Day One Recap

DAY ONE
START 12:00 AM

THE BIG PROBLEM Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer learns that a gunman disguised as a foreign photographer will attempt to kill Sen. David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), a prominent African-American candidate for president. The hit is in retaliation for a failed covert mission in Kosovo two years prior that was authorized by Palmer — then a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee — and executed by Bauer, whose target was Serb leader Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper), a mastermind of ethnic cleansing campaigns. Bauer thought he had killed Drazen, but instead he inadvertently blew up his wife and daughter. Whoops!

MEANWHILE... Palmer decides to go public with the information that his son, Keith (Vicellous Shannon), is involved with the murder of the man who raped his sister, but Palmer's politically ambitious wife, Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald), will do anything to keep that information from coming out. Jack has moved back in with estranged wife Teri (Leslie Hope); later, their daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), sneaks out to rendezvous with her friend Janet (Jacqui Maxwell) and two older boys...who, it so happens, have ties to the assassination plot. Teri, by the way, is secretly carrying Jack's baby, and CTU employee Nina (Sarah Clarke) — who's also Jack's former lover?turns out to be a mole working for the assassins.

HOW JACK SAVES THE DAY After letting some folks at CTU believe that he's the real killer, Jack sneaks into an event where Palmer is speaking — and where the assassination is scheduled to occur. He starts to act erratically, prompting a Secret Service agent to whisk the senator away to safety. Later, Jack — who falsely believes the Serb terrorists have killed Kim — storms the warehouse where the bad boys are holed up and guns down Drazen and his son Andre (Željko Ivanek).

COLLATERAL DAMAGE CTU computer nerd Jamey Farrell (Karina Arroyave) is downed by Nina; CTU agent Richard Walsh (Michael O'Neill) is shot by an unidentified gunman; bad guy Ira Gaines (Michael Massee) has his cohort's girlfriend, Bridgit (Kim Murphy), taken out; Janet is suffocated; Drazen's son Alexis (Misha Collins) is stabbed by an angry paramour; Ira takes a bullet from Jack.

MOST SHOCKING MOMENT Nina's decision to murder Teri in the closing minutes of the season finale was a colossal stunner — must everything go wrong for poor Jack Bauer?

BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE

SARAH CLARKE
as Nina Myers
Clarke is cunningly deceptive as brainy beauty Nina, Jack's trusty right-hand woman at CTU. Just when you think she's dedicated to helping him save the day, Nina goes all Serbian on him and her true identity is revealed: Her name's Yelena and she's a turncoat working with the Drazens. Black-hearted tramp!