I am – Hercules!!

“Let her go!!”

“Drop your weapon or I will kill her!!”

“If you wanted to kill her she’d be dead by now!!”

“They’ll trace this thing right back to me!!”

“It won’t even be investigated!! We have a cover!!”

“Cover?? Who??”

“No one’s life is worth the destruction of everything I’ve built!!”

“That call you took!! That was from Gradenko!! You tipped him off and now half my team is DEAD!!”

“You don’t understand!! Those weren’t his men!!”

“If those weren’t Gradenko’s men, then whose were they?? Who sent them??”

“Your father!!”

TV Guide says:

Chloe covers for another agent; Milo is thrown into unfamiliar duties; and Jack faces a hard compromise. Reed Pollock: Chad Lowe. Marilyn: Rena Sofer.

What might TV Guide not be telling us? Have a gander at the invisotext below, provided by new and untested spy “Dr. Robert Hume,” who says he has the skinny on the installments for tonight, next week and the week after that:

-Jack's dad takes his Jack's nephew hostage to get to him. Jack switches himself out for the kid, but just as he thinks his dad is going to kill him, his father disappears.

-Former President Logan says he can help find Gen. Gredenko through his contact at the Russian embassy. Jack reluctantly agrees to accompany him on the trip.

-Meanwhile, Chad Lowe (whatever his character name is) kidnaps Tom Lennox and sticks him in a boiler room when he finds out Tom is not going to support his assassination attempt on the president. Chad sneaks in a buddy and they set up Palmer the bomb.

-Chad plants the bomb in the room where Assad and Pres. Palmer are about to give their big speech to the world. Assad sees the bomb just before it's about to go off. He ends up sacrificing his own life to save the President's life.

-Palmer lives, but is incapacitated enough that VP Powers Boothe (he's evil? Who could have guessed?!?) gets to take over and start instituting all the crazy right-wing policies that Palmer was resisting.

-Lastly, Bauer accompanies Logan to the embassy. After Logan figures that the ambassador is lying about his Gredenko ignorance, surprise surprise, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands. He breaks back into the embassy and interrogates the Ambassador. He quickly finds out that Gredenko plans to launch the rest of the nukes in his possession by way of drones and that he will do so in a matter of (stunning!) hours. However, the guards break in and capture Bauer. While in captivity, he convinces one of the guards to call CTU and tell them of Gredenko's plans. Unfortunately, right as the guard gets through to CTU, another guard (one of the cast members of Hunt For Red October, natch) shoots him in the back of the head! Oh no! Dink-dank-dink-dank-dink-dankdankdank....

And there's a peek at the future of 24, if you were interested. If you use it, call me...

Dr. Robert Hume

When we asked how all this broke down episode-to-episode, we got this:

The Russian guard getting shot I'm pretty sure is the end of episode 12. The assassination attempt I think is at the end of episode 11. I can't quite remember how episode 10 ends (they all kind of bleed together, of course), but Morris is rescued and Jack and friends recover the suitcase nuke they used Morris to activate. However, the bad guys mostly get away. Oh, and after Morris suvives the hostage ordeal, he goes right back to work at CTU where Chloe begins to suspect he may have fallen off the wagon. It's a totally thrilling storyline (not really at all) that results in him pouring out that bottle of hooch he was about to surreptitiously take a swig from. It's not quite up to the "Oh no! Cougars!" level, but really what is? Hope this is of some use to you!

9 p.m. Monday. Fox.