Here we are, four hours into Day 7, and there's a whole lot of familiar going on. We've got a conspiracy that goes up to (almost) the highest levels of the federal government, and we've got our favorite friends from CTU on the case, despite CTU having been disbanded some time ago. Tony's a good guy (sort of), and Jack is once again forced to go undercover to try and find the World's Deadliest Thingamajiggy. (Official title: the CIP device.) The clock is, as always, ticking, and we're currently working against our first deadline of the season—President Taylor has been ordered to pull American troops out of Sangala in three hours or else the WDT is going to wreck all kinds of havoc.
It's a lot to take in over two hours; or it would be if, as mentioned, all of this wasn't just a tad familiar. Every season of 24 has its multi-layered conspiracies, its agency moles, its bad-guys-dumb-enough-to-trust-Jack-Bauer, and despite the fresh coat of paint and the heightened thematic urgency, the basics here are pretty much the same as always. Which isn't so bad, at least for right now. Tonight's double-episode wasn't nearly as tight as Sunday's, and the goofy quotient got upped considerably (apparently, CTU was way over-padding its budget; in order to run efficiently, all it needed Chloe, Bill, Tony, and eventually Jack)(actually, given the number of double agents CTU was riddled with, maybe this is for the best)—but it was still entertaining enough.
One of the biggest drawbacks of the real-time structure is the way certain arguments get repeated over and over again; these arguments can't be resolved until the situation changes, the situation can't change until a certain amount of time has past, but since we still need to fill forty minutes each episode, we have to keep cutting back to people repeating themselves. In this case, that means watching the Prez lock horns with Secretary of Defense Ethan Kanin (Bob Gunton!) over the withdrawal of American troops. The Pres wants to stay in spite of the threat, while Ethan wants to give in to Colonel Dubaku's demands, and by the time the clock reaches noon, they've reached no resolution; but the Pres is getting frustrated, and those of us who were privy to Ethan's conversation with First Man Henry are starting to suspect that Ethan might not be completely on the up and up.
The Prez's one hope of not giving in to the terrorists is locked away at FBI headquarters, but it looks like Tony isn't talking. Jack convinces Larry and Renee to give him a shot at interrogating his former friend, and we got some chatting, veiled threats, and head-games; Tony claims to have gone mercenary because he was sick of the government that betrayed him and starts listing all the reasons Jack should be sick too. Jack slams Tony against a wall, which gives Almeida just enough time to whisper "Deep sky" before FBI agents pull Jack out of the room. "Deep sky" refers to an old CTU code, giving Jack a phone number—he calls it, and Bill Buchanan answers.
This all leads into the best action sequence of the season thus far, with Jack freeing Tony from custody and helping him escape from a large number of highly irritated FBI dudes. See, Tony is a good guy after all—deep, deep cover, of course—and he desperately needs to get back to the men he was working for or the whole mission is blown, end of the world, co-habiting cats and dogs, you know the drill. It's a little deflating to have Tony's morality resolved so quickly (although they mix things up a bit further in), and the idea of Bill, Chloe, and Tony forming some sort of vigilante cabal is right on the line between cool and goddamn ridiculous, but the actual escape was excellent; lots of tense corridor ducking, demanding the impossible of Chloe, and a fair amount of gunplay. And the climax, with Jack hotwiring a car and driving it off a parking garage, was just flat out excellent. (Yes, it's absurd to think he could walk away from the accident in as good condition as he does, but it's Jack Bauer, and that's how the show works.)