The Hours: 24, 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

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The Hours: 24, 5 p.m.-6 p.m.

POSTED: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 3:09 PM

Filed Under: TV | 24 Watch

In the words of Larry Moss, “make it stop!”

Featuring: The rebooting of computers and plotlines.

Our announcer warned us: “this is the hour that changes everything.” Really, though, one might argue this was more like “the hour that just kind of rewords everything a little bit and changes a couple of names.”

We begin with the reveal that Erika, aka the poor man’s random Arquette sibling, is not just a bad girl because of all of that adultery she has been committing. No, apparently she and Sean like a little treason with their pillow talk. Double moled!

Meanwhile, Jack and Renee sweet-talk their way out of being arrested, and spend a little quality time arguing over the fate of Marika. “We didn’t have a choice,” Jack growls. “She was our only asset.” “She’s not an asset, she’s a human being,” Renee whines. Yawn.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Marika shows up at the meet with Dubaku!, and we prepare to watch him crush her with his evil evilness. Instead, he just kind of wants to make out and forgive her. He feeds her a line about the media distorting that whole “sadistic killer” thing, and she hesitantly agrees to go with him. There is a lot of awkward face touching.

Jack and Renee are in hot pursuit of Dubaku!’s vehicle, under the guidance of Chloe “Big Brother” O’Brien and her love of traffic cameras. In a voice not quite as soothing as the GPS lady, Chloe shouts to turn left, so Jack takes the scenic route through a park in what has to be the least subtle, least covert trailing job ever. Dubaku!’s driver sees Jack’s maniacal driving and takes off. Chasing commences, followed quickly by Jack and Renee slamming into a “Zippy” cab. It seems like those crazy kids might just get away, but Marika chooses this moment to go badass. She grabs the driver’s face and a struggle ensues. Crash. RIP Marika, we hardly knew ye.Renee, still holding on to a tiny piece of her soul, desperately tries to pull Marika’s body out of the about-to-explode vehicle. Jack tries to stop her, but Renee pulls a Bauer and threatens to shoot Jack if he doesn’t help her prevent Marika Flambé. He helps, and you know he was secretly a little proud of his girl.

Back at the hospital, Mme. Pillowface is in quite a state, and would prefer sitting in the waiting room for the next 5 episodes while her skelehubby is in surgery to actually being, like, president. Chief of Staff Maybebad tries to remind her of the whole “leader of the free world” aspect of her job description, not to mention the matter of the country she just invaded. None of this seems to sway her, until Bill runs in, blinds her with his glowing white locks, and tells her the hospital is not safe but he has “secured the White House.” According to the previews for next week, nice job, Billy.

Back at the accident scene, Jack decides it’s a good idea to wake the half-dead Dubaku! and then bait him into cardiac arrest by threatening to kill his kids. Before the eye-rolling and seizing this plan inevitably causes, Dubaku! mentions that list he has of all of the conspirators. As the paramedics try to use a defibrillator on Dubaku!, they run into an issue: it seems there is something metallic somewhere inside our man. Jack does the sensible thing and orders the paramedics, at gunpoint, to cut Dubaku! open in the middle of the street so Jack can go digging for gold (or metal, at least). Turns out that Dubaku! has been using his innards to store his portable flash drive. What, he’s too cool to wear a lanyard?

Jack realizes he is now holding the most incredibly valuable piece of information ever, so he decides the best course of action is to… hand it over to a COMPLETE STRANGER. Did he hit his head in the Zippy crash? Turns out Complete Stranger is more reliable than anyone with whom Jack ever worked intimately, though, since CS actually delivers the chip to Larry, rather than immediately turning out to be a mole.

Speaking of moles, Sean and Erika are arguing in a bathroom. After seven seasons of 24, you’d think someone would learn that moles always hatch their plots/make their secret mole calls in bathrooms. Sean spills the beans to Erika that the list is out and they are screwed, unless they can crash and reboot all of the FBI’s servers. He calms the hysterical Erika by seducing her with sweet nothings like “nobody’s better with those servers than you are” (If he was going for ubercreepy delivery, then hand that man an Emmy). Somehow his dirty server talk convinces Erika that this plan will work.

