24: Sins of the Daughter

We love "24" because it’s the most action-packed, pulse-pounding hour on TV, right?

However, last night’s episode was once again relatively light on the pyrotechnics (except for one VERY notable explosion) and heavy on the scenes where the characters - Jack and Chloe, Jack and mosque imam Muhtadi Gohar, Jibraan Al-Zarian and his younger brother - simply sit there and TALK.

Still, unlike the last two episodes - which, to me, have felt like the show is stalling until the season finale - the latest hour of "24" used its downtime very wisely. It reinforced why we care about long-time characters AND made us care about newer ones, while also mixing in a couple of terrifically tense sequences.

Of course, there was also that one explosion.

I’d like to take this space to say farewell to Jonas Hodges - the delightfully-demented, temporary Big Bad of the terrific seventh season of "24" - who was killed with a car bomb. I guess he was right when he said he didn’t plan on being "Robert Tippett" (his new government identity, NOT a dog breed) for very long. I loved his defiance (finding a way to keep that picture) and his crankiness early in last night’s episode. Also, having him try to recruit the U.S. Marshal assigned to him for some unspecified future venture was a nice way of throwing us off the scent of what was about to happen.

When the bomb blew his vehicle up, I actually thought to myself, "Well, damn." Thanks to Jon Voight for a performance so good, that I’ll stop making "Karate Dog" jokes in my columns. (Probably.) I’m not putting Hodges alongside classic "24" villains like Charles Logan and Nina Meyers (who terrorized Jack for multiple seasons), but he’s certainly on par with the likes of Ramon Salazaar and Habib Marwan.

Now the question becomes, "Who the hell killed him?" Last night, we watched First Daughter Olivia (pictured, left) meet with Martin, her former associate of questionable character, who (after casually revealing he’d dug some dirt up on previous prez Noah Daniels) agreed to hook Olivia up with a hitman. First, he tried to dissuade Olivia from having Jonas Hodges killed by telling her she "could never go back," but the First Daughter was completely determined.

That is, until it was time for her to hit the execute button (hit us over the head, why don’t you writers?!) and complete the transaction that would lead to Hodges’ death. In the end, she couldn’t go through with it. (Maybe she had second thoughts about spending $250,000 in this economy.) Seriously though, the change of heart seemed pretty out of character for Olivia and would’ve made more sense if it came AFTER her talk with Mom and Dad (who finally broke out of the hospital after being fed up by the fact that no one came to visit him). Of course, if that happened, we wouldn’t have been treated to some great work by Sprague Grayden. After finding out that Hodges’ had been killed anyway, Olivia had to excuse herself before she vomited. Either way, how much cooler would it have been if we didn’t know what Olivia’s choice (Cancel or Execute) had been?

Now, she’s due to meet Martin in 15 minutes to find out what the hell happened. Personally, I don’t believe the professional-sounding hitman would complete the job without being paid. I think it’s more likely the group (led by Alan Wilson) Jonas was working with was behind the hit. However, Martin seemed to know that the hit had gone through when Olivia hysterically called him, which implies he’s involved. Most importantly of all, is Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce hovering around and seemingly on the brink of discovering Olivia’s secret.

Meanwhile, if we’re to believe the previews for next week’s episode, Jack seems to be on the brink of catching up to Tony.

Before that, Tony and his new girlfriend the Moderator led the team that was making Jibraan Al-Zarian look like a terrorist by forcing him to film a propaganda video and backloading his computer with incriminating Web site hits. (Hopefully, they didn’t throw in any porn to make him look like a terrorist AND a perv.) Jibraan was almost rescued when the police showed up, but he successfully convinced them that everything was ok after a neighbor complained about the noise. (The police never seem to ASK to come in this situations, also seen in movies like "Bound" and "Panic Room.")

Jibraan was cooperating after Tony promised that he and his brother would have a much better chance of living if he did. I filed this under "Yeah, right", but it came to fruition (at least in brother Hamid’s case) since Tony actually needed the younger brother to be alive and tell the police that his brother was a terrorist. Jibraan and Hamid have now taken a commanding lead in Most Affecting and Likable scapegoats/cannon fodder race this season (beating out Marika, Dubaku’s girlfriend, and Carl the security guy at the docks). The scene where Jibraan desperately tried to convince his disbelieving brother that he was a terrorist in order to save his life was pretty terrific.

It was almost as terrific as the scene between Jack and Chloe earlier in the episode. After chewing a disapproving, racial profile-hating Janis out again (though much more gently than last week) Jack lost his train of thought, Chloe showed concern, and Renee and Janis spilled the beans about his condition. Words were at a premium between these two characters who aren’t big, touchy-feely talkers, but Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub’s faces said it all. Chloe was right in that she was Jack’s friend and he should’ve told her (she might be his ONLY friend), and Jack was right in that the most important thing was for her to do her job, stop Tony and save the world before he dies.

She did just that, as she discovered a lead. A Muslim relief organization had deposited $2 million over the last six months into the account of Jibraan Al-Zarian and the money was withdrawn within the last 30 minutes. After checking out his expired visa and his (planted) incriminating Web activity, the FBI figured it had its man. What it didn’t have was an address, so they visited Muhtadi Gomar, an imam at a mosque and a reference on Al-Zarian’s INS form.

Naturally, Muhtadi was resistant in giving up the address of a man he knew to be innocent, leading to the return of Angry Bauer, and the two got into a heated argument. Apparently Muhtadi had seen Bauer’s hearing that morning and was wary of helping the poster boy for torture. Fortunately, Chloe called with an address and Renee and Jack sped off - but not before cuffing Muhtadi and bringing him along.

On the way there, Chloe (who is kicking ass) revealed that Al-Zarian’s Web activity had been forged in the last 30 minutes to make it look like it’d been going on for months. Jack kicked himself for not realizing it before. (To me, this is a more subtle way of showing how the disease is affecting him than having him forget what he’s saying.) He uncuffed Muhtadi and admitted he was wrong. Muhtadi also offered forgiveness, but Jack wasn’t interested. In an echo to the conversation Jack had with Sen. "Red" Mayer a few hours before, Muhtadi offered Jack a soothing tone regarding Jack’s past sins. Jack ended up rebuffing him, expressing that he wasn’t interested in God’s forgiveness, or even in forgiving himself.

In the end, Jack and Co. broke in and saved Hamid, who was being kept alive by a lone "hostile" who Jack hoped to question about Tony’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, a furious Hamid took it upon himself to cut the guy’s neck open with a piece of glass (ANY other time, this would’ve been great!), leading Jack to break out the Bauer ("DON’T DIE ON ME!") as time expired on another excellent hour of season 7.

So what’d you think of this episode? Was EVERYONE in D.C. watching Jack’s hearing that morning? (Doesn’t anyone in that area watch "The Today Show" or something?) Is Tony’s target really just a busy subway station? (After an attack on the White House, it seems kinda meh.) Finally, who do you think blew Hodges up?