By: Brandon Wolfe
And we have a mole. On ‘24’, there’s always a mole, so it was only a matter of time. It’s a well the show went back to time and again in its original run, much to its detriment, so when CIA chief Steve Navarro (Benjamin Bratt, the show’s other Julia Roberts ex) furtively dashes into that back room in the episode’s final minutes and snaps that secrecy device over his phone, we instinctively knew precisely what was about to happen. Navarro speaks to another party, their voice cloaked, concerning some conspiratorial matters involving Kate Morgan’s duplicitous former husband whom, the show has tirelessly insisted upon reminding us, sold secrets and betrayed his country. Whether or not Navarro’s mole status extends to the season’s central terror plot remains to be seen, but at least we can now stop wondering when the inevitable mole will pop out of his mole hole.
Before it falls back on that musty old trope, ‘4:00 PM-5:00 PM’ is another largely effective entry in this event series. This is a busy hour, where Jack finally gets his wish to reenter the field in active duty, if just provisionally (it’s always provisionally, since Jack hasn’t been an active agent on the show since way back in the third season). The show at least allows this hugely unlikely, yet wholly unavoidable turn of events to be met with the proper amount of disbelief by the greater intelligence community, as the CIA is surprised by Heller’s decision to reincorporate Jack (considering it’s only been a handful of hours since he, you know, bombed them) and the British Prime Minister views it as a further sign of the President’s mental deterioration. Jack, for his part, is all business, requisitioning weapons and insisting upon the reinstatement of Morgan as his temporary partner as he tracks down an arms dealer with ties to Margot Al-Harazi. This arms dealer also has ties to someone else: Jack Bauer.
‘Live Another Day’ has essentially portrayed Jack thus far as an outlaw with only some residual resemblance to the self-sacrificing man of honor he once was, and the revelation that he spent the last two years working for Karl Rask, the international criminal who is now his best lead, fills in a lot of blanks on what he was up to while he was in hiding, but it also colors him in a surprisingly unfavorable light. But then Jack confides to Morgan that his time with Rask was spent acting as a secret saboteur, thwarting Rask’s human trafficking and cartel operations from within. Basically doing freelance Jack Bauer hero stuff, even without a country. It’s a nice note that reinforces what we’ve always known about Jack’s ceaseless heroism and devotion to the greater good.
If there is an element to Jack that does seem to have diminished during his time away, it has to be his plan-execution abilities. After backing himself hopelessly into a corner at the U.S. Embassy two weeks ago, Jack comes up with another half-baked scheme that unravels almost instantly. Jack plans to re-earn Rask’s trust by pinning his previous subversions to a deceased henchman and offering Morgan up to him as a CIA agent he has captured, as a sign of good faith. Jack intends to render Morgan unconscious via chemical injection to prevent her from being interrogated by Rask’s men, a frankly horrible idea that Morgan agrees to with not nearly enough trepidation. And as soon as Rask is presented with the CIA agent, he of course has his men revive her, putting her up on chains for some of that old ‘24’ torture, this one in direct homage to Mel Gibson’s electric-shock agony in the original ‘Lethal Weapon’. Making matters worse is that nothing can be done to save Morgan before Rask logs into the bank account Jack has given him, so that Chloe can gather intel through an implanted virus. Making it even worse than that is that MI5 agents have been dispatched to intervene by the Prime Minister due to a lack of faith in Jack’s allegiances. So altogether, not a great plan.
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