Episode Report Card M. Giant: C | 0 USERS: N/A YOU GRADE IT Day 4: 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
By M. Giant | Season 4 | Episode 2 | Aired on January 8, 2005
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Kiefer and Driscoll are still butting heads, but now it's over how best to get Devane and Daughter back. Driscoll reluctantly sends Kiefer into the field. The TerrorFamily continues carrying out whatever mysterious plan they're running, but all of the intel and all of the equipment and all of the training represented by CTU is actually less of a threat to them than the teenage son's clingy, clueless girlfriend. Devaneâs pinko son, the only surviving witness to the kidnapping, is at CTU for questioning, and it doesnât look like anyoneâs real committed to being particularly nice to him. Kiefer's operation to try to bring in Potato Face's friend goes south for the same reasons these things always go south, i.e., People Not Listening To Kiefer. The internet threat turns out to be connected to Devane's kidnapping, because the bad guys succeed in hijacking the entire internet and webcasting the announcement that Devane is going to be tried live, online, for war crimes against humanity. What. Ever. Devane and Daughter's only hope is Kiefer, who finishes the episode in hot pursuit of the guy who grabbed Potato Face's Hacker Friend, the only existing lead in the entire case. How are we going to survive the suspense until the next episode starts in twenty-two hours? Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on 24 (quite a bit less previously than usual, in fact, since in North America the previous episode just ended three and a half minutes ago, but just in case you're that guy from Memento): Someone robbed a train, sort of, by blowing it up and then stealing a briefcase. In the wake of the bombing, CTU searched for TerrorTurk. Who, in turn, coordinated the delivery of the briefcase to the TerrorFamily. Potato Face had a friend from Hacker School who spotted the makings of a major internet attack. He alerted Potato Face; then people came and killed his coworkers, but he got away. Kiefer told his girlfriend that he didn't miss his old job, but less than an hour after arriving at CTU on totally unrelated business, he had TerrorTurk bleeding out through his femoral artery and confessing to a plan to target Kiefer's boss, the Secretary of Defense. Said Secretary of Defense tried to browbeat his peacenik son into bailing on a protest rally, and then got kidnapped by extraordinarily well-organized terrorists, along with his daughter, Kiefer's girlfriend. Shit got blowed up real good. One previous episode. Over two minutes of previouslies. You do the math. By the end of the season, there won't be any time for the actual episode.
The following takes place between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM. It would kill this show to get a nice long title sequence that I wouldn't have to recap every week?
The LAPD are already on the scene in DiCK's shabby neighborhood, drawn by the burning car and the pitched gun battle. One can imagine someone giving directions to the 911 dispatcher: "No, the other burning car. Two blocks over. And one block up. No, the other one, on the east side of the street. Yeah, that one. No, wait." Anyway, the fuzz go into DiCK's house, presumably because it's the only one with an open door, and find DiCK cowering against the refrigerator. "They took my father and my sister," he reports weepily. And his shampoo, apparently.
In a garage somewhere nearby, the brown van carrying DaD and DoDder pulls in. The abductees are rushed from the vehicle to a white van in seconds, and everyone's back on the road almost immediately. It's very Grand Theft Auto.
Down CTU way, someone has kicked over quite the anthill of activity. Kiefer has commandeered a phone and is calling the Secret Service down on the scene of the kidnapping. I have no idea who, specifically, he's talking to. Presumably it's the poor, unsung people in some call center in Bangalore that's dedicated to taking exposition at the top of every hour. Their jobs must suck.