24 Faithful Podcast

With the recent passing of Gregory Itzen (President Charles Logan), we decided to put together this special tribute in his honor.

Brad and Joel discuss the entire series of 24 (minus the so-called 24: Legacy). They discuss:

1. The order of seasons from best to worst (comparing the ranking now vs. when they started this rewatch)
2. Some of their favorite (and least favorite) characters, quotes, episodes, cliffhangers, etc.
3. Feedback from a faithful listener

Key plot:

Jack takes down Margot

• Ian sees through Chloe’s deception and realizes Heller is still alive, so Margot decides to attack Waterloo Station
• Jack tracks down Margot and saves the station, then throws her out of a window

Steve the traitor

• Jordan’s death becomes knowledge of the police and latterly the CIA
• Jack has the hitman identified as a former covert ops assassin who once reported to Navarro
• Navarro takes off and leaves the override device for Adrian Cross, who betrays him and Navarro is caught
• To get the tracker code Kate and Jack perform a ruse where Kate threatens to kill Navarro, and it works

Cheng returns

• Adrian decides he wants to use the override device to let every country expose holes in the defenses of every other country
• Originally he designed the device for Cheng who returns and kills all of Open Cell’s members
• Chloe reconfigures the device for him, he kills Adrian, and then gives a fake order to a US sub to sink a Chinese carrier ship

Jack’s Revenge at the Docks: Part 2

• Cheng has a sniper on Audrey after she went to a contact who could push the US case that it wasn’t them who gave the order on the Chinese carrier
• Kate goes to save Audrey and kills the sniper, but as they’re leaving a second shooter arrives and Audrey is shot and killed
• Jack goes after Cheng at Southampton Docks and is strategic in his assault until Chloe loses her feed and communications and Kate tells him about Audrey
• Jack goes on a rampage and kills all of Cheng’s men, capturing Cheng and then beheading him after providing CIA with the proof he’s alive

Ending (again)

• Kate leaves the CIA, Mark is prepped for transport back to the US where he faces treason charges, Heller laments his fading memory as he boards a plane with Audrey’s body
• Chloe was kidnapped by the Russians from the docks and Jack agrees to a trade: her return for his capture
• Chloe is safe and Jack is taken away by helicopter to face punishment for his acts in season 8

Contact:

@The24Podcast

24faithful.com

405-771-0567

Key plot:

Jack reunites with Heller and Audrey

• An arrested Jack is taken to Heller and asks to go back into the field to help stop Margot
• While there Audrey goes to see him and they have a heart-to-heart
• CIA follow a lead on Margot’s video demands which Naveed planted, but it’s a trap and the CIA team are ambushed by an explosive

Undercover with Rask

• Heller agrees to let Jack go undercover and see Karl Rask, an arms dealer Jack has been working for to sabotage his operations, and he’s also a contact of Margot
• The play: Jack killed Nils, another of Rask’s men, for being a CIA contact and has captured Kate, who was Nils’ contact. Jack needs Rask to complete a bank login so Chloe can access his system
• Kate opts to inject herself with a drug to knock her out, shocking Jack
• Prime Minister Davies tracks Jack’s operation after hearing of Heller’s condition and sends in MI5, who interrupt the mission
• Jack manages to get Chloe access and Kate survives her torturee

Simone betrays Margot

• Naveed is killed after trying to lead the CIA to their location, in front of Simone
• Naveed’s sister has heard of plans to leave London and Simone is sent to find out what she and her daughter know, which is nothing, but is told to kill them anyway
• She tries warning them but accidentally stabs Farah and while chasing Yasmin is hit by a bus
• Jack questions her as Margot sends a drone to kill her, which they narrowly escape

Heller sacrifices himself

• Heller offers Margot a trade: give himself up for the destruction of the drones
• He reveals to Jack his Alzheimer’s diagnosis and enlists him and Mark to help make the exchange go through
• Jack gets Heller to Wembley Stadium where he’s asked to go, and Margot fires a missile at him
• But actually Chloe cloned the feed with Heller in the middle of the pitch and Jack saved Heller - she told him she didn’t know if it would work 

