Watching 24

Well, now that the four-part premiere is over, I’m here to give you the rundown on all the action. I’ll start with part one tonight and post another part each day for the next few days. Enjoy and feel free to discuss the episode in the comments section.

The episode opens with a man and his daughter arguing because he won’t let her use a cell phone while they’re in the car and he’s talking on one. They suddenly get rammed by another car and masked men with guns jump out from all over and take the guy hostage. One of the masked men tells the victim (whose name is Lafen) he’s going to help them fix something.

Meanwhile, Jack is being interviewed by the senate committee about torture practices. The man interviewing him offers to let him come back later with counsel, but Jack refuses. He wants to just answer the questions. The man nods and asks about someone named Hadad. Jack admits to torturing him and refuses to apologize for his actions. He says that the terrorists don’t care about the rules, so you can’t always play by them when trying to stop one of their plots. The argument is stopped by a woman who comes in and demands to take Jack. Turns out, the FBI needs him to deal with a pressing threat involving technology. She takes him to the office to fill him in, although the FBI ain’t exactly thrilled to see him. They look down on CTU and make a couple cracks about their methods. The agent, Renee Walker, tells Jack about several thefts recently and reveals that Tony Almeida is behind them. Jack is in shock and can’t bring himself to believe Tony’s alive, much less evil. She challenges him to find him so he can prove himself right. He agrees to help. The camera cuts to Tony threatening a man.

At the White House the President is debating with Ethan about how to handle the Sangala situation. She ends up coming to the conclusion that there is going to have to be a military response.

Now that Jack is one board with the investigation, he’s been introduced to other staff, including an analyst named Sean Hunter. He’s going to help gather information. Another staffer, Janis, is freaking out about the threat, knowing if someone got through the firewall that was breeched, they could do major damage in almost every way. Renee calms her down and gets her back to work. Meanwhile, Renee has decided that since they have to interview a suspect who knows Jack very well, they may as well use his bad reputation to get him to talk. She promises her boss she’ll keep Jack on a short leash.

Finally… the President’s son is dead, the victim of an apparent suicide a little while back. Her husband is convinced that there is something more going on and is determined to learn the truth.