Chloe O'Brian is a fictional character played by actress Mary Lynn Rajskub on the US television series 24. An analyst at CTU Los Angeles (and later New York), she is Jack Bauer's most trusted colleague, often doing unconventional and unauthorized favors for him, even at personal risk to herself. As O'Brian, Rajskub appeared in 125 episodes of 24, more than any other actor except series star Kiefer Sutherland, who appeared in all 204 episodes of the series. UGO.com named her one of the best TV nerds. AOL named her one of the 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters.

Characteristics

O'Brian is exceptionally intelligent; in particular she displays extraordinary mastery of computer science. Spending most of her time behind a computer terminal, she is rarely sent on field assignments; however, she has demonstrated proficiency with weapons in Day 4, 5, and 8. She works very well under pressure, yet it is obvious when she is under pressure, that she has always demonstrated a degree of social awkwardness. Despite her lack of social graces, Chloe has gained several friends at CTU and has shown to have a great deal of loyalty to them. She helped CTU Agent Chase Edmunds take care of his daughter from a previous relationship after the child's mother abandoned Chase and their child. She even tried to pass the child off as her own, so as to keep Chase's then-girlfriend, Kim Bauer, from knowing.

In interviews to promote the show's return to Fox with the miniseries, 24: Live Another Day, actor Kiefer Sutherland revealed that Rajskub would be reprising Chloe, but hinted that the relationship between her and Jack Bauer would be more adversarial than before. She also suggested that the reason for this was possibly related to her actions during the show's final season.

Appearances

24: Season 3

Introduced in the third season of the series, Chloe O'Brian is a senior analyst at CTU. Her other experience at CTU includes Intelligence Agent and Internet Protocol Manager. She received her education at the University of California-Davis, having received her BSc in Computer Science. In 24: The Game, it is revealed that before coming to CTU Los Angeles, she worked at CTU: Washington DC with Chase Edmunds.

24: Season 4

Chloe continues to work at CTU as an analyst. She continues to help Jack (at the time, not a member of CTU) to follow the terrorists while risking her career. She is detained and fired when Director of CTU Los Angeles Erin Driscoll (the person who fired Jack) discovered Chloe is helping Jack behind her back.

When Driscoll resigns and Michelle Dessler steps in, she is reinstated since none of the other CTU employees were as skilled as Chloe was. When the crisis ends later in the day, she, along with Michelle Dessler, Tony Almeida and former President David Palmer, help Jack to fake his death.

24: Season 5

Chloe is given a love interest, a subordinate named Spenser Wolff. She finds out later that Spenser is a mole (albeit unknowingly), and turns him in immediately. He later states he is not a mole but at CTU as an Internal Affairs investigator.

Chloe is the only person who had continual contact with Jack since he faked his death. Chloe is also the only one involved in the plot to fake his death to survive from murder attempts committed by unknown parties (later discovered to be President Charles Logan and Jack's brother, Graem Bauer), narrowly escaping a car bomb and a subsequent attack by the terrorists who planted the bomb.

When the crisis ends, Bill brings her something from Edgar's locker, a picture of Chloe and Edgar together. An emotionally spent Chloe leaves CTU for the day with her ex-husband Morris O'Brian, whom she had enlisted to help her at CTU.

24: Season 7

Chloe does not appear in 24: Redemption, the two-hour TV prequel, which aired on Sunday, November 23, 2008, she and Bill Buchanan first appear in the third episode of the season.

Actress Mary Lynn Rajskub revealed her role in the upcoming seventh season: “I show up, time has passed and I have a 4-year-old and a wedding ring, [and I'm] calling Morris (Carlo Rota) while I'm busy. So far he's taking care of the baby, but he'll be around." "We're a rogue operation – we are working outside of the government to uncover the conspiracy within the government." When asked by Matobo if she is a federal agent, she replies, "No, I'm a stay-at-home-mom." She and Morris have named their son Prescott.

Kiefer Sutherland commented "Chloe is crankier than ever; the dammit count is pretty high."

Chloe was working with Bill Buchanan and Tony Almeida who was undercover with Emerson's gang, to uncover the conspiracy within the US government who had been supporting General Juma and his regime in Sangala, Africa. Chloe co-ordinates numerous operations for the team, until later they become compromised through their efforts to secure the CIP device used by Juma's henchman, Dubaku to launch attacks on America. After this Chloe collaborates with the FBI, working from their headquarters in Washington.

