Picking up where we left things last week, Jack fairly effortlessly storms the US embassy, retrieves the flight key from Tanner and very nearly escapes. Sealing him in the building leads to Jack locking himself in a comms room with some hostages and a cyberblag ensures that he's in there for the rest of the show. Being a computer geek there were many things wrong with this section of the show including utterly ludicrous IP addresses and more flashy beepiness than is really necessary for a progress bar. However I shall maintain my disbelief and allow them the blag for the purposes of creating a bit of tension on the show.
While all the situation at the embassy takes place, Heller manages to placate the combined force of the stern words of the British press and politicians and he and Audrey are brought up to speed with 'The Bauer Situation'. If there's a running theme in this episode it seems to be that the only people who believe in Jack are, as usual, the Bauer Babes: Chloe, Audrey and, as the episode progresses, Kate. Basically everyone else in the episode wants him dead without even hearing what he has to say.
Before the situation in the comms room is resolved, our catch ups with the terrorists are all about cold feet, warm hearts and missing digits. Naveed wants out, Simone turns him in to her mum and to bring him back into line Margot has her daughter's pinkie lopped off with a chisel. Another techie stalling tactic results in the episode feeling a bit like a race condition between the decryption of the flight key and the re-configuring of the override, both of which are due to resolve 'Within The Hour'.
The episode climaxes with the Bauer Babes telling their respective partners to go fuck themselves and that they are behind Jack 100%. Audrey tells her husband that he's an asshole, Chloe tells Cross that he's an asshole and Kate tells all the marines, the president, her partner and basically anyone within earshot that they're all assholes as she takes Jack into custody with the promise that she'll decrypt the info on the key and investigate the threat.
The episode closes out with the baddies readying themselves to grab control of the drones and point them at London. Next week I imagine the bombs will start to drop.
Bauer Bingo words this week: 'Putting you on speaker' and the old favourite 'Within the hour'.