2:00 AM - 3:00 AM

Dave Barry's gonna love this episode: no Audrey listed in the opening credits, hence no Audrey in this episode. She appears to have fallen down a well with Curtis Manning and Christopher Henderson. I hope they didn't all land on Aaron Pierce.

Jack Bauer is on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan or something.

Miles is peeved that Karen won't let the agents shoot Buchanan in the thigh.

Why the hell is this hotel bar so crowded past 2:00? And on what one can assume to be a weeknight, too!

Jack is on flight 520... probably not coincidentally the production number of this very episode. (The 20th episode of season 5.)

How frakking amazing is Jack Bauer's cell phone plan? Where can I get this kind of coverage? Not that I've ever been trying to make a phone call from the cargo hold of an aircraft in flight.

Are there this many people on every diplomatic flight leaving in the dead of night?

Jack blind-sides an air marshal, and is now well on his way to adding a whole new string of interesting felonies to his checkered resume this hour.

Jack vanishes back down into the cargo hold as the flight attendant totally fails her perception roll.

More vague-ominous conversations between President Logan and "conspiracy puppet master." Yawn.

I've known all along that Mike Novick was Logan's chief of staff. But him saying so specifically dislodged a big question for me. We know from season two that he was Palmer's chief of staff. We know from season three that Palmer was running for re-election against Keeler, so clearly they were from opposite political parties. And we know from season four that Logan was vice president under Keeler. So, Novick just jumped between parties and was somehow able to work as chief of staff to two different U.S. Presidents?

Anyway... back in the hotel bar, and Chloe has managed to find her very own "cougar," in the form of a drunken lout.

I can't imagine Martha's medication should be taken with wine, but hey... she's already past the point of no return on the journey to totally freaking crazy, so why not?

Now this diplomatic flight has so many people on it that two different people who happened to know Christopher Henderson are both on board!

Of course the flight has to head back to L.A. They can't make it all the way to Germany in the four-and-a-half hours left in this "day!"

Thankfully, Chloe dispatches her "cougar" quickly. If only Kim Bauer had packed a tazer in season two.

Jack Bauer hauls down on the machinery inside the plane, graduating from taking down helicopters to taking down whole airplanes!

And it's "into the garbage chute, flyboy" with the air marshal.

Okay, I totally believe that Jack Bauer would hijack a plane, if that were his only move. And I believe he has the skills. What I don't believe, in this day and age, is that somehow he avoids having every single passenger on that plane instantly come rushing at him tossing their shoes, carry-on luggage, and anything else in reach.

Somebody's shoving the stick even further up Miles' ass. And poor Mike Novick is stuck in the middle of another fine mess. Weasels to the left of him! Weasels to the right of him!

What's funnier than watching Chloe tazer somebody? Watching her do it twice.

The co-pilot! Well, there was a decent bait-and-switch. I suspected the "what's going on" jerk earlier on in the passenger cabin when the flight attendants were making everyone return to their seats. (Of course, it was engineered that way.)

Jack has the recording again! And again, he's not immediately calling somebody... anybody to transfer a copy of that recording over the phone to someone he can trust.

Okay, what possible justification would Logan be able to come up with for ordering the plane shot down? I guess we'll find out next week.