:smack:
Yeah, that is pretty good. Wish I could say it was intentional. 
Without getting too far off the track, Channel 9 and Channel 2 news are pretty much the same (same ownership and newsroom) so their newscasts don’t compete with each other. Channel 11 (Fox) also owns Channel 13, so their newscasts don’t compete with each other either.
The Seventh Soldier was definitely not the one shot coming out of the truck because there would be no reason to show a recognizable actor as the Seventh Soldier. I’m sure he will be around for the next few hours to cause some serious problems for Jack.
He’s obviously one tough customer since he already took out six commandos all by himself.
As Jack was going out the grab Kate for interrogation duties, he told an agent that Marie was about to pass out from the pain and he needed her lucent for about 5 minutes. So the agent gave her just a tiny dose so that she could remember what it felt like to NOT have a bullet in her arm and it would hurt worse when it wore off.
Monstre, YES I noticed that in the last previous Jack didn’t say Nuclear properly! My husband made fun of him but I didn’t hear it said like that during the actual show!
Weird…
Ah… that explains much. I must have missed that when I got up to get a snack. Thanks for the clarification!
So, it is a perfect show after all. 
I think the conspiracy to topple the presidency will be the bigger story toward the end.
According to the IMDB, there is already someone set to play the Vice President starting around midnight. It’s quite possible that the VP is in on the scheme.
Yeah, yeah, you just want to see her run in a tight shirt some more…
I wondered this myself, or rather, if Jack is/was head of CTU, wouldn’t he know at least some basic Arabic, among other languages?
I really wanted Sherri to get the defibrillator treatment. If only to see agent Simmons again.
I dunno, I won’t be disappointed if that really was the last we see of Mason. Having him go out in a great big atomic blaze of glory while personally defusing the bomb would really be sort of cliched (and obviously just what a lot of people are expecting…and confounding expectations is usually* a good thing). Realistically ('cause this show is such an epitome of realism, of course), someone dying slowly of radiation poisoning isn’t really going to be in much shape to go bungee jumping off a Harrier jet with a Phillips head screwdriver clenched in his teeth anyway. I thought (it that really was Mason’s Final Scene) that it was handled well; dignified, classy, and not necessarily what we were expecting. George Mason: He was mainly a weasel, but he was a Stand-Up Guy when the chips were down and he was dying anyway. R.I.P.
*Of course I wasn’t expecting Kim to be tangling with cougars. It’s not always a Good Thing to confound our expectations. However, I find viewing the Kim sub-plot(s) as basically the show’s comic relief allows me to continue watching with unabated enjoyment. Next week: Kim is tied to the railroad tracks! And her shirt gets all ripped as she struggles to get free!
According to the website, Jack has a BA in English from UCLA and he would be required to have foreign language proficiency of some kind to get that degree. He also has a master’s from UC Berkeley and that too would have a language requirement.
Perhaps he knows French or German.
He probably knows Serbian.
He recognized it when Ted Cofel spoke in the first season.
And he was handpicked to lead Operation Nightfall. It makes sense that they might consider being able to speak the native language when choosing covert operations soldiers.
Max Carnage: Yes, Gregg Henry is the bad guy from “Payback”. If it’s not him in that photo, it’s a lookalike (or at least that photo makes it a lookalike). The two of us getting the same instant impression from a few seconds of viewing that photo cannot be a coincidence.
Yeah, I forgot about last season until I submitted that post. Did Jack speak to Cofel–or anyone, for that matter–in Serbian? I can’t remember.
I’m late jumping into the discussion but have to add that that was a great episode! MUCH better than last week’s which didn’t have the tension and interest for me.
I think that was definitely the last that we’ll see of Mason. Probably we’ll get word next episode that he collapsed before he got to his car and is being treated in the hospital. Then we’ll hear that he’s dead in the hospital by the end of the episode.
We all knew Kim would get away from mountain man, as she’s all about ‘running’ (with the T & A as a bonus for us guys) and you can’t run very far in a bomb shelter. Her guy will prove to be important very soon. Probably she’ll try to use it against a bad guy, Mr. Payback maybe, and he’ll take it from her and then have her as a hostage: “You got the bomb defused, Jack, but I’ve got your daughter hostage and you and I are going mano a mano, as a salve to my disappointing, short-lived new career as a terrorist.”
re: the new woman in the CTU office–definitely some vibes there, but not lesbian I don’t think. One of them, either her or Michelle, will turn out to be ‘bad,’ probably her because they’ve apparently already had one insider (Nina) turn out bad. I think she’ll try something with Tony to get Michelle in trouble, not realizing that Tony’s already got a bone for Michelle.
Sherry got put down, but not bitch-slapped like I wanted (yet). The President is stupid and completely unbelieveable if he doesn’t have some plan to keep her monitored and out of causing more trouble. But I think he probably does.
But I’m worried about what Jack is going to be doing . . .
The preview of him flying the plane with the bomb in it into the desert takes him so far from others that it’s hard to see how he’ll have a chance to continue doing what he does best, which is being a hard-ass and handling high-pressure situations with others.
I’m wondering now, too, what, if anything, Kim is going to be doing. She’s pretty much exhausted her usefulness to the advancement of the plot, as far as I can tell. Same with Siaid Ali. Same with Nina. Now we’ve got Mr. Payback to look forward to, but that’s pretty much it, so far as bad guys on the bomb front.
All in all, an excellent episode.
DAMMIT! Why did I read the spoiler boxes? You weak dumb stupid goat!!!
<off to bash head against wall>
Although now that I know…
Maybe he’s just flying it out into the desert to blow it up with conventional explosives, as others have said could be done. The desert is just in case it goes off, and since it will still leak radiation in the surrounding area if disarmed that way. Seems kind of risky though, if they don’t know when it’ll go off, since I’ve read that atomic bombs are much worse when set off in the air, rather than on the ground.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Okay, so Jack is taking the plane into the desert to make sure the bomb doesn’t kill millions of people which would take him away from the action for far too long, assuming he survives. So what’s the obvious conclusion? (Other than him dying?)
That the action ISCOMING TO HIM! Someone is going to intercept his plane and try to take the bomb.
About that thing in the spoiler boxes. They have been pretty lax this season with how much time it takes to travel around.
About the previews:
Does anyone really believe after what happened to them last year, and with Teri getting killed, that Jack would be the one to step up and volunteer for a suicide mission, knowing it would leave Kim an orphan? Seems a little out of character to me.
Bibliocat -
As I understand it, his relationship with Kim has been pretty much nil since last season’s day, so I assume he feels she can take care of herself on her own (you know - kidnap children, get wanted for murder, get trapped in bomb shelters - the usual stuff).