Jordan uncovers the truth

• Jordan finds that files related to Adam Morgan were deleted but Navarro tells him not to pursue it until after the crisis has passed
• He doesn’t give in and so Navarro, who framed Adam, on the direction of Adrian Cross, has Jordan go to what he says is a dead-drop that will help lead to Margot
• It’s actually a set-up for an assassination, which Jordan initially survives
• He figures out Navarro sent the hitter but having gained the upper hand, is stabbed and dies

Contact:

@The24Podcast

24faithful.com

405-771-0567

Key plot:

Jack returns to save Chloe

• It’s four years after Day 8 and Jack has been on the run, but he’s found by a CIA station in London
• This was actually a plan by Jack to get captured so he could break out Chloe, who’s been captured and is interrogated
• She works for an organisation called Open Cell which is devoted to uncovering and publishing government secrets
• Jack needed to get to Derrick Yates, who worked for Open Cell, as he was involved in someone trying to take control of the US drone programme
• Yates managed this and took control of Chris Tanner’s drone, killing a squadron in Afghanistan

Kate’s return to the field

• Kate Morgan is being transferred back to Langley from the CIA’s London station after her husband Adam was indicted for selling US state secrets to the Chinese, albeit she was cleared
• She identifies Jack’s plays throughout - confusion over his escape route, is the one to work out why he’s at CIA, tracking him after Yates and to the US embassy

Jack takes over the embassy

• Yates is killed by his ‘girlfriend’ who actually is Simone Al-Harazi, the daughter of Margot who Yates is selling the drone’s override device to
• Jack decides Tanner’s flight key is the best lead for finding the person involved and breaks into the US embassy where he’s being held to take it
• While doing so he has to lock himself in a communications room to transmit the data
• President Heller sanctions him to be taken down but Kate intervenes, saves Jack and recovers the flight key

President James Heller

• Heller is President and in London to get the UK parliament to extend the lease of a military base and support the use of drones
• He is suffering with some (as yet unknown) illness which is affecting his mental functions
• Audrey is with him and married to Mark Boudreau, who vows that she will not hear Jack’s name when he discovers he has resurfaced
• After Tanner’s drone incident Heller decides to address parliament directly, taking heat from Mark in a prep session when he forgets a name, but miraculously succeeding

Margot shows her commitment

• Margot planted Simone undercover with Yates, much to the frustration of her husband Naveed
• Naveed is going to pilot the drones in her attacks later that day but he has his own plan to try and escape
• Margot learns of this plan from Simone and when he refuses to help her kill innocents, Margot has Simone’s finger removed to coerce him into agreeing

Contact:

@The24Podcast

24faithful.com

405-771-0567

Wrapping up Season 8 and what seemed to be a wrap to the series...

• Chloe at CTU is often not ideal this season: setting it up that she works there only because she has no choice, the perception at the beginning of the season that Dana is really smart but it’s because Chloe is made to seem more incompetent
• She’s often really great though: her debrief with Renee is so good, as is her threatening Frank Haynam
• It’s insane that she goes from being the unwanted staff, to being de facto lead on the floor, to being interim director in the space of 17 hours
• Chloe as director doesn’t work because so much of the reason we love her is her loyalty to Jack and her seeing beyond the bureaucracy to do what she knows is right
• As director she loses a lot of that - see trying to capture Jack instead of helping him get to Dana - and while her shift back to exposing the Russians is good, it’s still a fairly meh version of Chloe

• I certainly remember feeling fairly content with the ending when it first aired
• Really important that the final 8 episodes were as good as they were because if they had continued like the first two-thirds, it would’ve been a really low point on which to end
• I’m still firmly in the camp that season 7 (also 4) would’ve been a better ending than this season, but I’m a fan of this one

• Season 6 felt tired, as though there was a structure they tried following and there was a monotony to it, and like it needed to take a break to reset (which obviously it got from the writer’s strike)
• Season 8 feels for so long like they’d run pretty much out of ideas and opted for a lot of repetition in a lot of places
• Again, possibly a bit of the tired factor but also it suffers from an issue where it often feels like the show is trying too hard to surprise viewers
• Despite the final run this is undoubtedly the second weakest season

