24 6x07

This week’s episode of 24 takes place between 12:00 PM – 1:00PM (I only know because I’m looking at the TV Guide description right in front of me). Anyway, as is usual with 24, the action picks up right where we left off last week, so let’s get started on the recap.

Jack/Graem/Phillip: Graem orders his henchmen to dispose of Jack and his father, then he drives away to presumably continue with his evil master plan. Jack and Phillip are handcuffed in the back of a van and are driven to a remote site where there’s a large hole in the ground just waiting to receive their bodies. And there’s a cement truck looming in the foreground as well.

But there’s no way anything serious would happen to Jack this early in the series. He and his father manage to overpower the bad guys and escape. Jack promptly calls Bill and tells him to set up a world-famous CTU “perimeter” around his brother’s house. The perimeter actually works this time, and Jack storms in with the rest of the agents in order to capture Graem.

Graem’s not talking, so the only thing left to do is resort to torture. Under the influence of some kind of pain-inducing drug, Graem reveals that he was the one who ordered David Palmer, Tony, and Michelle killed, and who tried to set up Jack to take the fall. Jack is stunned by this info, and Phillip also seems to be watching intently.

At the very end of the episode we see the reason for Papa Bauer’s interest: he was in on everything with Graem. But he’s afraid that Graem won’t be able to stand up to more torture at CTU, so Phillip goes ahead and kills him on the spot.

CTU: Speaking of CTU, Milo, Chloe, Morris, Bill, and the rest of the gang got a little more accomplished in this episode. Specifically, they picked up some “chatter” that turned out to be a cell phone call between McCarthy and Fayed. The voices were positively identified, and the gist of the conversation was that McCarthy found an engineer capable of rewiring the nuclear trigger devices — but the engineer must be coerced into working for Fayed. McCarthy transmits a photo and CV, which CTU intercepts. After piecing together the corrupted file, they see that the engineer in question is Morris.

Too bad he left CTU just minutes before after getting a bogus report that his brother was injured in the bomb blast and is in critical condition. The last we see of Morris, he’s being dragged away from his car by McCarthy and his girlfriend.

White House Bunker: Tom Lennox tries to move forward with his plan to get President Palmer to enact mandates that would waive numerous basic civil liberties in this time of crisis. That sits well with the VP (didn’t catch his name), but in the end (after talking to his sister Sandra), the President doesn’t go for it.

My Reaction: I thought this was a much stronger episode than last week. I was able to guess the Morris reveal because I figured it would be someone already connected to the story (i.e. not an entirely new character) and we know what kind of background he has. Actually, it was between him and Milo in my mind, but as soon as Morris got the notice about his brother and asked with that quizzical look, “What was he doing in Valencia?” I knew it was him.

The other big reveal of the evening, of course, was Phillip being even more evil than Graem. I didn’t predict this one until Phillip said he wanted 5 minutes alone with his son. That tipped me off because on 24, characters never seem to come out of those private meetings unscathed.

Anyway, I thought this episode moved the plot along nicely. I hope we see more Fayed next time, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for many more action scenes. Those have been a bit lacking this season….