Jack Bauer is a loose cannon. How do we know this? The writers of 24 punch us in the face with this fact every hour of 24. Which, coincidentally, is about the same rate at which Jack punches fellow CTU agents in the face, under the justification of doing his job.

Every series, Jack comes back for One Last Mission. And, every series, Jack takes orders from an asshole. No matter how well CTU is run, there is always a reason for an asshole to be directly above Jack in the chain of command. And now the president is also an asshole. So, lots of people to give Jack orders.

As per Standard Operating Procedure, when Jack is given a direct order, he must punch Curtis in the face, steal his security card and stealth his way into CTU. Regardless of the order. He might be told to escort a high-ranking official to the coffee-shop. He might be told to stop spilling crumbs from his doughnut onto his keyboard.

It doesn’t matter. As soon as Jack hears an order, all the CTU agents near him shuffle away, because they know Jack is going to punch one of them and steal their security card. If there are no other CTU agents around, Jack will go to the house of the nearest one, break in, punch them, steal their security card andstealth his way into CTU.

Occasionally, he also has to get out of CTU, usually after punching a fellow agent. Luckily, Jack is also trained to punch CTU security guards, so getting out isn’t a problem.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that Jack spends a good 75% of each 24 hours being on the run from CTU. It’s a vicious circle: Jack gets some important evidence, and feels CTU won’t trust him that it’s true. So, he punches Curtis, steals his security card and stealths his way into CTU to get Chloe to help him. In return, CTU trust him less, making Jack all the more likely to punch a CTU agent next time.

Speaking of Chloe, she has five lines.

-”Send it to my screen.”
-”I’ll send it to your screen.”
-”I’ll need to open up a socket first.”
-”I’ve opened up a socket.”
-RANDOM BITCHY REMARK.

Take these lines, intersperse them with Mike Novick talking in low tones, Buchanen looking square-jawed, Jack getting arrested by CTU five hundred times, Jack punching a CTU agent 500 times, and a weapon of mass destruction, and you have 24 hours in the life of Jack Bauer.

Here’s a sneak peek a the next series of 24:
-Having lost everyone and everything close to him, losing his nipples in a firefight, losing his memory and swearing never to return to CTU, Jack returns to work at CTU as normal, like he does every year.
-Terrorists get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction. This year it’s a giant orbital space laser, and it’s in geostationary orbit above the President.
-Someone from Jack’s past will try to screw him over. Again.
-Jack will punch another twenty thousand CTU agents, smashing his record from season one, which stood at a mere 804.
-Jack will also destroy China, just because, you know, that whole plot with China isn’t really going anywhere. In fact, it’s almost at though it never happened, so… China may as well never have happened, right?

Season 6 of 24 promises to be a corker, in the sense that it will encompass all the elements of previous seasons, but in a slightly different order.