Jack makes a sad face and says "I don't know how to do this anymore." Poor Jack!

Buck up, Jack. You've got 22 more hours to get your torture legs back.

I predict that Jack's tragic inability to properly stab people with electrodes will last about as long as his heroin withdrawal.

I think one of the things I love about 24 is that it has no shame about leaping headlong in to absurdly silly territory, and can keep a straight face while doing it.

Did Fury write this, do you know?

Losing a body part seems an odd choice, since they'll have to make sure Jack has only nine visible fingers for however long the show lasts, unless they come up with a magic robotic finger.

unless they come up with a magic robotic finger

They could get him a Sixfinger. The commercials made it seem like it'd be the perfect accessory for an operative like Jack.

(Now I need to disentangle my brain from the Sixfinger jingle earworm.)

Maybe he just grows it back with his mutant healing abilities.

I mean, come on - given all the damage that's been inflicted on Jack he MUST be a mutant. It would explain the two hour heroin withdrawl.

No no -- the phone call interrupts the de-fingering. Jack retains all his extremities.

We do get many many closeups of the scars on his back, an the burn marks on his hands. It's a nice back.

I hope they show hours 3-4 as a single block, because not a whole lot happens in hour 3. Hour 4, natch, is where things start to get REALLY fucked up. So far, they seem to be aware of the fact that this is the first season they've started with Jack not having had a full night's sleep before the show starts -- he's just gotten out of prison AND a 10+ hour flight. He's tired. And sad.

The one thing that does happen in hour 3 is that President McHottie asks Jack to take over the investigation, since it turns out he was right about everything all along in spite of being out of the loop for 2 years due to the whole prison thing. And Jack, poor dear, exhausted and PTSD'd though he is, agrees to it because The President asked him to.

The leads eventually lead him to a b-plot where Kal Penn is holding his neighbors hostage (because he was supposed to deliver a package to Terrorist In Charge, but he was attacked and thrown into a glass table which fucked up his leg, so now he can't drive, so he's making his neighbor do it while he holds the wife and son hostage).

Jack is still working with Ex-Terrorist, and President McHottie is so impressed with Jack's intuition that he grants him a full pardon in exchange for cooperation and help catching Real Terrorist. They've also brought CTU into the loop in the meantime. When Curtis finds out about the pardon, he is pissed. (Turns out that before Ex-Terrorist renounced violence, some of his men attacked Curtis' marines during a mission somewhere and it went really really badly.)

Oh, and the terrorists have a Russian suitcase nuke. (The "package" that Random Neighbor Guy is delivering is some kind of detonator chip thingy.)

SO...Curtis is supposed to be taking Ex-Terrorist back to CTU for debriefing, but instead decides to execute him. Jack catches them just in time and ends up SHOOTING CURTIS IN THE NECK rather than let him jeopardize the mission. So Curtis is dead. Jack stumbles off into the yard to cry. Poor Jack! He is so tired and sad and nobody can understand his pain!

Bill calls right then to assure him that he did the right thing, had no choice, etc etc. But Jack is still sad and tired and broken and in need of a hug. So naturally, that's when the terrorists set off the nuke...and no, the sight of a mushroom cloud over Valencia does not do much for Jack's mental state right then.

I *really* hope they don't just drop this thread, because OMG watching Kieffer be all SuperJack one minute and BrokenJack the next is SO MUCH FUN.

(And the terrorists have 4 more suitcase nukes, is where the rest of the season is going. Yay nukes!)

Jessica...I love you.

Reading your notes is way more fun than watching the actual show. Thanks!

So far, they seem to be aware of the fact that this is the first season they've started with Jack not having had a full night's sleep before the show starts

I do remember in season 1, which begins at midnight, he does get progressively tireder and tireder as the season/day goes along. He takes a waitress hostage at about 9am, and is holed up with her somewhere, and nods off for 20 minutes, and she escapes.

Of course, that may be the last moment of realism in the entire series, but hey.