24/Jack Bauer

Jack Bauer
24
Actor	Kiefer Sutherland
First Appearance	1x01
Last Appearance	—
Series Billing	Series: Billed
Episode Count	120
Notable Episodes	1x24

Basic Information

A former special forces operative, Jack Bauer is the best anti-terrorist agent in the United States. Jack worked for the Los Angeles bureau of the Counter-Terrorist Unit. Jack is very ruthless and efficient at his job. Members of the Counter-Terrorist Unit have wide powers and loose rules, but Jack rarely plays by them. Jack is willing to do almost anything to protect his country, which can get him into major trouble upon occassion. While Jack is readily willing accept almost any level of personal sacrifice, one thing he will not accept at almost any cost is letting his family be harmed.

Character History

Season One

Jack Bauer, Director of the Los Angeles branch of CTU, is called back into work at midnight on the day of the California Democratic Presidential Primary to deal with a threat against the life of Senator David Palmer. When his daughter Kim, and his wife Teri are kidnapped, he has to juggle his personal and professional life, only to realize that the threats to Palmer and his family may be connected.

Jack starts out at home, playing chess with his daughter Kim. He has only recently moved back in with Kim and his wife Teri after a brief separation. When Jack and Teri check on Kim, they find that she has snuck out. Jack gets a call to return to CTU for an emergency briefing regarding a possible assassination attempt on Senator David Palmer. Jack has no time to look for Kim. He returns to CTU, where Richard Walsh confides in Jack that there may be someone in the agency invovled in the assassination attempt. Suspicious of the source of information that George Mason provided, Jack shoots him with a tranquilizer dart and then blackmails him with information proving he stole money from a drug bust.

Season Two

Jack has become estranged from his daughter and dropped out of society. When word of a new and more dangerous threat to the United States reaches the intelligence community, President Palmer pleads with Jack to help out.

Season Three

After becoming addicted to heroin in order to infiltrate a drug cartel Jack must go back undercover with the same cartel to try and stop a possible biowarfare terrorist attack in Los Angeles.

Season Four

Three months after the events of Day 3, Jack is fired by the new head of CTU, Erin Driscoll because he had been addicted to heroin. One year later, Jack is now the Special Secretary to the Secretary of Defense James Heller, and is secretly dating his daughter Audrey. Jack gets caught up in events when Heller and Audrey are kidnapped.

The day starts out with Jack in Audrey's hotel room getting ready. He has a budget meeting at CTU. Audrey goes with her father. Driscoll monitors an operation to capture a terrorist suspected of being behind a train bombing earlier. Jack sits in and gives advice that enables the suspect to be captured. When the suspect, Tomas Sherek is brought into CTU, Jack recognizes him and refuses to believe he was only in L.A. for a train bombing. When Chloe O'Brian confides that they received information indicating a possible strike at 8 A.M., Jack is determined to get Sherek to talk before then. He shoots Sherek in the leg and demands to know what the primary objective was. Sherek tells him that it was the Secretary of Defence. Jack calls Audrey, but can only listen hopelessly as she is abducted.

Jack is taken into custody by Driscoll for torturing Sherik, but Chloe comes in to see Jack with information that Driscoll ignored a possible connection revealed by her friend Andrew Paige. Using that as leverage, Jack gets Driscoll to release him. Jack and Ronnie_Lobell go to meet Andrew Paige, but Kalil gets to him first. Jack and Ronnie pursue him, but Ronnie gets shot and killed. Jack starts following Kalil, hoping that he will go to the location where Heller is being held.

Driscoll orders Jack to take Kalil into custody, but Jack refuses, fearing that they might not be able to break Kalil on time and that Audrey and her father could be killed. Driscoll orders Jack to be found and taken into custody. Jack realizes that Kalil is attempting to determine if he's being followed. Jack contacts Chloe and asks her to steal some satellite time so that he can follow Kalil covertly. Kalil drops Andrew off under a bridge by a highway to interrogate him. There are two other men there who will kill him and dispose of the body. When Kalil leaves, Jack kills the two men with a sniper rifle, then races back to his car to follow Kalil. Kalil goes into a convenience store, and when Chloe tells Jack that she won't have the satellite ready for some time, Jack decides to stage a robbery to buy more time.

Jack tries to keep a lid on things but a police officer shows up. Jack locks him in the back while waiting for Chloe to get the satellite ready. The cops show up and surround the place, but Chloe gets the satellite coverage. Jack takes Kalil out as a hostage and puts him in the driver's seat. Jack forces Kalil out of his own car not far along and keeps driving, knowing Kalil would try and steal another vehicle. Jack gets caught by the police.

Driscoll decides to try things Jack's way, and tells the cops to let him go. Jack keeps tracking Kalil, but Kalil suspects he's being followed. Kalil commits suicide by driving head-on into a cement truck. However, CTU finally finds a suspicious heat source nearby, which is probably where Kalil was headed. Jack arrives there, but is warned off by Driscoll, who says that a missile strike is being launched at the compound.

