‘24’ 9.09 Recap: “Let Me Do What I Know How To Do”

As if there were any doubt, this week ’24’ established itself as the best action series on television with an explosive episode that wraps up one storyline while setting things up for another that will carry us over the next three weeks. If you thought the show couldn’t top its last two episodes… well folks, then you don’t know Jack.

As Hour 9 gets underway, reports hit the news about the missile explosion at Wembley Stadium. The President’s staff is joined by the Prime Minister as they watch the aftermath on TV. At the terrorists’ hideout, Margot decides to keep her word and orders Ian to destroy the remaining drones, which he sets to crash into the ocean. However, as he’s taking care of their destruction, he looks at the video of Heller just before the strike. Ian notices a glitch in the video and realizes that it’s been tampered with.

Heller’s alive! Thanks to her quick action, Chloe was able to tamper with the terrorists’ video feed, fooling them into thinking that Heller remained on the stadium field while Jack took him to safety. Now exiting the stadium, Jack entrusts Heller to his associate, Belcheck, while Jack gets back aboard the helicopter and continues to look for the terrorists’ hideout, with help from Chloe.

Margot orders Ian to regain control of the drones, but he can only save one. They’re able to confirm that Heller left the stadium, but Margot wants to use the drone for something more sinister – the destruction of Waterloo railway station as people flock to it in panic to get out of the city. Still on her laptop in a pub, Chloe uses cell towers to triangulate the position of the terrorists, but can’t get an exact match on their location. So she calls up Open Cell leader Adrian Cross to see if he can help. Adrian assists Chloe in pinpointing the building the terrorists are in, and Jack races there in the chopper. He contacts Kate back at CIA headquarters as well. She and Erik are on the scene and in a serious gunfight by the time Jack arrives.

Jack lands the helicopter on the roof, but the gunfire is too heavy for him to get into the room where Margot and Ian are. So he ties a rope to the top of the building and rappels down to enter from an outside window. Ian spots Jack on the ledge and fires at the window. He then makes the mistake of going to see if Jack is still alive. Jack grabs Ian and hurls him out the window to his death below. Swinging into the room, Jack doesn’t hesitate and puts a bullet in Margot. He takes control of the device’s joystick and pilots the already-launched drone missile into the River Thames. Margot sneers at Jack and reminds him of all the other people she killed during the day, and how all those deaths are on his head. Jack grabs her and says, “The only death tonight on my head… is yours!” He throws Margot out the window where she lands with a splat right next to her dead son. Jack, you are one bad mutha….

Having been returned to his staff by Belcheck, Heller gets a call from Jack informing him that Margot and Ian are dead, and that the drone device is in safe hands. Audrey takes a moment to thank Jack, and Mark gives his wife a sneer as if to remind her that, hey, he helped with this plan too. Jack is ordered to take the device back to CIA headquarters in London, where it’s to be turned over and examined to see what it’s capable of and if, perhaps, it links to any other suspects who might be involved.

This brings us back to the Jordan Reed storyline. Sadly, he did not survive his fight with the assassin Navarro sent to kill him. Kate gets a call informing her that Jordan’s body was found alongside another dead man who hasn’t been identified. Kate and Erik head off to investigate, but not before Kate relays the information to Navarro (Benjamin Bratt). Realizing that the dead assassin can be linked back to him, Navarro makes a frantic call to Adrian, asking for his assistance. Adrian says he can help get Navarro safely out of the country, but in exchange he wants Navarro to deliver the drone device to him. Navarro doesn’t understand why Adrian would want it with all the drones destroyed, but Adrian implies that it can control a lot more than just drones.

Jack arrives at CIA headquarters and turns the device over to one of Navarro’s men, who takes it into a room for examination. Jack gets a text from Kate with a fingerprint scan of the dead assassin, which he emails to a contact back in the United States for ID purposes. Navarro realizes that he doesn’t have much time left. While no one else is looking, he knocks the guy examining the device out by putting him in a sleeper hold, then takes off with the device. Jack’s man in the States is able to ID the assassin and provide a list of his known associates, one of whom is Steve Navarro. Jack realizes that Navarro isn’t playing for the right team and goes chasing after him.

Meanwhile, Chloe – who has already told Jack that she’s done helping him for the day – meets up with Adrian. Whether she feels obligated to him for his help or whether she has real feelings for him is hard to say, but she plants a kiss on Adrian as this episode comes to an end. Of course, Chloe has no idea that the two of them are off to rendezvous with Steve Navarro.

It looks very possible that the drone device is also able of controlling nuclear weapons, and I have no doubt that Adrian will threaten London with a nuke as the final three episodes unfold. The real question is whether the remaining episodes can possibly top the excitement we’ve seen in the past few weeks? And for those of you who think there’s no way the writers would set off a nuclear bomb, I remind you that ’24’ has already had two nuclear devices detonated (both within the United States) in the past. A happy ending is not assured.

5 comments

  1. I was very mixed on this episode. It’s all over the place.

    The constant non-stop action is very exciting, but most of it made no sense at all. Every single shot from a CIA pistol kills a terrorist. Every. Single. Time. Meanwhile, the terrorists spray the CIA with heavy machine gun fire and never hit anything. They’re worse shots than Imperial Stormtroopers.

    The Heller plot twist is the lamest cop-out in the show’s history. I groaned very loudly when it was revealed. Where did Chloe get the footage of Heller standing in the middle of the stadium that she looped into the drone’s feed? If it came from the drone’s camera earlier, do the show’s writers not understand that the drone was flying towards the stadium and the camera view would constantly change as it moved?

    On the other hand, Jack tossing Margot out the window was hilariously awesome. I especially loved the shot looking down at their bodies where you see big splatters of blood around their heads. They popped like balloons.

  2. Bill

    Hooray! I’m a big fan of William Devane so I’m glad to see that he’ll still be part of the series. He’s too good a character and too good an actor to drop. Overall I enjoyed the episode but there’s still something missing from this incarnation compared to earlier seasons. Everything happens too cleanly and it’s getting ludicrous to really believe that all this is happening in just one hour an episode. I’m glad the writers went for a limited series. A full 22 episode series at this pace would have defied credibility.

  3. Best part of this episode was the toss out the window–both of them. What is it with poor Michelle Fairley/Catelyn Stark having her children tossed out windows? First it was Bran on GoT, then Ian here, and then her! Crazy way to go and I wonder if the writers did it as a wink at GoT. Either way, excited to see where this all leads!

  4. Bryan

    I think these last two episodes have been some of the best of the whole series. Does it strain credibility a little bit – sure… but just on the pure entertainment value alone, they’ve been great. Seeing Jack throw Margot out the window was classic! And now we know why Heller didn’t get the silent countdown last week…

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