Jack met up with Vladmir this week, as the Russian was tasked with calling anyone he might think was selling nuclear rods.

Viewers already know who this is, of course, as we watched Vladimir's phone call with the main Russian dude (Sergei) from his point of view. While he denied being involved with such weapons, he hung up the phone with Vladimir and immediately called someone in a truck. He told them to pull over and await his next call.

Back at Vlad's headquarters, he grew tired of being rejected. No one he called said they were in the business of nuclear materials. With Jack waiting outside, Renee tried to plead with Vlad to keep trying, but he grew frustrated and hit her in the face twice. This set crazy Renee off. She grabbed a knife that was on the ground and stabbed Vladimir repeatedly.

She even stabbed Jack in the side when he rushed in, but don't worry: he was okay! He actually pulled the knife out of his own side and flung it across the room into the neck of one of Vlad's henchmen that entered. He then shot another one through the door.

This left Jack and Renee alone for a bit, as Jack called in to CTU. He said Renee killed Vlad in self-defense, which was sort of true. He left out the part about her being an absolute loon. Cole said his team was on the way and the goal was to go through all of Vlad's files and his office for information. But Jack then saw a bunch of Russians coming in to the warehouse (the main Russian dude had sent them to take out Vlad) and came up with a plan:

He'd let himself get taken captive, and CTU could track his location to find out where the materials were. Renee hid in the closet and the plan almost worked: Jack was taken, but these new Russians used an underground tunnel to get to the lair. CTU had no idea where Jack was, as the episode ended with him being driven away in a van.

In terrible B storyline news: Dana helped her ex-con of an ex break into the evidence locker and get his money. But he and his cohort lingered too long, a guard came in and they were forced to beat him with a baseball bat as they made their escape. This distracted Dana from her job, a fact noticed by Arlo, Chloe and Hastings - and by every viewer, who liked groaned along with it.

Our favorite development of the house involved Hassan. Dude has totally lost it. He's paranoid that everyone is against him and even had his main security guard, Tarin, rounded up. After Tarin - who is also Hassan's daughter's boyfriend - refused to follow his boss' orders (which involved rounding up the family of the country's delegate in order to press him for information, even though it was clear he knew nothing), Hassan sent another security guard to apprehend the family back (or give the orders to do so) and his disloyal servant, Tarin.

This is a sensible, welcome character change for Hassan, as it paints him as something different from the typical 24, one-dimensional villain.