24/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Day 1

  • Jack's "towel" speech, or the final shootout at the pier with the Drazen brothers.
    • The final shootout deserves more elaboration. To lure Jack in, the bad guys have their mole tell him that Kim has been killed. "He'll be here," one says. He immediately busts in, Guns Akimbo, and just starts emptying magazines. This place is filled with the dudes behind the real conspiracy that was behind what we thought was the conspiracy, and they'd been downright scary Out Gambitting Badasses who'd driven the tensest, most suspenseful action series you'd ever seen, holding all the cards ever since they were revealed. Then Papa Bear lost his Kimmy, or so he thinks. The result is him going through like a machine, making every terrorist and Mook eat lead. Five minutes of Terminator action later, a completely one-sided fight in which Jack mechanically, wordlessly kills whatever moves no matter what they try against him ends with him as the only living human being on the compound. All year, these guys were so unstoppable, so scary, so in control of the entire chessboard. Then one day they screwed with Papa Wolf. Then they died.
  • Teri gets one when she shoots the man who's trying to strangle Kim... remember, this is before we know Kim's going to make a habit of getting into these situations at complete random while having no relevance to the overall story... and then she shoots him again, calmly telling Kim that the man's boss was expecting to hear two shots.
    • What sold it to me was allowing herself to be raped to save Kim. For this to be the same terrorist in the first example makes this even sweeter, and Hope Levy's comments about this are just the icing on the cake.
  • One must be impressed by the way Presidential Candidate David Palmer faced down the hoodlums in the parking garage, not only by catching a swung baseball bat (not something one expects of a politician) but by speaking directly into their poverty after they recognize him. The pen is mightier, indeed.
  • The moment right before when Kevin/Alan Not!York gets into the limo before realizing that Jack's behind the wheel. "Hello, Alan."
    • Jack unblinkingly watches Kevin unload his entire pistol into the bulletproof window between the two of them.
  • David Palmer walking into CTU LIKE A BOSS [1], without any kind of foreshadowing beforehand.
  • Although he's mentioned very little, President David Palmer's son, Keith Palmer gets a huge CMoA when he turns the tables on the people blackmailing his father and winds up effortlessly getting the fools to record a confession on tape. The professional espionage agents on the shows have strained to do better.
  • Dan's brother Frank getting arrested.

Krugman: Hey, Frankie.
Frank: What, homey?
Krugman: You have the right to remain silent... (cops crash the house)

  • Tony showing up to save Teri.

Day 2

  • "I'm gonna need a hacksaw."
  • In season 2, Jack killing a renegade soldier with a flare gun.
  • David Palmer's response to Mike Novick telling him that you don't call the President by his first name.
  • Final episode of season 2, where Jack uses a sniper rifle to take down multiple Mooks AND kill a man with a 360 degree neckbreaker.
    • Note that he was in the middle of HAVING A HEART ATTACK while doing this, due to having briefly died during torture a few hours earlier.
  • Jack is forcing Nina to talk to the terrorists she is working with about the nuke they are going to detonate. Keep in mind that Jack is still hurting over Nina murdering his wife, and he had drugged guards, shot at her head and nearly beat her to death, so he is not messing around. Nina is decomposed and terrified of Jack but still says she's a dead woman by going in, which leads to this exchange.

Nina: "He is going to put a bullet in my head before I can say hello and then turn the gun on himself."
Jack: [[[Beat]]] "We'll make sure he doesn't turn the gun on himself."

  • The scene where Jack had captured Syed Ali, and in order to make him reveal were the nuke was hidden, made him watch a live video of his family rounded up by special forces in his home country. When Ali refuses to break, Jack has the special forces troopers shoot Ali's son, all the while shouting '"WHERE IS THE BOMB?!" Doubly so because Jack had staged it rather than truly had his son executed; even Jack Bauer has limits.
  • George Mason's Heroic Sacrifice was his personal Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Marie's reveal was not only a CMOA, but makes her this troper's favorite villain in the series

