'24: Live Another Day' producer reveals who almost got killed off in the finale

[Spoiler alert: This post discusses details from the July 14 season finale of 24: Live Another Day.]

24: Live Another Day could have been Jack Bauer’s last day. Executive producer Howard Gordon revealed to Deadline that the writers considered killing off the counter-terrorism agent in the season finale of the limited series.

“We certainly tried out a lot of different endings and we rearranged the furniture every which way in the room,” Gordon said. “So we knew what it looked like for other characters to have met with different ends and we tried them all on, up to and including Jack himself. This has always been a show that is really about the days and the life of this man and no day is probably as intense as a person’s last day. So killing Jack was something that was intriguing to us all but it had to be done just right. And that didn’t present itself to us.”

In the end, the writers decided it was instead time to say goodbye to Kim Raver’s character Audrey Raines, the daughter of the President of the United States (played by William Devane) and Jack’s one-time lover. Gordon, Sutherland, EPs and writers Manny Coto, Evan Katz, and Bob Cochran, and director Jon Cassar all believed that Audrey’s story had always been tragic, and to not follow through on that tragedy “would have felt way too saccharine.”

“I will tell you, we even considered a happy ending. But 24 is ultimately a tragic story,” said Gordon.

24: Live Another Day ended with Jack turning himself over to the Russians in exchange for Chloe’s life and boarding a helicopter that would take him to Moscow. No decision regarding 24‘s future beyond that has been made. Gordon told Deadline that he would consider doing another limited series or movie, but it all depends on finding a great story. And at the moment, there isn’t a script or a story under consideration.

“I would say it’s in discussion but only in discussions everyone right now are having with themselves. We’re all too tired and bruised from the season, which we just wrapped a couple of weeks ago, to even consider it further.”