Jack captures Simone Al-Harazi but will she give up her mother even in her weakened state? Plus President Heller has a life altering decision to make this week…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
This week’s episode of ’24: Live Another Day’ once again picks up just moments after we last left Jack Bauer in his mad dash to find the cell phone attached to the person responsible for buying weapons for Margot Al-Harazi. He got the intel after infiltrating a weapons dealer he was working with (sort of) who was selling to Al-Harazi for years, knowing full well that this would be his best chance to track down the international terrorist before she could blow up anymore of London with the drones she’s hijacked.
It turns out that the phone belongs to Simone Al-Harazi, her daughter who got smacked head first with a bus last week while trying to chase down her niece. Why was she chasing her niece? Well, this is Naveed’s (her dead husband) sister and her kid who he warned to get out of London in anticipation of these attacks, and now they know far too much so Simone was sent to silence them — for good.
Well that plan backfired in a big way when Simone couldn’t kill her in-laws, but then accidentally did so anyways and it all ended with her getting trucked by a bus in the middle of a London street.
Interrogation Time
One of the age old tropes of ’24’ are the interrogation tactics used season after season by Jack Bauer, which eventually became a major hindrance to the show because real life tortures being carried out by the U.S. government made it decidedly less cool to shoot a terrorist in the leg or to threaten castration when these things were ACTUALLY taking place in the world.
Thus far through the first half of ’24: Live Another Day’, those tactics have been at a minimum, probably to avoid the kind of reaction the show was receiving just before leaving airwaves four years ago, but Jack needed answers this episode and dammit he was going to get them.
Following a sound defeat going head to head with a bus, Simone is on her way to the hospital, but first mommy calls to check on her little girl and to see if her job was completed. Unfortunately, when a paramedic answers the phone and informs her that Simone was hit by a bus, Margot knows things just turned dire. If the authorities learn who Simone really is, that could lead them back to her, thus ruining the plot she set in motion and that’s just no good for anyone (terrorists anyways).
In a rush to find out what’s happening with her daughter, Margot sends one of her goons to the hospital to see what condition she’s in and to know if she actually carried out her duties to off the sister-in-law and her daughter.
At the hospital, Jack is able to work with British police to lock down the floor where Simone is being held while he tries to exact the information he needs to track down her mother. Simone isn’t playing ball even if mommie dearest did lop off a finger in the midst of her mission. This is where Jack goes all Jack Bauer and decides to tweak and twist her gnarled digit trying to induce a little truth telling but Simone resists. While all this is going on, Kate stands in the background cringing at Jack’s medieval tactics to attempt to get the information out of Simone.
Meanwhile, Margot’s henchman finds out where Simone is being held but he happens to overhear that the hospital is being locked down, which means they authorities know who she is and that means she’s now become a liability. So Margot orders her son Ian to launch a drone attack against the hospital to silence Simone once and for all.
The Secret’s Out
Jack’s mission last week was comprised with MI-5 agents from England crashed his party while attempting to apprehend his weapon dealing contact who had information about Margot Al-Harazi’s whereabouts. It turns out the Prime Minister found out about President Heller’s ongoing battle with Alzheimer’s and didn’t trust the decisions he was making and opted for an alternative course of action on his own.
When Heller finds out about the Prime Minister’s insubordination, he flips out, screams, waves his arms, all that jazz while berating the British leader for usurping his orders and costing them a shot at landing Margot’s location. The Prime Minister apologizes and says it won’t happen again, but then quizzes the president about his ongoing medical issues and wonders if that’s something he shouldn’t have disclosed when this whole thing started.
Heller brings his Chief of Staff Mark ‘The Weasel’ Boudreau and his daughter into a room where he tells them that after today’s events are over, he will step down and surrender his presidency. The disease is advancing too rapidly and more people are bound to find out about his condition, so it’s time to allow the vice president to take office — after today’s events are sorted out.
The Mole and the Rat
Last week we discovered that it was CIA Station Chief Steve Navarro who was a mole inside the organization as he was the one feeding information to the Chinese while secretly framing Kate’s husband for the crime. He spoke to his mysterious benefactor on the phone, but due to some voice altering software, we couldn’t figure out who was behind the call.
Well this week the discover is made as it turns out Adrian Cross — the Edward Snowden hacker type leading the group Chloe once inhabited — is pulling the strings behind Navarro. He places the second call to alert Navarro that his too nosey for his own good programmer Jordan is still digging into the files despite his orders to let it go until after today is finished. Cross does make mention that he’s just a middle man, so obviously there’s still a bigger figure at play. Cross’ reveal does seem a little quick given the mystery from last week but if there’s one thing I’ve noticed during this shortened season of ’24’, the secrets don’t last nearly as long as they used to.
Navarro has to do something with Jordan so he sends his programmer out into the field to retrieve a piece of information from an informant. Jordan’s way too excited to get out from behind the computer, but he’ll regret that move once he gets to the boat where he’s meeting Navarro’s contact because a bullet flies through his shoulder, knocking him into the water. The assassin looks for his victim to pop up from the murky water below, but he never does so the assumption is Jordan is dead.
Oh but he’s not! Jordan climbs out of the drink just before the episode ends and now he’s going to have a few extra questions for Navarro!
In Russia, Facial Hair Grows You
Mark Boudreau has his rendezvous with the Russian cabinet member who he contacted about handing over Jack Bauer once they captured him earlier today. The Russian — whose facial hair is very off putting because it literally connects completely enveloping his mouth — informs Mr. Boudreau that he knows the Chief of Staff forged the President’s signature and if he turns him in, this will be seen as an act of treason on his behalf.
But the Russians want Bauer after he killed a few of their diplomats four years ago, one of which was a very good friend of his personally. So he puts it back on Boudreau to find a way around this snafu and hand Bauer over to them. Boudreau slinks away saying he’ll figure something out. This guy is a snake of the largest extreme and he’s gonna lose his wife before this day is over. That much I know for sure.
Missile Impossible
Jack and Kate discover Margot’s good lurking where he shouldn’t be, but before they can capture him, the British police gun him down. Digging through his pockets, they find a phone along with a text message giving up Simone’s location in the hospital and a response saying ‘8 minutes’. In other words there’s a drone missile bearing down on them quickly and they need to move.
Jack and Kate get Simone out while evacuating the hospital just in the nick of time as Margot’s drone missiles blow up half of the building. Jack gets in the car and starts racing away as missiles are LITERALLY blowing up all around him but missing the target each and every time. Jack makes a few car switches and eventually goes into a tunnel to get out of the drone’s line of sight where he makes another car change and sends a decoy vehicle out, which Ian destroys with his final missile.
One question — when Jack is in the tunnel underneath the highway, why not just blow up the road and cave them in where you know they probably won’t survive? Just curious musings.
Anyways, Margot figures out that the car was a decoy but they are out of missiles and the next drone is too far away so she works to have her men pack up everything because they are moving.
Jack and Kate are racing back to CIA headquarters to their infirmary with Simone, who is barely hanging on by a thread after being pulled out of the hospital before they could tend to her injuries.
The President’s Choice
Finally we close on President Heller, who had decided to give Margot what she’s wanted all along after watching the devastation at the local hospital on the afternoon news. He contacts her via a private channel and says he will turn himself over to her if she swears to stop these attacks. Margot concedes and they begin plotting on how he will get to her so she can exact the revenge she’s longed for ever since her husband died.
And with that we await the next hour of ’24: Live Another Day’ next Monday at 9pm ET/PT!
