24 Season 6: Episode 5 Recap(Hours 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.)

WARNING: The following post may, and probably will, contain spoilers.

He'd been missing for 20 months. A 20 month span that included starving, silence, torture and hair-growing. Then he was thrust back into duty and not too long after, he bit someone to death. Then, he joined forces with a former terrorist and found out he forgot how to interrogate people. Eventually, he had to shoot one of his most trusted agents. That's when he hit rock bottom and gave up... and then the nuclear bomb went off. But did anyone really think that Jack would quit after four episodes? If only!

The State of the President
Like I mentioned before, Baby Palmer is not a believable President, nor is his staff competent (but that's no surprise). It took more than five minutes to move him into the bunker (which is really called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center), but now he's safe. In addition, the Continuity of Operations Plan was enacted (which is a real thing) and Karen somehow gets cell phone service (which is good) so she can make booty calls to Bill.

Meanwhile, Admiral John (who thinks that all terrorist countries are lying) tells the President, "if these people want to live in the stone age, I say let's put them there." To which Baby Palmer should have replied, "they had nukes in the stone age!?!" Then we find out that Baby Palmer wants Assad (the terrorist who saw the light) to come to DC. So I say we play a game... let's pretend a mean ol' terrorist named Osama bin Laden sent men to crash into the twin towers. And let's pretend that bin Laden's former leader wanted to stop being a terrorist and make peace with the US on the exact same day. Do you think the President would allow that man to come to the White House?

There Was This Nuke Thing Outside
As we were informed with "previously on 24," there was a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles. Here's how CTU responds:

• Bill asks about the ground team that was sent in and says, "Milo, can you get a visual?" ... ... ... Uh, Bill... look at ANY television network -- a NUCLEAR BOMB just exploded... there's your damn visual.
• Then Bill needs to know if Fayed was in the blast radius (you know, the one where no less than 12,000 people died). Tell me how Morris is going to figure that out. That could take a while.
• Chloe asks the rhetorical question, "why do people I know keep dying?" Duh, it's because you work with Jack Bauer.
• Then Chloe tells Morris that they have "massive packet loss." What to do? We all know the answer -- "boot up routers."
• "Morris just put something on your B window." Uh, Chloe, he's got one screen. I bet he calls it "A."
• One might wonder how CTU is still a part of this operation... How is the military NOT taking over? Maybe the country is still lambasting over the last military occupancy of Los Angeles... due to syntox nerve gas.

Fickle Fayed
I don't know why Fayed was trying to coerce that dude int-----Watch out Fayed!!! Don't hit the girl that was running across the street! Yeah, the one that stopped in the middle of it (instead of hauling ass to get out of the way)! And while I'm warning you, make sure you don't hit any of these families that are home at 10:15 AM... with their kids who aren't in school... and all of their bags packed... ready to flee a city where a nuclear weapon exploded not ten minutes ago-----sorry, why coerce a dude with money when you could just threaten his life?

Speaking of, so Fayed talks on the phone with the guy that sold him the nukes. Okay. How long before CTU traces that call and figures out who he is? No, wait, this will be one of those phone calls that can't be tracked! Also, when 9/11 happened, weren't all the phone lines coming in and out of NY busy? Yes, they were. I'd venture to say that would be the case in LA, where a NUCLEAR WEAPON just exploded.

And let it be known that Fayed is a master planner. You see, Fayed planned all of this when he betrayed Assad six months ago. Yes, apparently six months is all it takes to plan a huge terrorist attack on US soil. In six months one can buy five nukes, smuggle them into the country, orchestrate the release of a bomb scientist, get Jack out of a Chinese prison, etc. But here's the kicker... it wasn't planned in six months! It was really three months and one week -- seeing that the attacks begain 11 weeks earlier.

FBI Training Academy
How does the nation's Federal Bureau of Investigation get hard-to-find information from suspected terrorists held in a prison camp? Easy, they put a wire on Walid (Sister Palmer's boyfriend). Wait one damn second, there's NO WAY IN HELL that members of a terrorist cell would talk to ANYONE unless they knew they belonged in the cell with them. Nor would they be concerned if the FBI was going to question this poor guy... especially when the FBI guy says, "I'll be back for you."

Jack Covers Lots of Ground
Jack became a statue from episode four and into episode five. When Jack actually took another step, the clock read 10:09 -- he watched the nuke cloud for over ten minutes. But then it was off to the races and to save someone! Are you telling me the helicopter crashed into the side of the house and stuck like that? How does the innocent bystander know that the chopper is about to fall? Did Jack really just use a piece of satellite antenna to jimmy the door open? Remind me again how Jack has enough strength to climb the side of a house after being in a Chinese prison for 20 months. And then explosion #6, the helicopter crashed to the ground. Shoosh, what's next on the list?

We find out that Jack's father (Phillip Bauer) is in LA (does anyone see a parallel story line to last season's Henderson story line?). Not only that, but Jack hasn't spoken to him in over nine years -- yet he knows that his father a) has a cell phone, and, b) he knows the number. Jack continues to impress me with his memory of phone numbers these days.

But let's not stop there, Jack's got a brother (which I still can't figure out if it's Gram or Gray) -- Bluetooth man! And get this, Bluetooth man doesn't like Jack, his own brother. And get this, Jack and Bluetooth man's wife might have had some thing between them... can anyone tell me why the writers pray on killing everyone that Jack loves or is related to?

The Kitchen Sink

• Best line from episode five - After Jack lays the injured chopper pilot face down on the roof, he tells him "stay here." Why? You're on the roof of a house that just had a helicopter crash into it -- isn't the house unstable?
• Not only have we seen Jack drive around LA easily during a regular crazy day -- but on a day where a nuke has exploded, it seems to be even easier... Except, that is, when the news is reporting the explosion and they show the traffic jam that no one important is in. Say, that could be a whole slew of episodes right there -- being stuck in traffic because of the nuke.
• Says the director, "Kiefer, make sure you that when you shake your nephew's hand, turn your hand up unlike a normal handshake -- we want to see the weird acid crap on there."
• Product Placement - Apple

As we know, this season has only just begun. There's sure to be a mole in the White House and CTU. Someone that knows/loves Jack will die. And, as we were assured in this episode -- here's how the writers of 24 tell you that we're about to get into a slew of baddies -- when Bill is telling Assad about the remaining nukes, he explains that there's a trail that there has to be "many people involved in the planning of this." That must be some type of metaphor for how the show is written.