Day Four: 3:00 PM -- 4:00 PM

Previously on 24: ImhoTerror was running the MacGuffin personally to make sure that the remaining six nuclear reactors melted down, and told TerrorDad to "clean up [his] mess." TerrorDad promised to kill off his whole family, because he's just that much of a suck-up. TerrorTeen was pissed at TerrorDad, but claimed not to be afraid of him any more. TerrorGringo told his pet mole AIIIEEEE!sha to "divert suspicion," which she did, onto Special Agent Breck, who got tortured on Driscoll's orders. Kiefer caught up with TerrorGringo before he got away in a helicopter, but then TerrorGringo got snipered right out from under him. Dammit! Lispy Skip told Driscoll, Curtis, and Scott (the latter of whom we may never see again after he totally muffed his one job) that AIIIEEEE!sha was the real mole. Curtis caught up with her in the parking lot and arrested her, which was lucky for her because her car was rigged to blow, but not entirely lucky, because she got knocked unconscious anyway by the explosion. Nice parking lot security, CTU. Curtis's car stereo is as good as mine. The following takes place between 3:00 PM and 4:00 PM. Heavens, where does the time go?

Curtis charges up to the DrisCube, full of righteous I-told-you-so fury over AIIIEEEE!sha. Driscoll turns it around on him, saying that he was the one who boned a spy in the first place, and now they're both going to be in trouble with Division over the high-security files AIIIEEEE!sha was supposedly able to access. Actually, Driscoll was the one who signed off on AIIIEEEE!sha's higher security clearance. But even so, as far as I can tell, the only damaging info that AIIIEEEE!sha ever leaked was what she "accessed" by virtue of people popping off at the mouth. Curtis suggests to Driscoll, off the record, that since AIIIEEEE!sha did such a good job of establishing her credentials, it's not going to take him more than two minutes to cover both their asses in regard to how she got the CTU gig in the first place. Driscoll says she'll call Division at five. I'm sure they'll just be sitting around waiting patiently for her call.

Dammit, where's the exposition that usually goes here? I'm feeling lost.

Oh, here it is, in the form of the leader of the free world, and he's pissed off. About Air Force One being converted into a geosynchronous weather satellite while he's on board? No, about AIIIEEEE!sha. He's grilling DaD over the phone about how AIIIEEEE!sha got in the front door. DaD is shaven, shorn, and getting ready to don a red power tie under his new suit (which was presumably delivered to him by Scott, who must have been deservedly busted to dry-cleaning duty) while standing in a room that overlooks the CTU clinic's OR where AIIIEEEE!sha's being worked on. He explains to POTUS that they're still looking into the question of how AIIIEEEE!sha infiltrated the place, as well as whom she is working for and who tried to take her out. DaD does assume that AIIIEEEE!sha's would-be killer is also connected with the theft of the MacGuffin. Way to bring that up. "We need to find that MacGuffin now," POTUS commands. He asks for the latest on the nuke sitch. DaD reports that the San Gabriel Island plant -- the one that, according to the map, is near San Diego, although a few Eagle-Eyed Forum Posters say it's closer to L.A. -- is about to go critical within the hour. The area has "less than a hundred thousand" evacuees, most of whom are already on the move. POTUS tells DaD to snap it up. DaD agrees, then goes back to just standing there and watching AIIIEEEE!sha in the OR. And that's all we'll see of her this week. Also MIA this hour: Special Agent Breck, Grayadder, and DrisKid. I just hope the clinic's not out of Haldol.

Kiefer, Soul Patch, and TerrorGringo's helicopter pilot are just chilling around the helipad as if a mysterious sniper hadn't rained hot lead death onto the scene three minutes past. Kiefer's on the phone with Driscoll explaining that even though TerrorGringo is dead, his cell phone isn't, and Kiefer was able to pull two phone numbers from it. One was AIIIEEEE!sha's, and the other is an 818-555 number. Driscoll says she'll get back to him with the scoop on that number. I think we can assume that this number doesn't belong to a 24 propmaster.

Driscoll trots right over to Skip and asks him to run the trace. Skip says he'll need to technobabble for a couple of minutes, but he'll have it after that.