Day 3

  • Jack killing Nina Myers.
  • Jack shooting a man through a wall in the MI 6 L.A. bureau building.
  • Jack cutting off his partner's hand to safely transport a lethal virus to a contained area.
  • Jack's breakdown at the end of the season finale.
  • After being totally kidnapped by the baddies, Michelle fakes a nose bleed so that she can try to escape and call CTU, by tricking her guard into thinking she has the Cordilla Virus. The plan itself was a fail, but the mere idea of it is awesome.
  • Chase Edmunds cauterizing his own gunshot wound with a red-hot poker.
  • Despite being a bit part, Bruce Foxton became a legend among fans for his brief appearance in Season 3. Assisting Wayne with the break-in to Sherry Palmer's house, they were caught red-handed in their plan. Upon being questioned, Foxton promptly intervened by punching her out cold.
  • Michael Amador luring a Delta team to an ambush. I know he's a bad guy, but that was beautiful.
  • The Seventh-Episode Twist orchestrated by Jack, Tony and Gael. The look on Chappele's face says it all.

Day 4

  • Jack's one-man assault on a terrorist base to free the Secretary of Defense and his daughter.
  • Dina Araz's speech telling Jack she's only helping him because CTU has her son and if it weren't for that she'd do everything she could against him.
  • Chloe gunning down terrorist assassins with an M-16.
  • Curtis' coldcock punch to the assassin Mandy in the season finale.
  • Tony's entrance in season 4, shooting terrorists and saving Jack and Audrey.

Day 5:

  • Curtis Manning's run with the nerve gas bomb.
  • Chloe relieving Miles Papazian of his ID badge. Before now we'd only seen Jack perform that sort of sleight-of-hand.
  • Jack: "Let's get something straight, kid. The only reason you're still conscious is because I don't want to carry you."
  • Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce, after being kidnapped by crooked President Logan and asked to forget about the incriminating recording: "There is nothing that you have said or done that is acceptable to me in the least. You are a traitor to this country and a disgrace to your office. And it is my duty to see that you're brought to justice for what you've done. Is there anything else, Charles?"
  • Jack captures Henderson, only for him to ramp the smugness up to ten and gets Secretary Heller on the phone. Heller, who's driving on a mountain road, sees that a sniper is aiming at him from a helicopter. Henderson starts to smug some more that Heller will be killed unless Jack lets him go. Heller takes things into his own hands, declaring that he won't be used like this before driving his car off the mountain, leaving Jack free to go to town on Henderson. The best part? Heller is such a monumental example of Authority Equals Asskicking that he survives.
  • The way Curtis Manning relieves Lynn McGill of duty. Not only was it legal by way of CTU protocol, but Curtis even threatened to pull a gun out in front of ARMED guards. And the best part? The guards surrounding them totally agreed with Curtis and took the guy into custody. Epic way to get rid of the annoying, incompetent leader.
  • Jack interrogates the Chief of Staff, Walt Cummings, in front of a protesting President Charles Logan. Aaron Pierce added more Awesome. Also when they first come into the room is a Big Damn Heroes Moment.

"I'm done talking with you, you understand me? You've read my file. The first thing I'm going to do is take out your right eye, and then I’m gonna move over and take out your left, and then I’m going to cut you. I'm gonna keep cutting you until you give me the information that I need. Do you understand me?"

  • Pierce saving the Subarovs and Martha Logan from terrorists. Certified badass.
  • Martha Logan needed someone's key card to get into the archives room so she threatened to accuse him of attempted rape. The calm voice she used makes me think she's done this before.

One the count of 3, I'm gonna scream louder than any woman you've ever heard. One, two...

Day 6:

  • Jack escapes from captivity by a cell of terrorists by biting out a guard's throat.
  • His final battle with Fayed and about 6 terrorists with machine guns (while Jack himself had only a pistol), scored with perhaps the most operatic music the show has ever used. Jack ends up shooting to death all mooks and wrapping Fayed up in industrial strength chains, and tells him "Say hello to your brother" (who Jack had killed years before) before going to the controls and raising the chains into the ceiling, hanging him. When other agents finally arrive on the scene, all their leader can say is "Damn, Jack."
  • Jack reducing Logan to tears... by staring at him.

