24: The Geek Squad

It’s the showdown we’ve been waiting for since the season kicked off.

No, it’s not Jack vs. Dubaku or whatever other overmatched terrorist has the misfortune of getting in his way. I’m talking about Chloe O’Brian vs. Janis Gold! After a brief sparring session a few hours ago where each admired the other’s skill (well Chloe said Janis was a pain in the ass, which totally counts as a compliment) the two socially-awkward techies were in the same building for the first time last night. The meeting didn’t disappoint with Janis becoming more insecure than ever and Chloe (pictured, right)getting in a couple of good jabs at Larry Moss’s “inefficient” network setup at the FBI office.

After Bill gained control of the White House staff and convinced the president to allow him to drive her to see the badly-wounded, but still alive first gentleman, Bill installed Chloe at the FBI to help Jack and Renee locate Dubaku before he fled the country.

Fortunately for them, Dubaku had to meet with and pick up his outta-nowhere girlfriend Marika, who he really seems to care about, but solely exists to stop Dubaku from leaving the country and getting away from the good guys like a more disciplined terrorist would.

As you can probably tell, I think the storyline is absolutely ridiculous, but I’m willing to roll with it because I get that the writers had to do SOMETHING to stop Dubaku from simply leaving the country. Also, by the end of the episode, I was surprised by how invested I was in what happens to Marika.

It’s not so much because of Marika’s big blowup with her wheelchair-bound sister Rosa, whom she’s obviously resented for a long time. We just met these characters, so it’s hard for me to care about their family drama. What I liked was watching Jack burst through their door after rifling through a dead bad guy’s PDA and finding Marika’s address, commanding them both to get on their knees, and Rosa in her wheelchair looking horrified. I also liked how eventually Jack pulled out his Tender Bauer act to convince Marika to let herself be taken in the clutches of someone she just found out was nicknamed the Butcher of Sangala so that Jack and Renee had a better chance of catching Dubaku. Given Jack’s history with keeping women alive or out of harm’s way, you can’t like Marika’s chances, which is a shame because she seems like a good (delusional) person.

The Tender Bauer act was a bit more jarring when Jack stopped Renee a few minutes later from giving Marika a distress signal and reiterated the season’s theme once again: “We have one job here. That’s to get Dubaku. Outside of that, don’t get involved.” Earlier in the episode, Moss had laid some more guilt at Renee about almost torturing that toddler in the previous episode, so we got to see more of Renee wrestling with her feelings.

As I wrote last week, Annie Wersching isn’t really giving me “conflicted” — she’s coming off more “wishy-washy”. Renee’s conflict about Jack’s methods need to come to a head soon, because we’ve been hit over the head that she doesn’t always approve of his “no matter what it takes” attitude (which apparently includes killing potential assets with kindness). Also, didn’t her big plan involve grabbing Marika’s driver and getting the information out of him? Wouldn’t that require, at least, light torture? What about the feelings of the driver’s wife and toddler? Hypocrite much?

Jack and Renee tracked Marika’s car with Chloe’s help. That was until Janis, fearing that Chloe was there to replace her, blackmailed Sean into helping her hack into the server Chloe was using to help Jack. When a random colleague surprised her, she quickly disconnected, crashing Chloe’s server, and alerting her to the fact that someone was hacking in. At the same time, Jack and Renee were arrested by the metro police given that a warrant was out for their arrest.

That’s fantastic timing for Sean, who issued the warrant and was revealed as the FBI mole. If you read this recap, you know that I would’ve put money on the fact that Erika was the mole. After her scenes last night I was more convinced, since Erika was the one who convinced Janis that Chloe was overqualified for the work she was allegedly doing and freaked Janis out. Now Moss and Chloe will probably think Janis is the mole, while Sean continues to ensure that Dubaku gets away.

Sean and the just-introduced shadowy generic suit guy need Dubaku to get away because if anything happens to him, he will release the names of all the people involved in the government conspiracy. I’m surprised that Sean is the mole, but a bit let down. Between his jerkiness and his office romance, I thought the guy just had too much going on to be a government mole. I’m looking forward to re-watching earlier episodes and looking for hints. Especially given the fact that his wife appeared to be in very real danger a few hours earlier.

Last night also introduced a couple of new characters, while briefly getting us reacquainted with two new ones. It was good to see Morris O’Brian back briefly (and not being tortured) and Chloe’s kid Prescott is surprisingly adorable (hasn’t developed the signature sour face yet).

We also got the return of the most loyal Secret Service Agent EVER in Aaron Pierce, who was dispatched by Bill to notify the First Daughter (no, not THAT one) Olivia about the First Gentleman’s shooting. In her brief scene, Olivia showed she was tougher and more interesting than the First Gentleman has all seasons. It goes without saying that I won’t exactly miss the guy when he’s in surgery for the next 5 episodes, I mean hours. I’m also looking forward to finding out the reason for the obvious friction between Olivia and her mother.

So what’d you think of this episode? Is Chloe really THAT famous in the world of “24” or just famous among other techies? Where the hell is Tony hanging around? Finally, will Dubaku kill Marika?