3:05:42. TerrorDad walks down the hallway of a nice apartment building and bangs on the door of the unit at the end of the hall. A lovely but guilty-looking woman in a silk bathrobe answers the door when TerrorDad identifies himself. He tells her he's looking for TerrorMom. Ah, this must be TerrorMom's sister, TerrorAunt. The one who wouldn't answer the phone this week. What do you suppose she was up to in the middle of the afternoon in that slinky outfit? She's blocking the door while trying to pretend she's not, which arouses TerrorDad's suspicions (among other things) and sends him storming inside. He peeks into rooms, until TerrorAunt tries to block his entry to the bedroom. Before he can get past her, a goateed, shirtless redneck appears in the door wondering what's going on. TerrorDad stands there all silently judgy while redneck tries to bluster him out of there. Fortunately for TerrorDad, he's packing, and gun to forehead beats bluster every time. TerrorDad orders Redneck back into the bedroom from whence he came. TerrorAunt, for reasons unknown, elects to stay out in the hallway with the crazy armed guy. Glaring at her silently, he puts his gun away and starts to stomp out all pissy-like. As if she'd stormed into his house and got all up in his business. She begs TerrorDad not to tell her husband. Oops. He looks down at where a lace-clad boob has popped out of her robe. She covers herself. "You disgust me," he lies, and walks out. And I thought Kiefer was a bad houseguest. So let's see; now we know that in TerrorDad's personal hierarchy of evil, cheating on one's spouse > trying to melt the country and kill one's family. Good to know. Out in the hallway, TerrorDad hops right onto his cell phone to remind us all that he's determined to find TerrorMom.

He needs to look in this here hotel room, where TerrorTeen is doing his best to treat his mom's bullet wound witha pillow. Good luck with that. The cell phone in TerrorMom's purse rings. They elect not to answer it, which makes me sad; no "Helleeeew" this week. Meanwhile, the right side of the screen shows Lispy Skip watching a nifty screen that can triangulate the location of TerrorMom's cell phone even though nobody is answering. So all of the last ten calls that TerrorGringo made were to either AIIIEEEE!sha or TerrorMom? That seemsunlikely. TerrorGringo never struck me as much of a ladies' man. I was going to sit here stubbornly with my arms folded until this got explained, but then I started worrying that I would permanently lose the use of my elbows. Lispy Skip has pinpointed the phone as being in Chatsworth. Driscoll has him "download the coordinates to Kiefer's PDA."

CTU backup arrives at the helipad. As Driscoll promised last week, they're about ten minutes too late. Driscoll calls to tell Kiefer that the coordinates of TerrorMom's phone should be showing up on his GameBoy about now. Luckily enough, it's about ten minutes away. Driscoll promises to have a tactical team there by the time he arrives, even though she couldn't get a regular old vanilla team to the helipad for a half hour. Also? Yahoo maps places Chatsworth twenty-one minutes away from Kiefer in Van Nuys. So the travel times are starting to break down a little. It's 3:08:36. Kiefer greets the apparently mute CTU agent who just arrived, gives him instructions on TerrorGringo's body, and says to Soul Patch, "We gotta go." Soul Patch hangs back. He figures he's done for the day now that Kiefer's backup has arrived. Kiefer protests, but Soul Patch says that Kiefer doesn't need to prop up his ego. Kiefer: "This isn't about you. If we don't find that MacGuffin within an hour, we're going to have six major nuclear disasters. So please, get in the car." Soul Patch watches Kiefer storm off, thinking, "You know, prison wasn't so bad. At least I got to be a top once in a while." And they're off. Without ever having opened TerrorGringo's bag, as far as we saw. I'd love it if one of the backup agents looked into the bag and said, "Hey, do you suppose we should tell those guys that the MacGuffin is right here?" And then another guy would say, "Nah, they're having too much fun."

