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Action-packed! With Walker on the run from Juma's lookout and Juma's men tunneling to the White House, an imprisoned Kiefer tries to convince Buchanan to step in to do the torturing of Burnett, but Buchanan has suddenly grown a conscience on that score. Soon Juma and his men are inside and searching for Taylor. Moss rescues Walker and passes along her word that the White House is the target, seconds before Buchanan and the Secret Service would have figured it out anyway. Buchanan bravely takes the President's tracker to draw Juma's men away from Taylor and gets taken hostage, along with many other civilians. Freed when the alert comes out during his transfer, Kiefer gets Taylor into the White House lockdown room. That thwarts Juma's attempts to get to her, but allows him to bluff the Secret Service into pulling out of the building. With help from Academy Award Winner Jon Voight, Juma learns that Olivia's in the building, and should serve nicely as leverage to get the Prez to come out of her hidey hole. Meanwhile, Moss and Walker try to convince the oddly Australian Vice President to authorize the storming of the building, but they don't succeed. Neither does Olivia succeed in getting a signal out by Morse code when Aaron is wounded, and the two of them end up joining the hostages. And so do Kiefer and Taylor, when Juma threatens to kill Olivia. Hard to see anyone getting out of this one. Which I'm sure means that Kiefer's got Juma right where he wants him.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Mind if I skip the previouslies? I didn't think so.
Well, in a matter of a few minutes, the drill bit we last saw skittering across the undersurface of some stone has now created a hole right through that solid rock that's several feet across. During the previouslies they must have swapped out the original bit with one that was diamond-tipped, or perhaps dynamite-tipped. The last of Juma's men climbs out of the water, and by flashlight in the little cave they've tunneled into, they prep their gear, which includes a waterproof laptop case, and of course lots and lots of weapons. "Let's move," Juma orders. So far, I only see two problems with his plan. One is that the amount of time it might have taken to drill the hole was a very large variable that probably should have been addressed in advance. The other is that now they're going to be running around the White House in wet fatigues.
In the White House residence, First Daughter Olivia has gotten tired of waiting around for her mom and decides to go to the hospital to be with her shot-up dad. Aaron, who must have been having the most awkward hour ever, tells her that his orders are not to let her leave the White House. She asks if that means he'll physically restrain her, and he answers, "That would never happen, Ms. Taylor, because I know you have too much respect for your mother and her office to ever let things get that far." At first I was wondering why Aaron hadn't handed her off to a real, non-retired Secret Service agent when they got to the White House, but I suppose there was still the question of which agents were dirty. Olivia congratulates him on his smooth handling of her and wonders about his experience. "Five administrations, ma'am" he says proudly, which in the 24-verse covers, like, weeks. Plus, as far as we know, he's only shtupped one First Lady. Seriously, though, Glenn Morshower is one of only two actors who has appeared in all seven seasons of this show. You can probably guess who the other one is.
Ethan comes in with orders to bring Olivia up to speed, and there's clearly no love lost between the two of them. Ethan tells her that there's another attack coming soon, so Taylor's pretty busy. And Ethan himself is on his way to the Pentagon, because of the invasion that's happening on top of everything else. Hmm, convenient. Before leaving, he tells Olivia, "Your mother's under tremendous pressure right now." So behave.
In the Oval Office, Taylor has just dismissed her Press Secretary (who has new hair now) to work on a statement when Tim from Homeland enters to tell her that Moss is calling in with a lead. He puts the call on speaker. Moss is calling from Juma's now-abandoned hideout, which is now being swarmed with FBI agents. How big was that helicopter, anyway? He tells Taylor that he's found a staging area, and that one of the terrorists is General Juma. Taylor is shocked to hear that Juma's in D.C. She should probably share that with Admiral Smith, who's out looking for Juma right now. Moss has to admit that they haven't found any clues pointing to a specific target, and that Agent Walker, who ID'ed Juma in the first place, is mysteriously incommunicado. "We have every reason to hope that she's still alive and in pursuit of the terrorists," he assures her. Except it's kind of the other way around.
