, LA Times and 24 Wikia, respectively