3:09:37. TerrorTeen is still playing concerned, guilty son, while TerrorMom is still playing brave, stoic mother. "Your father shot me, not you," she reminds him. By which she means that TerrorTeen didn't do the shooting, but it reads like she's disappointed that he didn't take the bullet. Which, sure. She continues: "Everything that's happened todaywhat we've all been fighting to achieve it's more important to [TerrorDad] than anything or anyone." "But not to you," TerrorTeen obviouses. TerrorMom falls asleep, because he's just that boring. Heh. Oh, I guess she's passing out. That's not as funny. TerrorTeen rouses her nervously. He insists on getting her some pain meds from TerrorMom's brother, who works at a hospital nearby. TerrorMom protests, because her brother isn't in on the big TerrorPlan, but TerrorTeen says he'll just tell NonTerrorUncle that TerrorMom needs some Hillbilly Heroin and leave it at that. TerrorMom agrees, as long as he hurries. "I will," TerrorTeen lies, and heads out.

Just as DaD's coming back from his mini-spa day on CTU's upper level, Driscoll rolls up to notify him that they have a meltdown already; core material from the San Gabriel Island plant is airborne. Somebody had better warn the president not to fly through that. "I thought we had more time," DaD complains. A tech calls Driscoll over with the news that they've got someone at the plant ready to go up on the videophone, although some technobabble is making the feed unstable. Lispy Skip comes up to ask what's going on, and Driscoll tells him about the meltdown, rather than reminding him that he was the one looking at the screen showing the reactor going critical last week. The reactor crew of three or four Homer Simpsons is onscreen, although they're looking pretty staticky and moving at a distressingly low refresh rate. Driscoll asks the head Homer what's going on. Head Homer, whose face is covered with so many radiation burns that he looks like he fell asleep and did a faceplant into a bowl of goulash at the plant cafeteria, explains that they've been dosed with the equivalent of 10,000 x-rays. Why can't we see their bones, then? Oh, and also, the plant's core is emptying itself into the atmosphere like a can of Aqua Net. DaD, who didn't see what happened to Mason last year, snaps, "Son, you've done everything you can. Now get the hell out of there." Head Homer says, "Well, sir, since we're under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy, you can go screw." No, he just calmly says, "Evacuating won't make any difference, sir. We've already been exposed." The feed goes snowy. Everyone realizes they're the last people who will ever see those Homers alive. And those guys can forget about leaving good-looking corpses. It's 3:12:22.

3:16:44. TerrorMom suffers, Lispy Skip jabbers on the phone, and Driscoll loiters. DaD and Curtis pedeconference past a meeting in progress -- that's a whole lot of conferring in that shot there -- as basically we learn that Curtis is understaffed and has to do everything himself. DaD, annoyed, picks up a TV remote off a nearby desk where it's just lying around and points it at the CTU big screen, where the news of the meltdown is breaking. It's so cute how Fox News gets to play the part of a real news channel on this show.

Across the floor, Lispy Skip is lying to someone that he's been trying to get through to a number in the evacuation zone for ten minutes. He finally prevails upon someone to put him through, and he listens to the phone ring while watching radioactive steam pouring out of a cooling tower on the TV. Who would hang around and film that from so close up? Suicidal cameramen? The Amazing Race must be between seasons or something. MamaSkip answers. Naturally, she's a sweet older lady with a wheelchair and an oxygen tank, and she's been watching the news too. Skip wants to know why she hasn't left yet. Well, she doesn't have a car, she can't get through to anyone, and all the neighbors were gone by the time she got outside. Skip promises that he's going to make some calls and get her some help, and he wants her to sit by the phone. "I don't really have a choice," she points out as kindly as possible. Skip hangs up and gets to work on organizing her some transport. I hope he doesn't try too hard; he doesn't exactly look like his mom drove him to a lot of soccer practices when he was a kid.

3:18:27. DoDder approaches the conference room, where DaD's telling a whole room full of people and some hapless excuse-maker on the other end of the speakerphone that he's going to assign someone to coordinate between the state police and the National Guard. DoDder comes in as everyone else leaves (as if they needed to be there in the first place). DaD complains to her about his lack of manpower, and DoDder takes on the job that DaD just described. She looks at a map and makes a "plan." Riveting. "Kiefer has got to find the MacGuffin before the rest of these reactors go critical," DaD summarizes. Sure, put it all on Kiefer. He's not even supposed to be there today!

