’24: Live Another Day’ 9:00pm-10:00pm Recap: World War C

Jack finds out who ratted him to the Russians as Cheng Zhi’s plot starts to unfold and his benefactor is revealed….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Last week on 24: Live Another Day — An old friend came calling when Cheng Zhi reappeared after being thought long dead following his crimes against his home country of China and after torturing both Jack Bauer and Audrey for long periods of time while being held in Chinese prisons. Cheng is the one behind funding Adrian Cross’ program and the override device being built in the first place. Once he’s in control, he wastes no time firing two missiles from a U.S. submarine, which sinks a Chinese aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, the Russians who were sent on Jack’s trail by chief of staff Mark Boudreau arrive to take out Jack, who is a wanted criminal in their country.

Busted!

Jack and Kate are pinned down by the Russians in a shootout as they evade gunfire just a few blocks away from where Cheng Zhi has the override device. Mercenaries have the worst timing! While the Russian goons are spraying the entire block with bullets like a water hose while simultaneously hitting nothing, Jack and Kate fire back and hit their targets. Now I have no doubt that Jack Bauer could kill a fly at 300 years with one eye closed with a BB gun, but still you’d think these Russian terrorists with machine guns that can mow down a car in like 2.5 seconds could at least wing one of these two firing back with pea shooters by comparison. Well, needless to say Jack and Kate survive and when backup arrives they take out the rest of the Russian goons.

A little investigating reveals that they had a tracker on Jack’s cell phone and the only people that had that information were the CIA and chief of staff Mark Boudreau from the President’s office, who specifically requested the information earlier in the day. Uh-oh, Mark you’ve been a bad boy!

Before Jack can deal with Mark, he has to race off to the office where Cheng is holding up shop and ordering torpedo attacks like he’s at a drive thru menu. Unfortunately, the crafty former Chinese security specialist figures out that Jack is nearby thanks to some street cameras they’ve been monitoring, which means there’s a tracker on somebody in the room. Well not somebody, but something — the override device itself. So Cheng takes out the tracker, grabs Chloe (who was secretly grabbing a phone at the time) and high tails it out of there. He’s even smart enough to see the phone she was hiding and tosses it to the ground.

As it turns out, however, Chloe wasn’t trying to take the phone, she was using it to record their conversation and when Jack arrives he listens to it and discovers his old friend Cheng Zhi is very much alive and behind all of today’s events. He calls the President to inform him of Cheng’s resurrection after he was supposedly killed during a prison break three years ago, and of course Audrey is taken back by this news as well.

Cheng has the override device and he’s ready to start World War III between the U.S. and China with his latest actions. As a man without a country, he’s on the open market and so far his endeavors have been paying off.

Give Me a Name!!

In terms of the iconic moments in ’24’ history, the one that everyone seems to grab onto is Jack’s overuse of the word ‘dammit’ or maybe even ‘dammit, Chloe!’ given the right circumstance. I think I even read somewhere that a bean counter actually went through at one point and picked out how may times Jack says the word ‘dammit’ throughout the history of the show. For my personal enjoyment, there’s no better moment on this entire show than when Jack pins down somebody who has answers but isn’t willing to cooperate and he yells ‘give me a name!’.

Now hearing that from Jack Bauer should send a shiver down your spine and maybe even some pee down your leg, depending on how quickly you lose your constitution knowing this dude is fully capable of dismantling you limb from limb using nothing but a pocket knife and some paper clips. I’d probably be standing in a puddle and there wouldn’t be a rain cloud in the sky.

So when Jack comes charging into the faux oval office and demands to see the President and Mark, he wastes no time putting his gun in the chief of staff’s face and asking why he set him up. Mark crumbles like a three day old donut and tells the President and Jack that he forged Heller’s signature to hand Bauer over to the Russians to save face in the murky political waters they were already sitting in during the day while the drone attacks were happening. Of course Mark is leaving out the part that Jack used to lay pipe in his wife and they still aren’t over each other, but hey that’s neither here nor there.

To make matters worse, Anatol Stolnavich — the Russian deputy minister who Mark has been working with all day — is also a covert operative and the man behind Cheng Zhi’s actions today. If a war breaks out between the U.S. and China, the big winner is Russia as the other major power in the world and while those two superpowers are battling it out, the Soviets can start marking across Europe. Jack calls Mark an idiot, which gave me such glee because it was true and it was hilarious to hear him called out like that after a day full of incompetence landed us here.