Still soaked from her swim, Walker scrambles through a culvert at 7:05:32 and sprints along a steep embankment. From there, she scrambles up onto a roadway, where a Park Ranger pins her with his car's searchlight. She identifies herself, and it's kind of handy that he's already heard about her on the police radio. While standing there in the open, in the light, Walker tells him to call in to Larry Moss right away with word that there's going to be an attack on the White House. He hasn't said more than a few words into his radio before he gets shot; Dubaku, Jr. has caught up with Walker. She runs across the road and disappears into the bushes on the far side, with Dubaku, Jr. in pursuit. Kind of embarrassing how a trained soldier with a machine gun can't seem to catch a person who's running in wet jeans.
Buchanan comes to visit Kiefer in White House jail and tells him about Walker -- what she found, and how she's missing now. Kiefer is a lot more worried that she's disappeared than he is about General Juma being in the city. Other than that, they've got no way of knowing what's about to happen. "Burnett knows," Kiefer says. Buchanan says that Burnett turned down immunity, so Kiefer asks for five minutes in a room with him. Buchanan says it's too late; Burnett's on his way to the hospital. So Kiefer tells Buchanan to do it himself. "I'm not trained in coercive techniques," Buchanan protests. Kiefer insists that he needs to "do this," avoiding the T-word as always. Buchanan whines, "I'm not arguing about what needs to be done, but I can't do it. I don't do that, it's not me!" Kiefer tells Buchanan that's not good enough: "You were the one who told me, people who stand by, they might as well help them plant the bomb." But Buchanan is still refusing. "I can't," he says as he leaves. And he takes most of the respect I used to have for him -- which was not insubstantial -- along with him. Yes, Kiefer's often a sadist who uses his imagination mostly for thinking up ways to torture and coerce people, but at least he has the courage of his convictions. Buchanan's worse; he'll condone it, back it up, even facilitate it, but when it falls to him to actually do it himself, he's above getting his hands dirty. Shut up, Buchanan.
At 7:08:06, Juma and his men have made their way down a tunnel to where a metal grate separates them from a tiny alcove. One of them busts out a cutting torch. While he's working on getting through the rebar, Juma calls up an inside man: a maintenance guy in the bowels of the White House who confirms that he's in position. After he finishes up the brief conversation, another maintenance guy comes into the room with him, all unsuspecting. The two maintenance men make small talk about plans for Saturday, and the last thing Juma's mole says is, "I was looking forward to Sheila's cooking," before he plunges a screwdriver into his coworker's back. Now that's cold. I think he can forget about Sheila's cooking after that. With the first casualty down, the maintenance mole locks the door to the room, and slides a storage cabinet away from a patch in the wall where the plaster has been chipped away to reveal exposed brick. "All clear, General," he calls in over his walkie-talkie. By now, that tunnel grate has been dealt with, and Juma's cutting-torch guy pulls it away to reveal a small space crisscrossed with laser beams. He says they'll shut off in ten seconds, and then they'll have two minutes to get through. He doesn't bother to explain why. The lasers shut off right on cue, and the soldiers move in. Then they kick through those loose bricks that the maintenance mole revealed, and are inside the White House at 7:10:12. The maintenance mole is handed a set of fatigues of his own to change into so he can join the assault force. Yay, wet clothes to put on. You know, normally I can see the point of camouflage clothing, but if Juma's goal is to have his men move unnoticed through the corridors of the executive mansion, maybe they should be outfitted with business suits. And also, white. Meanwhile, the member of Juma's team who's flying the laptop is already logged into the Secret Service tracking grid, which shows the President as a red blip inside the Oval Office. Off they go.
In the hallway upstairs, a couple of Secret Service agents are on sentry duty when suddenly a knife blade protrudes from the chest of one of them. His partner gets shot by a silenced machine gun before he can react. Juma's troops assemble in the secured hallway, and the general checks the map on the laptop before telling them, "We will meet resistance, which we must counter quickly, silently. We have nine minutes until the Secret Service roll call. We must find the President by then." It's 7:11:45, so actually they have more like eight minutes and fifteen seconds.
7:16:12. Ed and Larry get shot down in the hallway as Juma's men continue their progress. Juma leads them into the Press Secretary's office, makes her put down the phone, and then shoots her anyway. If that's all they were bringing the actor back for after the writer's strike, no wonder she didn't keep her hair the same. "Five minutes until roll call, General," Laptop Guy reports, and they keep moving.
Moss and his men are now swarming through the same woods Walker ran through ten minutes ago. Moss finds the dead trooper with his radio on the road to him, and figures he's on the right track. Either that, or he's worried that Walker shot him for some reason.
