Get up to speed as Jack Bauer races against the clock for Monday’s two-hour series finale. By Josh Wigler Kiefer Sutherland in the series finale of “24” Photo: Ray Mickshaw/Fox Jack Bauer has been tortured by terrorists, imprisoned in a foreign country, addicted to heroin, infected with a deadly virus, electrocuted to death and subsequently brought back to life. But on Monday night (May 24), he’ll go through an entirely new kind of trauma: an ending. After eight action-packed days of foiling terrorist plots, killing the bad guys and losing plenty of sleep, Jack Bauer’s time on the small screen finally runs out with Monday’s series finale of “24.” It hasn’t always been an easy road for the former Counter Terrorism Unit operative — indeed, many would argue that the show is far from its glory days of seasons one and two — but with the end of “24” comes the end of a television era, particularly when coupled with Sunday night’s series finale of “Lost.” If you haven’t been keeping up with “24” but still want to tune into the final two-hour installment, rewinding the clock to the beginning of the season isn’t exactly the most time-efficient way to familiarize yourself with this year’s story. Instead, we’ll do our best to debrief you on all the important details of Bauer’s final day on television. As “24” began its eighth season, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) had just finished recovering from a lethal viral infection contracted at the end of season seven. But his days watching cartoons on the couch with his granddaughter were cut short upon his discovery of a plot to assassinate Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor), the president of the Islamic Republic of Kamistan, who’s hard at work on a historic peace treaty with U.S. President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones). Along with the help of longtime friend and quirky CTU analyst Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and budding love interest Renee Walker (Annie Wersching), Bauer prevented an initial attempt on Hassan’s life and spent the next several hours investigating a related terrorist plot to detonate a nuclear device in New York City. Eventually, these terrorists revealed that they would willingly surrender the nuclear bomb in exchange for President Hassan as a prisoner. Both President Taylor and Bauer refused to comply, but Hassan, not willing to value his life over the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, handed himself over to the terrorists. In one of the season’s most shocking moments, Bauer subsequently discovered Hassan’s brutally executed body. Thinking that he and his allies had failed, Bauer and Renee retired to Jack’s apartment to commiserate with each other, leading to a lengthy bedroom romp that ended with the ultimate form of sexual frustration: From several rooftops away, a Russian assassin shot and killed Renee, leaving Bauer covered in blood and more distraught than ever before. A devastated Jack soon learned the reason behind Renee’s murder: Because of her past connections as a mole within the Russian mob, Renee would have been able to identify certain Russian officials who were secretly responsible for all the day’s events, including Hassan’s assassination. Bauer took this news to President Taylor, but she refused to follow through with a proper investigation as it would jeopardize America’s relationship with Russia, one of the essential partners in completing the peace treaty with Hassan’s homeland. Although Taylor justified the cover-up as a means to pursuing the treaty, Bauer wasn’t satisfied with her motives and consequently embarked on his own quest for justice against the Russians responsible for killing Hassan and Renee. But rather than tracking down the guilty parties and placing them under arrest, the vengeful Bauer instead opted to kill everyone responsible for Hassan and Renee’s death, legal system be damned. In the most recent episode, Jack uncovered the identities of two of the people most culpable for these deaths: Russian President Yuri Suvarov (Nick Jameson) and disgraced former U.S. President Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin), the same man who ordered the assassination of beloved President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) in the show’s fifth season. With only two hours remaining and a knife wound to the abdomen slowing him down, Bauer is running out of time to bring his bloody brand of justice to Suvarov’s and Logan’s doorsteps. Complicating matters further is the fact that the entirety of CTU, including Chloe and special agent Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr.), has orders to take Bauer down using any means necessary. As “24” rushes toward the finish line, the great irony is this: After eight seasons of successfully unraveling conspiracies and thwarting terrible threats, Bauer himself has become the greatest threat of them all. Tell us what you’re expecting from the “24” series finale in the comments below!
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