24: The EW3 Season

“The following takes place between…”

8pm – 9pm:
Jack Bauer comes home from work to an empty apartment, throws his man purse and gun on the foyer chair. Clicks on ESPN, calls some buddies about the game this weekend and fantasy leagues. Throws leftovers into the microwave and opens a sody-pop.

Watches Sports Center while brushing off Chloe who calls him about “doing something, maybe this weekend”.

Eats.

Reads the paper. And the mail.

Surfs the net. Watches some guy get a football to the groin on YouTube.

9pm – 10pm:
Watches the local news and snacks. Channel surfs. Hangs up on telemarketers. Uses the bathroom. Watches more TV. Looks over his DVDs but cannot find anything. Does some bill paying on-line, “Might as well get it done now”.

10pm – 11pm:
Decides to call it a night. But then he gets an urgent phone call from Bill Buchanan asking him to come in tomorrow even though it’s his day off, “Mm yeah, we’re going to need you come in, okay?”. Slams the phone, “Dammit!” Now, he isn’t tired so he surfs the channels again and checks his fantasy sports scores on-line, get the automatic coffee maker ready, “Looks like I’m gonna need this”.

11pm – 12m:
Watches the Daily Show, laughing out loud like a goon. Eats three bowls of cereal. The catches the last forty minutes of “The Shawshank Redemption” on Cinemax.

12m – 1am:
Wipes tears away as Andy and Red are reunited. Sees the time and goes to change into his bedclothes. Comes out of the bathroom in a tee, crazy “Father’s Day” pajama pants and his moose slippers and moves to set his alarm. Crawls into bed, reads Robert Ludlum for about 17 minutes before he stops, turns off the light, rolls over, clutches his binky and falls asleep.

1am – 2am:
Sleeps. Maybe rolls over.

2am - 3am:
Sleeps. Gets up and uses the bathroom all without turning on any lights. Goes back to bed.

4am – 5am:
Sleeps.

5am – 6am:
Sleeps. The episode ends when the alarm goes off in a electronic tick-tock sound, beep-boop, beep-boop.

6am – 7am:
Jack slaps the Snooze button and sleeps nine more minutes, then hits it again only to wake up six minutes later. He sits up, yawn, wipes the crumbs from his eyes, shuts off the alarm and sits at the edge of the bed for about ten minutes with the sleepy stares. Finally he rouses and gets up and we are treated to a 35 minute shot of his bathroom door while we hear the toilet flush, the shower, Jack’s off-key singing of Europe’s “Final Countdown”, his electric shaver, tooth brushing. He then emerges in a robe, his moose slippers and a large towel wrapped around his head, rubbing Antonio Banderas’ cologne on his face.

7am – 8am:
Jack goes to the pantry and takes more rolls of toilet paper into the bathroom. He then goes to his closet and here we find that his clothes are labeled by the days of the week and all follow the same fashion; a long-sleeve tee over his Husker Dü or Batman t-shirt, fatigue-like carpenter pants, and weird, long athletic socks with stripes like they wore in the 70’s NBA. His boots are day-labeled also. He changes into Wednesday.

In the kitchen he pours coffee, switches on the small kitchen TV to get a traffic report. Snaps his finger when he realizes he should check his lotto ticket numbers, “Not gonna work for the Government all my life,” he says hopefully. On-line, no matches, “damn it”.

He checks his man purse, throwing out a Hardee’s wrapper. “Oh shoot! I forget to type that up.” Grabs his cell phone, his wallet, a jacket, just in case, and his gun and heads out the door. Then back in to grab his car keys and back out again.

He gets on his Acura, starts it and puts in a Fall Out Boy CD and rolls out of the drive way. Down the road his stomach growls and he realizes he skipped breakfast. He pulls into the nearest Mickey D’s and around through to the drive thru.