Walker, meanwhile, has found some kind of park building, and as she's trying to break into it, suddenly Dubaku, Jr. appears with his gun leveled at her. Why he doesn't shoot her right away I don't know, but his hesitation gives her time to blurt, "Juma had your father killed!" He doesn't believe her at first, but she explains about the orderly and how that was how she found them. His gun wavers for a moment, but finally he calls her a liar and raises it again to shoot her. But then she grabs a handy shovel and raps him upside the head with it, breaking the window she was just about to enter. She gets a few more good licks in, but when he's on the ground she makes the mistake of closing with him and trying to choke him with the handle. Then he throws her off, withstands a few hard body blows, and starts choking her, with his hands. She looks like she's about to black out when finally a couple of shots ring out and he goes down. I feel cheated by that scene; Walker totally should have been able to take him, instead of being rescued at the last minute by good fortune and Larry Moss. But at least she's still got her priorities straight, even when recovering from near death: "I know the target!" she chokes out.
At 7:18:17, Buchanan presents Kiefer to a couple of stone-faced agents who are transferring him from the White House to the Attorney General's office. After signing him over, Buchanan gets a call from Moss, who wastes no time: "Renee Walker says the target is the White House." He says it's first-hand intel, and they're coming in from below. Kiefer's still standing there listening as Buchanan gets on his Secret Service comlink and orders a Condition Red. "Secure the president!" He dispatches Kiefer's escorts to their posts and tells Kiefer, "I need your help. I need to know you'll do exactly as I say." Kiefer grumpily gives his word, and Buchanan uncuffs him before they head off to the Oval Office. You know, that must have been the hardest thing about being in China for Kiefer: no convenient emergencies to get him cut loose when people needed him.
Taylor's personal Secret Service detail is way ahead of Buchanan and Kiefer, rushing inside to grab Taylor and bundle her out of the room. At the same time, in the Residence, Aaron tells Olivia it's time to go. He tells his cufflink that he and Olivia are on their way to the lockdown. So now we know that he's plugged into the Secret Service communications channel. Either that or he's just talking to his cufflink out of habit.
Buchanan comes on the run to meet Taylor and her detail outside the Oval Office and to report that with men down and the exits blocked, they need to get to the lockdown on the first floor. Taylor's first coherent thought since this started going down is when she spots Kiefer with a gun. "What the hell is he doing here?" she demands. Kiefer says she needs all the help she can get. Taylor wants to know where Olivia is, and Kiefer tells her Aaron's taking her to lockdown. So clearly Aaron's cufflink is live after all. As the little party gets moving, Buchanan starts trying to raise agents in their quadrant. They don't answer, because they're all dead. Or sleeping. Buchanan concludes that the invaders are on their way, homing in on Taylor's personal tracker. So he takes it from her and offers to carry it off to draw Juma away, which is a pretty courageous move, even assuming Juma wants Taylor alive. Kiefer lets the Secret Service detail lead the way to the lockdown. "This is your house, I'll follow," he says generously. Plus he's less likely to get shot that way.
Right now, suited agents led by the thin, gray-haired agent in charge of White House security, Agent Hovis, rush along the Portico and into the building while Hovis acknowledges a call for reinforcements. Everyone's cufflinks are getting such a workout this hour, I keep expecting Jeff Bridges to come in with a voice-over about which batteries the Secret Service trusts most.
At 7:20:27, Juma's party is heading for the Oval Office when Laptop Guy reports that Taylor's on the move. Juma splits his men into two parties to trap her in the corridors in a pincer movement. They don't know that they're actually tracking Buchanan, who's now running around the halls, ducking around corners with his gun leveled. He wants to avoid capture as long as possible, not only to buy more time for the president, but also because he probably doesn't much want to be captured anyway. With all these people running around in the White House hallways, it's like watching the Sangalan army's reenactment of their favorite West Wing episode in fast-forward. Finally Buchanan finds himself trapped between Juma's two groups, and surrenders. Laptop Guy takes the presidential tracker off of Buchanan, and other soldiers roughly force him to his knees. Juma quickly figures out what this means: "They know we're here. They're moving the president to the lockdown. Find her." Juma levels his pistol at Buchanan's face, and I actually wonder if four seasons is all Bill Buchanan gets, but then Juma pistol-whips him to the floor instead. He just realized that they need hostages. Not a moment too soon, either.