Jack sneaks through the compound, finds Audrey, and slips her a knife. Jack then finds the room where Heller is being put on trial. He frees Heller and they make their way out of the compound. Audrey is missing from her cell. Jack and Heller get pinned down behind a car outside. Luckily, the marines arrive and sweep the area. Omar emerges from a side door with a gun to Audrey's head. Audrey stabs him and Jack throws a knife into his throat. Jack, Heller and Audrey go back to CTU. Jack attends a teleconference with McLennan-Forrester and learns about the nuclear power plant override that was stolen during the train bombing.

Season Five

Spoiler:

Presumed dead by all but a select few and living a quiet life under an assumed identity, Jack is contacted by Chloe O'Brian and is informed that someone is trying to kill everyone who knows he is still alive. While rescuing Chloe from her would-be killers, Jack learns he is being framed in the assassination of Former President David Palmer and once again enters the fray against the terrorist threat to clear his name and deliver justice for his slain friend.

Jack starts Day Five working as an oilman under the alias "Frank Flynn". After watching news reports on the death of Palmer, he was having breakfast with his landlady (and girlfriend) Diane Huxley and her 15-year-old son Derek when he gets an urgent call from Chloe. She is in trouble. Jack retrieves his stash of supplies from an air vent and heads for a place with a helicopter. He knocks out a guard and was abotu to get in the helicopter when he notices that Derek has followed him. Not wanting Derek to give his description to the police, he forces Derek to come with him. He flies him to L.A., calling Diane in-flight and telling her to pick Derek up in L.A. He met Chloe when he landed, but immediately afterwards Hass's crew showed up. Jack killed three of them and wounded Hass, promising to take him to a hospital if he talked. Hass talked, admitting to killing Palmer and Michelle, and framing Jack. When Jack realized that Hass was the triggerman behind Palmer's hit, he killed him.

Chloe took Jack and Derek in one of Hass's vehicles to Wayne Palmer's apartment. She used her CTU ID to smuggle Jack and Derek in. Jack disguised himself as an FBI agent and went to the penthouse to look for evidence for why someone wanted Palmer dead. Wayne Palmer caught him snooping on Palmer's computer, but Jack convinced Wayne of his innocence in the shooting. Wayhe helped Jack find a name "Chevensky" and the address for Ontario International Airport hidden in one of Palmer's files. Jack escaped from the building when Chloe acted as a diversion. He stole a car and drove to Ontario airport, asking Diane to pick Derek up there. He met Diane and released Derek, He told her his real name and that she should go to CTU. He went into the airport and found Chevensky's office. He threatened to torture him if he didn't tell him what he needed to know, but after the terrorists attacked the airport, Chevensky committed suicide.

Jack evaded the Russian terrorists who were looking for Chevensky and he got into the maintence catwalks above the terminal. He called into CTU to offer intel on the terrorists actions. When the terrorists selected Derek for execution, Jack had to act fast. He spotted a remote detonator on some of the bomb vests and called Chloe and got her to find the trigger frequency. When one of the terrorists walked out of sight he used his re-configured cell phone to detonate a vest. Beresch got a call tipping him off about Jack, so he scrambled Jack's signal and called for Jack to step out or else he would execute Derek. Jack surrendered.

Jack witnessed one of the terrorists hand a man in a yellow tie a keycard. To keep Derek alive, Jack gave false information about the terrorists locations to CTU, but he added the code phrase "flank two" into the conversation. Just in time, CTU figured it out and changed their plan, catching the terrorists off guard and unprepared. Jack freed himself and shot two terrorists dead. He freed Derek, but the yellow-tie man slipepd away. Jack gave his description to Curtis before he was taken into custody by CTU.

Jack was taken to CTU and thanked Chloe for helping him. Lynn McGill debriefed him and told him that he decided that Bauer probably was framed. He gave Jack a level 2 clearance. Jack met Audrey and they had an awkward moment. Jack is sorry that he couldn't tell her about being dead, and she is happy that he wasn't actually dead. While Jack is being debriefed by McGill, "Dr. Paulson" calls, and sais that Tony is awake and is asking for Jack. Jack goes down, but Paulson was actually an assassin that killed the real doctor. Jack stabbed him in the neck with scissors. Then Jack helped interrogate Spencer Wolff and got him to reveal the name of his superior: Walt Cummings. CTU has no evidence to go after Cummings, but Jack doesn't work for CTU, and can go get him.

Trivia

• As of the end of season five, Jack Bauer is the only character to appear in all 120 episodes.

Kill Count

Season	Confirmed Kill Count
1	9
2	?
3	?
4	44
5	8 (9)
TOTAL	65+