Jack Bauer Returns!

Filed under 24, TV

Sunday night on Fox was awesome because they aired the prequel to the long-awaited season 7 of “24.” Now, the season doesn’t start until January, but this TV-movie fills us in on what Jack Bauer’s been up to and what we can expect to see in the new season. That aside, we also see him blowing things up and taking some people down. Can’t say he went soft on us, and can’t say I’m surprised.

So apparently, Jack Bauer has been in Africa with an old friend he worked in the special forces with, Carl. He’s been helping at this school and protecting the kids from getting drafted as soldiers for the warlords. The story picks up when a man named Frank shows up with a subpeona for Jack, who is pretty much wanted for illegal torture of people in custody and probably the illegal abduction of a former US president…so yeah, even when you’re Jack Bauer, those kinds of things are still frowned upon. Jack ignores the subpeona and gets ready to move on, but the timing is awful because local warlords are coming for the kids, and Jack Bauer being Jack Bauer, he rises to the occasion to save the day.

Jack gets the kids to hide and while he puts up a hell of a fight with several bad guys, throwing some dynamite and a whole lot of punches, but he finds himself outnumbered and captured for torture. Things look bad, but once Jack is left… alone with their leader after telling his crew the false location of the kids, he grabs the leader with his legs and snaps his neck. Out in the woods, Carl kills the crew and comes to cut Jack’s arms loose. Together, they go find the kids and load them into a truck to head for the embassy to get them out of the country. While Jack knows he can’t go to the embassy without getting arrested, he goes along to help Carl…we’d expect nothing less.

Back in the states, it’s inauguration day and the first female president is being sworn in. President Daniels (back in season 6 you may remember Powers Boothe being a kind of sketchy vice-president who steps in as the president) is struggling with an approach to handling the problem with warlords in Africa and whether or not they should provide military assistance, and at the same time he is avoiding letting the soon to be president, President Taylor, weigh in on the situation. It’s unclear what his motives may be, but what is clear is that these two do not like each other very much. Also relevant, her son Roger has a friend named Chris who comes to him for help. Apparently he’s been crunching some numbers for his boss, making a few extra bucks, but it involves selling weapons to the warlords. It appears Jon Voigt is in charge of the operation, and it seems like there is a greater government conspiracy involved. Long story short, Chris is killed, and Jon Voigt’s guys are going to be keeping a very close eye on Roger.

Back in Africa, Jack and Carl and the boys have to ditch the truck and travel on foot through the woods. This proves fatal when Carl manages to save a boy from stepping on a landmine, but he winds up stepping on it and there’s no time for Jack to stop and try and find a way to disarm it. Carl tells him to go on with the boys and stays behind, and rather then just step off of it and accept his fate, he pulls a very Jack Bauer-like move and plays the situation to his advantage. He waits for some soldiers to find him and when they get close enough, he tells them to go to hell and steps off.

As for Jack and the boys, they get into the city, forced to dodge plenty of soldiers along the way. Lots of shooting and even a tender moment when an eight year-old boy holds an automatic rifle up at him and Jack tries to convince him to come with him and he’ll get him out of the country. The boy drops the gun but runs away, and then Jack rushes off with the rest of the boys to the gate of the embassy. There he finds Frank, and tries to give him the paperwork to take the kids to America, but Frank insists that they need a US citizen as a guardian, stating that the kids will be safely brought to America, but Jack has to go with them and surrender himself. What’s a guy to do? Jack surrenders and saves 14 kids in the process.

After all that, it looks like we can expect season 7 to be pretty strong. Jack will stand trial, but he’ll also have another international crisis on his hands and only 24 hours to save the day. Season premiere is January 11, tune in.

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