8am – 9am:
"What do you mean your out of creamer?” He gets his bagel steak sandwich and hash brown, but his coffee isn’t ready yet. He pays with his speedpass and once he gets his coffee, he rolls out. He is stuffing his first bite into his mouth when he gets cut off at the exit and has to brake, spilling his coffee on his leg and passenger’s seat, “Dammit! Jerk Bag!!” Honks, memorizes the plate number and rolls for the interstate chewing noisily and singing along to track four.

He never makes it off the interstate on-ramp because traffic is at a crawl. “Damn, I should have taken the helicopter. I’d be across town in like 12 seconds.”

He dials Bill Buchanan and tells him he’s going to be a little late.

Bill: “Mm yeah, we’re going to need you to get here right away. Okay?”

For the last 34 minutes of the episode, we see Jack rolling along slowly in his car, finishing his breakfast and his coffee and singing along and changing CDs and cursing cars that cut him off “Yeah, they need you right away!”

9am – 10am:
Traffic starts to move a bit. Jack is tapping steering wheel now, anxious, he needs to use the bathroom. “I wonder if I should stop at the mini-mart?” He checks his watch and decides against it. He changes stations on the radio constantly, trying to keep his mind off it. Finally, his exit comes up and he swerves around a fruit truck and races for the exit ramp and down the street, a couple of turns, but is caught at a stop light across the street from CTU.

He is hopping in his seat now “c’monc’monc’monc’mon,dammit,c’monc’monc’mon”. The light changes and he roars into the security checkpoint, flashes his ID, signs in, does the fingerprint scan, retinal scan, mouth swab, keys in a PIN code, whispers his password, “Foxy Momma” into the voice recognition mic and is finally let in when Chuck the gate guard recognizes him and sees in him a man needing to pee. Chuck waves him past the big STOP sign.

For the next 11 minutes Jack rolls his car around the garage hoping to find one nearer the CTU entrance. No luck. “Stupid traffic”.

10am – 11am:
Finally, he parks, grabs all his things as fast as he can and gets out, locking the car with a “ee-oo-oop” and jogs for the entrance.

He stand in line, doing the hop, while people flash their ID, sign in, do the fingerprint scan, retinal scan, mouth swab, key in a PIN code, whisper a password, and are finally let in.

Chloe is there to greet him and hand him his workload but he rushes past her and into the men’s room. She stands outside of it uncomfortable and she hears Jack’s exclamations of relief. Three minutes later he comes out wiping his hands on his shirt, “They need more paper towels in there.”

“I’ll get on it right away,” Chloe says, “There’s that manager’s meeting at 11. You better be ready for it.”

Jack isn’t.

“So, what’re you doing for lunch?” she asks.

“Me and Rick Schroeder are getting something. I need to get ready for the meeting.”

Jack gets to his desk, cluttered with Kitty bric-a-brac and shot glasses from around the US. Instead of going over his report, he checks his e-mail and his favorite movie news websites before playing Mah Jong Solitaire for the rest of the episode.

11am – 12n:
The Manager’s Meeting is full. People mill about the doughnuts and coffee tray before sitting down to hear Bill Buchanan talk about the new protocol for requesting days off that went into effect this week, meaning if you asked for days off last week you will need to do it again this week using the new protocol or your request, under the old protocol, is cancelled. He explains this looking at Jack, who has arrived a little late. Also, the exterminator is coming in this weekend to fumigate the offices due to a vermin infestation. Because of this there is a new protocol for lunches; no more food at the desks, you will be required to eat in the commissary or off-grounds going through the new security measures. Also, it’s Milo’s birthday and everyone should chip in for a cake and gift, $10 maximum. Don’t forget to buy a brick for the fundraiser. Minimum purchase, which is mandatory, is $25. Jack opts to have it taken out of his pay check.

12n – 1pm:
The meeting goes 11 minutes long while Bill stresses how important and how mandatory buying a fundraising brick is. While leaving the meeting Rick Schroeder and Jack discuss lunch options, while avoiding Chloe.