Redemption:

  • In the two short hours that made up 24: Redemption, we had time to both be introduced to Benton and witness his Crowning Moment of Awesome. He saves a wandering child from stepping on a landmine, but ends up stepping on it himself. If he lifts his foot off of it, it will explode. Benton tells Jack and the kids to leave him behind because it would take Jack too long to defuse the landmine. When the pursuing enemy soldiers come near Benton's position, he flags them down to get their attention, takes a few shots from their guns, draws them closer by pretending that he's trying to tell them Jack's location but is too hurt to speak loudly, and then says "Go to Hell" and lets the mine blow up.

Day 7:

  • After looking like a milquetoast wimp for the first quarter of season seven, Henry Taylor manages to throttle his turncoat bodyguard to death while almost completely paralyzed. The looks on both their faces were priceless.
  • The chemical plant manager shown in the 2:00-3:00 episode, gets his when he unhesitatingly vents insecticide into the same room he is in to save the rest of the people in his plant, as well as the nearby city of 30,000.
  • Jack's escape from FBI's Washington Branch...by driving off the second floor of a parking garage...while under the steering wheel.

"This is so going to hurt. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!!!"

  • The Dragon's unwitting girlfriend Marika gets one in the car on the way to the airfield to take her and Dubaku out of the country. Having found out about what "Samuel" has been up to (butchering Sangalans, crashing planes, corrupting a good-sized portion of the United States Government, putting Henry Taylor in the hospital, etc), she grabs the wheel from the driver, completely flipping the car over a parked vehicle in the middle of a high-speed car chase and dies in the process, allowing Bauer and Walker to capture a critically injured Dubaku and essentially conclude the first arc of the season.
  • Renee gives her all to save Marika from the burning car, pulling her gun on Jack when he tries to get her away and telling him to help her or leave. Later Jack says if she points a gun at him again she should be prepared to use it. Walker replies, "I was."
  • Bill Buchanan, saving the lives of everyone else in the White House while being held hostage by taking a gun from one of the guards, running into a room filled with natural gas, and firing the gun. This allowed Jack and the rest of the FBI/Secret Service to get into the White House which ended with Juma being killed, and the President being rescued.
  • The Big Bad of Season 7, Jonas Hodges has had some awesome moments so far. But in the latest episode where he killed someone who has been his friend for 20 years by hitting him with a bottle of scotch, then throwing him off of a balcony. After that, he just nonchalantly washed the blood off of his shirt and walked away, he outdid almost everything he has done this season.
  • While the President's daughter Olivia has proven herself to be an unrepentant bitch, you almost felt bad for her when she gets suckered into sleeping with a reporter who then goes back on his word to run a story. I say "almost felt bad" not because she got what she deserved, but because it turns out she turns the tables on him by revealing she taped their sex and threatening to show everyone including his wife unless he packed up and left Washington immediately. You hate the bitch but you ADORE her gangsta. That, my friends, is what TV Tropes calls a Magnificent Bitch!
  • Tony's accomplice in the bioweapon theft has turned on him and has a gun trained dead center on his chest. Tony tells him he really doesn't want to do this. A moment later, Tony knocks the gun out of the man's hand with a duffel bag, wrestles him into a nearby bathroom, tears down the shower curtain, and strangles him to death with it while interrogating him.
