Only thing that comes to mind is to figure that once Jack hears about Palmer, he’s going to come for somebody. Being Jack, it stands to reason that eventually he’s going to find out the truth. So the rest of it is just to throw as many obstacles in his way as possible and hope one of them manages to take him down. It’d never work, but I guess you gotta try.
The writers on “24” have a hard time getting the geography of L.A. correct too.
How did Jack get from CTU headquarters to the president’s retreat?
Hey, every part of L.A. is just a 15 minute drive away from CTU headquarters, isn’t it? 
So, does anyone want to talk about how hot Chloe looks this year?
He stole another helicopter, obviously.
Well, to be fair, they do show him driving and arriving in a SUV. But, as someone says above, CTU headquarters is strategically located a short drive from ANYWHERE.
Actually, Jack drives to a top secret Transporter Room, where Mr. Scott beams him anywhere he wants to go in a matter of seconds.
I believe the CTU headquarters are in Santa Monia or West L.A.
It takes 15 minutes just to drive around the block to get a cup of coffee.
And no, we’re Southern Californians, we won’t walk to get it either!
CTU is a geographical oddity. 15 from everywhere(except chole’s apartment, which is apparently in the basement).
No, it was marwan with the transporter. That’s how he alway managed to escape.
No no no, that’s all wrong! You’ve obviously missed the episode from Season -1.3 where Jack helps the US steal Elbonian teleportation technology. There are still some kinks to be worked out, but…
I think killing Tony, Michelle & Chloe makes sense actually. Assassinating Palmer is a big deal, and is going to get a lot of attention. If they’re convinced Jack did it, then that’ll be the end of the investigation and there’s no worries about it leading anywhere else.
I think at this point everything kind of makes sense. I see it something like this:
Palmer finds out that the Whitehouse purposely leaked the location of the nerve gas to terrorists. Maybe he knows about the plan for them to never reach their destination, as well. Understandably, he has worries about what if it doesn’t work, but he probably thinks that the president is sanctioning it (knowing what a wimp he is). That explains why he doesn’t immediately blow the whistle. To find out if the president actually does know about it, he contacts the first lady, knowing he can trust her. Maybe he just wanted to voice his reservations, feeling that the president would just disregard him and knowing that he used to listen to what his wife had to say (Logan said something about that being the case, after he found out Walt was lying and realized what happened).
Palmer probably never expected to be killed for knowing, especially since he thought the Whitehouse was behind it. He probably hid the info in his memoirs to keep Wayne from finding out.
Good analysis, c_goat – I think you might be on to something. This explanation makes the most sense so far. I like it.
I like your theory, c_goat! Another argument for framing Jack: given his past history and friendship with Palmer, they had to know that Jack would start nosing around in it. ‘Dragging’ him into it by framing him thus doesn’t really add to the danger from Jack, and in fact lessens it somewhat by hopefully hampering Jack’s investigations.
The question then in, Who is the Big Baddie? Because whoever set this in motion had to know a) that Jack was still alive and b) exactly who also knew it.
It really seems to me that it has to be someone hooked into the security groups.
Question: have they established who the new Vice President is? Because add another layer of planning – that Weasel WILL succeed in getting the President to compromise himself in the plan and it will come out…well, then, who takes over except for the Veep? Hmmmm.
What if you’re both right?Is Kim doing the nasty with Wayne?
You have an interesting thought…
On the one hand: there may be some residual resentment that might spark this change of temperament.
On the other hand:
[spoiler]He wore a prosthetic device! 
What?
[/spoiler]
I so expected a big boom from the cargo container, with no CTU folks present.
As for Big Bad, a newspaper article spoiled who the actor was as well as the nationality:
Julian Sands as a Russian
Wow, almost blew that. Preview is my friend.
Well, there’s still the mysterious guy on the phone in front of the big screen TV. Hopefully a little more Walt torture will reveal more about him (or they could just get his cell phone records).
Absurdly tiny point here, but did anyone notice that there were the first nine notes of the Rohan theme from LotR playing when Jack pulled his car into the Presidential estate? I had to play that back to make sure.
Waaaaaaaaalt!
(Sorry, SORRY, I just had to)
Sorry, Bouv, I didn’t preview. No more, I swear!
Just checked it – sounded like a different theme to me, with a small section of about 5 consecutive notes that happened to be the same intervals as part of the Rohan theme. A definite resemblance in those few notes.
(This progression: C , E flat , D , E flat , F)
It was pretty obvious the nerve gas would never get to their destination (8 days via ship - obvioulsy won’t happen in 19 hours). And to be fair to the central Asai thing, I’m pretty sure they said “and then 8 days to get to base” or something, which means that it could be inland.
(tho that doesn’t explain figuring out which ship)
Brian