Later on, after Dubaku is captured and the threat seemingly ended, Jack is informed by Tony of another impending attack. Jack enlists Chloe's help while he follows a lead on Ryan Burnett — a US-based conspirator named as a traitor in the files retrieved from Dubaku. Jack asks Chloe to erase Burnett's name from the files to buy him time to get to Burnett and interrogate him. Janis Gold, one of the FBI's analysts, becomes suspicious of Chloe's and finds out what she has done. Janis reports her to Agent Larry Moss, who has Chloe arrested and detained. Chloe is later released when her husband Morris cuts an immunity deal for her, and the two go home to get some sleep. This plot development was partially to work around Rajskub's pregnancy. In earlier episodes, "I sit behind my computer and every time I stand up, they yell cut, and bring in a body double." Chloe's arrest allowed her to be temporarily written out of the show so that Rajskub could go on maternity leave; meanwhile, Morris takes over her role in the story.

Chloe is called back into action by Jack at around 3:30 AM, when CTU's servers are dug out of storage and made available for FBI use; Chloe is (of course) the person best suited to integrating them and getting them running. Jack tells her that Tony has betrayed them, but (as of 4 AM) has not informed her of his own condition. Jack eventually informed her of his condition, but asked her to remain focused and help them find Tony and the pathogen. Thanks to Chloe's help, Jack is able to find and capture Tony. However, the tables are turned and Jack is kidnapped by Tony. When Kim recovers a laptop from one of Tony's lackeys, Chloe is able to track Jack's location and save him.

At the 7:30 am mark, Chloe has decided to stay and be there for Jack in his final hours.

24: Season 8

In Season 8, Chloe is re-employed by the revived CTU, but is at times struggling with the new hardware, software and interfaces; dialogue between her and Head of CTU Brian Hastings (Mykelti Williamson) indicates that Morris has lost his job and Chloe is keeping the family afloat. She is also subordinate to Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff), who holds Chloe's usual position of Head Analyst, causing the insecure Chloe additional stress.

Chloe quickly goes head-to-head with her co-workers when evidence is uncovered that implicates journalist Meredith Reed (Jennifer Westfeldt) in an assassination plot against President Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor). Chloe is suspicious of the ease with which CTU obtained this evidence, feeling that Reed might be being framed by actual conspirators. Hastings refuses to follow up on her suspicions, even threatening her job if she takes time to investigate, so she recruits Jack to do it instead. As it turns out, Chloe's instincts are proved correct, leading CTU to the actual assassin, and Hastings formally apologizes and commends her actions in the official logs. Later, after Dana's behavior in relation to former associate Kevin Wade (Clayne Crawford) affects her job performance, Chloe is then reinstated to Head Analyst, with Dana now reporting to her.

In the 183rd episode of the show (Season 8, 6:00 am – 7:00 am), Chloe surpassed Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard)'s episode count of 115, becoming the character who has appeared in the most episodes of the show other than Jack Bauer. Perhaps appropriately, just after 8 am that day, Chloe is promoted to (Acting) Director of CTU, replacing Hastings. This puts Chloe in an abnormal position in regard to Jack: normally she helps him carry out clandestine operations in defiance of their mutual boss, but now she is the boss he is defying. This new dynamic is put to the test within two hours of her promotion, when Jack steals a helicopter to pursue justice in direct defiance of orders from President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones). Chloe sticks with the responsibilities of her position, ordering pursuit instead of supporting Jack; this is the first time in several years the two have pursued clashing goals.

At the end of the 8th season (3:00 pm to 4:00 pm), Chloe manages to talk Jack out of assassinating the Russian president in revenge of a friend's murder earlier that day and gets him to agree to expose the conspiracy her way. Jack orders Chloe to shoot him in order to free herself from suspicion and to expose the cover up of Hassan's murder. Chloe refuses to go through with it until Jack points the gun at his own head, forcing her to either shoot him or having him kill himself. She shoots him in the shoulder. Coordinating with Cole Ortiz, she tries to get evidence collected by Jack vital to expose the cover up, but is stopped by Jason Pillar and CTU. After Jack is saved from death by President Alison Taylor's order, he calls Chloe and makes her promise to protect Jack's family, and along with President Taylor, plans to buy him as much time as she can for him to flee the country before the Americans and Russians come after him for his actions. Jack thanks her for all she has done for him since she joined CTU and forgives her for her actions during the day. Chloe has the distinction of speaking the final line in the series by saying "shut it down" to Arlo Glass in regards to the CTU drone. As Jack looks one last time towards CTU's monitoring, Chloe gives one final tearful look to Jack in CTU's monitor screen before the clock counts down to zero.