Hovis and a few other agents scamper through the halls until they run into a party of Juma's men. Everyone dives for cover behind priceless colonial furniture and starts shooting, but the Secret Service's pistols are no match for the Sangalan machine guns. Hovis tells his cufflink what's going on. Meanwhile, other soldiers are sweeping offices, herding civilians into the hallways. This is what's so frightening about Juma's elite commando force: they're everywhere they need to be, all the time, in whatever numbers are necessary. If they were back home, defending Sangala, the U.S. invasion probably wouldn't be going as well as it is.
While accompanying Taylor and her two-man detail to the lockdown, Kiefer asks Aaron via walkie-talkie where he is. Aaron whispers back that they're upstairs, trying to get past the bad guys. See what I mean? I'm starting to think Sangala is Swahili for "ubiquitous." As Taylor's party reaches the entrance to the lockdown room, Kiefer warns Aaron that the bad guys are getting close, and he has about thirty seconds to get Olivia there before he has to seal it off. Taylor protests, but Kiefer tells her, "Madam President, your life is the priority whether you like it or not. Please, step inside." If she was going to argue, the rattle of gunfire from the end of the hall causes her to think better of it. Kiefer ends up safely inside with Taylor, while the two members of her detail stay out in the hallway to die. Well, this is their house, after all.
After they've done that, Kiefer radios Aaron to tell him they're locked down. "We came under attack, we didn't have a choice," he apologizes. Aaron's cool with it. "We couldn't have made it anyway, Jack. We'll try to find a way out of the building." And then they're cut off. While Taylor frets about her daughter, Kiefer finds a video monitor that provides a feed from the hallway outside. Juma has arrived, and he sends a burst of gunfire into the doors. All that does is punch a circular hole in the wood to reveal the steel beneath, barely dented. It's the season of the panic room.
More agents pour into the White House to join Hovis where he's pinned down, these ones armed with Uzis. Given this new development, one of Juma's men reports that he doesn't know how long they can hold them off from where Juma is now. And Laptop Guy confirms from video surveillance feeds that they're about to be outnumbered. Wait, so suddenly there are security cameras inside the corridors? Is Laptop Guy the only person in the building who can see them? Because otherwise, how do a dozen or more armed commandos and a nine-foot-tall warlord/illegitimate foreign head of state get to wander the building for almost ten minutes, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake, without anyone outside the range of their weapons noticing? Must have been a shift change going on or something. Juma realizes that nobody but his men knows that Taylor is safely in the lockdown, so he gets onto the Secret Service channel and says, "I have the President. Evacuate immediately or she will die." Hearing this over his earpiece, Hovis asks for proof, but Juma's not playing that. Hovis buys the bluff and orders a full retreat from the building. With that accomplished, Juma orders his men to bring all the hostages to that section of the hallway.
At 7:25:44, every Secret Service agent has cleared out, except of course for Aaron, who's hiding with Olivia instead of taking advantage of the evacuation to get her out. Apparently Aaron didn't hear the order, because he tells Olivia, "The only reason Secret Service would retreat is if they thought Juma had the president." Poor Aaron. Just because he's retired, they set him up with a crappy Secret Service comlink that cuts out on him whenever the plot requires it. He deserves better, really. He realizes that they need to get out and let everyone know that Juma's bluffing about having the president. Well, how hard could that be? Oh, and you know who else is gone? All of those American soldiers that have been guarding the hallways up until this hour. It's almost as if they anticipated the order to evacuate, and carried it out before it even came. Either that, or the show forgot they were there.
Hostages are being herded into the wide hallway outside the lockdown and forced to sit on the floor, with Buchanan among them. Laptop Guy inserts some kind of card peripheral to connect his laptop to the access panel to the lockdown door and guesses that he can have it open in fifteen minutes, "Assuming the specifications Hodges gave us are correct," he caveats. It's 7:27:22, and it sounds like there's going to be a game-changing moment at 7:42:22. Or so. By the way, shouldn't Juma be starting to think about that 7:30 rendezvous with Ryan Burnett that won't be happening now?
