'24' Recap: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

As '24' plows through the hours, there are major story lines that just get dropped and you wonder if you're still watching the same season. That happened tonight when the story picked up the tactical nuke, deployed in an unmanned drone, launched over some target in California. Last week's involvement with Martha and ex-President Logan is gone in a flash. Karen Hughes, who I would have expected to be in California by now, is still in the presidential bunker in the DC area. President Palmer is still in a coma and the Vice-President, Powers Booth [who cannot shake his Jim Jones role in my mind] is cooly menacing our country to nuclear war with an unnamed Muslim country. At commercial, Dave said it's the same plot as Nelson DeMille's novel Nightfall. Good to know Joel Surnow and crew plagiarize from anyone who's good.

Another personnel change was revealed, pretty darn late in the game for both Jack and me: Audrey Raines is dead. Sorry. I either don't believe it or am highly suspicious. I only wish that woman would die so Jack could go on and have some real chemistry with, oh, say, his ex-sister-in-law. I'm betting that Jack's nephew [who looks remarkably like a very young Kurt Russell] is really his son. That'll be a convoluted reveal, so set your VCRs.

This episode "flew" by and the season is gaining speed like a runaway train on a downhill slope.

OH, AND: I forgot to mention that there's something about Milo that's giving me the heebie-jeebies. What's that smell? Fresh mole.