Jack enlists Cole and kills Dana

• Jack goes to old Special Forces friend Jim Ricker for surveillance equipment and an arsenal
• Dana is moved to a black site by a private security firm to prevent Jack from getting to her, and to find the evidence she has against the Russians
• Chloe sets up Jack for capture by Cole, luring him to a fake address where Dana is, but Jack sees through it and convinces Cole to help him expose the cover-up
• They rescue Dana and go to a bank to get the evidence, but she explodes a device to subdue Cole and try to escape by calling the police on Jack
• Jack catches up to her and kills her

Revenge for Renee

• Jack contacts Meredith Reed so she can publish the story about the Russian involvement using Dana’s evidence
• Pavel and his team use the meeting to trap Jack but he’s a step ahead and with Ricker capture Pavel
• Jack realises Pavel was the one who killed Renee and tortures him, eventually slicing open his stomach to retrieve his SIM card
• Doing this reveals to him that Logan is involved

Jack vs Logan and Suvarov

• Jack traps Logan’s motorcade in a tunnel and takes down the Secret Service agents to kidnap Logan
• Logan breaks easily and tells Jack that Mikhail Novakovich, the Russian Foreign Minister, is behind things
• Jack goes to Novakovich’s hotel and kills him and his staff/security, although is wounded in the process
• He planted a listening device on Logan (again) and overhears that Suvarov is involved too
• Jack gets a sniper trained on Logan and ready to shoot Suvarov, but Chloe manages to talk him down before he assassinates Suvarov
• Chloe tries to get the Logan/Suvarov audio uploaded to CTU to be sent to everyone in government and every media outlet but she’s stopped before she can

The President’s demise

• Ethan resigns after Taylor walks back plans to pull out of the talks due to Dana’s evidence, after she has Dana taken by the private security firm
• Taylor cedes much of the managing of the situation with Jack to Logan, albeit still being the one to make decisions in many circumstances
• She agrees to have Logan’s role in the process made public
• When Dalia is contacted by Meredith, she confronts Taylor about the Russian involvement, and Taylor threatens Dalia with retaliation for the day’s attacks unless she signs the peace treaty
• When Jack is arrested and the evidence seized, she watches the video Jack made for Kim 
• Taylor declines to sign the treaty after Suvarov and Dalia do and tries to save Jack, but she’s too late
• Logan kills Jason Pillar and shoots himself

Ending

• Logan’s team of mercenaries are about to kill Jack when Taylor calls and tells them to stand down
• She tells Jack she’s withdrawn and apologies, and that they will both have to face consequences
• Jack thanks Chloe for everything she’s done for him and she promises to protect Kim and give him time to escape

Dana the double agent

• Dana kills Bill Prady when he tries going to Hastings
• Turns out Dana’s actually a plant and working with Samir
• CTU discover this when she helps Tarin escape (he kills himself to distract CTU) and keep Hassan captive

Trade for Hassan

• Samir offers Taylor a trade: give them Hassan and they won’t detonate the “radiological dispersal device” in Manhattan
• Taylor’s against this but General Brucker convinces Rob Weiss to act, sending a covert team to kidnap Hassan
• Ethan discovers their plot and has a heart attack, from which Rob and Brucker leave him without medical help until Hassan is in captivity
• Jack fends off the team but Hassan learns of the trade and offers himself up
• Samir reads a statement of Hassan’s crimes and then slits his throat

Renee’s death

• A mysterious figure posing as a medic, Pavel Tokarev, injects Samir with a toxin that kills him, and Renee briefly notices him as he leaves as though she recognises him
• Jack and Renee go back to his apartment and have sex
• Pavel follows them, and shoots Renee to cover the tracks of the Russian involvement
• Jack gets Renee to a hospital but she dies

Jack begins quest for revenge

• To find out about the Russian involvement, Jack goes to the arraignment of Sergei Bazhaev
• Bazhaev tells him that the Russian government were involved in everything that happened and that Dana was their agent at CTU
• Jack questions Dana, who will talk for an immunity deal
• Taylor goes to CTU to talk Jack out of this and has him locked down (he steals a helicopter and escapes) because she doesn’t want him derailing the peace agreement