At 7:31:45, Walker and Moss arrive by helicopter and join a small city that's been set up by Secret Service and local police on Pennsylvania Avenue. Oddly, I don't see Tony's car parked anywhere nearby. Hovis ushers them into the van that's serving as the command post as he explains why he retreated. "I felt I had no choice but to pull back," he says. Oh, whatever, Hovis; you're already going to be the most fired Secret Service agent in the history of the universe, so why not admit that you just wanted to get out of the building before your access cards quit working? He shows Walker and Moss the visitor manifest, according to which there should be about 53 hostages and no living Secret Service agents inside the building. Except Aaron, of course, who he probably doesn't know about. Or else instead of a head count he did a lip count, which wouldn't have registered Aaron's presence anyway. Hovis adds that hostage rescue teams are getting ready to storm the building, but Moss says they'll have to get that order from the Vice President, who according to Hovis is now en route to a "secure location." Moss also asks Hovis for an infrared satellite scan of the building, and Hovis hurries off to comply. Secret Service supervisors sure get eager to please when somebody starts shooting up the White House on their watch, don't they?
And Walker has just spotted a familiar name on the manifest. "You didn't tell me Jack was in the White House," she accuses Moss. As he hands her a fresh cell phone and gun, he tells her about how Kiefer was under arrest for torturing a guy in the White House. He doesn't much like the thoughtful look on her face when she hears that. "Renee, the President is our priority, not Jack Bauer. Are we clear on that?" She says she's clear. If I were her, my priority would be dry clothes.
While Kiefer rummages through a supply cabinet in the lockdown room, Taylor sees on the monitor that more hostages are being brought in. Senator Mayer is among them, but she's worried that Olivia isn't. Kiefer assures her that's good. "I know Aaron Pierce. He will do everything in his power to make sure that your daughter is safe." Taylor wonders how they could have gotten in, and Kiefer is sure there was inside help. Of course he doesn't know from whom, but if I were President, I'd start asking myself whether any of my senior staff had conveniently "gone to the Pentagon" at the top of the hour. "Juma must realize there's no way for him to get out of this alive," she says. Kiefer agrees. "He came here to make a statement and he's willing to die for it. As soon as the rescue teams realize that you're secure, they'll move in. It's only a matter of time." Except they realize they might not have as much time as they think, because they see on the video monitor that Laptop Guy is looking pretty busy outside the door, and the access code number display is starting to beep. Plus two of the six flashing digits have already stopped cycling, with four to go. Horrified, Kiefer realizes they're about to get inside, and says he needs to get into the access panel. As he goes to a floor lamp and unplugs it from the wall, Taylor offers to help, so he asks her for the toolbox. After ripping the power cord off the lamp, he starts unscrewing the panel. Three digits left. Kiefer asks Taylor to plug the cord into the wall, which she does, slowly. Two digits left. Kiefer strikes a few sparks off the two exposed leads in his hands, which should have instantly tripped the circuit breaker and left him feeling pretty stupid, standing there with a pair of dead wires. But he uses the leads to short out the panel's guts with only one digit left, and the numbers go dark. Even better, the door doesn't open automatically as a fail-safe. Of course, there's no telling whether it's ever going to be possible to get that door open again, but that's probably something to worry about under less urgent circumstances.
Outside, Laptop Guy tells Juma that the panel must have been disabled from inside. Hey, remember that old TV show, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century? He was always shooting door panels to make them do what he wanted. Need a door opened? Shoot the door panel. Need a door closed? Shoot the door panel. Need the door to let in only your friends, and then make you an espresso? Shoot the door panel. I don't know why I thought of that just now. Anyway, Juma orders C-4, but Laptop Guy says it will take too long and possibly not even work. "Then we will find another way!" Juma snarls at him threateningly. Suddenly he becomes aware of how his men are looking at him, so he repeats his message in a more inspirational manner. And then he dials his scrambled sat phone.
It's 7:36:43, and Jonas Hodges from "Redemption" -- Academy Award Winner Jon Voight, still -- is enjoying some Chinese takeout in front of CNB. A phone rings behind him, and Rory Cochrane (Speedle from CSI: Miami, who you recall dying on that show as a direct result of his slovenly gun maintenance habits) answers it and tells Hodges that it's Juma. Unhappily, Hodges throws down his napkin and gets on the speakerphone to ask Juma what's up. Juma explains the situation and tells Hodges, "I need you to find me another way in." Hodges says he's already done all he can, and he's out. Juma steps away and whispers threateningly, "Are you forgetting you don't have the shipment yet?" Shipment? What shipment would that be? Whatever it is, we're not finding out tonight. Hodges blusters about the deal they had, but Juma's ready to destroy the shipment if Hodges doesn't help him now. Hodges puts him on hold so he can confer with his man Seaton, who says the shipment isn't due for another two hours. "His men will have plenty of time to destroy it [or] render it useless." So the shipment must be something Hodges wants, that Juma has, but going by what Seaton just said, it's probably not diamonds. Which means it's going to turn out to be diamonds. Hodges gets back on the line and asks who's in lockdown with Taylor, and upon hearing that Olivia isn't in there, he tells Juma that according to the manifest that he has at his fingertips, she's somewhere else in the building. "Your shipment will arrive as planned," Juma promises, and ends the call. "Stress is the fertilizer of creativity," Hodges boasts to Seaton, and then invites, "Let's play some darts," as he hurls one at the board. Whatever the fertilizer of good darts is, Hodges doesn't seem to have a great deal of it.
