Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Out of Time
By M. Giant | Season 8 | Episode 24 | Aired on 05.24.2010
3:51:12. Of course Logan couldn't even manage to kill himself properly, and is now being attended to by EMTs on the floor of his office. Taylor returns, and Tim says they think he'll make it, "but even if he regains consciousness, he's probably suffered severe brain damage." So maybe he'll wake up nice, then? "He knew he was the only one who could locate Jack," Taylor says. Tim says maybe CTU drones can help, and Taylor asks where Chloe is. Tim says she and Cole were brought back to CTU under arrest. Taylor orders them sprung at once and wants Chloe to use everything she has to find Kiefer. "I've already done that, Madam President," Tim says, and nods modestly when Taylor thanks him. Tim can enjoy the satisfaction of a job well-done for someone who's about to be in jail.
At 3:53:04, the CTU floor looks pretty empty, and Chloe is having Eden dragged into holding for good measure. With her hair in disarray, Chloe explains to Cole about Taylor's change of heart. "But she had already ordered the hit on Jack." She adds that the ambush already happened. "How does she know Jack's still alive?" Cole wonders, and Chloe says she doesn't. "She had everyone cleared from the floor except for you, me and Arlo." No wonder it's so dead in there. I thought the show just got tired of paying extras. Arlo's using the big screen to display a satellite shot of the ambush site, where Kiefer's body was not found. A moment later, he's got archive footage; which shows the three masked men dragging away a hooded Kiefer "five minutes" ago (even though it was at least ten) and putting him into a van. The tracking begins. They'd better snap it up if they want to find him before the end of the season. Wouldn't that be a pisser if they didn't?
Luckily, it doesn't take them long, because the van is backing into a construction site, and Arlo has it up on the CTU big screen in real time. Chloe tells them to dispatch NYPD. "Never gonna make it in time," Cole says, his one contribution to this entire effort. Chloe looks lost for a minute. "Okay, uh, hold on," she says lamely. Oh, solid plan.
The leader of the hit squad is 24's last guest star ever: Alex Carter, who played Detective Vartann on CSI and Jason Bly on Burn Notice. He leads Kiefer away from the parked van and puts him on his knees next to a pile of slag and a wall marked with the graffito "ABEL." Biblical. Kiefer's hood is pulled off, and while Kiefer blinks in the sunlight, the hit man says, "I know who you are. So I'm gonna make this quick and clean." "Am I supposed to say 'thank you'?" Kiefer asks. Somehow he manages to get a leg around to kick the hitman, and even with his hands cuffed behind him, manages to get a couple of good licks in. But the hitman quickly regains the upper hand, telling his lieutenant to stand down before popping Kiefer again and then putting him back where he was. What kind of hitman would he be if he needed help dealing with a guy in handcuffs, especially one in the condition Kiefer's in? Kiefer spits blood and blinks up at the sun and the bridge. The hitman still wants to talk, telling Kiefer, "I really don't want to do this, but orders are orders." "It's all right. Pull the trigger," Kiefer says. The hitter is just about to when his second, on a satellite phone, tells him at the last second to hold off. The hitman pulls the gun away at the last second as the other man whispers that it's Taylor. "I don't have positive confirmation but it sounds like her. She says CTU has a drone overhead. "They got a directed microwave signal, that's how they got through to the phone." Well that certainly sounds plausible, and something that could totally be invented and implemented in the matter of seconds it took. The lead hitter looks up, and sure enough, something's way up there in the yellow-gray sky is reflecting the sunlight back down like it's fricking Venus or something. All this talk about drones all season, and this is the closest we get to seeing one. The leader takes the sat-phone while the second covers Kiefer.