24 Day 4, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Jack is either a psycho, or a sadist. It's sad to see a once great man fall so far. He didn't even bother trying to question Paul first, and give him a chance to explain himself. Nope, he went straight for the torture. Jack would've looked kinda silly had Paul immediately started talking. Jack would've gone to all that trouble to rip open Paul's shirt and douse him with water for nothing. (By the way, was that a sponge? Where did that come from? That's not exactly standard hotel room amenities. Along with the teensy Munchkin bottles of shampoo and mouth wash, I've never seen a sponge sitting on a hotel bathroom counter.)

But what is Paul thinking? If he is truly innocent, why didn't he immediately disclose the information that might be on the laptop as soon as he saw Jack trying to hotwire a lamp? Why did he wait till he had been jolted twice?!

(At one point during the proceedings, Audrey had a look on her face as she watched Jack like she was imagining a future day, with Jack asking their teenage son why he had been out too late. "Where were you last night? Tell me!" zzzztttttttt)

It might be plausible that Paul was unaware of what the Empty House of Terrorists was being used for, and he said the lawyers usually handled such things. But CTU said it was Paul's signature on the lease. (again, rather quick analysis, eh what) Is Paul usually in the habit of just signing anything his lawyers put before him without knowing what it was, a la Radar trying to sneak something past Col. Blake?

Jack lets Paul use the laptop, and then conveniently disappears into the bathroom so we can have a touching scene where wifey Audrey nags poor henpecked hubby Paul. Jack is awfully trusting to leave someone he just tortured alone. How did he know Paul didn't have a gun?

Paul discovers the lease was related to someone named Harris Barnes. CTU quickly determines it was an alias, and that someone names Marwan also used the alias. Now, how on God's Green Earth did they figure that out so quickly? Did Marwan fill out paperwork where he indicated "My real name is Marwan, but I'm going to use an alias of Harris Barnes." Isn't the whole point of using an alias is so you're real name isn't discovered? And, almost immediately thereafter, Sarah is telling Driscoll that Marwan probably has the Flux Capacitor! Wait just a cotton-pickin minute! At that point they only knew someone named Barnes was linked to someone named Marwan. How could they be sure about the Flux Capacitor? Marwan could've been just some flunky terrorist. Boy, not only do they use Magic at CTU, they have special Psionic abilities.

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    Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes places over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, ...

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