24 Day 7 Recap – 12:00 P.M. to 1:00 P.M.

The Following Takes Place Between 12:00 P.M. and 1:00 P.M.

Agent Moss briefs a FBI SWAT team on the situation at Prime Minister Matobo’s residence; he says Matobo should be locked in a safe room and he commands the men to use non-lethal force on Tony and his team.

Emerson beats up Matobo’s head of security trying to get him to open the safe room, but the head of security keeps reminding him that it can only be opened from the inside.

The blonde FBI analyst who Edgar 2.0 got snappy with, Erica, delivers a complaint to Moss from the Attorney General’s office about Renee. Moss calls Renee and asks how she came by the information from Tanner and if Tanner’s torture claims are true. She silently does not deny any of the charges and Moss chastises her, which seems to be happening a lot lately. He orders her back to the office and she decides that’s not exactly going to work for her and goes rogue shutting off her cell phone and continuing on. Awesome. I’m not really sure if I like her or if she’s starting to annoy me.

Edgar 2.0 gets a call from his wife and it looks like she landed okay. She kind of figures out that he helped get her flight grounded so quickly but he denies this. Oblivious to the terrorist threat going around her, she wants to chitchat and have Edgar 2.0 come home because they haven’t seen each other in a week. Stupid wet blanket.  Love life be damned, Edgar 2.0 gets short with her and puts national security first.

Prime Minister Matobo tries to make a phone call to the outside world and his wife asks him what these people want. He says Dubaku wants the names of his allies within Sangala and she realizes he would die before giving up the names so it’s really her they want to torture. He comforts her saying the FBI will be there soon.  This would be all well and good if it wasn’t Jack Bauer, or MacGyver, on the other side of the door. Emerson threatens Matobo’s head of security, who is willing to die for Matobo and Sangala, and just as Emerson gets ready to shoot him, the FBI calls. I’m not real sure why the FBI doesn’t block their caller ID, but I figure this is good news for me in the future. Emerson coldcocks the head of security and they argue about what to do. The 4^th member of the team wants to cut and run because the FBI is going to be there soon but Jack and Tony say they can’t leave without Matobo.  Jack, being the good student of chemistry that he is, suggests creating a noxious ammonia-distrait gas and pumping into the ventilation system for the safe room. They run with the plan even though it could very well kill Matobo and his wife. 12:10:46

12:15:17

Jack breaks into the ventilation system and sets off the chemical reaction. I’m fairly confident that they actually used dry ice on the show to make the effect though; but in all fairness the CO2 gases discharged would actually probably knock them out too. Emerson tells them they filled the ventilation system with gas and they’ll die if they don’t open the door. Matobo seems resigned to this fate because he knows the cause is bigger than himself or his wife; his wife, on the other hand, is reluctant but agrees. They both crumble to the floor as more gas pours in.

Janeane Garofolo gets a visit from Raymond Howell of the Attorney General’s office and gets a bit defensive of her non-involvement with Renee and Tanner. Moss pulls her away to help run the SWAT team, but Howell has a gift for timing and wants to question Janeane Garofolo right then. This doesn’t make any sense; unless the Attorney General is involved in the corruption plot, there’s no way he would have found out about Tanner being tortured so quickly and would have acted so vehemently right then.

Renee pulls up to Matobo’s residence. The 4^th member of Emerson’s team gets jumpy again and wants to pump more gas in, but Jack recognizes that would do nothing but kill Matobo quicker.  Matobo and his wife struggle on the floor and Matobo is clearly ready to die for his cause and martyr his life right there. Matobo’s wife? Not so much. She struggles to the door as he yells at her and releases the lock. Jack and Tony gather them up and they make their way outside.  Renee witnesses them loading Matobo and his wife into an armored paddy-wagon and calls it in to Moss. Just as she’s giving Moss the details, the 4^th member of Emerson’s team catches her and breaks her phone. Moss is pissed and I’m starting to have a few doubts about my suspicions that he’s the FBI mole. 4^th Member brings Renee to Emerson and she has some not so nice words for Jack. Jack looks devastated to see her there. Emerson wants to shoot her right then but Jack stops him until they can find out what she knows. They load everyone up and their bright yellow paddywagon rumbles off. What’s up with the completely obvious vehicles on this show? Why doesn’t anyone drive a normal car? Emerson calls into his boss and reports that they have Matobo and his wife but the FBI knows. He wants to know what Tanner told them and how much Renee knows. Renee calls Jack a “lying son of a bitch” as he stares forward coldly. 12:23:34

12:27:57

Sketchy Secret Service Agent Brian makes a call to someone about First Gentleman Taylor and the data he needs decrypted. Brian’s friend is going to meet them at his apartment and FG Taylor is going to make whoever killed Roger pay. Dun dun dun.

POTUS Taylor tells Kanin that she’s going to go ahead with military action against Sangala and he tries to convince her one more time that she’s supposed to protect American lives and not foreign. She doesn’t give in and wants to stick to a high moral authority. Pft, morals. Overrated.  The Secretary of State shows up and reports the FBI just witnessed Jack and Tony kidnapping Matobo. Kanin and the Secretary of State try to convince her that the best course of action now is to withdraw forces, but she corrects them that the best course of action is to find Matobo and the CIP device.

