After the action packed premiere, things ease up a little bit with a focus more on the various relationships between the characters but things ended with a classic Jack move to infiltrate the US Embassy to talk to accused drone pilot Lt. Tanner.
Jack and Chloe kick things off by tracking Simone, who recently executed her mark, Derrick Yates, and recovered the drone override device to deliver to her mother and big bad, Margot Al-Harazi. They find Yates’s body in a pub bathroom and Chloe tracks Simone to the subway and they race to get to the next stop before Simone can get off. Jack boards the train but Simone recognizes him and cuts herself on the leg and then smears the blood on her face to make it look like Jack attacked her, delaying him enough so that Simone manages to sneak into a maintenance tunnel and escape, bringing the briefcase to Margot, her brother and husband, Naveed. Chloe misses Simone because she thinks she sees her husband Morris and son Prescott, who we learn were killed in a car accident and Chloe believes it was supposed to be her because of her knowledge of what happened to Jack. That eventually led to Chloe joining the Open Cell hacker group.
Meanwhile, President Heller readies himself for his addressing of Parliament but Mark continues to try and talk him out of it, on account of his deteriorating condition. Heller refuses to back down and Audrey backs him and berates Mark for treating her like a china doll who’s still in a catatonic state. Before Heller can even give the first few lines of his prepared statement though, the delegates start shouting him down, exactly like Mark said they would.
After losing Simone, Jack and Chloe regroup back at Open Cell and learn about the drone pilot, Chris Tanner, and his being held at the US Embassy. Jack has the hackers create a cover ID for him so he can infiltrate and question Tanner and get their recovered screenshot to Heller. Adrian Cross, the leader of Open Cell, changes a parameter on Jack’s ID that will throw a red flag to security. Jack improvises however and starts blasting protestors in the leg with a stolen gun to cause a panic and manages to get inside during the confusion. CIA agents Kate Morgan and Erik Ritter arrive just at that moment after learning about Tanner and the drones from captured slum boss Basher.
- Bad Ass Bauer Moment of the Week: You can’t really top that insane distraction of shooting protestors in the leg.
- Kate is showing some Bauer tendencies, much like Renee from seasons 7 & 8, like in this episode where she threatens Basher with getting turned over to a gang he ripped off.
- Margot creepily watches Simone and Naveed “reconnect” at their country manor while her son recalibrates the override to work for their system.
- Heller and Audrey look like they’re going to learn about Jack next episode as things escalate to a hostage crisis at the embassy.