Mark is about to be carted off for treason, but Heller decides to let him work with Jack to find the Russians and draw them into a trap so they can hopefully diffuse this situation before it gets any worse.

Stop, Drop and Roll

For an analyst, Chloe O’Brien has a few moments of bad assery in her — for instance on tonight’s episode she left a message for Jack so he’d know Cheng Zhi was behind this day of hell and then on her way out of the country with the Chinese mercenaries, she grabs a lead pipe and starts hammering all of the thugs before opening the van door and making a jump for it out into the woods. She falls about 500 yards down a hill before slamming into a tree, but Cheng’s men have no luck finding her and with traffic still going on the street above, they can’t waste time looking for her.

So Chloe is out there somewhere and with one hour to go, what role will she play in the finale?

Invasion U.S.A.

The Chinese President isn’t impressed with Heller’s claims that they were attacked by a supposedly dead terrorist with a device that can take over any weapons system on Earth. I mean if he believes that we’ve got a bridge to sell him, right? So the Chinese forces start mounting in the ocean and moving closer and closer towards attack positions. Audrey offers to help by speaking to her contact from the Chinese embassy, whose father is a high ranking official in the government to hopefully get word out that Cheng Zhi is very much alive and behind this entire ordeal.

Heller gives his blessing for Audrey to go into the field and work her contact while he fights every instinct inside to raise the threat level while warding off a possible Chinese attack. His advisors are begging for an early strike to fend off the Chinese before any American lives are lost, but Heller isn’t having it. In the middle of this he fumbles and drops his big ass bottle of pills, which everyone stares at as if he just passed out under the weight of the situation. Listen, if you’ve never had to open a pill bottle from the pharmacy before, they are tricky and can explode if you don’t get them to pop open the right way. I’m the President’s side on this one. Screw pharmacy child proof caps.

As the Chinese forces draw nearer, Heller has no choice but to raise the threat level and declare DEFCON 3, which means an increased readiness by the U.S. military with an air strike available to launch inside of 15 minutes once the order is given. The last thing Heller wants to do is end up in World War III with the Chinese because of something the U.S. clearly didn’t do, but when bombs start flying, somebody’s gotta pay.

The Call

Jack and Audrey share a moment on the phone where he informs her that Cheng Zhi is alive, and her request is simple — kill him, kill him dead, kill him the first chance he gets. Jack seems willing to comply and the two hang up with lingering feelings still in the air.

On the way to the Russian compound, Jack tells Mark he best learn to play ball or things are about to go even further downhill for him from here. Mark agrees while wearing a secret camera pin that will allow the CIA to determine which security system the Russians are using so they can disable it and allow Jack and Kate to storm the compound and find Stolnavich.

Mark plays his part convincing the Russians that he’s been found out and wants to defect while offering up secrets from all the meetings he shared with the President over the years. Stolnavich gives him safe passage, but a few minutes later Jack and Kate are inside the house, taking out his security staff and making a beeline for his office. Stolnavich realizes what’s happening and he tries to kill Mark, but a fight ensues and after crashing through a glass door in the struggle, the Russian deputy minister has a nice shard stuck in his neck as blood starts gushing out.

Jack arrives just in time for Stolnavich to look him eye to eye and remind him that the Russian people will never forget what he did to their country before bleeding out. Still no word on where Cheng is hiding or what the override device will be used for next.

Sniper School

Audrey meets up with her Chinese contact and gives over the information she has on the drone strikes to try and convince her father to work on the president to hopefully reduce tension between the two countries. Before the girl can take two steps away, shots ring out and she’s killed along with Audrey’s entire security staff. Just then her phone rings, and of course it’s Cheng (she must be listed) and he tells her she has a chance to stay alive if she cooperates and with that we are onto the final hour of 24.

Very solid penultimate episode of ’24: Live Another Day’ as the stakes are higher than ever as Jack has to balance his personal vendetta against Cheng versus the needs of the many to bring him back alive to face justice from the Chinese government and hopefully stop a world war that could leave millions dead and the rest of the planet living in a nuclear winter. There are only 60 more minutes to go of this special season of ’24: Live Another Day’ and next Monday can’t get here soon enough.