With only one episode left until the end of the season, how many more punches could 24 pull? The answer is: a hell of a lot more. Packing one of the show's most inventive ideas, this penultimate hour sets things up for the cataclysmic finale with laudable precision.
Precision is shown within the episode as well, a single rifle shot shattering Jack Bauer's handcuffs and setting him free to carry out one last assignment for the Drazens: allow Victor Drazen to speak to David Palmer, then take him out. If he doesn't comply, his daughter will be executed. Meanwhile, Palmer handles the Sherry situation by firing her accomplice and confronting his Machiavellian spouse directly.
As the plot moves towards its closure, the claustrophobia increases (most of the hour takes place in Palmer's hotel room or Drazen's safe-house) and the paranoia reaches new heights: Jack and the Senator teaming up again is a joy, given the perfect chemistry between Sutherland and Haysbert, and Sherry's attempt to double-cross them both make her behavior almost more despicable than Drazen's, as the writers put the finishing touches on a characterization so rich and ambivalent no other female "villain" in the series has come close to that kind of amoral charm.
Most fundamentally, though, the twenty-third chapter of Day 1 provides the definitive answer to the question everyone's been asking since the season began: who is the mole? The revelation is unexpected, intriguing and brilliant - and reminds viewers of why they fell in love with the show in the first place. A thrilling build-up to a no doubt excellent conclusion.
