Standard 24-universe nonsense, I’m afraid. You can read his history here. Apparently the idea is that he switched parties after the Palmer incident, but that’s about all we know.
I’ve got to say, if they were to kill Aaron, his death would be a much bigger emotional impact on me (and others who where there from the beginning, I’ll bet) than most of the characters on this show.
I mean, hell, who else has been around the whole time? Tony? Jack? Kimbo?
And I, too, caught the Flank 2 thing immediately. Each time he repeated it I just got more and more convinced. Too bad Black Bauer has no memory or he might have picked up on that. However, considering how often they have Agents Go Bad, maybe they have to change them on an hourly basis. You can’t expect BB to remember thousands of codes!
I was kind of tickled that Black Bauer managed to stop his charges when the read 02 rather than 01. 
Finally a cliche avoided!
But Jack really does need to remember to “shoot to disable all four limbs” once the gun is out of the guy’s hand.
Meeko, actually the exposion of the first plane on the first day WAS related to the major plot. The whole plot of 24 Season One was to punish Jack and Palmer. Since the plane crash was for the sake of getting EuroTrash’s ID card so they could whack Palmer (and frame Jack? It’s been a while)…so really, that one was one big plot. The twist in that one being that it was revenge aimed at Jack and Palmer.
And they still have technology that would leave Geordi and Scotty scratching their heads and wondering how they DID that!
Finally, what does Weaselly Evil Presidential Mole DO? Press Secretary? Shoe Polisher?
-Joe
I thought this morning that when Logan kept brushing off his wife, she should have said “‘In a Minute, dear?’ I’ll remember that tonight when you want some”.
A few questions:
How did the terrorist know the policeman’s cellphone number?
Can we take up a collection to get Derek a haircut?
And, I’m sure I’m alone in this, but everytime that throbbing bass line started up to increase the tension, I couldn’t help but think of Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd.
I saw it for the first time ever sunday & monday, and will try to watch it all year now. Just a couple questions from a newbie.
Why did Jack fake his death? (I loved that “Is he dead, he really looks dead.”)
Counter Terrorism Unit, so I guess his unit was fighting terrorism at the national level. WHy was he such good friends with Palmer? Did he work closely with him once?
Why is that black-haried guy who works close to the President, plotting against Jack, the Pres, his wife, etc…
Does Sean Astin have a motive I should be aware of, or is he a new character?
I liked it a lot. I didn’t like the commercial breaks every 6 minutes, but what can you do.
And even though this was the first 4 hours I’ve seen, I knew that ‘flank position’ meant something, figured it was a code.
I was so wishing Jack would splatter the masked terrorist from above while on live feed. That would have so taken the wind out of their sails.
Actually, there is software that can transcribe phone conversations real-time.
Now I’m curious to see how many hours it takes Tony to recover from his injuries.
Count me in, but don’t use my name. The makeup is spooky.
Jack Faked his own death because due to an extremely complicated(Season 4 had about 15 different plots going at once, to it’s detriment), he ended up kidnapping suspect from the Chinese Consulate in LA and one of the chinese officals got blown away in the process(it was friendly fire, not that the Chinese cared). So they got all huffy about it and managed to extract a confession that Jack led the team from one of the other agents after kidnapping him(don’t ask), and President Whiney little Bitch agreed to hand over Jack to the Chinese once he had saved the world by himself. Except that some people were afraid Jack would be tortured and talk, so they decided to have the arresting officer kill him. Mike told Palmer, Palmer told Jack and Jack dropped dead, and then started a new life.
Of course, in real life, Jack would have broken out of chinese prison camp, and overthrown the chinese communist party, all by himself, withen 24 hours.
Palmer and Jack have a history together. In season 1 you find out Palmer sponsered a mission Jack went on to take down a Serbian war criminal(the mission went FUBAR in many, many ways). Jack also saved Palmers life twice over the course of the day.
Palmer was President in Seasons 2 and 3, and he could always count on Jack, and visa versa, to get things done the right way.
Walt, the Mole, is new, so we don’t know what his agenda is(other then manhandling the first lady).
Ditto Samwise.
