TivoBlogging: The Following Takes Place Between 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm

12:00:00 to 12:10:12

This episode opens with a reporter standing at the edge of Valencia, talking about how they think over 800,000,000 people are already dead, and survivors have gathered in the civic center and the Superdome, where they are believed to be resorting to cannibalism.

Back in the Batcave, Caged Weasel is trying to get President Chappelle to sign off on an executive order to impose Martian Law!! Chapelle asks for his cabinet to convene in thirty minutes, and wants clarification on whether under Martian Law, doctors and other wizards will be forbidden. (By the way, cell phones seem to work perfectly well in the Batcave.)

Chiggy and Russet Potato Face (RPF) are worried that Jack is out of contact. "It's his network," Chiggy explains. "He switched from Verizon to Cingular because Steve Jobs incorporated a Death Ray into the iPhone, but unfortunately, his coverage sucks."

Meanwhile, Jack and his Dad, Zephram Cochrane, are in a van with a couple of thugs who don't know that they're about to die. One of the thugs whom I shall call Marcellus (because he looks like a b*tch) tells Rocket Romano (via cell phone, the Verizon network is incredibly resilient to nuclear blasts) that he'll soon kill Jack, and Rocket Romano promises to return the suitcase that has his soul in it.

The van arrives at an old abandoned quarry and Marcellus orders them to get out. He indicates a freshly dug grave and orders them on their knees. "I don't swing that way," Jack says, and some violence ensues, and Zephram Cochrane offs Marcellus and the other thug. "Oh, Snap! Dad, I barely got to torture them," Jack pouts.

Meanwhile, Tom Willis and the Suspicious Bimbo are in a motel room. Tom Willis has found a man who can program the nuke, but he won't work willingly. "He'll need to be coerced," he tells Imhotep.

12:15:35 to 12:23:29

Chiggy and Token Chick have intercepted Tom Willis and Imhotep's call. There was also an image in the stream, which Al Bundy is working on recovering. Back at Casa Bauer, Jack and the assault team, prepare to move in. Jack tells his dad, "This warp drive invention of yours is amazing. We actually made it to my brother's house before we left the quarry." Inside the house, Rocket Romano, Patsy Ramsey Bauer, and Jack "Wesson Oil" Junior are having an argument. Rocket Romano wants to have Family Home Evening, but Patsy Ramsey points out that it's noon... and they're not Mormons. Just then, the door explodes, and a heavily armed SWAT Team moves in.

While Rocket Romano is pinned to the floor, Jack and Patsy Ramsey go into the kitchen for a quickie nooner. Then Jack offers to protect Jack Junior, and Patsy Ramsey... the only character who seems to have paid attention during the last six seasons... freaks out. "No," she cries. "I want him to live!" Jack sends them to CTU and goes back into the house to torture his brother.

12:27:54 to 12:36:06

Jack brandishes a syringe in front of Rocket Romano, "This is pure bile, extracted from a gland at the back of James Carville's mouth, which he spits to blind his prey." He explains what it will feel like when it is injected, "It's like having battery acid poured on your brain while listening to Rosie O'Donnell sing 'I Touch Myself.'"

Rocket Romano confesses that he was the one who whacked David Palmer, Michelle Dressler, and Tony Almeda. But, he did it all for the good of his country... France. This makes Jack angry, and he's about to kill Rocket Romano, but his father intervenes, for reasons that shall become obvious later.

12:40:33 to 12:46:05

Al Bundy is having little success decrypting the image. He downloads the latest version of Microsoft NSA Image Decorrupter and promptly crashes the entire CTU network. This helps delay the image until the end of the hour climax.

Meanwhile, Zephram Cochrane Bundy is deserving a little homily on how their family sucks. {Maybe I should have nicknamed him Al Bundy.} Jack wishes he could be a better man. "Don't try to be a great man," his father counsels. "Just be a man and let history decide."

12:50:32 to 12:59:59

On Air Force 2, Vice President Jim Jones approves of the president's plan to impose Martian Law. President Chapelle has reconsidered the proposal, and after talking to his sister Cynthia McKinney and her boyfriend Gee Wally, he will not impose Martian law. He then delivers a suck-up line to CAIR about Muslims being "America's Little Dumplings."

Al Bundy leaves CTU to visit his brother in the hospital. Then, MS NSA ID works its stuff, and reveals the image from Tom Willis's cell phone... it's Kim Bauer in a skimpy bikini. OK, it was actually, Al Bundy. Chiggy calls Jack, they connect to Al Bundy and tell him to come back to CTU, but it's too late, Tom Willis pulls up, shoots him a few times, then cuffs him in the back of his late model Buick. Tom Willis calls Imhotep and tells him he's got the shoe salesman, I mean engineer, Imhotep was looking for.

Back at Casa Bauer, Rocket Romano tells Zephram Cochrane that he hasn't told Jack everything and he's still covering up for the family. Zephram Cochrane is so happy he injects the rest of the Carville venom into Rocket Romano's IV and covers his mouth and nose until he stops struggling. He then calls in the CTU Team and, in another sign of CAIR's influence on the 24 creative process, feigns outrage.

Tick-Tock.