The American Spectator

Jack Bauer is questioning a small-time criminal who has turned informer against a group that Bauer had previously infiltrated. The group in turn has ties to the terrorists plotting that season’s mayhem. Bauer realizes that he will have to re-infiltrate the group to get information, but first he’ll need to regain their trust. He decides that he’ll need to bring them the informer’s head. In the interrogation room, Bauer shoots and kills the informer, to the astonishment of his superior, CTU director George Mason. When Mason excoriates him, Bauer replies, “That’s the problem with you, George, you’re not willing to get your hands dirty. I’d suggest you roll up your sleeves.”

But this is about as much pontification as we ever get out of Jack Bauer. As befits a man of action, he immediately gets down to the practicalities of the situation. Perched over the dead man’s body, he looks up at George Mason and utters perhaps the show’s most memorable line: “I’m going to need a hack saw.”

And come next season, a new name.