Last season (a year and a half ago in 24-time) Jack had to break into the Chinese Consulate’s office to capture a Chinese man who helped the terrorists reprogram a nuclear missle. The Chinese caught the face of a different CTU agent on camera, and captured and tortured him unti he gave them Jack Bauer’s name. The Chinese told the US government and demanded Jack be handed over or face a possible declaration of war.
Jack, with the help of Tony, Michelle (who got blown up in the first ep), Palmer (a former President who warned Jack the Secret Service was after him) and Chloe, faked his death by pretending to shoot at the agent who came for him, and then pretended he got shot by Tony (they used drugs to stop and then restart his heart.) The US told the Chinese Jack was dead and they were happy.
Jack became friends with Palmer during season 1. Palmer was a senator running for the presidential primary, and Jack had to stop an assasination attempt against him (we then learn that it’s also a plan to kget back at Bauer. His wife and daughter are kidnapped, the terrorists want him to atually shoot Palmer, etc…)
In season 2 they become even closer as a nuclear bomb is set to go off in LA and Plamer keeps up to date with CTU, especially Jack. Season 3 is a similar set up, Palmer still the pres, and keeping up to date with the situation through Jack.
They guy with the pres. is either a secret service agent or just a general staff aide. He is a new character, so his motives are probably just lots of money from the terrorists.
Sean Astin is also a new character. He’s from ‘Division’, which is the name of the government agency that CTU is a part of.
Hey! Spoiler box if you’re going to talk about Season 6. 
I keep wanting to call him Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalt.
recap of the episode or a link to it anyone?
Palmer didn’t actually help, though. He was just informed about this after the fact.
Actually they didn’t even have to torture the wimpy little bitch, IIRC—all they had to do was offer him a way to go free by offering up the one in charge of the operation.
Did anyone notice that one of the scrolling headlines on Fox news while they were talking about the airport situation was something about civilians visiting the ISS (International Space Station, presumably)? I thought that was a nice little touch, in that the 24 universe is supposed to be a few years ahead of ours (which might explain at least partly why their cell phones and camera phones are always so good).
Also, I was VERY pleased that when the finally figured out what flank 2 meant and changed plans, they still set off the charges from the get-ambushed entry point, confusing and diverting the bad guys. That’s something I was hoping they would do, but figured they would (due to sloppy writing) not bother with.
I don’t see why that’s true. The other airport baddies could have been told not to shoot the guy; they may have known him and could have just shot everyone else. His angry reaction to the treaty signing made me think that he actually did want to stop that, too.
I believe sending him from LA to a secret prison for political prisoners in China on a slow cargo ship, sealed in a cargo container without food or water was mentioned.
Well, yes… but when he does it, fewer body bags are required.
Actually, he’s not totally new, although I didn’t realize or remember that until I finished reading through the latest posts. It was the Wikipedia link on Mike Novick that was posted earlier in this thread that reminded me – and there’s a little blurb with Walt involved at the end.
Walt Cummings is apparently Logan’s chief of security. And he was the guy at the end of season 4 who advised Logan to have Bauer killed, rather than turn him over to the Chinese, after secret service picked him up. I’ll have to go back and watch the last episodes again to be totally sure, but according to the linked Wikipedia article, Logan rejected Cummings’ proposal, but Novick overheard Walt telling the secret service guy to kill Bauer anyways. Novick warned Palmer, and Palmer warned Jack.
So we’ve seen him before, and now I’m wondering if HE is the one who found out or realized that Jack was still alive…
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalt!
Huh?
That’s why Mia Kirshner (Mandy) blew up the plane? I missed a couple of eps that season. I thought we didn’t know what her motivation was to blow up the plane, and why she had to take such extreme measures. Why did she poison Palmer?
Btw the way he’s constantly around, I think (pure speculation) that he’s either Chief of Staff (if Mike isn’t), or Deputy Chief of Staff. Only the head speech writer or Press Secreatary would have so much on-call access, but the Mole never gave any speech or political (i.e. looking good) assistance.
I could be remembering wrong, but wasn’t Walt the guy in season four who secretly told the arresting officer to kill Jack?
And did anyone else secretly hope that Jack would pull a Keyser Soze and blow a hole in Derek himself? That’d be a new level of cold-bloodedness for our boy.