  • Everyone give it up for Mutadhi Gohar, Jibraan's imam! He starts out unconditionally defending the man against Jack's accusations, no matter how scary and unhinged Jack gets, then when Jack finds out Jibraan was framed, he doesn't give what would have been a quite justified "I told you so," but takes the high road and tells him God is always available to him.
    • Also, give it up for Jibraan's kid brother Hamid. After being chloroformed, having guns pulled on him, and suffering the trauma of his brother telling him he's a terrorist, the kid still has enough balls and reflex that with a split-second distraction he busts a mirror, grabs a piece, and stabs the punk terrorist guarding right in the throat. If CTU is ever back up and running they should seriously hire him.
    • And, of course, Jibraan himself. A scared, innocent Muslim being set up as the patsy for the terrorists, he's told to retrieve a package and plant it somewhere that it will detonate, spreading a viral weapon everywhere. He searches for it, finds it, and then seeks frantically for a way to smuggle it to safety, knowing that, as a Middle-Eastern man acting suspiciously, the guards must be on to him. His response? "I am a terrorist! I have a bomb!" The crowds flee, the guards back off, the audience both laughs and cheers, and he saves the day.
  • From the same episode: Once again Janice starts complaining when the FBI starts looking for all Muslims in Washington, as she feels it's racial profiling. Jack Bauer, who already served her once, gets back in her face. But this time... Jack calmly tells her that he's just as pained as she that they have to racially profile all Muslims, but he's trying to save lives and he'll gladly do it another way if there is one. Janice backs down without another peep. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jack is so Badass, he doesn't have to kick your ass to kick your ass.
  • Everyone groans as Kim is put in danger to blackmail Jack yet again. However, this time she stabs one of her captors (with a pen) just in time to get away from the shots the other one fires, then follows the man and lets the cavalry know his location. After his car flips over, she goes into the burning vehicle to get a key piece of evidence and manages to fight off his last desperate attack, severely burning her arm but getting away with the bad guys' location. She's officially a Damsel Scrappy no more.
  • President Allison Taylor demonstrates that even though she cares about her family, she is the President of The United States, and her duty comes first. In old-school Biblical fashion, she will no longer be called Allison Taylor. Henceforth, she will be known as President Allison Palmer.
  • Although it in itself is a bittersweet moment, Renee's final scene in the Season 7 finale is her Crowning Moment of Awesome. Having captured the mastermind behind the tragedies in the day, Renee, having undergone twenty-four hours of Break the Cutie, spaces out angrily and alone as she looks at the captured Alan Wilson. Janis comes in to inform Renee that Alan's to be transferred out, but Renee, having come to a decision, tells Janis to get out. When Janis, knowing Renee probably wants revenge, refuses, Renee destroys the lock mechanism on the door and forces Janis to handcuff herself to a pole so no one can interfere, then walks calmly and silently into the interrogation room where Alan awaits. It isn't shown on screen, but it's heavily implied Renee decides that she's going to torture Alan to force him to give up information on the conspiracy. Although it's supposed to be a tragic moment - Renee's heart-wrenching and inevitable descent from Lawful Good to Chaotic Good - the fact that she's going along the exact same route as Jack's I Did What I Had to Do mentality gives fans a lot to look forward to.
  • Jack Bauer is finally at rest, but asks to see one last person. But it's not Kim. It's the Imam from earlier. More like Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but it can work here as well.

