(S06E10) *Warning, spoilers ahead*

A President's Day gift awaited viewers at the end of the tenth hour of 24.

In fact the extremely brief scene involving a famously evil 24 president -- who is now sporting a beard that rivals Jack Bauer's when he was released from Chinese custody some 10 hours ago -- was my favorite part of the latest episode of 24.

That, and the scene where the chief of staff was lying on the dingy floor of another, non-descript boiler room with duct tape over his mouth. Those two scenes made up for the others, like Milo bein' a hero, Morris spitting out the drink and inappropriate flirting in a stairwell.

First, the latest on the Bauer family players:

At the end of the last episode, Jack Bauer's father Phillip took his squinty-eyed, teenaged grandson hostage in order to get his daughter-in-law to cough up the location of a Russian general who'd worked with Phillip on the suitcase nukes. (The nuclear bombs are currently in the possession of the "bad" terrorist and headed to three U.S. locations.) Phillip had Jack, who was also looking for the Russian, sent to an empty building rigged was explosives. Jack was supposed to be room temperature by the beginning of this hour, as far as Phillip was concerned. But Jack beat them there odds. He lived to "lightly" choke Marilyn Bauer, his sister-in-law/former paramour/current flirtation partner and slam her up against a wall in order to get her to tell him that his father was behind the house explosion, and that Papa Bauer is a bad dude who kidnapped his "nephew" and forced Marilyn to give Jack a false location.

Flash forward through several awkward scenes-- including one involving Jack looking like he was trying to sneak a peek at Marilyn as she put a bullet-proof vest over her delicate black camisole and then feigned helplessness so he'd help her with that very confusing Velcro stuff on the straps -- Jack gave himself up to his father in exchange for the release of his "nephew." Once Josh ran to safety like a lost colt, Jack was ordered to get on his knees and turn around so his father could shoot him. But the execution could not take place before the heartfelt confessions.

"It didn't have to end like this Jack," Phillip said as he aimed his gun at Jack and told him he was the smart one, not the dolt brother with the weird name that Phillip offed two hours ago. "You could've had it all."

Now it was Jack's turn. "I want you to know I never wanted you to feel like I had turned my back on you, that I had turned my back on the family," he said. While his back. Was turned. Toward his dad.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, Philip, who'd ordered Jack's murder by explosives less than an hour ago, fled. He spared his smart son. And in addition to sparing Jack, Phillip apparently left him a cell phone with the message to call a certain phone number. Jack, of course, could not resist dialing and reached former President Logan on the other end. Logan, coincidentally in LA, said he wants to meet with Jack to discuss this Russian guy.

Huh? I rewound my DVR to make sure I got this right. So, Phillip Bauer -- who confessed to being involved in President Palmer I's assassination -- had a crisis of conscience and reversed course on Jack's killing? What changed in an hour? Did Logan tell him not to kill Jack?

My mind was filling with questions: Wasn't Graem the one who, during last season, was giving orders to the president to have Jack killed? Didn't it seem as though Logan was beholden to Graem and not the other way around? And if Phillip was Graem's boss, wouldn't that mean that Logan worked (or works) for Phillip?

Speaking of assassinations and a crisis of conscience . . . On the east coast, Chief of Staff Tom "The Biscuit" Lennox got cold feet about participating in the assassination of a second Palmer brother. (It looks like there's an assassination plot in the works, as opposed to a coup, but I could be wrong.) After President Palmer II told Lennox that he still values his opinion even though he didn't accept Lennox's civil liberties' curbing proposals, Lennox melted and called a Secret Service agent to set up a meeting to tell him about the plot. Assassination pointman Reed Pollock then flattened Lennox with a flashlight, lamenting the fact that he'd been wrong about Lennox's willingness to do what needed to be done to protect the country from Palmer. The last we saw of Lennox was a shot of him lying on the floor with tape over his mouth, an image that would doubtless bring a smile to Karen Hayes' face.

Apparently, the would-be assassin is planning to hit Palmer, or try to anyway, during the "good" terrorist's live televised speech pleading for peace in the next hour.

This juxtaposition of the Phillip Bauer-President Logan-President Palmer II assassination is intriguing. Why would Logan still be involved in these kinds of sinister plots any more? Wouldn't someone who was involved in a previous assassination plot be, at the very least, having his calls monitored and be unable to take visitors, particularly after a nuclear weapon has been detonated and terrorists are causing chaos all across the country? I wonder if there's a thread that goes from Logan or Papa Bauer back to someone with whom Pollock is working.

Meanwhile, CTU melodrama continued to unfold with the Chloe-Milo-Morris troika. Milo took a bullet in the arm while trying to be a hero and saving Marilyn Bauer from her father-in-law's henchmen. This ticked off Morris "Drill Bit" O'Brian, only an hour removed from being tortured via power tool and helping the "bad" terrorist arm the suitcase bombs. "The nukes are armed because I'm a coward and now you want me to listen to Milo talk about what a bloody hero he is?" Morris asked before he took off to a convenience store. After being sober for three years, he bought some whiskey, hid by a dumpster, poured it in his mouth but then spit it out on the ground as he was shaking. (A convenience store was open for business a few hours after a nuke went off?)

For the first time, a CTU staffer was finally showing some weakness after being tortured. Yes, it's pure insanity that this guy was even walking around and working on ops instead of having his drill wounds cleaned out , likely having some sort of surgery, and, at the very least, being hopped up on pain meds from having one's flesh gnarled by rotating metal. But if he were in a hospital somewhere, then Chloe would have no one to hassle (a la Edgar Stiles). And, alas, that would make us sad.

Well, they've obliterated one California town in this season. Do you think they're going to raise the ante by killing another president, another member of the same family? Which leads me to this, closing question: What's happened to Sandra Palmer and has Reed Pollock duct-taped her mouth closed too?