(S07E07) "You're telling me my husband's gone missing?" - President Taylor

The plot is starting to shift. We're one hour past the quarter mark for the season and Dubaku's well laid out plan has fallen apart already. I speculated last week that it seemed as though this season was taking on a dynamic similar to season three and it's looking more and more like the entire plot will be making an even greater shift by the midway point. I don't expect Dubaku to be around much longer than that.

I mean, honestly, do you? Especially now that we know how the guy lives? Terrorist by day, "Sam" by night. He came home to an apartment, loosened his shirt after a long day at the "office," threw his keys on the kitchen table, and said hello to the pretty waitress he's sleeping with down the hall. The only thing missing a was comically mismatched roommate ready to berate him for drinking all the milk again. He's not very scary anymore.

So his plan fell apart - it was to be expected. Tony, Jack, Renee, Bill, and Chloe tracked the Matobos to an office building in downtown DC and that was the end of it. They stormed into Iké's makeshift command center, killed a bunch of his goons, and destroyed the CIP device. Except for the death of the plant manager at the insecticide processing facility, there were no other casualties from the final CIP attack. I'd say Team Jack was pretty successful. Of course Dubaku got away (walked right out of the building and no one batted an eye), but that was to be expected too.

This all leads up to a something that's been bugging me since the beginning of the season - even with the addition of Jack and Renee, Tony, Bill, and Chloe were never going to be able to do this all on their own. They still blew their cover and Dubaku got away. Had the police been able to arrest them, it all would have been over. So who can they trust? There's only one logical pick - the President herself. I doubt very much that Taylor is going to turn into Logan V2.0 and anyone else we've met could potentially end up being a mole. With Henry now captured, it seems likely that Taylor will be willing to grant amnesty to Jack for his actions all day and the hunt for Henry will get a green-light.

More thoughts on hour seven...

• Dubaku called Gedge and Vossler directly. So were the two of them reporting right to him? Perhaps there isn't someone above them in the Secret Service or Taylor's cabinet that was calling the shots? It seems unlikely, but then again it does make some sense because Dubaku probably had an easier time turning two low level SS agents with a couple bagfuls of Sangalan diamonds.
• Can we just start calling the FBI CTU instead? I could help but laugh when Janis demanded that Sean open her a fresh "socket."
• It's been mentioned numerous times now, but are we ever going to find out any of the other bad things Tony did? I know Jack is giving him the benefit of the doubt because of what he's doing now, but how bad are we talking here? Is Tony really redeemable at this point? Remains to be seen.
• Taylor told Ethan about Matobo! Either he's a mole or he'll tell someone who is. Obviously.
• I wonder what made Larry finally admit that Renee is dead to Ethan? Why did he concede so suddenly?
• I had completely forgotten about Michael Latham. I thought he was dead already. Oh well... he's dead now.

So what's next? It's looking like Jack is going to be "activated" by the President and once that happens, all bets are off. We still haven't really gotten any clues regarding the endgame of the season, other than the Redemption knowledge of Jonas Hodge's (Jon Voight) involvement. I doubt very much that making money off the Sangalan genocide is the only thing at stake.