24 Day Five, 7-11 AM: Bauer, Jack Bauer.

The dead man returns to life to find out who and why his friends are being targeted for death.

The start of season five, or Day Five, is 18 months after the end of Day Four. Jack living as a dead man lives in the California area near LA as Frank Flynn and works on oil drills for a living. He lives with a woman, Diane Huxley, and her annoyingly protective teenage son, Derek. The first ten minutes of the season really does change everything as the 24 commercials suggests. Within the first ten minutes, we see David Palmer, former president, shot in the neck in his LA penthouse by a sniper. Surely, I thought he would have to survive this attack, how could they kill a key star in the first 5 minutes of the show? I was unconvinced that he was dead, there was no way they would kill off a cornerstone of 24 in the first five minutes of the 5th season. My disbelief was quashed quite severely. Not five minutes later, we see Kim and Tony arguing over if they should go back to CTU or not to help out on the Palmer assassination. Kim decides to go help, and after a brief hesitation Tony chases after Kim to tag along as well. Unfortunately, once Kim gets to her car it explodes, killing her. Tony sees this and runs to his wife, where a second explosion puts Tony in critical condition. My god, the writers really just killed two characters off in the first ten minutes of the show and incapacitated another, just like that. Surely, the first ten minutes did change everything for Jack.

Not quite yet, he wasn't informed of the attacks until Chloe calls him after escaping her assassination attempt. Jack knows that anyone who knew he was alive was being picked off. Jack gets to a helicopter and subdues the pilot, but catches Derek following him and is forced to take him along for the ride to prevent him from calling the police. I told you this kid was annoyingly protective. Jack lands and meets Chloe, but she was followed and Jack kicks in Jack Bauer mode. He kills all the men and interrogates the leader of the group. The man tells Jack that Jack is being framed for the murders and that there is a secondary agenda to the assassinations. Jack politely puts a bullet in the man's head after getting the confession. Jack heads to Palmer's penthouse to find clues to why Palmer was assassinated. While inside, Palmer's brother, Wayne, bumps into Jack and Jack convinces him that he was not the shooter. Wayne believes Jack, after Jack gives him his gun as a sign of trust, and they find a secret message in Palmer's computer. A baggage handler at an airport. CTU finds out that Chloe is using her login and trace it to the underground garage in the Palmer building. Chloe creates a distraction so that Jack can escape with Derek. I have yet to understand why Jack would take Derek along except it was required in the script. Jack gets to the airport and returns Derek to his mom, Diane, and enters the airport to find the baggage handler. Jack finds the man, but he kills himself with a cyanide pill, best guess. As Derek is leaving with his mom, he notices men entering the airport from a van and leaves to warn Jack of the impending danger.

During all of this, we follow President Logon on a day in which he is supposed to sign an important anti-terrorism treaty with the Russians. He and his quite unstable wife, Martha, are in LA awaiting the Russian President's arrival. Martha is shaken by the Palmer assassination as they were close friend and believes the killing might have something to do with a phone call they had the previous night. Martha persuades her husband to hear the recording of their phone call, as all phone calls are recorded and stored. He listens to the call and shares the tape with Martha, it is not what Martha said it would be and her lack of meds is blamed. The tape was actually edited by an aide to President Logon, a man who is also working for the same man as the Russian terrorists who overtook the airport, our first mole is found. Later, Martha learns that all calls are also transcribed and there may still be evidence of a different call. She gains entry into the archive and finds the transcript, which she hides in her bra. After the arrival of the Russian President and the signing of the treaty, she wants to talk to her husband about the phone call but is brushed away. Back in her suite, she is attacked by the mole and chloroformed (is that a word?) as the mole as he takes the last piece of evidence.

Back at the airport, the Russian terrorists are informed by the mole that Jack Bauer is hiding in the airport giving recon information to the assault team. The terrorists point a gun to Derek's head and give him ten seconds to show himself. Jack, very un-Jack-like, gives himself up and is used by the terrorists to feed the assault team bad intel which is a trap. Jack places a distress signal in his phone call which CTU catches at the very last minute. The assault team changes positions to outflank the terrorists and execute a successful rescue operation. Unfortunately, a hostage was working with the terrorists is not accounted for and Jack has to be taken into CTU for questioning. The end of the four hour, two-night, of awesome shows the "hostage" enter a warehouse where he uses a key-card to open a nerve gas container which has about 20 large containers full of nerve gas. How 24 love their missions within missions and their double agents!

The four hour of awesome, as previously stated, was quite awesome. It had the same effect as it did last season as it sucked people in with four hours over two nights to keep them season-long 24 fans. The early demise of two cast members and the incapacitation (again is that a word?) of another in just ten minutes was quite astounding. At least one mole has already been discovered, but I'm sure in true 24-style this mole will be considered small potatoes to another mole which will blow every fan's mind away, we all remember Nina right? There is no question that 24 will be back in full swing this season as next episode will show the meeting between Jack and former love Audrey. This meeting will be coupled with Jack's new love Diane and Audrey. Should be some interesting TV and I wonder how long it will be before Tony becomes conscious and seek some ass-kicking revenge for his now dead wife Kim. All these and more in the next episode of 24.