Jack Saves the World, Take Five

Wed., May. 24, 2006 9:05 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

The good news: Jack Bauer's worst day ever is over. The bad news: Jack Bauer's worst day ever is just beginning.

24 wrapped up its fifth action-packed season Monday night with a finale that saw the show's hero battling nerve gas, CTU moles, Russian terrorists and the President of the United States. And as if that weren't enough, he even got the girl.

For a minute, anyway.

The two-hour finale kicked off with Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) racing against the ever-ticking clock to dismantle a terrorist-controlled submarine docked at Los Angeles before the bad guys could launch missiles at the perpetually in-peril city.

After assistance from his former CTU mentor turned terrorist co-conspirator Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller), he regains control of the ship (er, kills everyone) and stops the missile launch. Henderson then attempts to shoot Jack in order to ensure his escape, but the gun Jack gave him was empty. Jack kills Henderson to avenge the season's earlier deaths of Tony (Carlos Bernard), Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth) and President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), the shooting that started it all.

Jack then does what he does best?go rogue?and heads out to President Logan's (Gregory Itzin) retreat in order to finagle a confession out of the day's mastermind. He enlists the help of Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub), Mike Novick (Jude Cicolella) and the presumed-dead Secret Service agent Aaron Pierce (Glenn Morshower), hijacks the Commander-in-Chief's helicopter and redirects it to an abandoned warehouse.

Jack handcuffs Logan to a pole and tries in vain to get Logan to confess to his crimes on video. He finally threatens to shoot Logan unless he speaks, but ultimately can't carry through on his threat, and surrenders to the throng of Secret Service Agents who've flocked to the scene. Jack is arrested and Logan returns to the helicopter.

The President arrives at the airfield to speak at the funeral of President Palmer, during which time the First Lady (Jean Smart) has an emotional outburst and is pulled aside by her husband. She confronts him again as to why he killed the President; he tells her it wasn't his original intention, but that it had to happen. He warns her he'll put her away in a mental institution if she mentions it again.

Unbeknownst to Logan, however, when Jack was interrogating him, he slipped a listening device into his pocket and had successfully recorded the entire conversation. Logan was arrested by the Secret Service upon completing his speech.

As the President has finally been brought to justice, Jack is released from custody only to reunite with Audrey (Kim Raver). The lovebirds are interrupted when an agent informs Jack his daughter is on the phone. He heads inside to take the call only to be greeted by a dead receiver. Before he knows it, he's knocked out, beaten up and dragged away by two men in hoods.

The duo turns out to be Chinese operatives and Jack is taken to the Chinese ambassador who 18 months earlier, or at the end of last season, depending on whether you like your timelines real or fictional, wanted justice for CTU's Jack-lead raid on their consulate.

When a mangled Jack pleads for the Chinese to simply kill them, they resist, claiming he's much more valuable alive.

They then beat him even more and put him on a ship headed for China.

24's sixth season returns to Fox next January. In the meantime, fans can head over to MySpace to get free downloads of this season's episodes.