The return of Charles Logan

• Logan leaves several messages at Ethan’s office after learning of the Russian intention to pull out of the agreement
• He speaks with Mikhail Novakovich, the Russian foreign minister, to keep him at the table by blackmailing him with his knowledge of Moscow’s involvement in the day’s events

Contact:

• Twitter: @the24podcast
• 24faithful.com
• 405-771-0567

The undercover operation progresses

• Laitanan calls everyone he can including Sergei Bazhaev, who denies involvement 
• Renee and Laitanan fight, she kills him (stabs 15 times) and stabs Jack, who manages to kill Laitanan’s men
• Bazhaev’s men kidnap Jack and torture him but he escapes and takes down Bazhaev
• Josef steals the rods and tries to sell them to Farhad but is killed by them when about to go along with Jack’s immunity deal

Marcos and the Farhad ruse

• Samir is no longer going to export to the IRK, but use the rods in New York
• Farhad isn’t happy with this and escapes and calls CTU, only for him to get up from his hiding spot and be killed just before CTU arrive
• He dies but Jack suggests using him as dead bait to lure the terrorists into making sure he’s dead
• Marcos Al-Zacar is sent with a bomb and is cornered in an oxygen chamber
• Jack uses his mother Elaine to talk him out of detonating the bomb but the fail safe is activated by Ali and Marcos is blown up...

Tarin is involved

• But not before he says Tarin is involved
• Tarin has escaped custody after being detained by Hassan and is with Kayla
• Daliia warns Kayla of the nuclear threat and Tarin’s involvement and he kidnaps her
• Samir demands file 33 from Hassan, which contains all info on taking down American defences including radiological detectors
• Tarin fakes an escape with Kayla and is ‘shot’ in the process but it’s all a ruse to get her to CTU where an EMP goes off

The end of Kevin Wade

• Dana guides Kevin and Nick through taking $120,000 from an evidence lockup but Nick tries taking everything else and a cop discovers the mess, and Nick attacks him
• Kevin decides he’s not going to leave Dana’s life after this score
• Dana goes to kill them both only for Cole to arrive first, she explains everything to him - he threatens them but Nick stabs Kevin and is about to kill Dana/Cole when Kevin saves them
• They sink the bodies and pretend things are normal
• Kevin’s parole officer Bill Prady calls Dana and then comes to CTU to get info on Kevin
• He asks for the video archive for the lockup which will expose her and Dana is going to give it to him until the EMP

Contact:

• Twitter: @24podcast
• 24faithful.com
• 405-771-0567

18 months after Day 7

Jack and Kim are in New York and Jack’s treatment is completed

Takes place about 14 years and 6 months after Day 1

Key plot:

Jack cannot get out

• Jack is heading back to LA with Kim, Stephen and Teri
• Victor Aruz, old contact, shows up with info on an Hassan hit but is killed when Jack tries delivering him to CTU
• Kim convinces Jack to stay and help

Peace process

• Islamic Republic of Kamistan President Omar Hassan is going to sign a global peace treaty with Allison Taylor 
• Hassan has been having an affair with reporter Meredith Reed, who’s suspected of working alongside the terrorists, but is framed
• Hassan’s brother and chief of staff Farhad is actually in on it

Attempt on Hassan’s life

• Russian assassin Davros has a cover as a cop and gets on the United Nations security detail
• Planted a bomb under a manhole cover on Hassan’s exit route after triggering a bomb threat within the UN
• After the attack and Farhad’s betrayal Hassan begins arresting people who are connected to the opposition, including Minister Jamot for having a cousin who was among the detainees

Renee’s back in the game

• Davros had traces of weapons-grade uranium-235 on him
• Linked to a Russian gang Renee was undercover with six years before
• She was fired from FBI for torturing Alan Wilson and is clearly in a bad state of mind
• Ziya Dakhilov (Jon Sklaroff) is her in to Vladimir Laitanan, who leads the gang and with whom she has been violated by

Dana’s past resurfaces

• Dana Walsh is actually Jenny Scott from Rock Springs (Arkansas) and was an accessory to murder
• Kevin Wade was her partner (more like controller) and wants something in return for keeping her secret - a big score