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‘24’: That’s Jack Bauer -- he’s coming for me!

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Years of frustration from dealing with two-faced government officials culminating in the death of the one woman he thought he could truly love has finally sent Jack Bauer over the deep end.

‘This path you’re on, there ain’t no coming back from it,’ Bauer’s pal Jim Ricker warns him.

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‘I wasn’t planning on coming back,’ Bauer responds.

Having traced the Russians to disgraced ex-President Charles Logan, Bauer is off to settle the score with both. He gives reporter Meredith the evidence that will show the link between the terrorists who killed Kamistan President Omar Hassan and the Russians, telling her, ‘I need you to break the story in case I don’t make it.’ Reed contacts her editor and arranges a meeting at a coffee shop so she can fill him in on the President Taylor cover-up. In the meantime, when Logan learns that Bauer and Reed survived the latest attempt to kill them, he tells Taylor that she needs to get to the publisher to stop the story and have the FBI grab Reed and the evidence.

Taylor reminds Logan that freedom of the press is constitutionally protected, and he tells her to invoke national security, adding that ‘the time has passed for hand wringing.’ Before too long, the FBI has Reed and confiscates the evidence from her.

In the meantime, the Russians are getting just a little antsy that Bauer is still out there. After all, he disemboweled their best hitter in Pavel and seems really mad about this whole Renee Walker thing. Back at CTU, Chloe is starting to realize that Bauer, however brutal his methods have become, is right about the cover-up. She manages to figure out the identity of Ricker and springs Cole Ortiz from lockup to hunt him down in the hopes of getting to Bauer.

Ricker helps Bauer one last time by telling him Logan’s whereabouts. Jack then goes Iron Man on Logan, who was on his way to greet the Russian president. He puts on a mask and armor and blocks Logan’s motorcade in a tunnel, shooting up everything in his path. Logan’s screaming to his secret service agent ‘that’s Jack Bauer, he’s coming to get me’ has to be one of the best moments in the history of ’24.’ Bauer grabs Logan and gets him to cough up the name of Pavel’s boss Mikhail, then leaves him gasping for breath and escapes just when Jason Pillar, Logan’s stooge at CTU, arrives.

Bauer heads over to where the Russian delegation is and massacres everyone. He is stabbed in the process (the second time Jack’s been stabbed in a day, for those of you keeping track), and the last scene is him heading off presumably to hunt down the Russian president. With just two hours left, we’re clearly headed for a showdown between Bauer and Taylor. Will Bauer actually take out the president of the United States or just expose her lies and betrayals to the world? Can’t imagine the former happening, but he might be able to persuade her to see the evil in her ways.

Although the whole about-face of President Taylor from a beacon of hope and trust to a turncoat willing to do anything to keep her peace treaty alive is a little hard to swallow, the return of the super sleazy Logan makes it almost work. No one has better facial expressions and neck rolls than Logan, who could probably seduce the snake who seduced Adam and Eve.

-- Joe Flint

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