24: Forty-Seventh Verse, Same as the First

The description on my channel guide for this week's episode of 24 reads as follows: "The administration copes with a compromising situation; Jack stops at nothing to protect the country from an international incident." And if you think this sounds like every episode this season, not to mention every episode perhaps ever, then you've hit on the problem: 24 Fatigue. Always the same thing: the politicians get blackmailed or are forced to make morally ambiguous decisions, and CTU gets invaded at least once a season, never listens to Jack when they should, and lets the bad guy slip through their fingers about twelve dozen times. If the rumors are true and they are going to break out of the confines of CTU next season, that should help things, but it may take more than a change of venue to break them out of the cycle of the same plots over and over.

Like in this episode. Just like in season 1, sending the woman back to spy on her lover ends very badly, with the woman attacking the guy, but this time, Lisa ends up with the worst of it. Not dead, but in bad shape. Then, just as in every season, most recently the last one, CTU gets invaded by the higher-ups. It's Division's turn this year, as they send a team right quick to investigate how CTU let a team of commandos in. Too quick, almost. Are they fakes, sent by Grandpa Bauer? I hope so, since that would make things interesting for the finale. And I certainly wouldn't put it past CTU to get invaded twice in a little over an hour.

Meanwhile, Josh shows himself to be a true Bauer kid, needing to be saved right when Jack is trying to corner Cheng. So, of course, Cheng gets away. Grandpa gets all mad at the Chinese and decides to take his component and go home, but, for whatever reason, he's desperate to take Josh with him. He's really fixated on Josh as the one to carry on his legacy, as though he doesn't have any other grandkids. (I love that they've forgotten all about Kim. No, seriously, I really do love it. I wish I could forget so easily.) Grandpa ends up making a deal with the vice president – Josh for the component – which the vice president is only too happy to make. Exile a Bauer kid and avoid war with Russia? What's the downside?