Dubaku! has been transferred to the hospital, where Renee is in a snit and tries once more to appeal to Jack’s sense of morality. Heh.

Special Agent Foxy Mole (derr)

At the FBI, Chloe explains to us that this chip/flash drive/whatever is a “PX 17 drive,” which means it has an “auto-erase function,” so they only have one chance to download the information. Of course. Erika does her server magic, and gleefully tells her boyfriend that they are safe. He responds by making out with her and shooting her. This might go down as the most obvious but also ickiest death in 24 history, mostly because of Sean’s full-body, slow motion bend to allow him to closely observe Erika’s death swoon. His eyes don’t work without moving his whole upper body? To finish his dastardly plan, Sean shoots himself in the arm.

Larry and Chloe bust into the server room and Larry eats up Sean’s story about Evil Erika being the mole. Chloe looks more skeptical, but maybe that’s just her neutral face. Dummy Larry tells Sean everything as his wounds are tended to, and Sean has the gumption to try and give Larry guilt for not trusting him. Sean’s diabolical story hour comes abruptly to an end, though, when Chloe magically restores the files and Larry stupidly tells Sean. Sean attempts to run away (telling the always befuddled Janis that he needs to “run an errand”), and is immediately captured. Larry has a moment of Bauer zen and throws Sean against a wall, but Sean uses Larry’s weakness for civil liberties against him and demands a lawyer.

At the hospital, Renee falls apart for the 700th time since the season premiere as she has to tell Marika’s sister, Rosa, that Marika is deadsville. Renee takes her pain out on Jack, actually questioning his status as a human being. In the season’s most ridiculous moment to date, Renee gets slaphappy with Jack to test his pain response, then dissolves into a sobby hug. It was the least convincing emotional collapse since Jessie Spano’s speed-induced breakdown on Saved by the Bell. Jack responds to this show of what humans call “emotion” by telling her the next time she pulls her weapon on him, she “better intend to use it.” “I did,” she snarks back, to which Jack has no response, but you know he totally wanted to ask her out for coffee and/or torture.

It’s 5:47, Dubaku!’s in custody, the list is safe, people are being arrested, the conspiracy is over, and we are going to commercial. Anyone who has never watched 24 would say, “I don’t get it, what could possibly go wrong now?” Anyone who has ever watched 24 would say, “oh, right, there never was a virus/nuke/whatever. Time for the real plot to start.”

And start is does, but not before Mme. Pillowface and her not at all Pillowy daughter show off their family dysfunction, and not before Billowy White Buchanon asks the Prez to get Jack out of that pesky Senate Subcommittee thing. It sounds like he is saying “Senator Mayor,” which is funny, but IMDB tells us it’s “Senator Mayer,” which isn’t funny at all.

Somebody apparently told Jack the season was over, though, because he is sitting and staring at the Washington Monument, preparing to have a good cry. Not so fast, Jack – here comes Tony Almeida. Tony succinctly tells us that it “ain’t over yet,” which is good because it’s only 6pm. Dubaku! is only a second-tier psycho, remember – we still have General Juma to contend with, and he already has a giant terrorist plan ready to go (it’s always good to have a backup). Almeida lets us know that Juma has a “high value, high impact” target lined up (ahem, Bill “Secured it” Buchanan), and that Senator Mayer’s chief-of-staff is involved. Even though the conspiracy is “over,” Tony gives several not-at-all convincing arguments why Jack needs to handle this the “rogue” way rather than, say, calling 911 and then taking a nap.

Of course, it turns out that the nameless bad guy on the other end of all of Dubaku! and Sean’s phone calls is none other than Mayer’s chief of staff. Mayer has to take a little trip to the White House, since BILL asked the president to talk to him about letting Jack off the hook. Mayer asks his evil chief of staff to go with him to the White House. BILL!

Next week, two hours you will never get back, and we get to see just how secure the White House really is.

Death Watch:
1 Dubaku! Driver
1 good lady (Marika)
1 bad lady (Erika)
1 “brain worm,” according to Dawn Stensland’s overdramatic promo for Fox News.

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