Rick: What do you think? What are you in the mood for?
Jack: Chinese food. How about Chang’s Kitchen?
Rick: But you spent 2 years in a Chinese Prison.
Jack: But I love Chinese food. Isn’t that ironic?

After another bathroom stop they leave CTU, spend the episode eating a large Chinese lunch and talking sports and guy stuff. They pay and decide to hit the bookstore next door to check out some magazines.

1pm – 2pm:
Jack buys a paper and a couple of magazines and waits for Rick to come down from the coffeeshop. Rick arrives with a large mocha ice something and they walk back to CTU.

Back in the office they get the memo about the mandatory session with Human Resource. Jack and Rick sit in on sessions about anger management, office efficiency, and direct deposit paperwork. Jack picks up some direct deposit forms and heads back to his cubicle.

2pm – 3pm:
They finish the mandatory sessions and back in his office Jack continues Mah Jong until computer freezes, “What’d I’d do? What’d I’d do?” He calls the IT guys who tell them they’ll get there right away. “But I need to type stuff up” he whines. Jack switches to the Gameboy he has stashed in his desk. Time to time, he hides it when Bill walks past.

Bill: Mm yeah, we’re going to need those reports right away.
Jack: Can’t, my computer is down. IT is on the way.
Bill: Yeah, just go ahead and get that report done, okay?

IT Guys show up and work on the computer while Jack goes to check out what Rick is doing.

3pm – 4pm
They spend most of their time jawing with each other over mundane stuff and who’s the hottest in CTU. Jack borrows Rick’s computer to check careerbuilder.com, because he isn’t going to do this the rest of his life. He applies to some other jobs. They talk some more and Jack reveals that he really wants to write a book. He has so many story that are in his head. Writing would be cool.

4pm – 5pm
Turns out Jack’s firewall disabled Java Script and he forgot to enable it so now his computer is working again. But Rick and Jack continue messing around at their cubicles, playing trash basket ball and cubicle volleyball. They decide that they can use CTU’s vast resources to cancel the plate and insurance of the car that cut him off at Mc Donald’s earlier. They giggle as they eventually erase the car owner’s identity. Rick playfully punches Jack’s shoulder, “Dude, you’re so mean.”

They spend some time using CTU equipment to eavesdrop on Nadia and Chloe in the bathroom but give it up when they start talking flows.

For the last fifteen minutes of the work day they actually fall into a pace and get some of their work done. Then the evening shift comes in and Jack goes to punch out.

5pm – 6pm:
Jack goes through security again; ID’s, finger prints, eye scans, passwords, voice recognition, mouth swabs, anal probes. Chloe catches up with him but he manages to avoid any commitment to getting together later. Finally he rolls out and finds himself stuck in traffic once more. “I knew I should have taken a helicopter home.”

6pm – 7pm:
Jack slowly rolls home playing music and singing the Flintstones theme. Once off the interstate he pulls into a Jiffy Lube for an oil change. While the Acura is up on the
Rack, he walks across the street to pick up his dry cleaning. He tries to call his daughter Kim but she isn’t picking up. With his Acura done he rolls into a Safeway to pick up dinner, lots of bottled tea and chips. He mostly buys microwave-able meals, having a tough time deciding which Hungryman meals to buy for the next couple of weeks.

He pays and makes his way out of the store when he runs into one of his daughter’s grade school friend’s dad. They talk about the weather and stuff and Jack finally loads his car and drives out of the parking lot to home.

7pm – 8pm:
Jack comes home, arms loaded with TV dinners and bottled tea, to an empty apartment. He throws a Salisbury Steak meal into the microwave and starts to gather up his clothes to do the laundry. Once the machine is going he gets on the stationary bike for five minutes while the washer runs, but gives up on it. Instead he dusts for a while.

While dusting his entertainment center comes across a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD, he puts it in the machine, gets his TV dinner, peels the film off and licking his fingers, sits and begins eating his meal and watches the pirates play at sea. The end of another day.

Sorry, no cliffhangers...