Spoilers for “3 a.m. to 4 a.m.” below.

Things that happened

I hate this show so much this season.

But before we get to that, let’s take some time to give kudos to Rena Sofer. It’s rare that an actor or actress appears on two different shows on two different networks on the exact same night at the exact same time, but Rena’s now done it two weeks in a row. Say what you will about her acting ability (her talent appears to be playing naive), she is apparently all about making television history.

Anyway, this show sucks. Remember that tense, almost-exciting scenario that had set up last week, with CTU under siege and Josh Bauer kidnapped? They manage to wipe all that out within the first ten minutes of the episode, as a bunch of highly-trained gun-for-hires are easily defeated by a British computer programmer, a female translator and a middle-aged ex-CTU operative, who hasn’t seen so much as a treadmill in over a year.

Yes, Morris, Nadia and Jack save the day all by themselves. Doyle almost helps, but gets there a bit late. But, still, he and Jack are able to chase after Cheng and the kidnapped Josh, who are making a hasty retreat through the underground tunnels. Jack stops them by shooting at their car, which apparently is indication that you should stop your car and get out. At least it is if you’re Cheng, who is perhaps the stupidest bad guy ever. You’re in the car! Just keep driving!

After some rooftop shooting and a tense moment where Josh is hanging from a ledge for some reason, Jack has his son back. Oops, I mean his nephew back. (They still haven’t gotten to that reveal.)

Jack figures out that his dad, Prince Phillip Bauer, is the one behind Josh’s kidnapping, and seems kind of pissed about the whole deal. By the end of the episode, he seems pretty convinced that he’s got to kill his old man.

His old man, however, has other plans. After the whole sting operation with Lisa and the Russian Spy goes wildly off the rails when she can’t even bother to fake an orgasm and then hits her Russian fuckbuddy with a goddamn wine bottle, the spy figures out that his girlfriend is up to no good. He starts choking her to death but then Lennox and some secret service agents break in, saving the day.

It doesn’t matter anyway, of course, as apparently the Russians knew the whole time that the Americans knew about their spy, and were therefore spying on their spy, to learn what the Americans were up to. Does that sound needlessly confusing? Because it is.

We did get another scene with the Cisco TelePresence, though. It’s like a webcam but really expensive! I wish I had one!

Anyway, the short version of the white house story is that they’re still pretty screwed. Since Cheng got away and the Russians knew about the Americans knowing about their spy, no one’s buying that the Americans have destroyed the magic nuclear component.

Thankfully, Phillip Bauer makes a call to the White House just in time, as he’s the one who does have the component. And he’s willing to make a deal: if the white house gets him Josh, he’ll give them what he has.

The episode ends with Jack being subdued as Doyle loads Josh into a helicopter, presumably to take him to some secret deal-making location. It is perhaps the sixth or seventh time Doyle has turned on Jack this season.

Jack needs to stop trusting that guy.

Also: Some guy from division comes down to CTU and wants to investigate the security breach. He’s an asshole and wants to screw around with CTU staff. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Things that were good

• Huh, I don’t know. There was a really neat scene where Jack was sprinting and shooting his gun at the same time that I liked a lot.

Things that were not so good

• This show is better when it’s really bad, because at least then it’s not boring. This season has settled into a kind of mediocrity that’s actually painful to watch. At least when Jack was hanging out with the mentally-challenged man there were things to make jokes about.
• Speaking about jokes, though, at least we still got the magical nuclear component that contains all of Russia’s defense secrets. Seriously, apparently their intelligence network in America is amazingly good. With all those resources, couldn’t they have engineered a bomb design that wasn’t so goddamn stupid?

Worth watching if…

You want to be a part of Rena Sofer’s amazing two-network two-shows same-night same-time feat of amazing-ness. She’s done it two weeks in a row, and odds are next week she’ll do it again! How does she manage to bend space-time like that?!

In Five Words

Makes Me Miss Prison Break