24 – Day 8: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Pulling out all the stops seems to be the theme for these last few episodes, which is fantastic and kind of scary. If you think about it, even though he’s a flawed character and he’s made more than his fair share of questionable decisions in and out of the job, he’s always made those decisions with the noblest of causes in mind. And even though he is constantly espousing on the cover-up and the Russians, if Jack were to be honest with himself, all of this is about Renee’s death. The cover-up and looking for justice are all side benefits to finding who killed Renee and why. That dichotomy makes for some exciting and disturbing moments here at the end of “24”s run.

Debrief

• Cole identifies Dana’s corpse at the warehouse and goes back to CTU. He refuses to tell Pillar anything and is taken to holding.

• Jack watches Dana’s video footage. It is clear proof that the Russian’s were behind Hassan’s assassination. He then sends it to his weapons supplier, Jim Ricker, who identifies the Russian diplomat in the video. They, essentially, have all the proof they need. Jack then calls Meredith Reed, the journalist who was involved with Hassan and was arrested earlier in the day. Jack sets up a meeting to hand over information about Hassan’s assassination.

• CTU intercepts the call from Jack to Meredith. Pillar plans to have the man who killed Renee, Pavel, kill Jack and Meredith at the meeting place. When they meet there, Jack realizes it’s a trap, takes out all of the agents and escapes with Pavel in custody and Ricker and Meredith in tow.

• They go to a warehouse where Jack gives Meredith the video and sends her with Ricker while Jack tortures Pavel to find out who ordered the hit on Renee. After the torture doesn’t work Jack attempts to find Pavel’s SIM card. After figuring out he swallowed it, Jack guts Pavel and calls the last dialed number, which goes to President Logan’s voicemail.

Agent Philboy’s Assessment

Yeah, he gutted him! My dad and I were talking last week that we had really missed cheering for brutal violence, something only “24” seems to bring. We cheered last week when Dana was shot point blank and my girlfriend isn’t ashamed of the fact that she giggled and clapped when that blowtorch came out. But, was gutting Pavel too far?

I understand that due to their only being three episodes left (a thought which is just so sad to me) Jack couldn’t exactly wait for Pavel to…umm…pass the SIM card on to him. But, does it bother anyone else that Jack didn’t even flinch before taking Pavel out? Like I said up top, even though Jack has been unhinged for most of the series, having literally nothing else to lose is a scary proposition. I’ve brought up several times that the movie could carry on even if Jack dies at the end of this season. I think this is looking to be more and more of a reality. Whatever happens in these last three episodes, I don’t see a scenario where everything is tied up in neat little bow and everyone is happy. That would totally miss as far as the tone toward the end of this season.

Weekly Kill Count = 5 Total Kill Count = 48