The Complete Idiot’s Guide to “24”: Season Three

SEASON 3/DAY 3

Picks up 3 years after Day 2. Jack, who is back working at CTU, has just returned from a one year deep undercover operation with a major drug family in Mexico. Unfortunately, he’s also picked up a heroin addiction that he is fighting to overcome.

In other news, Jack has a brilliant new assistant named Chloe O’Brian, Tony and Michelle are married, Tony is now the head of CTU, and Jack’s daughter Kim apparently acquired some brains and got a job at CTU as well. Also, Jack has a new co-partner in the field, Chase Edmunds, who is secretly carrying on a romance with Kim.

This season’s major terrorist threat comes in the form of a bio-weapon, referred to as “The Virus”. Notable events in this season include an entire hotel getting infected with this very deadly virus and most of its guest painfully dying; the shocking shenanigans of Palmer’s Lady Macbeth-type ex-wife Sherry, who is eventually murdered; and Michelle getting briefly kidnapped by the terrorists, who then blackmail Tony into helping them escape in exchange for Michelle’s life – which ultimately leads to Tony getting sent to jail at the end of the season. And finally, this season is perhaps most memorable for the shocking climactic episode when Jack is forced to chop off Chase’s hand in order to get the steel clamp containing the virus off of Chase’s arm, and thus destroy it for good. OUCH. (Full S3 ep guides at Fox)