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‘24’: The woman who knew too much

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‘You can’t just go against everyone,’ Chloe O’Brian whines to Jack Bauer.

Sure he can. What show has she been watching all these years?

Having been betrayed by his president, Bauer breaks free of the CTU agents assigned to keep him in hiding until the Middle East peace treaty can be signed. He grabs a helicopter, lands somewhere in midtown and then vanishes in midmorning traffic.

Bauer is trying to get to Dana Walsh, who has all the information about how the Russians are behind the murder of Kamistan President Omar Hassan as well as the killing of Renee. President Taylor, however, doesn’t want any of this brought out because it would ruin her peace efforts. She’s no longer listening to Bauer or her top aide, Ethan Kanin. Instead, former President Charles Logan has her ear, and she’s been seduced into his world of sleaze.

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Recognizing that Dana knows too much, Taylor takes Logan’s advice and turns her over to a private security firm that hustles her out of CTU. Mark Bledsoe, who is heading the operation, will need to get the secrets she is hiding out of her and then make her disappear. Can you say waterboarding?

Jack, meanwhile, reaches out to Jim Ricker, an old spy pal who happens to have a small arsenal in a Lower East Side safe house, where he seems to spend most of his time listening to police scanners. He loads Jack up with enough weapons to take a small country or a few blocks in the South Bronx.

But Jack doesn’t know where Dana has been moved. Chloe almost tells Jack out of loyalty to him but at the last minute chickens out and sets a sting. Bauer knows Chloe won’t really go against the president so he knows it’s a sting, but it is also the only way he has a chance to figure out where Dana is being held.

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Of course, four heavily armed CTU agents are no match for Bauer, and in no time, he has stung the sting. He convinces Cole Ortiz that the president is lying and that he should help Bauer to straighten everything out. Bauer even stoops to reminding Ortiz that Dana, the woman he’s still engaged to (technically he has not yet broken it off, although shooting at her might be a sign of second thoughts) has been working for the Russians while with him, which doesn’t look to good for him.

We all know Cole is innocent. I found myself strangely disappointed that he didn’t shoot Bauer when he had the chance just because he showed that sort of mettle earlier in the season when he was taken hostage and refused to play ball.

Cole goes along with Jack, and they’re off to find Dana, who is about to be tortured in a way that will have her longing for the old days of Bauer slamming her head into a table.

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Meanwhile, back at the United Nations, Hassan’s widow, Dalia, is preparing to take over for her late husband. Ethan quits in protest over Taylor’s continuing this facade of a peace treaty that is built on lies.

Two interesting guest stars in this episode are Michael Madsen, playing Ricker, and D.B. Sweeney, as Bledsoe. Remember when D.B. Sweeney was kind of a teen heartthrob? I always liked him as Shoeless Joe Jackson in ‘Eight Men Out.’

One last thought: Do you think anyone at CTU is ever going to discover the body of Kevin’s probation officer, whom Dana killed and stuffed in a closet? He must be starting to ripen by now.

-- Joe Flint

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