Please forgive me if I leave anything out. I had a hard time reading my notes after the tearstains got them all smudged.
Cole heads over to face Jim, who immediately makes him as CTU and wipes his system. They end up in a Mexican standoff but Ricker finally agrees to help, telling Ortiz about Jack’s tape incriminating Logan.
Chloe arrives at UN and is greeted with news of Meredith’s arrest. Cole calls to tell her that Suvarov is Jack’s ultimate goal and they realize his tape of Logan is the only evidence still available. Chloe has Suvarov’s route changed to sequester him at the UN and buy them some time.
Logan decides it’s time the President knew everything and he calls to fill her in. Jason heads out to continue the search for Bauer. Ask and you shall receive … who’s waiting in the back seat of his car but Jack?
Dalia Hassan presents President Taylor with a pen inside a beautifully inscribed box, telling her it was Omar’s wishes that she use it to sign the treaty. But the warm fuzzies come to an end when Kayla tells her mother about Meredith Reed’s call. When Dalia returns the call to get only Meredith’s voice mail, she decides Taylor needs to know.
At first Taylor lies through her teeth, having learned from the master, Charles Logan. When Dalia realizes the truth and prepares to lodge a formal complaint with the UN, Allison resorts to another trick out of Logan’s bag – blackmail. If Mrs. Hassan blows the whistle, Taylor will respond by publicizing the day’s nuclear threat as an excuse to blast Kamistan back to the dark ages.
Meanwhile Jack has ordered Jason to drive him to the UN and into the garage of an evacuated building across the way. Once inside Bauer forces Pillar to stitch up his wound. When he can’t bring himself to kill Jason he has to make do with just knocking him out, then heads up to the 22nd floor to set up shop in a storeroom. He takes some time out to prepare a tape for Kim to tell her goodbye.
That clever boy Arlo spots Jack’s reflection in a surveillance tape and alerts Chloe. She heads after Jack with Cole insisting that she take his gun along. He also sends a tac team to surround the building in case Chloe doesn’t check back in. But even armed she’s no match for Jack, who quickly disarms her with his patented sleeper hold.
Dalia and Allison prepare to greet Suvarov, but the looks on their faces make it clear they’d rather be chewing ground glass. Logan watches the Secretary-General’s press conference as he puts on another tie that he hopes is luckier than the last one. Oops, guess not. He gets a call from Bauer, who plays the tape and tells him to have Suvarov join him.
The Russian President is at that moment singing the praises of Omar Hassan, whose wife can’t get out of there fast enough. Taylor tells Suvarov that Dalia knows the truth, which makes it all the more believable when Logan calls with information about a leak in the Russian organization.
When Chloe comes to, she begs Jack to use the tape instead. They can send it out to hundreds of thousands of media members and government officials via the CTU servers. Even the thought of certain retaliation by Russia isn’t enough to dissuade him, but it’s when Chloe invokes the memory of Renee that he finally stands down, extracting a promise from Chloe that she’ll see it through to the end.
When Chloe doesn’t answer the check-in call, Cole orders the tac team into action. Jack says Chloe will never be able to get the tape out if there’s even a hint that she went easy on him, so he orders her to shoot him. Understandably anguished, she refuses to comply until he makes a move to shoot himself. Chloe’s bullet strikes Jack’s chest just as the CTU agents burst in. For the record, this is the scene that started my tears flowing.
Chloe lets Cole know that she has the file and Arlo should prepare to upload it, but one of the agents tells her they found Pillar and he’s insisting on a debriefing. Having been informed of the tape by Logan, Jason forces Chloe to empty her pockets and then pats her down only to find nothing. As she’s walking away she pulls the data card from her cell phone.
A furious Jason learns Bauer has only a flesh wound and realizes Chloe was in on it after all. He starts to have her detained but is interrupted by Jack. When Pillar leans over to listen, Bauer chows down on a healthy portion of Jason’s ear. He still manages to get word to Agent Burke to confiscate the file before Chloe is finished uploading it, and she and Cole are remanded to lock-down.
Logan makes a great show of presenting the file to President Taylor, but tells her that as long as Jack’s alive he’ll never let it go. He once again plies his siren song about great accomplishments requiring difficult decisions and tells her he’s taken the liberty of putting a plan in motion. Taylor doesn’t respond, continuing her “in for a penny, in for a pound” stance, which he accepts as approval. When she plays the file, she hears the words Jack left for Kim, saying he had to act to stop a fraudulent peace process based on politics, not trust and honesty.
Jason and Charles toast their success as the Secretary-General opens the signing ceremony. Dalia hesitates but finally takes the podium when called and signs after Suvarov. When Taylor takes Omar’s pen to sign, she instead replaces it in the box and gives it back to Dalia. Telling the stunned audience that justice must be served before there can be a meaningful peace, the President says she’ll make a full statement later about the events of the day and her role in them. Her next order of business is to retract the hit on Jack. She has Tim Woods call to warn CTU, but it’s too late. His ambulance has already been ambushed and there’s no trace of him.
The Secretary-General makes the cancelled peace accord public, so when Logan’s phone rings he and Pillar both know it’s President Taylor looking for Jack. Jason, who knows when to say when, starts to answer but he’s knocked out and then killed by Logan, who wants Jack dead for ruining his big comeback. He then puts the barrel of the gun to his chin and fires as the Secret Service busts in.
Woods tells Taylor that Logan will probably survive but with brain damage, so she has Cole and Chloe freed to see if they can find Jack in surveillance archives. They track him to the vicinity of the Williamsburg Bridge, where he’s about to be executed. As always, Jack’s reputation precedes him, and the hitter says he doesn’t want to do this but a paycheck’s a paycheck. Incredibly, Jack still won’t go down without a fight, but he’s quickly subdued. Just as the hitter is about to fire he’s stopped by a call from the President. Chloe was able to track them down via the CTU drone hovering just overhead.
Taylor orders the men to stand down, threatening to fire from the drone if they do otherwise. She then speaks to Jack, telling him she’s turning herself in. The good news is that she can get her daughter for a bunkmate. She expresses her regret that she didn’t listen to him in the first place and urges him to flee the country, since both America and Russia will be looking for him. After he bades a touching farewell to Chloe, the satellite feed blurs into static and the 24 clock ticks down to zero. Thanks, Jack, it’s been one hell of a ride.
You can read more of Jack Bauer’s Legacy here>>>
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
