12:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.

I can’t decide if nothing specific about last night’s episode is standing out in my mind because it was boring and nothing happened, or if it’s because my roommates and I are trying to finish all of the alcohol in our apartment before we have to move out on Thursday. It might be a little bit of both.

The episode opens with Doyle running like a girl through traffic where Jack has abandoned him. Actually, it’s more like Mugatu in Zoolander. This scene was hilarious and I kept praying that Doyle would get hit by a car and die. But he doesn’t, he just throws some guy out of his car and attempts to find Jack. Bill announces to his CTU minions that “Jack Bauer has gone rogue” and that they have to find him before he gives the chip over to the Chinese. Of course no one at CTU is surprised by this news at all because hearing Jack Bauer has gone rogue is as common as hearing “there’s a mole in CTU” or “the suspect got through the perimeter.”

Now that Vice President Daniels is President Daniels, he wants to make sure Lennox isn’t going to call him out about the tape. I am convinced that Daniels could kill a man using only his voice. Lennox tells Daniels that they’re cool and that the only thing he was going to use the tape for was making Daniels stop bogarting the presidency. Lennox leaves and Daniels’ creepy assistant comes in and we witness one of the grossest scenes to ever grace television. Daniels keeps caressing her and talking dirty and then I threw up. It was horrible.

Back at CTU, Chloe and Morris get in a fight. Morris sarcastically asks her to make a list of all the things she would like him to do differently and the fight is boring and tedious until Chloe comes out with this line.

Don’t arm nuclear weapons for terrorists. — Chloe

Ouch. Chloe that’s cold, even for you. But Morris deserved it because he’s annoying and now he’ll go get shitfaced. Chloe immediately starts apologizing and tries to tell him that that isn’t how she feels, but Morris knows it is. He walks away. Later, he hands in papers to Bill asking for a transfer so he won’t have to work directly with Chloe anymore.

Karen Hayes gets a call that the department of justice guy wants to talk to her. He explains that Reed Pollack has been giving up any information he can so as to avoid the death penalty in the roll he played in the assassination attempt on the president. Karen is showed the video and calls him a weasel, which is pretty awesome. He again brings up the fact again Bill had Fayed in custody and let him go and that Karen might have covered it up. Karen explains that Bill didn’t have enough evidence to keep Fayed in custody and that she followed protocol with the information and that she wasn’t covering up anything. However, DOJ guy explains to her that someone is going to go down for it, and he would prefer it be Bill. Bill is farther away from the president and would therefore cause less damage on the American people’s psyche.

Meanwhile, Jack has gotten in contact with Cheng and comes up with a meeting place, which is an abandoned hotel off the highway. He assembles a bomb in a wall panel. When he’s done, he calls Bill and gets his answering machine, even though Bill’s voicemail message says that if the call is urgent you should dial 0. Jack doesn’t do this and leaves a message. When has Jack ever not made an urgent call? And why wouldn’t Bill pick up? His only job at this point is to locate Jack, wouldn’t he keep all lines open? Whatever. Jack leaves a message telling Jack that the chip will be destroyed and asks him to take good care of Audrey and that Bill’s been a good friend. Run Bill, as soon as Jack considers you a friend he will either kill you or you will be killed.

Karen goes to Lennox for advice, because they’re BFFs now. He tells her that there’s no point in the both of them going down and that her job is a lot more important than Bill’s. He also emphasizes that keeping the scandal as far from the president as possible would be good. At first Karen says that if they try to fire Bill she’ll resign, and Lennox goes “haven’t you already tried that today?” Karen doesn’t know what to do but eventually decides. She calls Bill and explains the situation to him.

I can’t let this touch me. I have to distance myself from you. — Karen
How are you going to do that? Are you asking me to resign? –Bill
I am firing you. –Karen

For a minute I though Karen was going to distance herself from Bill by divorcing him, but I guess that was a stupid thought on my part. Fired by your own wife, that’s gotta hurt. And it does, Bill is really upset and hangs up on her and doesn’t pick up when she calls him right back. I feel really bad for Bill, he loves CTU. I think the thing he loves the most is how the lights of the situation room always make his hair look purple. He puts Nadia in charge and is escorted out of the building by security.

Nadia’s chattin it up with Doyle about where Jack might be. They narrow down the possibilities of where Jack could be going and Doyle notices Jack’s car at the motel. Doyle hides in the bushes and waits for the tactical teams to arrive. But the Chinese roll up way before the tactical teams do.

Jack makes Cheng bring Audrey to him before he gives him the chip. Audrey looks like shit. Jack takes the gag out of her mouth and tries to comfort her. He tells her to walk up to a bridge and go to a gas station where a cab is waiting to take her back to CTU. She doesn’t say anything but starts to walk up there. Jack waits as long as he can for her to get away and then hands over the chip to Cheng. It’s at this moment that Doyle decides that he has to do something and he starts shooting everyone. The Chinese start to shoot back and Jack gets hit and stays down for a while. The tactical teams arrive, complete with chopper and start to take everyone out, except for Cheng who still has the chip. He hops into his limo and one of his henchmen takes out this gigantic bazooka and shoots the chopper down with it, which was pretty sweet. Jack gets a couple of kills, but Cheng gets away. Doyle comes in and tells Jack that Cheng got away with the chip. Jack yells at Doyle, telling him that he had the situation under control. Jack just can’t seem to get himself killed today, no matter how hard he tries. Nadia tells Doyle to place Jack under arrest.

They bring Audrey back to Jack, and make her run for some reason. Jack tells her that it’ll be ok, but she’s speaking gibberish. Jack asks her if she even recognizes him and it’s clear that she has no idea where she is or who Jack is. They sit her in a chair and she starts shaking uncontrollably and talking to herself. Jack is seething when he sees what they’ve done to Audrey.

The last four episodes will apparently be CTU trying to get the chip back from Cheng after Doyle’s royal eff up and trying to get through to Audrey. I hope Doyle dies, and I hope it’s Jack who kills him. At this point I find myself continuing to watch to see how the season ends, kind of like when I watched season 4. It’s disappointing, because the season opened strong and with a lot of potential. Get outside! It’s gorgeous!