Pondering '24:' The Seventh Day Thus Far

What are we, a little more than halfway through one of Jack Bauer's very bad days on 24? Thus far in Jack's day we've seen:

Two commercial airlines were downed by terrorists. Hundreds are dead.

A chemical plant almost leaked deadly chemical into the air in the Midwest, however area residents and employees were saved by the quick thinking actions of the plant manager, who died from his exposure.

The First Gentleman was shot, kidnapped, rescued and then operated on. Now he's recovering in the hospital and has just spoken with his president wife on the phone.

A U.S. invasion targeting African warlords, who overthrew a democratically elected leader and brutally savaged their fictional country, commenced.

The democratically elected leader of that fictional country and his wife were abducted by the terrorists, then freed by Jack Bauer & Co.

The White House was infiltrated by terrorists who apprehended the U.S. president, whose face the head terrorist slapped. The president was forced at gunpoint to read a statement condemning the U.S. invasion over a live internet stream.

At least one White House aide was executed in front of the president, after many Secret Service members were killed.

Jack Bauer's good friend and former head of the disbanded Los Angeles Counter Terrorism Unit, sacrificed himself in order to provide cover for Jack so Jack could save the president. (How many presidents' lives has Jack saved? Anyone got a count?)

A key U.S. senator's chief of staff (a secret badie) was tortured, survived, was brought to the hospital then killed shortly before the senator for whom he was working was killed, both of 'em executed by an associate of the bigger cadre of bad guys who were funding the African warlords.

The president's chief of staff resigned because he thinks Jack Bauer killed a bunch of people he didn't kill AFTER the chief of staff let him out of custody.

A bio-weapon is now loose in Washington, D.C. in the hands of Angelina Jolie's dad, the head of a sinister company which runs a private, for-profit army, clearly meant to harken comparisons to the likes of Blackwater.

And now Jack Bauer -- who, during this one day has appeared before a Senate committee that was grilling him about his previous actions, has been put into the field by the FBI, was detained, then let go, then arrested, then let go, then fled and is now in custody again -- has been accidentally exposed to chemicals from the bio-weapon that he stole from the bad guys, but they got it back.

Phew! Just an ordinary day in the life of Bauer.

Some outstanding questions/observations:

-- Why, why is there another bad family member in the persona of the president's daughter Olivia running around? I had plenty of bad seed family member drama last season with Jack's father and brother.

-- Why does Larry Moss, head FBI dude, persist in leaping to wild assumptions that Jack has done wrong, gone mad and wantonly killed, when all day long he's proven his allegiance? Yet when the vice president ordered Moss NOT to enter the White House after Moss & Co. believed the terrorists had seized the president, he blew off the VP?

-- Do the characters of 24 experience some kind of special, miracle healing after they've been wounded, a la Lost's island? Otherwise, how do people like FBI agent Renee Walker, who was shot in the neck and buried alive, run around mere hours after sustaining serious wounds?

-- How many lives has Tony Almeida used up already? Is he on his last one yet? If you go by the promo, it seems as though he'll need it because Angelina's daddy seems quite agitated in the promo for next week.

Now we wait 'til Monday to see if Jack "survives" his exposure. But given the news this week that Kiefer Sutherland has signed on for an eighth season, I guess it's no big leap to guess that Jack'll be okay.