Oh shit, maybe not love life be damned for Edgar 2.0. He pays a little visit to his hot blonde friend Erica and neither of them “can stop thinking about last night.” That is so not Edgar 1.0 behavior and I’m stripping him of his nickname; he’s back to being Sean again. /starts slow clap

Moss gets word from the FBI SWAT team leader that Renee was taken captive by Jack and Tony.  Moss tells Janeane Garofolo that he wants everyone in the office to make finding Renee their top priority. Didn’t he recently receive an order from the President that his only priority is recovering the CIP device? Treason! Janeane Garofolo asks if he’s going to be okay; looks like at least she knows they’re bumping uglies.

Renee apologizes to Matobo for not being able to protect him and starts railing against Jack again.  Emerson gets a call back from his boss, Nichols, and confirms what we already knew: Renee tortured Tanner, got information from him on Matobo, and knows nothing else. Nichols orders him to kill Renee before they get back to Dubaku.  They’re off to an abandoned construction site to kill Renee and dump her body. 12:35:49

12:40:18

Moss tries to redirect field teams to search for Renee and make that a priority. I’m starting to seriously doubt my suspicion that he’s the mole. Sean checks out Erica from afar.

Dubaku is getting frustrated that the American troops haven’t begun to withdraw. Nichols calms him down a bit saying they haven’t attacked yet either, and if they don’t change their mind they can unleash a more serious attack.

FG Taylor and Brian walk through a luxury apartment/office building and FG Taylor suddenly has a soda cup now too. Not sure when he picked that up and it’s kind of random. Taylor thanks Brian for his help and they enter the apartment. This seems all a bit sketchy to me.  FG Taylor is getting hot and he realizes that he’s in Samantha’s apartment. Brian slips on latex gloves and says that Roger was looking into things he shouldn’t and he tried to help him stop. Taylor collapses to the floor and realizes that Brian killed Roger.  Brian slipped a muscle paralyzer (tetradyzine?) into Taylor’s drink and he’s going to kill him quickly, just like Roger.  Brian calls someone who’s going to confront Samantha and somehow get her back to the apartment so they can make it look like FG Taylor killed her and then took his own life. Brian apologizes to Taylor but it doesn’t seem real sincere.  The guy Brian called is another Secret Service agent and he confronts Samantha saying Taylor asked him to place her in protective custody. He says they can go back to her apartment to gather a few personal items and they go off. 12:46:50

12:51:18

Janeane Garofolo and Sean talk about Renee with Janeane Garofolo being an accessory to the torture. She cowers at her desk.

Howell, the Attorney General’s lawyer, confronts Moss about Walker being missing and wants to question Janeane Garofolo because she’s the only one available. Clearly the AG and/or this dude are either incompetent fucks or they’re in on the conspiracy.  Moss won’t relent because he needs Janeane Garofolo for the investigation and gets a bit quippy:

Then maybe you can let us get her back first before you throw her to the wolves. I mean, if that’s okay with you.

Awww, he lurves her.  Sean, Janeane Garofolo, and Moss get audio from the NSA of the phone conversation between Emerson and Nichols and everyone freaks out.  They didn’t get enough to trace the call though.

The bright yellow paddywagon pulls into the construction lot and Emerson gives Jack a gun telling him to take Renee down into a ditch and kill her. Jack removes her from the back of the paddywagon and walks her down towards a ditch. She says she’s not going to beg for her life and I’m not real sure what saying that is going to accomplish. She asks if everything he told her is a lie and he says, “I’m doing what I have to and I don’t expect you to understand.” She says Jack is going to have to look her in the face when he kills her. Jack turns her around and whispers in her ear that if she follows along he’ll get her out alive. He pushes her to her knees and puts the gun to the back of her head execution style.  Jack shoots her, grazing her right shoulder and she falls forward. He kicks her into the ditch and pulls a tarp over her body. Emerson didn’t think he’d actually do it but now he wants Jack and Tony to bury her. Jack and Tony begin filling in dirt over her still alive body as we get a montage of Dubaku, Matobo, SS Agent Brian propping up FG Taylor on a coach, POTUS Taylor looking out the window, and Moss looking concerned.  Emerson and 4^th Member look on smugly as Jack and Tony bury Renee. As the dirt comes closer to her head, Renee looks frightened of being buried alive.  With her eyes wide open we switch to Renee’s perspective as Jack tosses on a final shovelful of dirt to darkness. Silent clock to 01:00:00

24 normally reserves the silent clock treatment for the death of a main character so I’m wondering if Renee actually does die.  I suppose President Palmer did survive once after getting the silent clock though. If Jack was able to fake this execution with Renee, why didn’t he do the same thing with Ryan Chapelle back on Day 3?

Overall, decent episode I guess but there was a lot of filler in the middle setting up hopefully more action next week.