In the Season 8 DVD bonuses, it is revealed that Chloe was arrested soon after the events of Day 8 by the FBI for covering up Jack's escape. She returned in the miniseries 24: Live Another Day, which started airing in May 2014.

24: Live Another Day

In 24: Live Another Day, four years after the end of Day 8, Chloe is situated in London and has taken to a new, darker appearance. Since being arrested for helping Jack escape, she has become a member of the free information movement and is working with a hacker group named Open Cell, which devotes itself to exposing government secrets. Her new goals are a stark contrast to the loyal CTU agent Chloe once was; it is suggested she was betrayed by the American government, at one point telling Jack not to judge her "after what [she's] been through."

At the start of the miniseries, she was being detained by the CIA for leaking thousands of classified DOD documents. Jack, allowing himself to be captured to gain access to the facility, frees her and then follows her to the hideout of Open Cell's leader, hacker Adrian Cross (Michael Wincott). Chloe convinces her colleagues to assist Jack in locating Derrick Yates (Joseph Millson), a former member of their movement who Jack believes to be involved in a planned assassination attempt on President James Heller (William Devane). By this time, Yates had already managed to commandeer a U.S. drone and fire upon a military convoy in Afghanistan, killing two American and two British soldiers. Together, Jack and Chloe track Yates to an apartment complex, but are circumvented by the CIA's efforts to apprehend them. After losing Yates, Jack evades capture and escapes with Chloe.

In the show's third episode, Jack discovers Yates' corpse, left behind by his female companion, Simone Al-Harazi (Emily Berrington). Chloe loses sight of Al-Harazi after being distracted by a passing family, after which she reveals to Jack that Morris and Prescott were killed as a result of her knowledge of Jack's disappearance following Day 8. Together, they return to Open Cell's headquarters in order to establish a cover for Jack to infiltrate the U.S. embassy in London and question Lieutenant Chris Tanner (John Boyega), the man Yates had framed for the drone attack. However, Cross betrays Jack by botching Jack's cover; Chloe senses something amiss and warns him to escape, giving Jack enough time to create a diversion and enter the embassy.

Throughout the rest of the day Chloe aids Jack as he searches for Margot Al-Harazi. Chloe manages to hack into Al-Harazi's video feed from her drone's cameras and fake President Heller's death and then track her with Adrian Cross' help. Jack kills Al-Harazi and stops an attack on Waterloo station, but Chloe refuses to have anything more to do with him, telling Jack it was good working with him again before rejoining Cross.

After Cross receives the override device from Steve Navarro, Chloe tries to steal it but is forced by Cross to give it back. She is shocked to discover that Cross is working with Jack's old enemy Cheng Zhi who forces Chloe to fix the device and murders Cross who admits that he learned that the death of Morris and Prescott were actually an accident and he kept it from her so she wouldn't leave him. A horrified Chloe can only watch as Cheng uses the override device to order the sinking of a Chinese aircraft carrier by a United States submarine to spark a war between the two countries, but manages to leave a recording of Cheng behind so that Jack knows who is behind everything. As she is being transported, Chloe escapes and contacts Jack. Remorseful over her decisions, Chloe offers Jack her help in guiding him through Cheng's hideout, telling him she's the only friend he's got left. Reluctant to trust her, Jack agrees. Chloe runs satellite surveillance for Jack and Belcheck, but they lose contact with her shortly before Jack captures Cheng. Shortly afterwards, Jack gets a call from the Russians to trade himself for Chloe who they have kidnapped.

The next morning, Jack meets with the Russians and willingly trades himself for Chloe and his family's safety. Before leaving, Jack affirms that Chloe is his best friend and asks her to look after Kim. As Jack leaves with the Russians, a reluctant Chloe drives away with Belcheck.

Project CHLOE

Project CHLOE, a Department of Homeland Security surveillance technology development program aimed at protecting airliners from terrorist missiles, was named after Chloe O'Brian because 24 is former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's favorite show.

References

  • on the official 24 website