24 Season 6: Episode 19 Recap(Hour 12:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.)

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

Jack is rogue again! Evil Veep is in power again! We're being led down paths that we don't care about, again. But that doesn't stop the writers, does it? Nooooooo.

24 4, The Search for Jack
Silver Spoon starts us off by flagging down one of many cars driving around at midnight (on the day of a nuclear explosion). He tells the driver that he's a federal agent in persuit and he needs the vehicle. The driver asks, "where's your badge?" Silver Spoon responds by throwing him to the ground and forgets to say, "it's on the ground, right over there."

Silver Spoon calls in and gets Milo – Jack must be the only person that can call exactly who he wants to at CTU. He tells Bill that he screwed up. Luckily, the tracking device is still inside the chip – which explains why it inserted in the first place, to track Jack whenever he turned on the US. Well, Bill tells Silver Spoon to hurry because Jack will disengage the tracking device the first chance he gets... or not, since he's had five minutes to do so already. Bill tells everyone that Jack has gone rogue and that all available resources should help Silver Spoon. Hopefully Morris is done assisting the military transfer of the nukes, otherwise he'll be too busy to help. Bill then tells Chloe that she needs to help again.

Jack pulls over underneath an un-guarded electric line tower to disrupt the tracking signal. It works. Morris has Chloe keeping an eye on things while he goes to explain it to Bill. Milo questions Jack's motives and even though he wasn't around 20 months ago to see the ending of Jack and Audrey's relationship, he just knows that Jack won't let her die. So he says he'll go check the satellites – you know, just in case they restored any coverage in that area. Who is "they?" Isn't CTU in control of the satellites?

Jack contacts Chang and tells him they're going to do it his way. You see, CTU is looking for him and he knows the way around CTU's satellite configuration (which apparently hasn't changed in 20 months). He sets up a meeting at an abandoned motel (which is also still around 20 months later). Chang and his men go on the move.

Silver Spoon finds where Jack turned off and Bill reminds viewers that if the Chinese get a hold of the component, they'll have an international incident on their hands. Silver Spoon then becomes a master tracker and figures out that Jack has gone East. CTU doesn't have satellite coverage because the radiation from fallout has made this particular area hard to cover. Silver Spoon discerns that he's on the highway that has no cameras so he suggests that CTU check the cell towers to see if Jack has made a phone call to Chang... oh, and he also saw Jack pick up a phone from "one of the terrorists at the warehouse, so that should narrow it down."

Chloe gets the order from Nadia to check all the phone calls from some cell tower. In order for her to do that, she has to send stuff to Morris' computer and interrupt his work. Curious, she can PUT anything his computer that she wants, but can't get anything FROM his computer? Then she and Morris argue, because we're all so interested in their story line. Then Milo, who obviously doesn't have shit to do, offers to help Chloe. Which prompts the original love triangle to come back up. In an act of lame anger, Chloe tells Morris that he shouldn't arm nukes for terrorists. She's right, you know. But he gets all sad and walks off... probably to go drink and vomit some more.

Jack shows up at the abandoned motel to rig up the C4. Just then, Nadia calls Silver Spoon and tells him they found the phone call and they're decrypting it now – but It's taking forever because they used a double-length key to slow them down.. Jack calls CTU, and what do you know, he gets right through to Bill's line. He leaves a message that soon Audrey will be safe and the circuit board will be blown to pieces.

Morris goes to see Bill, who is in his office NOT checking voice mail, and requests a transfer. Bill says he'll help out. But after talking to Karen, and getting fired, Bill tells Nadia that he's stepping down and now she's acting director – yes, the gal that was considered a mole and was born in the Middle East. Nadia is upset. The last bit of advice Bill gives her is to inform everyone before it's posted on the internal forums – because everyone has so much spare time to check message boards while hunting down terrorists.

Nadia informs CTU that Bill has stepped down and that she's in charge until a replacement can be sent over. No one is too sure about that. If anything, I'd say they're foreshadowing that she really IS the mole we all thought she was. Then, suddenly, everyone is in the meeting room with their computers waiting to talk with Silver Spoon – he's found Jack's truck and he's going to search around. Nadia suggests they use thermal imaging. But I'm confused how they'll do that, since the satellites in that area are having trouble due to radiation from the fallout.

Chang gets out of a big ol' stretch limo – not quite the car to divert attention from you on a day like this – and goes into the motel. He exchanges words with Jack and then Audrey gets out of the car. Jack removes the gag from her mouth and sends Audrey walking down the road to safety.

Jack tosses the chip to Chang. Silver Spoon, who's hiding in the bushes, gets anxious and shoots the sniper. Then Jack gets shot. Silver Spoon's backup finally shows up and Chang escapes out the back of the motel in the three Hummers that both Jack and Silver Spoon somehow overlooked. A helicopter begins to chase but instantly gets shot down.

Jack gets up, again, not shot and shoots the rest of the chinese guards who are still standing in the motel for whatever reason. Nadia's pissed and orders Jack to be arrested after the smoke clears. Jack tries to put the blame on Silver Spoon and then spots Audrey... but she doesn't even know who Jack is! OH NO!!!

The Young and the White House
The press secretary makes a statement that Evil Veep will make a statement at 9:00 am Eastern time (6:00 am Pacific, which... well wouldn't you know it, is when the season will end). Evil Veep confronts Fish about his evidence. Fish tells him that Brother Palmer was forcing the resignation and now Fish supports Evil Veep. They make the decision to keep Karen around.

Karen tells Evil Veep that CTU is trying everything they can to find Jack. Evil Veep isn't having it since "CTU let him steal the component." Wait... no they didn't. Brother Palmer said it was okay. Fish suggests that other agencies join the search – but no one asks where were these other agencies earlier in the day. Invasion Chick stays around after Fish and Karen leave, and we're treated to another lame love plot.

Karen gets a call, 10 feet from her office, that Peter Hawke (from the Department of Justice) is in there waiting for her... at 3:20 am. He's been interrogating Fish's Chief of Staff, PMRL (Poor Man's Rob Lowe). PMRL is looking at being executed, so he's offering up anything and everything he knows. Hawje shows her a bit of information that concerns Bill – that he had Fayed in custody, let him go and Karen helped him cover it up – she blue-coated the file (which I can't find anything on google as being a real term). Unfortunately, this is the reason that Karen was going to quit 12 hours earlier. Now, it's resurfacing and someone is going to have to take the fall – the further from the President, the better. Meaning, she has to fire Bill.

Karen calls Bill and says they need to talk, but he doesn't have time. Karen tells Fish about Hawke's suggestion that she fire Bill. Fish agrees that Bill has to go. She has to choose who she's loyal to. Bill calls her back. She tells him about Hawke and informs him that she'll have to fire him. Bill gets upset and hangs up on her.

Reader Bryan H. points out:
So right now Karen Hayes is firing her husband. I've never heard that the National Security Adviser has the power to hire and fire the heads of intelligence agencies, but that's a minor point here. The bigger question is this: what kind of pussies are in this palmer administration? Can you imagine anyone in an actual presidential administration volunteering to fire people before the public even knows about the "scandal"? Hell, the Bush administration fires people long after the scandal breaks, if at all.

Here we are with five hours to go. Audrey is nuts. Bill and Karen are on the rocks. Nadia is pissed. Evil Veep is about to get lucky. And Jack is going back to CTU where he'll have to escape from to eventually find Chang. Since Chang shot down a CTU chopper, I'd say everything the military has is out to get him... but don't hold your breath.