At 7:39:25, Juma tells his men that their new project is to find Olivia. They scan the hostages' faces. Mayer whispers an inane question to Buchanan, and when Buchanan ignores him, he asks, "You think I made the wrong call with Bauer? You think that if I'd signed off on him torturing Burnett all of this could have been avoided?" "You don't know what I'm thinking, Senator," Buchanan finally lies. By now, Juma and his men have determined that Olivia's not among the hostages, so they'll have to go find her.
Aaron leads Olivia through a hallway, and after peeking around a corner, sees that the last of their three possible exits is covered, just like the others. Which makes three teams of Sangalan soldiers, just on the exits, in addition to the ones guarding the hostages, and the ones roving the hallways, plus one or two who have already been killed. Are Juma's men half-rabbit or something, the way they keep multiplying? Adding to Aaron and Olivia's problems is the fact that the windows are unbreakable. So they have to get a signal out through the windows of the residence somehow. Aaron tries to get her to agree to let him stash her somewhere so he can go alone but she refuses. Looks like they're staying together, then. Well, there are worse places for a First Family member to be in a crisis than with Aaron Pierce. Anywhere else in the world, for example. It's 7:41:34.At 7:45:54, Hovis shows Moss and Walker his infrared scan, but all it shows is a big blob in the middle of the building. So Juma has captured either a large number of hostages, or Jabba the Hutt. Moss asks for better resolution, but Hovis proudly says, "The White House is one of the most heavily shielded buildings in the world." Yeah, I can tell. Hovis then sends Moss and Walker over to the van, where a video conference is being set up with the Vice President.
As Moss and Walker face a giant video screen displaying the Veep's face, we learn that Kiefer isn't the only one on this show who has violated the Constitution, because the Veep is totally Australian. In fact it's Cameron Daddo, the former host of Pirate Master. He's making some kind of uneven attempt to camouflage his Aussie twang with a Southern American one, but it just comes out sounding like a cross between Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element and... well, Cameron Daddo. Moss quickly briefs the Veep on the situation, which is that Juma's got his hostages gathered outside the Roosevelt Room, and there's no reason for him to do that unless Taylor made it into the adjacent lockdown and Juma's bluffing about having captured her. And that's Moss's argument that the Veep should give the green light to storm the building. The Veep has his doubts, but Moss continues to make his case, while Walker nods supportively at his side. But the Veep is acting like he's too worried about getting Taylor killed, and insists on prudence. Walker speaks up: "Mr. Vice President, terrorists are in control of the White House. I would ask you to consider if prudence is the appropriate response in this situation." The Veep condescends to the little lady, and orders them to sit tight until further notice before cutting off the call. Walker bitches that he's covering his ass, but Moss says there's not much they can do about it. And in the Veep's secure location, his assistant tells him he made the right call. "You can't order an operation that results in the President's death and your own elevation to the job. It would be politically untenable." "Never let anyone hear you talking like that, Derek," the Veep snaps. Of course he can think it, but don't ever say it.
At 7:49:06, Aaron and Olivia are out in the open when they spot one of Juma's men in the hallway. Rather than shooting first, Aaron tries diving for some nonexistent cover. They exchange shots, and Juma's soldier dies (only to spawn again elsewhere, no doubt), but Aaron's hit in the right shoulder. Aaron tells Olivia that the shots would have been heard, so it's up to her to send out the signal before someone comes to investigate. He directs her to the adjoining room, where she'll find a flashlight in the bureau. He writes the Morse code for "Code Green" on her hand and sends her on her way. It takes her a while to find the flashlight, but when she does, she hurries to the window. She only gets a few blinks into the message before one of Juma's soldiers grabs her from behind. After being dragged back into the hallway, she shakes her head at Aaron -- who apparently surrendered to the new arrivals without a fight -- before they're both frog-marched back toward the hostage area. Huh, too bad Aaron couldn't walk thirty seconds ago; it might have bought them a little more time if the soldiers hadn't found him lying there in the middle of the hallway. It's 7:50:53, and presumably someone at the command post outside noticed the blinking in the top-floor window and is now running around going, "'Co?' Is there an Agent Co here?
