What has been obvious this season is the pains the writers and directors have been taking with character development. Certain ones like Karen (Hillary) Hayes, Tom (Cheney) Lennox, Walid (Walla Walla) have been especially well fleshed out, allowing us to see not only good acting but the importance of their involvement in the plotline. Most of all, our hero Jack Bauer has been given a chance to shine, and the background being provided about his phantom family is giving actor Kiefer Sutherland a way to display a depth of emotions and flashes of anger and frustration that are welcome and quite commendable.

The key to all these things coming together is that the history of the Bauer Bunch (Here’s the story/of a man named Bauer/who was bringing up two wild and wacky boys?) is more than relevant in season six; it is a window into the entire narrative arc of the last five seasons of 24. By exploring these murky paternal and fraternal waters, we are coming to understand what pushed Jack into loving his wife and child so much, why fighting to keep them alive and together was so important and, in the aftermath of Teri’s (his wife) death at the end of season one, how Jack fell deeper and deeper into a dark chasm away from a normal life.

Last night’s episode focused on fraternal and filial relationships: Morris (Yul Brenner) O’Brian and his brother (not seen and not likely to be) Timothy, Jack and Graem (Grim), and of course the complicated dynamic between Jack, Graem, and their father Phillip (Stretch Cunningham from the old comedy classic All in the Family). There is also another crucial fraternal interaction happening between Prez Wayne Palmer and his deceased brother David. Prez Wayne seems to be getting a backbone (at least judging from last night’s episode) that is remarkably like his brother’s, making him able to withstand the slings and arrows of Cheney, the heretofore unseen VP (Jim Jones), and others in his Cabinet. This is a welcome move for the character as he stands up for what is right despite so much pressure to embrace what seems inherently wrong (and un-American) in order to save the country.

At the start of the episode, Cheney is excited about his victory over Hillary. She is reluctantly leaving and returning to husband Bill Buchanan (uh, Hillary and Bill?) in LA. The quick cell phone call between the two shows who wears the pants in that family, and then we see the ever-stoic Bill dealing with the expanding crisis at hand in CTU.