Day 8:

  • Jack quickly runs out of bullets while running from two hitmen with automatic weapons. His response: take them both out with a fire ax.
  • Held at gunpoint by a Russian hitman, Cole refuses to comply with his demands to get him out safely and gives their position away. And this wasn't part of any plan; he was fully prepared to die to help the other CTU agents catch the hitman, and would have if Jack hadn't shown up.
  • Renee Walker displays she's taken a turn towards Crazy Awesome since the previous season by slicing a suspect's thumb off to remove his parole bracelet.
  • Cole takes "Taking the Bullet" to the next level by blocking a bomb blast with his car.
  • Seconds after getting a completely unexpected knife in his gut, he pulls it out and throws it with perfect accuracy into a Mook's trachea. Then he guns down the remaining bad guys through the wall, like he's already forgotten that he's seriously injured. And as if that's not enough, he then comforts the Broken Bird who stabbed him.
  • CTU Director Brian Hastings proves that he has transcended his Stupid Boss origins by facing down President Taylor's Chief of Staff. "Get the hell out of my way."
  • Farhad Hassan's efforts to screw over his colleagues who betrayed him are impressive. Granted, he calls CTU out of self-preservation as much as a desire for revenge, but then when he is shot, he agrees with one of his last remaining breaths to help CTU. He doesn't request morphine, nor does he demand immunity on the off chance that he pulls through.
  • After the mother of a would-be suicide bomber fails to talk him out of it, Jack goes from good cop to bad cop in record time, promising the bomber that if he doesn't turn himself in, Jack will personally see to it that his mother is at the blast site when the Big Bad's nuclear bomb goes off. But first, he will make the bomber's mother clean up his exploded remains.
  • Tarin killing the NYPD team, pretending to be one of them and giving a false report to Jack who didn't belived him.
  • Chloe rebooting a fried CTU at gunpoint after no one lets her do it the easy way.
  • Renee rescuing Jack and Cole after the two have been pinned down by terrorists, by walking around and one-shotting everyone in her way.
  • After getting dangerously close to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, Hassan comes back from the brink and saves Jack's life with the handgun he insisted on being given, making a very long one-handed shot right into the attacker's head.
  • Hassan really went out as a hero. Turning himself in to the terrorists and saving New York with seven seconds to spare, followed by refusing to say he was wrong to seek peace with America throughout ever more horrific torture until finally the terrorists are forced to just kill him.
  • Charles Logan's brunch meeting with the Russian delegates, where he quickly drops all pretense and just blackmails them into going along with the peace treaty. "I'm not insinuating. I'm saying. Elements inside your government were behind the death of President Hassan. First on the list: you."
  • Jack killing the leader of Logan's torture squad who's holding Dana hostage, as the man is right in the middle of saying he knows Jack won't risk taking the shot.
  • Later in that same episode, Cole Ortiz becomes probably the only person besides James Heller to ever knock Jack Bauer on his ass and live.
  • On the way up to Novakovich's hotel room, Jack suffers his second knife wound to the gut of the day. A few minutes later Logan calls, and the phone is answered by the one surviving guard who crawls past the bodies of all his comrades, plus Novakovich, who Jack took out with a fireplace poker.
  • Earlier that same episode, Jack Bauer marches down a tunnel full of cars in New York City, armed with an assault rifle and a full body suit (with a blast shield face mask and kevlar). Bauer unleashes suppressing fire on the cars, forcing every vehicle to stop, including the motorcade Charles Logan is inside. Logan, after hearing what happened to the guy Bauer tortured in the previous episode, gets completely scared and screams for his men to save him. Of course, this doesn't work; after nonchalantly shrugging off several gunshots and dispatching all opposition, Jack gets on the hood of Logan's limo, fires a few shots at the bulletproof windshield to crack it, kicks a hole in it, and puts a tear gas grenade in the hole, forcing Logan out of the car. Jack drags Logan into a different area and interrogates him, frightening a crucial confession out of Logan in seconds, making their previous stare down in the season five finale look tame in comparison. What makes all this even better is that it PALES in comparison to the off-screen massacre Jack does to the Russians twenty minutes later. AND throughout the whole thing, Jack only shot to wound, whereas Logan's men were shooting to kill. AND, Jack placed a listening device on Logan's collar to acquire even more information from him later in the episode. This entire sequence is EPIC in its badassery.
    • Damn, Darth Bauer. DAYUM.
    • Note that Logan's freak-out in the tunnel basically sums up the entire series:

"Did you hear what I said? THAT'S JACK BAUER!!"

  • In the series finale, Chloe goes alone to try to talk down a dangerously unhinged Jack. Despite initially getting surprised and cuffed to a pipe, she's able to give him a What the Hell, Hero? speech that breaks through his Roaring Rampage of Revenge and gets him to realize that getting his revenge this way will do far more harm than good. And finally, having convinced Jack to do things her way, she shoots him to ward off questions of how she handled the situation long enough to leak the info that will bring down the day's big conspiracy.
  • After pulling out of the peace agreement and essentially giving the Russians the finger, Allison Taylor calls up Logan's hired thugs and orders them to release Jack and wait for the FBI. If they don't, a drone overhead has two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles pointed right at them.
  • After Taylor goes to Dalia Hassan and confesses the entire scheme, Hassan demands (rightly) to pull out of the peace accords. Taylor bitch-slaps her down with a thunderous speech about how America has the power, and Taylor has no qualms about using it. Moving even further over the Moral Event Horizon? Yeah, probably. Doing it in exceptionally awesome manner? Yes.
  • The 2-3 PM ending. Everyone thought Jack would try to kill Subarov at the press conference. Instead he uses Logan to lure Subarov into his office so he can kill them both. His Slasher Smile at the end was icing to the cake.
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  1. ↑ (as in, he really does own the place)
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