During the commercial break, Kiefer visits the FBI-DC set to let us know that 24 is working on the "climate problem." Thank God.
7:55:22, and Hodges is watching CNB, where the news of the White house invasion is just breaking. And the world's worst and most bored reporter is on the scene. I suspect the entire point of this scene is for Hodges to learn that the Veep is now in charge of whether or not to order an assault. Either that, or to give a producer's girlfriend a speaking part.
Laptop Guy informs Juma that there are cameras in the chandelier over their heads, and even shows him the live feed from that camera on his laptop. I can only assume that the camera isn't connected to anything that records or plays back footage, because if it did, of course the Secret Service would be checking it to see if Taylor made it into the lockdown. Rather than waving at himself on Laptop Guy's monitor, Juma looks over to where Olivia and Aaron are being led in. He whispers, "Get me a chair." Not... the comfy chair?!
Inside the lockdown room, Taylor is pacing around. Kiefer's back in the supply cabinet, so Taylor's the first one to notice that a chair has been positioned in front of the camera outside. "He spotted the cameras," she tells Kiefer. As he joins her to watch, Juma stands behind the chair and has Laptop Guy patch him in on audio. Juma tells her that it's good that she's been watching them. "There's something else I think you should see," he says. And with that, Olivia is brought over to sit in the chair, while Juma produces a giant bush knife. Even Kiefer looks worried now. Juma cups Olivia's chin and threatens, "If you don't open the door, I'm going to cut out your daughter's eyes one by one. And then I'm going to cut out her tongue, and then her head." He's going to cut out her head? "Mom, don't listen!" Olivia screams predictably, until Juma claps a hand over her mouth. Juma admits that Taylor can't be sure he won't kill her anyway. "All you need to know is that I most certainly will kill her if you don't." And he presses the point of the knife against Olivia's cheek. Seriously, is no one outside patched into this? You'd think they'd at least be curious about what's going on in here.
"Open the door," Taylor orders Kiefer, but he's not about to do that. "I can't!" he finally yells at her. Taylor reminds him that she's already lost a son. Oh, and don't forget that her husband's fate is pretty much up in the air too. "Have you any idea what it's like to lose a child?" she asks. Yes, but she keeps turning up again. Kiefer tells her he's sorry, but there's nothing they can do. "Do you have children, Jack?" she asks. He says he has a daughter. "Could you do what you're asking me to do? Just stand by and watch her butchered?" Kiefer admits that he couldn't, "But I am not the President of the United States." Which is a pretty polite way of saying, "Sucks to be you." Taylor once again tells him that as President, she's ordering him to open the door.
And then we're in a rather cursory splitscreen. Kiefer looks at the monitor, where the combined pressures of Juma's hand and knife are contorting Olivia's already frightened face into some rather inappropriately hilarious expressions. Buchanan, Mayer, and Aaron watch helplessly from among the hostages. Finally, Juma says, "You're running out of time," and prepares to take one of Olivia's eyes. But then the doors slide open, revealing Kiefer with his hands clasped behind his head, and Taylor behind him. I guess he didn't destroy the door panels entirely. Juma's men take Kiefer's gun and radio, and put him with the hostages. "Dammit, Bauer, what have you done?" Mayer asks him. Taylor faces Juma and tells him that now that he's got her, he can let everyone else go. Juma strikes her across the face, causing all the hostages to gasp in shock at the spectacle of the leader of the free world getting bitch-slapped. As she looks at him defiantly with a hand in her hair and blood at one corner of her mouth, he says, "You don't give orders to me." Taylor's meetings at the White House with the other Sangalan leader certainly do tend to go better than this one is so far. He tells his men, "Get the camera ready for the statement." "What statement?" she demands. "The last one you'll ever give," he answers. Well, then, let's hope it's better than her one. It's 8:00:00.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter (mgiant), or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.