24/Nightmare Fuel

Being a series based on counter terrorism and the extreme methods used to stop them, 24 is bound to give you a restless night

Warning: may contain spoilers!

Season 1

• "Alan York" coming to see his daughter in the hospital and then smothering her to death as she struggles for a good 45 seconds.
• Jack's towel torture threat.

Season 2

• Many examples of Cold-Blooded Torture. The worst has to be Jack's near death torture at the hands of Kingsley's mooks. It caused him to violently throw up, along with the audience.
  • Then there was the poor PI who working with Kate Warner. And like Jack's torture above, he was stripped bare naked. Then Sayid Ali's men uses a buzzsaw onto his back, and you can hear it shredding him. OH... MY... GOD.
  • Then there's the nasty liquid torture that opens up season 2. Yikes.
  • Jack carrying around a decapitated head, wrapped around a white sheet, to gain allegiance to a local gang who are loosely related to the terrorist threat.
  • Jack threatening to kill Sayid Ali's two sons if he does not tell him where the nuke is located. Even President Palmer thought this was a move too far, and didn't allow it, but Jack went ahead and went through with the threat anyway. The audience initially believed that Jack ordered one of the sons to be gunned down... on camera. Fortunately, the whole threat was a facade, and the bullets were blanks. Still, the very thought of Jack being pushed to the point of murdering innocent children, simply because of their father's extremist behavior, was horrifying.
  • It's fair to say Season Two had many horrific and extremely gory scenes, even by 24's sadistic standards. Given how much season 6 was criticized for its violent torture scenes, it's amazing how none of the detractors brought up any of these scenarios.

Season 3

• All of the scenes involving the Chandler Plaza Hotel. Imagine waking up from a nice vacation at four in the morning with an unstoppable nosebleed. You come down to the lobby only to find other guests suffering from the same symptoms. A panic breaks out, a guest who tries to leave is shot dead, and news breaks out that there's no cure. The only thing you can do is stay in the hotel and either let the virus slowly kill you or take a suicide capsule.
  • After CTU took too long to find and apprehend the terrorist responsible for the virus mentioned above, Jack was forced to gun down his boss on the wishes of said terrorist.
  • Chase having his hand planted on the wall by a terrorist's pistol, and then the terrorist fired the gun point blank.
  • Chase getting his hand chopped off by a fireman's ax, just to remove the virus attached to his wrist. Cue extreme pain and Chase passing out from the trauma.

Season 4

• Habib Marwan escapes by impersonating a CTU Agent; when a hapless agent realizes his buddy isn't who he appears to be, Marwan pushes his arm up, sticks his gun inside the agent's vest and puts three rounds in him. Horrible.

Season 5

• Audrey Raines' liquid copper torture and subsequent Heroic BSOD
• Jack's cold and clinical way of instructing a young naval engineer to slit the throat of one of Bierko's goons.

"When you get within 18 inches of him, grab him by the mouth, pull his head towards your chest and cut his throat deep enough to sever his vocal chords and his carotid artery."

Season 6

• Abu Fayed torturing Morris with a power drill. He comes very close to drilling a hole right through his head!

Season 7

• Jack and Tony gassing Ule Motobo and his wife out of a panic room using household chemicals, especially considering that you see them choking on the gas until Mrs. Motobo opens the door, unable to watch her husband die.
• Renee Walker being buried alive. The very last thing the audience is treated to is a point-of-view shot of dirt covering her face, followed by a silent clock. And we don't know if she lives or dies until the next week. ( She is quickly saved and revived.)

Season 8

• Renee's solution to getting Ziya's parole bracelet off, sawing his thumb off!
• Renee's descriptions of Vladimir Laitanin and the way he treated her could also fall under this.
• Jack's Cold-Blooded Torture of Renee's assassin. Made even more disturbing by the fact that this was the show's hero doing the torturing.
• Jack mounts an armored assault on former President Charles Logan's car. We see Jack from far away, methodically shooting his way through Logan's secret service agents, Logan for perhaps the only time in the series looking horrendously afraid. Jack makes his way to the car and just stares through the window wearing this.