Kiefer arrives outside TerrorMom's hotel and meets up with a squad of riot-geared CTU agents. Maybe if Kiefer had asked for fully armored backup back at the helipad, they could have gotten there faster. This team's leader is an Agent Castle, and he looks like Fish from Ally McBeal would if Fish were a fascist. Castle welcomes Kiefer, but makes no secret of his contempt for Soul Patch. "He's not authorized to be in the field," Castle says. Soul Patch gives him an "I'm standing right here" look. Kiefer backs up Soul Patch by saying he wants Soul Patch to be his backup, and Castle gets Soul Patch a bulletproof vest. As Soul Patch is donning it, Castle explains that they're looking in on the room via a fiber-optic camera. Skip pinpointed the phone's location to a specific room? He's good. The hotel manager told Castle that the "suspects" are "a mid-forties female and a teenage male, possibly mother and son, both Middle Eastern. Kiefer reminds him that they need the suspects alive and they all head inside at 3:20:25. All this based on a few phone calls from TerrorGringo's phone. Kiefer would be so embarrassed if he found out he was coming down this hard on TerrorGringo's caterer or something.

Inside the oddly green stairwell, a CTU peeping tom is poking a wire through the wall and watching TerrorMom on a handheld video monitor. No sign of TerrorTeen yet, but Kiefer doesn't want to wait. TerrorMom appears to hear some noise made by the deceptively silent dozen or so guys in the hallway. Castle sticks the key card in the lock. When TerrorMom hears the lock click, she reaches under her pillow for the gun there. Which, I don't know where that came from. After TerrorTeen killed Wahabist Wolf, he left WW's gun at the scene, you'll recall. We just have to assume that TerrorMom had her gun when she left the house. With all the time I've spent talking about it, she could have shot herself by now. And that's the case on the show, too. By the time Kiefer rushes into the room with Soul Patch and the team behind him, it's been eight seconds and she's just now raising the gun to her head. Kiefer dives and knocks it out of her hand before she can off herself. Castle jumps on top of her on the bed and starts screaming at her about where the MacGuffin is. He quickly finds the bloody bandage on her arm and immediately starts digging his thumb into it to get her to talk. Which she does. Here's what she has to say: "AAAAA-AAAA-AAAHHA-HAAAAA-HAAA!!!" Over her screams, Soul Patch and Kiefer both yell at Castle to back off, but it's Soul Patch who pulls the zealous agent off of TerrorMom and angrily pins him against the wall. "We have to get her to talk," Castle rages. "She's going to go into shock before she does," Soul Patch yells back. And besides, she might just be the caterer. Well, probably not, since she was about to shoot herself. I'll give them that. Kiefer loudly orders Castle out of the room and follows him out the door, but not before ordering TerrorMom's prints and photos sent to CTU ASAP. Soul Patch looks at the suspect sympathetically.

"He has no right to give me orders," Castle bitches at Kiefer. "Hey, c'mere," Kiefer says softly, and pulls Castle into a tender kiss. Except by "tender kiss" I just mean "quiet corner." Where they share a tender kiss. No, not really. I'll stop now. Kiefer can't just come out and tell Castle that torture is only a good idea when Kiefer's doing it, so he simply explains that TerrorMom was willing to die before she gave anything up via brute force. They need to find some leverage. Of course, by "leverage," Kiefer always means "kids." He whips out his phone to make a call to Driscoll while Soul Patch comforts TerrorMom in the hotel room. Not like that, all right? Kiefer tells Driscoll that he's going to be sending her TerrorMom's prints and photos, and he wants all "relevant databases and electronic communications." That sounds kind of hard. Do we suddenly have all day? After Driscoll snaps, "Got it" and hangs up (presumably to say, "Wait, what did he just ask me?"), Kiefer turns back to Castle. "I understand your concerns about Soul Patch," he velvets, "but for me, just give him a break, okay?" Castle agrees, because he's still hoping for a tender kiss at some point. Soul Patch calls them back in to tell them that TerrorMom's arm looks like she's been shot in the past couple of hours.