24 Review:
"5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m." (Episode 7.10)

Brace yourselves and set your DVRs an hour early: Fox is airing a special two-hour event of 24 next Monday, taking us right to the halfway point of the season. And judging by the teaser for next week, it's going to be huge, at the very minimum involving a threat against President Taylor's life. Even as moles tried scurrying back into their holes, cars crashed into other cars and people (Jack, obviously) shot and sliced open bad guys, there was an eerie "calm before the storm" atmosphere hovering over last night's 24. That's because with main baddie Colonel Ike Dubaku no longer able to inflict massive damage, it was only a matter of time before Jack had to go back to work. Hey, there's still 14 hours left in the day. He's not going to get to go home, mow the lawn and sip lemonade in a hammock. (Maybe one day in the 24 spin-off, Retired: A Day in the Life of Jack Bauer.)

No, just as he was possibly pondering all these things as the sun began to set on the capital, Tony sits down beside him after a nearly three-hour absence. What's he going to say? Is he working with the other side after all? In short, no. Or at least it doesn't appear that way for the time being. He warns Jack of another terror plot, this time by Sengala general Benjamin Juma, who appeared in the Season Seven two-hour prequel, "Redemption," in November. He doesn't know when, how or what the plot will involve, but he does know it's to go down soon.

All this setup chatter makes it sound like the episode was slow-moving. On the contrary, in some ways it represented a return to form with a portion of the intensity returning to the office after an action-packed beginning, as opposed to everything going down in the field. After Jack extracts the database with all the names of government people working with Dubaku, by uh, ahem, cutting it out of the critically injured man's body, it goes back to the FBI. You know who (Sean the Weasel) is looking for a way to delete it from the computers before anyone can see the names on the list. He goes to his bimbo office fling for help, who we find out earlier in the episode is also a critter who enjoys digging holes and living underground. After she apparently wipes the hard drives clean, Sean does away with her, letting her posthumously take the fall in the process. Little did he know he fought a losing battle with a force as ruthless and brutal as a Jack Bauer in the digital field: Chloe O'Brian. Once she recovers the list, it's game over. This nice little unfolding of events injected the season with some much-needed suspense, instead of simply bang, bang, boom! Like the good old days back at CTU.

Also dominating the second half of the hour was the non-action drama involving Dubaku's girlfriend, whom Jack and Renee promised to protect, and the fallout from her death. (Let this be a lesson to all you bad guys and prospective bad guys: Don't find your soft spot after you discover your girlfriend's working with the authorities against you. She may do something stupid, like throwing her hands over your driver's eyes and causing a massive car crash.) But Renee just doesn't seem cut out to handle this line of work. She's too emotional, which is fine for her, but then she gets all upset with Jack for being too unemotional. Lady, leave the man alone! He's saved the world like six times already. At one point, the tension between the two gets so bad, Jack tells her to quit if she can't handle the pressure, but you have to wonder if they're just toughening her up now in case Kiefer Sutherland doesn't return after his contract ends in 2010. He has yet to say one way or the other, but if he did bail, that'd give Renee 38 hours to transform into one cold, fierce dame. For the sake of the country, let's hope Annie Wersching can answer the call if needed.