24: Live Another Day: “4:00pm-5:00pm”
(Episode 1.06)
There are certain things you can expect from 24. One is that, at some point, people will begin to trust Jack Bauer. The other is that, at some point, another person will be revealed as less-than-trustworthy. The four o’clock hour of Live Another Day is all about trust. Early on in the episode, Mark Boudreau confronts Jack to ask him about his brief encounter with Audrey. Clearly, he doesn’t trust that things are over between the former couple.
For all the trouble that Jack has caused the United States, President Heller still puts his faith in the former agent. He trusts that Jack will be the only person who could get through to the arms dealer with connections to Margot Al-Harazi. He trusts him enough to supply Jack and let him do the job without supervision. He trusts him enough to override the CIA and get Kate Morgan back onto the field, as Jack requested her as his partner.
The British, though, don’t trust Jack. They don’t trust President Heller either, especially now that the Prime Minister is told that the U.S. President is suffering from health problems, “possibly Alzheimer’s.” It’s only right that Prime Minister Alastair Davies main concern is for the people of London, but his lack of trust will have serious repercussions. He decides to have his own people work on the case. It’s obvious from the beginning that this won’t end well.
Kate Morgan trusts Jack, despite the fact that (or maybe because) she was previously on the hunt for him. Jack’s plot is dangerous; he knows, and explains, that they could very well get killed today. He explains that he’s been working for Karl Rask for the past three years, but he’s not really part of the group. He’s just working as the lone hero. Jack is just trying to get the information on some of the most evil organizations in the world. The convoluted story is that someone else tied to the organization has been leaking info the CIA and Kate, who is drugged (with her consent), is the agent involved. Of course, this means that Kate will get tortured. So will Jack. The torture scenes are intense, but you have to know that Kate, like Jack, will not crack. Instead she will attack her captor with her legs before she sets herself free.
Throughout it all, Jack and Chloe have a longstanding mutual bond of trust. That continues when Chloe remotely guides Jack through his mission. Meanwhile, Belcheck is ready to take out Rask’s men, until someone knocks him out. The British, having seen Jack take Kate into the building, sent their people in. It comes really close to ruining Jack’s mission. The whole point was that Jack was supposed to set up Rask to install a virus into his bank account so that they could get the goods on Margot. A major gun fight breaks out the second before this happens. Ultimately, Jack completes the job so that Chloe can start pulling up the information.
Meanwhile, things are looking pretty grim for Simone Al-Harazi. Whether or not she actually trusts her mother, or simply fears her, is uncertain. She seems to work more out of fear of mom’s wrath than allegiance to any cause. But, thanks to her mom, Simone’s husband is lying dead on the floor. After his phone rings, the family learns that Navid was planning to get his sister out of town. Margot did not trust Navid, nor does he trust his sister. Fearing that Farrah, the sister, might know too much, Margot sends Simone out on a mission: “I trust you to do what needs to be done.”
Simone, though, is having second thoughts about killing more people, particularly when Farrah’s young daughter joins the two for a nice afternoon. Holding a knife under the table while Farrah’s daughter is in another room, Simone is caught between doing what her mother wants her to do and what she wants to do. She frantically tries to explain to Farrah that she need to leave London now. Farrah, obviously worried, wants to know why. Panic ensues. Simone stabs Farrah and is struck with obvious, immediate regret. The daughter sees and runs out into the streets as Farrah falls bloodied onto the floor. Simone chases the daughter. Ultimately, she gets hit by a bus.
But, who is the person who really can’t be trusted? It may have been obvious from the beginning. Steve Navarro, head of the CIA office in London, has tried to put a stop on the advancements the group has made since the start of the day. Sure, he went on a mission, which turned out to be an ambush, but he has gotten in the way of Kate, Jack and others who seem to have an idea of what’s going on. When Jordan Reed believes that files have been compromised, Navarro tells Reed to hold off on an investigation. At the end of the episode, we see Navarro in a corner on a muffled cell phone conversation with someone about those files.