"None of this makes sense"

"None of this makes sense." - Vice-President Daniels
"It was all for nothing." - Vice-President Daniels, referring to the Mark Bishop plotline that took up the past three episodes

That's what 24 was missing: a fan voice. Lost employs Hurley solely to acknowledge that message boards exist. Alias used Marshall Flinkman to voice fan complaints and theories as well. Now we've got the Vice-President of the United States emerging, in the 22nd hour, as the show's Fan Voice. Better late than never, I suppose. Anywho, let's talk about what happened:

Jack Bauer Power Hour
Milo is dead. A half-hour later, the hostages are allowed to cover up Milo's face with a... a hand towel? A head covering? Zhou sends Josh off with the Chinese which sends Marilyn into a hysterical fit. Which, is completely understandable and in line with her character, but also makes for really annoying TV. Zhou separates the hostages into two groups: Extras and Series Regulars. (Sadly, no extra earns a SAG card tonight.) Jack conspires with Nadia to attack the attackers and even gives Morris a heads-up, but, due to time constraints, leaves Chloe out of it. (Me = sad!) Suddenly, everyone fires guns and goes all kung-fu on everyone, because obviously everyone knows the martial arts. It's confusing. Jack chokes a guy and snaps his neck, while Nadia almost dies. Thankfully, DOYLE shows up with his team and they, well, attack their workplace and save the day. They set off on a foot race to get Josh back into custody. They have a very confusing gunfight.

(Sidenote: Does the lighting on 24 bug anyone else? How is it that whenever a gunfight breaks out there's all this surreal green or blue lighting? It's all very "dramatic." It's been especially dorky this season.)

After a not-so-exciting chase through a manufacturing(?) plant, Josh attacks Cheng, then falls down over a bridge. Jack gets Cheng to put down his weapon and for a second Cheng looks serious about jumping. But then Josh yells "Help!" and Cheng magically disappears. None of this makes sense! Doyle does a sweep and determines that the sub-circuit board isn't there. ("Sub-circuit board" sounded a LOT better back when they called it "The Cypress Audio" or "Cypress Recordings") Jack tells Marylin about Evil Grandpa. Jack tells Josh that everything will be alright when an agent distracts Jack with a phone call. Doyle then seizes Josh and drags him into a helicopter, with Jack yelling Walt! Walt! Walt! for an entire bloody season.

CTU
After the raid, Nadia tells Doyle that Milo is dead. Nadia is still sad. Chloe tells Nadia that all her kung-fu was "really brave" and the two spend the rest of the hour getting things back online. Except, things get annoying when Ben Kram, a Division nuisance, comes in to assess CTU. After all, the attack WAS a big breach in protocol. Nadia points out that it's 3 am and that they're still cleaning up; couldn't this wait until next season? But Division lives to annoy CTU, so, no. Morris tells Nadia not to let Division bog her down and make her feel responsible for Milo's death and it's all "poetic" because he's telling her advice that HE should be taking to heart after helping to arm nuclear bombs for terrorists. It's a nice talk about preventability and responsibility that won't win either of them Emmy's, but it was nice enough. And... that was it for CTU! Maybe Division will close CTU LA down. That'd be exciting for next season!

The Big Bads: Cheng and Evil Grandpa
Philip Bauer talked to Josh early on, telling him "sorry" about "pretending" to threaten his life earlier on in the season. He wants to make it up to him by kidnapping Josh and forcing him to live in China for the rest of his life. (He justifies it by saying that in the States, Josh will forever be ridiculed by what Graham did.) Josh doesn't want to go, but Cheng tells him that he should be "honored," that his Grandpa is a "visionary." Stop flirting, Cheng! After he lost Josh, Cheng phoned Philip to tell him about what happened, if anything so they have footage for the previously on... for next week's episode. Philip says that without his son that the deal is off. Cheng tells Philip that the sub-circuit board isn't hit. Philip says "bite me!" (paraphrasing) and says that Cheng should never, EVER threaten him again, EVER. They are such teenage girls!

Philip Bauer later calls Vice-President Daniels, offering the sub-circuit board in exchange for A) Josh Bauer and B) Clear passage to any country of his choice. Judging by the fact that Doyle took Josh away from Jack, I'm guessing Daniels agreed to Philip's terms.

The White House
First, we didn't get the D.C. plot until 25 minutes into the hour. Karen Hayes - and the audience - were told all about Lisa Miller for about 2, 3 minutes. Karen points out that both Daniels and Lisa were single, so the relationship kinda wasn't that creepy! Daniels says that he trusted her to be truthful and that such a mistake may usher in a world war.

Meanwhile, in Alias, Lisa Miller and Mark Bishop have been..... yeah.... for a half-hour. Lennox has to listen. "And finally, we're done," he remarked all-too-gleefully. Lisa immediately leaves to give Bishop an opportunity to upload files from her PDA. Bishop has an epiphany and decides not to take the bait. He and Lisa fight and it ends with her smashing his head with a wine bottle, her spilling the guts on the whole operation and her getting choked. "Thankfully," the Secret Service move in quick enough to save Lisa's life. (But maybe not her brain!!) Lennox tells Bishop to upload the e-mails anyways, or else he'll face the death penalty. Bishop goes for it.

Later, Karen and Daniels teleconference with Russian President Suvarov (thanks to Cisco technologies!) and they pretend that the S-C.B. was destroyed. Suvarov isn't buying it, in part because Mark Bishop was HIS operative and he had his place bugged, too. So he saw the whole operation go down. Suvarov wants the S-C.B. recovered in two hours or else WWIII will start. Two hours? Why, that's about how much time is left in this non-imaginative season!

After the Philip Bauer phone call, Karen and Daniels debate whether or not to go along with Evil Grandpa's demands. They, along with Lennox, loosely connect Gredenko to the whole plot by pointing out that Russia has anti-American generals and that oh my word, Gredenko was anti-American too! So, am I connected to Kevin Bacon? Because, I'm American. I think that makes just as much sense as how they tried to explain how Gredenko fit into the whole picture.

Next Week: The show is two hours long! Buchannan is in, and let me tell you this: from the spoilers I've seen, his role is going to be awesome. The fact that he'll be back isn't nearly as cool as what he'll be doing. There's also something about a plane, Cheng, a oil rig?, Chloe falling over sick, oh, and there was still some money left in the budget for a huge EXPLOSION!!!