So, wait, did the Prez not know Walt was in on it? That’s ridiculous - if the president is involved in a conspiracy, he’d want to know what other high government officials were involved. It makes some sense that Walt wouldn’t be told the President’s part, so he wouldn’t be able to implicate him. But he didn’t reveal his role to Walt even when he agreed to go ahead with the plan - what explains that? Had the plan worked, he would have been in the clear. Had the plan failed, he would have ended up out of office and in jail on treason charges whether he had signed on on Day 5 or months earlier. I simply don’t see an explanation for his behavior with Walt.
That’s the trouble with the way the show works - I bet rewatching with the knowledge of what the President was up to would reveal a ton more conspiracies.
It’s funny how much the overall arc of the seasons matches up, though. I just rented and watched Day 2. Let’s see - sixteen hours or so finding the huge weapon and getting rid of it. In this phase, Jack operates with full support from CTU and the government. Later on, the problem is apparently over, but for the last eight hours Jack ends up alone, operating against the government’s wishes, to bring down the cabal of high government officials and terrorist groups behind it all. The government officials always believed they were doing the right thing - there was supposed to be some sort of secret plan that would make sure the item never actually did any damage - but the terrorists screwed them over. Jack gets help from a few friends in CTU while the workers there are replaced with ones from outside, up until his friends are all arrested and then he operates alone.
It’s really very formulaic, actually. Day 3 worked approximately this way too; I don’t remember Day 4 well enough to know whether it fits into this basic schema. Given how they have the basic skeleton of the plot worked out in advance, you’d think they’d be able to plan ahead well enough to avoid major inconsistencies.
