24 Recap

Day Five, 8 - 9 p.m.
One of the things you have to accept when you watch 24 is that everything in L.A. is exactly as far apart as the writers need it to be for dramatic value. Sometimes it will take 20 minutes by helicopter, sometime it will take two minutes by SUV to get across all of L.A. It's just one of those things you go with, though there are times when it is a bit more obvious they're playing fast and loose with the laws of physics. For example, 8 to 9 p.m. of day five. Jack and company get from CTU to the hotel with German guy and the new hottie femme fatale in under two minutes. At least German guy got to get his swerve on with her in the last episode since it was mostly focused on the antics at CTU and killing off Tony.

Now, at first I thought that the guy in the hotel room (who played Desmond on Lost) was the one that Colette had stolen the data from. But oh that tricky 24 universe...they fooled me big time. Seems that Desmond (not his name here) is working for German intelligence and they don't want to play nice with the United States intelligence forces. So, he's willing to let a whole bunch of people die in order to preserve German national security--oh yeah, and his hook up with Colette, who is really has fallen for deep down. In the end, Jack is able to buy him off with a super top secret list of all known terrorists and their locations and they two are able to play in the same sandbox.

But Jack has tricks up his sleeve. Such as programming the memory card on which the super deluxe list will be stored and given to German intelligence guy to self-destruct. So Jack gets what he wants and gets to preserve American security all in one fell swoop. My question is--did he program the card to do this in the two minute drive over to the hotel or the two minute drive over to the airport? Or does Jack just carry around a self-destructing memory card for just such an occasion? (Possibly he has to get rid of all his downloaded adult content quickly and this is the best way....but surely Chloe could help him create a secret directory to hide these things...anyway, I digrees).

Meanwhile, President Logan who changes his opinion as quickly as the wind shifts, decides to ignore the advice of his wife and declare marshall law. Only it's not really called that. But it's the same thing. Which, ya know, the terrorists didn't look that upset about it. Seems to me that if their target is some kind of public building where there will be around 200,000 people that having marshall law declared might make that plan go awry. I probably don't understand enough about marshall law but wouldn't everyone have to go to their homes? Or would they be kept there? I have no idea. And I hope we never have to find out what would happen.

And the Vice President is up to something evil. Yeah, we all knew that. Anyone want to take bets he's somehow in on all of this? I can see him figuring that Logan is an idiot and playing him like a fiddle. Could the VP have orchestrated all of the day's events to make himself look good for a future election? And how deliciously ironic would it be to see Mrs. Logan come out of all of this looking like a rose and then be urged to run for office?

Meanwhile, Jack faces a dilemma. Seems that women he becomes romantically involved with either a)betray him or this country b)die or c)both. Seems Audrey has been giving information to the terrorists, though I wonder if it was an unsuspecting kind of thing. And if you think about it, her family ain't the best when it comes to national security. Her brother was helping out the terrorists last year and now we've found out Audrey is helping them out. That should make their father really proud....