24 Body Count

To borrow a phrase from my sweet husband, tonight’s episode was a real sphincter clincher.

Episode 21: 12 pm to 1 pm

• Jack used his crackerjack knowledge of how government agencies work to draw the bad guys out to the mall and their eventual doom. He called the reporter chick from early in this season (I could look back at my archives, but it’s getting late…) and dropped a few keywords that were picked up on CTU’s spy channels. Once he told Brenda K. Starr that he was meeting her at the mall in 20 minutes, it was only a matter of time for him to get there and shoot up all four of the Russian operatives who were on the floor.
• Mr. Blonde, meanwhile, had the Russian sniper who killed Renee contained in a service room, waiting for Jack to show up. Jack, Brenda, Mr. Blonde and Sniper went to a deserted room in a building nearby and Jack began his aggressive negotiations. Punching the crap out of the guy didn’t get him to talk, but I’d venture a guess that it made Jack feel a little better. Pinching off a bit of belly skin with some pliers, while also ineffective in the long run, was also probably therapeutic. Ditto for scoring Sniper’s skin with a knife, pouring alcohol on the cuts and then hitting him with the flame from a mini-torch. Jack finally decided to cut ties with the fella, as it were, when he realized that Sniper had swallowed the Sim card from his cell phone, taking his involvement with the assassination and terrorist plot from earlier in the day to the grave with him. Jack gutted the guy from gut to gullet and retrieved the nasty card. I will say this—the phone worked perfectly with the quickly swiped electronic device replaced into it. If I could guarantee that kind of product quality, I’d be using that kind of phone too.

So. Sim card replaced, Jack quickly made a phone call to the last number which turned out to be Logan the Weasel. Something tells me that he’s about to regret his request to speak to Sniper personally.

I see a very Shakespearean ending coming here. Jack’s pretty much got to die, I think. Logan’s going down. I think Taylor might even bite it. Russian head of government is probably gone. Logan’s guy who took over at CTU is a goner, and I can only hope his assistant will be with him.

Episode total: five, all attributed to Jack. Season total: eighty-two. Jack’s season total: twenty-three.