I just love how Jack Bauer fakes his own death yet decides to live within an hour of CTU.
Maybe it was the money. He had somekind of stipend to buy a nice truck and pay his cell phone bill.
Dramatic necessity. If Jack had moved to the Unabomber’s abandoned cabin in Montana, he would have spent the first 18 hours driving to the nearest airport and flying to LA.
It’s not QUITE that simple. Part of the point there was to not let the terrorist he was being followed, but still slow him down. Anything that deliberately and obviously targetted him (ie, air out of his tires) might make him suspicious. A crazy man holding up a convenience store? No WAY the cops would pull THAT just to slow him down…
In fairness, there was a helicopter involved.
Jack Bauer was living in Mojave.
Trust me. You don’t want to live there.
The real-life Mojave could have used a Jack Bauer. Mojave High had to cancel a football game and then drop out of the playoffs because a youth gang in the city threatened to burn down the school or some such thing. Details were vague.
Perhaps it was a matter of national security.
Nobody’s that stupid… 
To be fair, it’s not at all clear that the hostage situation was just a smokescreen for obtaining the nerve gas. Novick said that the terrorists “took advantage” of the hostage situation, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a genuine interest in blocking the treaty.
Jack Bauer lives within an hour of everywhere.
Jack Bauer ensues.
Moscow eh? Fair warning, bring something to read for episodes 10 through 22 (i.e. the plane ride).
Haven’t you read The Purloined Letter? They’ll never look somewhere that obvious. 
That’s not an annoyance. It’s something Jack can rip out of himself and use to stab a bad guy.
Come on, This is Jack Bauer. Jack’s been dead…twice. And the first time, he killed 5 people withen minutes of coming back to life.
And he was in a plane crash that killed pretty much everyone else on board, but he completely recovered 15 minutes later.
And he managed to shake a heroin addiction withen 12 hours.
A Bullet wound is a minor annoyance to Jack. A cracked rib doesn’t even register on his pain meter.
Maybe if you cut his hand off, it might cause problems, but he’d probably just dismiss it as a “flesh wound”.
Oh, and big gaping plot holes:
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Mrs. Logan’s assistant knew that she had the paper. She told WAALT. Then Mrs. Logan mysteriously passes out, and paper is gone. Ya think WAALLT would just assume she won’t talk? Why hasn’t she talked?
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Okay, so Spenser For Hire thinks he’s working for the White House. He lets supposed repairman in to CTU on orders from WAALLT. Jack winds up dead. Ya think Spenser isn’t going to go to management with this? Walt essentially outed himself by telling the gullible young Spenser to let in his assassin, whether he was successful or not. Therefore, Assassin should have killed young Spenser in the Mole Room.
It could be that the assassin was planning to kill Spenser… but only after killing Jack. Killing Jack would be the primary mission, after all. Why risk calling attention to one’s presence by committing another act of violence on the premises?
Forget looking…Bauer still goes outside right? How about accidently running into Buchannan or Edger at the mall or something?
Totally. That’s what I meant. Not that I didn’t believe that a cracked rib wouldn’t bother him, but that I love how he such a badass that it doesn’t.
Lets not forget the self-inflicted stab wound from last season.
But he did kill someone else before he tried to kill Jack, the doctor that he was impersonating. He took a risk that no one would come and check on Tony before he had gotten to Jack, why not take the chance and kill Spencer and hide his body in case Spencer went to his bosses before the assasin could kill him.
The primary mission may have been to kill Jack, but most importantly he should have covered his connection to Waaaaaalt. As long as Spencer is still alive, Waaaaalt has to know there is a possibility of being found out.
Unless there’s a Best Buy, I don’t see Edgar as much of a mallrat.
They wouldn’t recognize him in the hard hat.