January 12, 2007 - [This is a review of the third episode of 24's sixth season. It airs Monday, Jan. 15 at 8pm ET/PT on FOX, and will be immediately followed by the fourth episode, "9:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M.," at 9pm, which you can find our review of here. Hours one and two air on Sunday, Jan. 14; you can find our reviews of each here: "6:00 A.M." & "7:00 A.M.]

In the third hour of 24's sixth season, a few smaller characters get some major screen time and development. A main storyline in this episode involves Muslim youth Ahmed Amar (Kal Penn) and the family that lives across the street from him, primarily patriarch Ray Wallace (Raphael Sbarge). As we spend time with Ahmed and Ray, we see what drives them, and what they're both capable of when given no other choice.

Penn, best known as Kumar from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and as Taj in the Van Wilder movies, steals this hour of 24 as young Ahmed. The Muslim youth is easily the best role the actor has received to date and Penn shines in it, seamlessly switching from shy, scared teenager to an in-control young man in physical agony.

Ahmed's neighbor, Ray, goes from a fairly nondescript father figure to a man pressed to make devastatingly complex decisions that no man, or father, should be forced into. Sbarage does a great job at portraying an ordinary man just barely clinging on to his life in the world of 24.

Ordinary citizens like Ray aren't the only ones being forced to make tough decisions this episode. President Wayne Palmer makes a decision involving imprisoned terrorists that seemingly has no good resolution. Unlike with David Palmer, whom you always felt was making the right decision, even if it was hard to make, Palmer's decisions this season have so far been much more ambiguous -- it's hard to say what David or any other fictional president would do in the same situations.

In another change for a minor character, Curtis Manning -- a recurring character since season four -- gets more of a voice this episode, expressing emotions and a thirst for vengeance that we've never seen before for the usually all-business CTU agent. At one point in this hour, it feels as if Curtis becomes more like the old Jack Bauer than the Jack of this season is. Where the old Jack was always distrustful and willing to stop at nothing, the post-Chinese-prison Jack is scarred, rundown, and at-times unsure of himself. This hasn't stopped Jack from performing some great, physically challenging and courageous things the first three hours of Day Six, but one certainly gets the feeling that his time being tortured coupled with the reality of what he has done and still needs to do is beginning to catch up with him.

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Click on over to our review of "Day 6: 9:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M.," which airs immediately after this episode, at 9pm ET/PT Monday, January 15 on FOX.